To be a good preacher you have to believe in your bones that all Scripture is inspired by God and useful; you have to believe that the Word of God will never return void, and if you believe that then you will want to base your sermon in the text and to season your speech with the text on every occasion. Toward that end, I have assembled the following list of 100 passages that I have made frequent and fruitful use of in my preaching ministry. I find that having a stock of core text memorized…

Every year around this time I am asked some version of this question: should I (or should my child) get baptized at camp? It would be difficult to defend an absolute prohibition of baptisms performed outside the confines of the gathered church given the descriptions of early Christian practice within the New Testament. The Ethiopian eunuch, for example, was baptized in a river on the side of the road: And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See,…

Mother’s Day is the most nerve-wracking day of the year for many pastors. If they do a sermon on mothering or the importance of being a mom they will be criticized for not keeping the focus on Jesus and bowing to the pressure of the “Hallmark holidays”. This criticism will come from young men who are reading the Puritans and have completed one semester of seminary online. If they do a sermon from the next passage in the book of the bible they are currently studying, they will be criticized for…

As the father of 5 children born between the years of 1997 and 2011 I eagerly devoured Jean Twenge’s earlier book called iGen: Why Today’s Super Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Religious, More Tolerant, Less Happy – And Completely Unprepared For Adulthood – And What That Means For The Rest Of Us. I couldn’t put it down and I read large sections of it to my wife and kids during Family Devotions. It helped us understand why our son was not as eager to get his driver’s licence as we had been.…

A pastor I know recently prayed to the Lord for guidance. He was eager to be useful, he was aware that time was short, and his desire was to be faithful and fruitful in the King’s service. He was also becoming aware of his physical limitations. There was so much to do, so many possibilities, and yet less energy each day than when he first began. He asked the Lord for help to ensure that he was properly focused and appropriately deployed for the remaining years and decades of his service. The…

The first human cases of COVID-19 occurred in China in December 2019, mostly among those who had visited the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in the city of Wuhan. The first known death was reported on January 11th 2020, and by January 21st human-to-human transmission was confirmed. The United States also confirmed the country’s first case of the virus on the 21st. On January 23rd, the Chinese government took the unprecedented step of ordering a strict lockdown of the city of Wuhan. On March 11t…

There are women prophets mentioned in both the Old and New Testaments. In 2 Kings 22 when King Josiah wanted to know how soon the judgment of God was likely to fall upon the people, and if there was anything he could do to delay the experience, he sent his advisors to a prophetess named Huldah. “Go, inquire of the LORD for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found. For great is the wrath of the LORD that is kindled against us, because our…

Within egalitarian circles this is a very easy question to answer. Egalitarians generally believe that men and women are equal in all respects and that gender differences are largely relativized by the grace of the Gospel. Therefore, whatever men do in the church, woman may and should do likewise. Case closed. Complementarians, on the other hand, generally believe that men and women are equal with respect to dignity and worth and equal with respect to salvation graces, but different with…

The Bible was written by particular people, in a particular culture at a particular time, and yet, Christians also believe that it was written by the Holy Spirit of God. Believing both of these things simultaneously requires us to exercise wisdom and discernment when studying and applying the Scriptures. Take Matthew 6:16-18 for example: “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they…

Getting off to a good start matters. If you fall behind on your goals right off the bat, they begin to look and feel unattainable. To help you start strong and build early momentum on your Bible Reading Plan for 2023 I have assembled a number of useful tools and resources. Plans: If you haven’t selected a plan yet, see this useful compilation of plan options put together by Reagan Rose. Click here. I don’t love the version of the RMM plan that Reagan uses in this article, so for a different…

‘The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.’ That proverbial saying appears to have proven true in the time of King Hezekiah. His father was arguably the second worst king in the history of the covenant community (the distinction of being the worst king is usually reserved for Manasseh). Ahaz was an absolute train wreck. He engaged in child sacrifice, he was an avowed pagan, he made stupid and wicked alliances and through his unfaithfulness and incompetence he brought the people of Judah…

When I was 10 years old I memorized a short story about Christmas as part of my leadership development training at the Boys J.I.M. Club of America. The story was originally written by Nan Weeks in 1938 and then was republished in 1959 in an anthology titled “Christ And The Fine Arts”. The story goes like this: It was Christmas Eve; and after Peter had carefully hung his stocking by the fireplace, he went off to bed. Usually Peter did not like to go to bed early, but tonight he was eager to get…