Based on the award-winning TV series The Way of the Master, the Basic Training Course is specially formatted to train believers in a group setting to simply and confidently share the gospel with family, friends, and strangers. This eight-session course is the cream of the crop. It includes the best of Season One plus brand new footage.

Anthony also shared his salvation story while talking to Rogan, speaking of an injury he sustained that left him feeling desperate and alone. While lying in a hospital bed suffering from a fractured skull, he proclaimed, "I can't do this anymore," and asked God to give him another chance to accomplish what he felt was left for him to do in this life.

The singer also alluded to the writings of the Apostle Paul in Romans, noting that everyone is destined to become a slave to something and that choosing God over fleeting, worldly idols is the right path.

ANTHONY: We all serve some master, whether we realize it or not, so why not let it be the master that is above all? //

As I said in my prior writings on the man, I think those trying to make him some political force are misguided (on both sides). I don't think that's his goal, and that's not something that should be chastised. I don't really care what political party he supports or who he voted for in 2020. There's more to life than political slap-fighting, and reading scripture to Joe Rogan seems like a pretty worthwhile cause to me. //

etba_ss
3 hours ago edited
Rogan is far more likely to let the words from Anthony sink in than he would be if he had John McArthur or Tony Evans on. And it isn't just Rogan, but million and millions of Rogan's listeners. Most of them are probably not hearing the Word of God on a regular basis anywhere else.

Anthony openly admits he is a broken man, saved by the grace of God. He offers a living example that you don't have to pretend to be perfect or fit a mold to be a follower of Christ.

We are all broken, to one degree or another, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
....
If you will notice in the Bible, we are told of failures and sins of almost every major figure. There is a reason for this in my opinion. We are not to hold them up as perfect or as the best example, but to Christ. All of them were sinners and all of them were flawed, except the one perfect, fully man, fully God, Jesus Christ. God uses everyone and he can reach people with Anthony that some of the greatest men of God of our generation could not reach.

Megan Basham @megbasham
·
Unequivocal statement on disfellowshipping Saddleback from the Southern Baptist Convention. Good sign it may be possible to stop drift when messengers are informed and understand what’s happening. That’s where the work ahead lies—education.
11:11 AM · Jun 14, 2023 //

I think the SBC is right in principle, and I think the action by the SBC leadership was courageous. I have to believe that Rick Warren, author of arguably the best-selling book of all time not called “The Bible,” thought that his congregation was too big to be “disfellowshipped” and could do as it damned well pleased. The fact that he was proven wrong is a triumph for first principles. //

The key takeaway is that Jesus Christ had women in his inner circle, and they were critical to the Church’s work. He did not designate any of them as apostles or send them out to preach and convert because He chose not to. The argument that He didn’t because of the culture of the time is an argument that human customs limit God’s power. It is not a question of oppressing or undervaluing women because the same guy who says no to women pastors disagrees (Galatians 3:28). It isn’t saying that women are inferior to men in devotion because, on Calvary, Jesus was comforted by one man (St. John the Evangelist) and several women (see Matthew 27:55–56, Luke 23:49, Mark 15:40, and John 19:25). It is because Churches built upon Scripture cannot arrogate to themselves the rights retained by God. //

Will this cause harm to the SBC? I think that is doubtful. In times of repression, homogenous communities survive. Some churches will disaffiliate, but the SBC will be stronger. Besides that, religion is not a popularity contest. A smaller, hotter Church does more of God’s work than an enormous lukewarm one.

