Author: S&P

The most important thing you can do for a child is to teach him or her the good news about how to be right with God, how to be forgiven of sin through the person and work of Christ. Over the years, many have asked me, “How can I explain the gospel to children in terms they understand without toning down the hard demands of Christ? Must a child understand Jesus’s lordship...

We have to have it. We are commanded to give it. Forgiveness. But do we ever pause to come to terms with what the word, the concept, means in God’s Word? What do you really know about forgiveness? There are many places in the Bible to learn more. Let me select one scriptural verse that I have spoken publicly at least once per month for the last three decades. 4 Healing Truths about Forgiveness fro...

You know music has power when it has you shivering while running in hundred-degree heat. Güngör’s Ghosts Upon the Earth is like that, though. From the opening track, the album screams its willingness to be and do something terribly different from most Christian music of the last quarter century. For one thing, this is an album, not just a collection of songs. For another, the music...

As a pastor I have the opportunity to see many people work through the pain, frustration, sorrow, and fear that comes with affliction. Some suffer from their own folly, some endure the hardship of disease, and others are hurt by the evil actions of wicked men. And in it all we are looking for some kind of answer, direction, or purpose. As I have been preaching through Habakkuk at redeemer we have ...

“The law was added so that the trespass might increase.  But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” Romans 5:20. How many Christians (never mind people who are not yet Christians) do you suppose misunderstand grace?  Sure...

All these years later, and we can all probably still remember exactly where we were when we heard the tragic news of the terrorist attack of 9/11. Ironically, I sat in a speech class at Samford University. One minute we were discussing the components of an effective speech, the next minute we all found ourselves speechless. Sept. 11, 2001 will live in infamy; but many other days will keep it compa...

As a seminary grad, I thought I was ready to have a job and do my part in taking Christ to the world through the local church. Six months passed and the only job offer I had was to work for four months as a secretary for a crusade in my city. I remember well the Lord whispering to me, “Do you have any other offers?” I reluctantly accepted the job and began to pour myself into the needed preparatio...

It took me a moment to realize that he was a pastor and not a coach for a sports team or some sort of motivational speaker/CEO type. I met Bill at a conference for pastors. He explained that he was a coach for his clients, seeking to guide them through their story. I probably had the confused dog look on my face, like when you ask your dog a question and he just cocks his head and advances a blank...

Some of what we do with Scripture is comical. We have this inevitable way of overlooking the biblical context and reading our own spins into passages. Some of our most treasured principles don’t even come close to the point being offered by the biblical author. Many Bible-believing Christians would be shocked to know that some of our more treasured cliché’s are the result of shoddy hermeneutics an...

[embedded content] Was Jesus Ever Married? Transcribed from the video above, Bryan Chapell discusses whether Jesus was ever married: There is no evidence that Jesus was married in the books that give us the history of his life. So anything that would suggest that Jesus was married is pure conjecture, and we would say usually being articulated by people who have some agenda to undo the biblical rec...

  When you meet someone for the first time, you form some opinion of them. You can’t help it. How they look, what they say, when they laugh, it all shapes your inner picture of them. The same is true in stories. The first time an author introduces a new character, pay attention. They’ll often give you little clues about that character’s personality and how they fit into the story. And sometim...