Desperate for acceptance, I went to wild lengths in university to fit in. Years later, Leviticus, a book many avoid, transformed how I viewed acceptance. The background of a sacrifice called a sin offering reveals a deeper, lasting acceptance from God that goes beyond masks and striving.
Everybody knows the command to honour your father and your mother, and Jesus called us to love our enemies. But what if our enemy is also our abuser? What if the parent we’re called to honour is mistreating or exploiting us? Some say the Christian response is to turn the other cheek. Others follow the recent explosion in articles advocating that you cut off all the toxic people in your life. The biblical tension is somewhere in between.
Maybe starting a Zoom group in the first century wasn’t an option technologically, but there’s value in considering what would have been lost if Jesus had chosen to mentor His disciples online instead of in-person.
The King James Version is a good translation that's stood the test of time. But how should we understand the many modern translations that have been released in recent years? Are they more reliable or have they corrupted the Word of God?
“God helps those who help themselves” is the most popular verse you’ll never find in the Bible. Seeing how it falls short of the teaching of Scripture helps us better understand the truth about God’s role and ours in dealing with the challenges of life.
We were created for connection, so we all feel a longing for relationships. In a church, there are lots of opportunities to get to know others, but if we don’t understand the difference between friendship and fellowship, we can miss out on what God wants to do in our lives. Consider what happens when we don’t get this right.
If you’re a Christian parent, at some point, church will probably be a challenge for you and your kids. It was for me, and yet in retrospect, those challenges blessed our kids and our family, and I’m grateful for them. Let me share some of the lessons we learned when church was hard.
Friendships can either make learning attractive or they can derail a child’s motivation altogether. Friendships are where a child learns how to relate to others and works at practicing patience, forgiveness, kindness, and compassion. Most parents talk to their kids about grades. I’m convinced we need to talk to them at least as much about relationships. Here are four conversations I think parents and children need to have.
“The Architect” is a song from Kacey Musgraves that was borne out of her musings about beauty in the face of a tragic event. The three questions it poses are ones that we've all felt but have often thought too casually about.
As I looked for God’s hand in our often difficult circumstances, I saw more cause for thanksgiving than I would otherwise have noticed. Until I took the time to write, I focused on the negatives and overlooked the positives. And slowing down to write about what I was asking God to do made my needs more clear and my circumstances less overwhelming.