The real question is, why do people join organizations to create conflict and try to change the larger organization to accommodate them? Warren’s Saddleback Church has been part of the SBC since its founding in 1980. He knew what the Baptist Faith & Message laid out as a baseline for affiliation and basically dared the SBC to do anything when he ordained three women. Why didn’t he just announce that Saddleback was moving on and leaving the SBC? That would have been honorable and non-controversial. It is hard to say his decision to try to bully the SBC into changing its rules to accommodate him was principled. //

Consumer of toast
3 hours ago edited
When it comes to principled beliefs in faith, I think that that is something that should not waiver. Right now the Christian church in America is in decline. I'm sure there are lots of Christians who eat meat. PETA will call you evil, sick and disgusting for what you do, yet you ignore them and continue to enjoy your hamburgers. Yet, someone from the LGBTIA+ calls you a bigot, you alter your beliefs to try to be considerate of them in hopes that they stop calling you names. I find it pathetic. You stand more firmly in your belief of chicken nuggets than you do in your faith in God. Stand firm in your belief and faith in Jesus Christ. //

etba_ss
2 hours ago
It is because Churches built upon Scripture cannot arrogate to themselves the rights retained by God.
That right there sums it all up. It simply isn't our decision to make. You either believe Scripture and follow it or you don't. The moment you start cutting and pasting, you are creating your own religion with yourself as a co-ruler with God, which will rapidly descend into just you being your own god. //

etba_ss smagar
2 hours ago
Better to be irrelevant and faithful to Scripture than popular and unfaithful.

That's what Scripture says. Your debate is not with the SBC, it is with God, the divine author of Scripture.

Plenty of people reject parts of God's Word they don't like. Jesus himself told people things they didn't like and didn't want to accept. Why should we think that we should have a message everyone loves in their own sinful nature? Speak the truth in love and let the Holy Spirit do the convicting.

As I said above, the biggest issue isn't women pastors but the willingness of Saddleback and Warren to reject Scripture to fit in with modern culture. That is a slippery slope and it gets worse from there. If someone has had women pastors for 200 years, while still wrong, it doesn't open the door to rejecting Scripture for modern acceptance the way this would.

Welcome to Your Easter Devotions!

Each week invites the entire family to reflect on the Lenten season together.

In Brentwood, Tennessee, Mike Glenn, senior pastor for 32 years at Brentwood Baptist Church, wrote a blog post in January after a computer-savvy assistant joked that Glenn could be replaced by an AI machine.

“I’m not buying it,” Glenn wrote. “AI will never be able to preach a decent sermon. Why? Because the gospel is more than words. It’s the evidence of a changed life.”

Also weighing in with an online essay was the Rev. Russell Moore, formerly head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy division and now editor-in-chief of the evangelical magazine Christianity Today. He confided to his readers that his first sermon, delivered at age 12, was a well-intentioned mess.

“When listening to a sermon, what a congregation is looking for is evidence that the pastor has been with Jesus,” Glenn added. “AI will always have to – literally – take someone else’s words for it… it won’t ever be a sermon that will convince anyone to come and follow Jesus.”

“Preaching needs someone who knows the text and can convey that to the people — but it’s not just about transmitting information,” Moore wrote. “When we listen to the Word preached, we are hearing not just a word about God but a word from God.”

“Such life-altering news needs to be delivered by a human, in person,” he added. “A chatbot can research. A chatbot can write. Perhaps a chatbot can even orate. But a chatbot can’t preach.”

Joseph Lear @josephmljr
Nah dawg, it’s nihilism. And the dread of daily life and existence. That’s what the church has failed to address. Politics only goes to far. We need metaphysics because everyone’s stuck in the abyss of immanence.

Dr. Kevin M. Young @kevinmyoung
·
Jan 19
The GREAT ABANDONMENT of the Church is caused more by its response to:

1. Donald Trump
2. George Floyd, BLM, and CRT
3. COVID

than it is

1. Deconstruction
2. Rejection of Jesus
3. The chance to sleep in

They had to leave the Church to keep their faith.

12:25 PM · Jan 20, 2023 //

“Nihilism” is a philosophical term (with a broad and complex history) that doesn’t really show up in everyday conversation (unless you’re a diehard fan of The Big Lebowski), so let me explain it as simply as I can. It comes from the Latin nihil which simply means “nothing.” So we might say “Nihilism” is “Nothing-ism,” or the belief that everything is fundamentally nothing—that all of existence is bereft of purpose, meaning, and substance, and that it’s therefore absurd. To be a nihilist is to believe that nothingness has the first and the last word about everything. It’s to believe that your existence is random and arbitrary, and that whatever awaits us in the future, or after death, is an eternal vacuous abyss. Maybe we should be depressed, or maybe we should laugh. Or maybe we should laugh depressingly.

I think nihilism strikes all of us as a bleak outlook on life (to put it mildly). But I also think it resonates on some level with the vast majority of us. Whether we’re Christians or not, there’s the gnawing sense, this haunting feeling that, really, nothing matters. It’s the existential malaise we find ourselves in here in the West. //

So, sure, people may use political compromise, anti-BLM rhetoric, or any hot button cultural issue as an excuse to leave the church, but really they’re leaving the church because the church is failing to issue a rejoinder to the dread of daily life we all feel. Not only has the church failed to confront nihilism, but the church is also itself nihilistic. It’s nihilistic precisely because it has failed to identify nihilism as the problem we are facing in the West. We end up throwing punches at the shadows cast by the thing itself. We don’t dare turn around and face the reality of our situation, because we’re afraid our anemic Christianity can’t really stand up to the challenge. So the church has had to adopt Trumpian politics (at least in Evangelical circles) to stave off and hide its own sense of absurdity.

The thing that Kevin from Twitter fails to recognize is that the liberal protestant church is in a much worse position that the Evangelicals are. The Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and the Lutherans are hemorrhaging people not because they’ve preached MAGA but because they’ve preached nothing.

Back in 2003, David Bentley Hart wrote a piece called “Christ or Nothing,” in which he claims that the options set before us in the West are either faith in Christ or “an unshakeable, if often unconscious, faith in nothing, or nothingness as such.” And that’s the situation we continue to find ourselves in. No one is tempted by Islam. People aren’t running to become Buddhist monks. They dabble in witchcraft, rubbing crystals and burning sage in their living rooms not because they think it does something, but because it’s nothing.

So how does the church proceed as we continue to bleed the nihilists from our nihilistic churches? Here are four concrete steps we can take:

1. Invite people to be baptized as an alternative to suicide.
2. Preach: "God chose even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are.”
3. Fence the Lord’s Supper to remind people that the bread and the cup are not crystals and sage.
4. Delete Tiktok.

Our impatience with waiting—and our demand for efficiency—betray our mistaken beliefs about time. We think that time is a commodity, something to be spent and wasted and saved. But a Christian perspective on time begs us to see that time is first and foremost a gift, given to us by our Creator God.

From God’s good and generous hands we are given every moment called now.

As the Apostle James reminds in his letter, we’re not in control of time, not even able to reliably plan for tomorrow. “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time then vanishes,” (James 4:13, 14).

We learned this truth, of course, during our earliest pandemic days when normal life was overturned by the global crisis. Graduations were cancelled, weddings were postponed. Days blurred one into another, and tragically, people grew sick and died, reminding us that tomorrow is never a guarantee.

Where do we find hope in the midst of these sobering truths about time? James gives us a simple and yet profound answer. He says that God’s people must live in surrendered trust to his will—and his good time. Instead of presuming on tomorrow or next month or next year, we ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that,” (v. 15). This isn’t to say that planning is wrong, but it is to say that counting on time is a presumption we can’t exercise. It is to say that alone we must learn the ancient monastic wisdom of remembering that we die.

Living in time requires gratitude: for every gift of every new day. And it also requires humility: to recognize that only God can make sure and certain plans. This gives us a freedom to believe that our time is a gift received from God and rendered back to him in worship.

We won’t get everything done that we hope and plan, but that’s okay. Because God’s never in a hurry—and never out of time.

IMAGO DEI, MEANING OF LIFE, WHAT AM I?, WHAT IS HUMAN? //

Jesus was once asked what the greatest commandment in the law was. His response was deeply revealing about the purpose of human existence. He said that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves.(7) Notice that the greatest thing a human being can possibly do, and the highest priority a person ought ever to have, is to love God with a love that is not a product of physics, but is supernatural (heart, soul, and mind). He has already demonstrated his love for us in the greatest way possible.(8) But for love to be ‘real’ and meaningful, we must have the ability to accept or reject it. Thus, free will was given to us, despite our proclivity or tendency to badly misuse our freedom of choice.

Compared to the world, I’m wealthy. Compared to my neighbors, I’m not. So what does it mean to steward what God has given me?

Amy Medina November 30, 2022 //

I am compelled to think on these things, and I gasp for air, wrestling in the exertion of a fish out of water. I certainly fail, and grace always catches me when I do. But it’s that same grace, so lavishly poured out on me, that compels me to stay uncomfortable, unnerved, unsettled. May the tension keep me from bowing to a counterfeit master (Matt 6:24). If the throb pressures me to analyze every dollar, so be it. If the ache reminds me that America will never be my home, even better. May the burden excavate my true treasure—imperishable, eternal—and there also may my heart be found.

Anne van der Bijl, a Dutch evangelical known to Christians worldwide as Brother Andrew, the man who smuggled Bibles into closed Communist countries, has died at the age of 94. //

The book inspired numerous other missionary smugglers, provided funding to van der Bilj’s ministry Open Doors, and drew evangelical attention to the plight of believers in countries where Christian belief and practice were illegal. Van der Bijl protested that people missed the point, however, when they held him up as heroic and extraordinary.

“I am not an evangelical stuntman,” he said. “I am just an ordinary guy. What I did, anyone can do.”

No one knows how many Bibles van der Bijl took into Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, East Germany, Bulgaria, and other Soviet-bloc countries in the decade before the success of God’s Smuggler forced him into the role of figurehead and fundraiser for Open Doors. Estimates have ranged into the millions. A Dutch joke popular in the late 1960s said, “What will the Russians find if they arrive first at the moon? Brother Andrew with a load of Bibles.” //

At the time of his death, the ministry van der Bijl founded was helping Christians in more than 60 countries. Open Doors distributes 300,000 Bibles and 1.5 million Christian books, training materials, and discipleship manuals every year. The group also provides relief, aid, community development, and trauma counseling, while advocating for persecuted Christians around the globe.

When asked if he had any regrets about his life’s work, van der Bijl said, “If I could live my life over again, I would be a lot more radical.”

As a former homeschooled student and now a homeschool dad, I know first-hand the importance of sound education and the delicate balance of approaching difficult topics with my children.

First things first, families need to be grounded in what the Declaration of Independence calls the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God, meaning God’s law is true, supreme, and immutable. In today’s society, children are taught that it is acceptable, and often encouraged, to redefine nature’s law. //

The rising generation has access to more information than ever before, which is why it is crucial that you are laying foundational truths at an early age with your children. Don’t be afraid to have difficult conversations with your kids.

The recent overturning of Roe v. Wade is a perfect example of ensuring your children are rooted in the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God. Our children need to know that the fetus is a stage in human development, much like we have identified being a toddler or a teenager as a stage in human development. The Law of Nature’s God states that every person may lawfully enjoy those rights which God has given. Key words being every person.

Life begins at conception, and the unborn are still lawfully entitled to the right to life. //

These truths ultimately overcome the false ideals the left is attempting to spread. The ultimate takeaway for your children is that just as physical laws are unchanging, so too are natural laws. Not preparing our children adequately can lead to significant problems for the next and rising generations.

“This is how I’m praying,” Hibbs told Perkins. “Dear God, please expose the lies and falsehood that is tearing our nation apart. Reveal those; bring them to the surface. The Scripture says for us to expose wickedness. There’s no greater way than for God to do that. And so, I lean to Him to do that.”

“Secondly,” Hibbs continued, “pray that our leaders who know the truth stand up and speak up and use the God-given authority that they have inherited from the Lord as an elected official, to use that that opportunity rightly. And thirdly, I would say this: When we pray, we need to pray for God’s will to be done.”

Placing our nation in God’s hands risks receiving an answer we might not prefer. “You and I love the Constitution. We understand its origins, and how it honors God and honors the individual rights of every person,” Hibbs told Perkins. “But Tony, clearly, we have people in power today who do not believe in the Constitution, and this has been going on for a long time now. Is it possible, Tony, that we as believers are watching the death throes, as it were, of our republic? Lincoln made it very clear that we’re too strong to be destroyed from the outside, that if we’re ever going to be destroyed, it would be from within.”

“So, I’m praying, ‘Lord, expose the wickedness, but at the same time strengthen our leaders who are right with You. And Lord, please send revival to our nation,’” Hibbs summarized.

Living in the center of biblical tension

“It seems easier to go to a consistent extreme than to stay at the center of biblical tension.” -- Robertson McQuilkin

These days, everyone wants to be “affirmed.” Everyone wants a pat on the back for who they are.

I’m gay.

I’m black.

I’m non-binary.

I’m two-spirit, transgender with multiple personalities.

Whatever. Everyone has a “thing” and it’s all aimed at forcing other people to affirm not only is that thing okay, but that thing actually makes them a better person, and someone worth valuing. It’s rooted in narcissism, but don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s only the political cultists and activists who do this. We all want affirmation. We all want someone to tell us we are good – wonderful, even – just the way we are.

It’s why the “prosperity gospel” thrives in America. We want to know we deserve good things by being good enough for them.

I wasn’t raised in the Church or even by Christians. I found faith in Christ as a teenager, on my own, and I’ve been a grateful follower ever since. I know the Creator of the universe, but even still I am often wracked with insecurities and shortcomings. Unhappiness finds me from time to time, as does tragedy. Christ has not been the cure for reality, but He has been the way through it.

Here’s the thing – I find it impossible to genuinely connect with God if all I’m seeking is affirmation. When I seek positivity and elevation for my own personal spirit above all else, it always seems shallow. It always ends in just wanting more – more happiness, more health, more money, more passion. Whatever the “more” is, I just want more of it.

The truth is, it is only in our acknowledgment of our absolute wretchedness that we can find our way to peace. After all, if I’m able to convince myself I’m happy and fulfilled by simply saying a daily affirmation, what do I need God for?

No, it is through my wretchedness that I am able to be lifted up. When I recognize that I am helpless before the Almighty, that I am helpless against my sin on my own, that I am not built for eternity and I am not equipped for holiness, I am thus able to recognize that there is One who can lift me out of my sin. There is One who can equip me for holiness and eternity. I can look to Him with clarity, rather than looking into my own muddy insides.

My wretchedness is filth in the shadow of an all-knowing Creator. Who am I compared to such incredible power and omnipotence? I am no one.

That is what makes a relationship with God so intoxicating, so incredibly satisfying, so precious. I have nothing to bring Him. I have no sacrifice that could be worthy of Him. I don’t even have a body that is made to be in His presence.

“Read this,” he said, pitching me Catholic priest and writer Henri Nouwen’s spiritual classic “The Return of the Prodigal Son.” It’s a meditation inspired by the author’s response to a reproduction of Rembrandt’s eponymous and hauntingly beautiful painting. How strange the book was there in Amanda’s bookcase, my own poor man’s tolle lege experience. “Your dad is not wrong. None of you are.”

I devoured the book. It taught me that while we tend to be each actor — prodigal son, elder son, even the father — at different stages of life, we ultimately are called to progress to spiritual fatherhood. That is, we’re called to love one another exactly as the compassionate father did, with self-emptying hearts of mercy.

After all, neither the justice the prodigal son demanded nor the justice the elder son expected ultimately satisfies. Knowing this, the father gave his heirs freely and fully not the mere justice they sought but the far greater mercy they needed.

Justice may even the scales, but in mercy, the world is remade anew. As a broken world, so a penitent man. As we need merciful forgiveness, so must we grant it. As we are loved by God, so must we try to love one another. For nothing you have not given away, as C.S. Lewis wrote, will ever really be yours.

In other words, in the parable of the prodigal son we are, in fact, called to identify with the father, just like my old man said.

A Dutch painter inspired a fellow countryman priest centuries later, whose book helped a Tennessee doctor explain the true meaning of fatherhood to a North Carolina lawyer, but make no mistake. I was once again astonished at how much my old man had learned.

One of the separators between childhood and maturity is the ability to discern the true gravity of any given situation. The seemingly unbearable anguish of teenage love gone awry fades and folds in the presence of a marriage gone wrong. The grief of a pet passing diminishes when one must say goodbye to a parent, sibling, or other loved one. It is not a case of the former possessing no meaning, but rather how life’s hammer blows places them in proper context.

Those who belong to the unfortunate fellowship of having buried a large piece of their heart alongside an immeasurable part of their life face two paths going forward. They can be forever bitter and burning with envy at those not similarly marked. Or, they can open their hearts with the understanding gained solely by painful experience to others who have unwillingly joined their ranks. The unfortunate fellowship knows, understands, and shares the grief of those freshly bereaved. //

Those who belong to the unfortunate fellowship of having buried a large piece of their heart alongside an immeasurable part of their life face two paths going forward. They can be forever bitter and burning with envy at those not similarly marked. Or, they can open their hearts with the understanding gained solely by painful experience to others who have unwillingly joined their ranks. The unfortunate fellowship knows, understands, and shares the grief of those freshly bereaved.

There is invariably an element of wondering why life on this earth must be so fragile and brief. Regardless of how fervently and firmly one believes in immortality and the promised reunion, even with the promise that He will wipe every tear from our eyes and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, today there is death and mourning and crying and pain. We see it in the innocent victims of war. We see it in our own lives when we reflect on those no longer here.

The wise store treasure in heaven by freely giving love’s treasure on earth. This is the delineation between the hopeful and hysterical. The latter forever cry outrage as they endlessly preach love, yet practice only hate. If one chooses perpetual grievance over trifles, what will he or she do when genuine grief comes to call? //

The unfortunate fellowship listens far more than it speaks. There is grace in silence; comfort in unspoken sharing. An understanding presence does far more good than all the platitudes and attempts to comfort with forced cheer the world has to offer. This is Scriptural, not always quoting Scripture but rather living it by actively being there when people need one another. As the song says, before He danced, Jesus wept.

No one gets over grief. We get through it. //

Solomon reminded us in Proverbs that above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Remember this, and remember to let loss lead to love.

What happens when a world-renowned computer scientist applies scientific methodology to studying the Bible, writes about his findings, and has some of the world's best calligraphers illustrate the work? The result is 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated, a treasure of profound biblical insight and enchanting calligraphy that will enlighten your mind, your eyes, and your spirit. Donald E. Knuth so loved the Bible that he dedicated five years of his life to creating this masterpiece. With it, you will learn about each 3:16 verse of the Bible, how it came to be written, and how it contributes to the wholeness of the Bible.

The John Wesley Institute hosted over 50 scholars for the Next Methodism Summit in January of 2022, producing The Faith Once Delivered: A Wesleyan Witness.

https://nextmethodism.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Faith-Once-Delivered-FINAL-1.pdf

Sixty-four scholars and theologians have signed on to a “Wesleyan witness,” a six-part, 62-page document they hope will shape the future of Methodism, define orthodox Wesleyanism, and ground more Christians in the story of sanctification and restoration through grace.

“This is classic, orthodox Wesleyan theology,” said Asbury University New Testament professor Suzanne Nicholson, who is one of the authors. “The power of the Holy Spirit is greater than the power of sin. It doesn’t matter your class, your race, your gender, God is at work among the faithful, and that leads us to a full-orbed devotion to who God is

“The Faith Once Delivered” was first drafted in January at a summit for “The Next Methodism.” Scholars allied with the evangelical wing of the United Methodist Church, as well as holiness and Pentecostal denominations, came together, formed five working groups, and co-wrote statements on five theological topics: the nature of God, Creation, revelation, salvation, and the church. A sixth section on eschatology or “the fullness of time” was added later.

1. God wrote the Bible chronologically.

2. People understand a story better if you start at the beginning. The Old Testament lays the foundation of the gospel, it explains the problem we are in: God is holy and we are not – therefore we need help, we need Jesus. Below is a video explaining more.