Author: S&P

I was raised American poor. I call it American poor because the brand of poverty I lived through pales in comparison to some of the 3rd world poverty I’ve seen firsthand in India, Colombia and El Salvador. But, by United States standards, my family was poor. Although we qualified for food stamps my mom refused to take advantage of them. She felt in some weird way that this would be admitting defea...

There possibly isn’t a more complex yet important topic as race as it relates to the Word of God and the church. To understand our differences and why they are good, we must first understand our origin. Because of the sin of partiality and pride, it is problematic for some to truly believe the idea of racial equality. But this equality isn’t a man-made, modern, social justice theory. We aren’t arg...

What Culture Is Made Of The three “ingredients” of culture are truth, goodness, and beauty. Truth deals with facts, with the way things are. Goodness speaks to what is morally right, or the way things ought to be. Beauty relates to what is pleasing and to what can be imagined. It’s no surprise that Christians are lovers of truth and goodness. After all, Jesus himself said, “You shall know the trut...

American culture is fascinated with celebrities. American evangelicalism, as a subset of American culture, is too. For some reason, there remains a persistent belief that the public testimony of a well known athlete or entertainer will be more effective than that of a regular Joe. I’ll concede that for the value of gaining attention, a high profile name works better than an unknown. People will wa...

When I first started hearing about the ministry of Steven Furtick, I thought someone was describing a character from Doug Wilson’s novel Evangellyfish. Here is the quintessential rock-star pastor replete with narcissistic reflection and a following that will jump when he snaps his fingers or when he bites his lip under the glow of stage lights (see here and here). It seems Furt...

God is perfect; he lacks nothing. God is holy; he is set apart and wholly separate from sin. As with many of God’s attributes, he desires to communicate perfection and holiness to his creation. So he did. Lucifer, an angel of God’s, did not get enough of God’s perfection and holiness. He wanted it all. He rebelled against God and lost all of what God gave him. He became God’s nemesis – renamed Sat...

Apart from an active faith in God’s sovereignty and grace, it’s easy to throw up our hands and adopt a “What’s the use?” mentality. If it’s going to be so hard to make really significant improvements, what does it matter if things deteriorate a little further? This sort of faithless attitude could apply to the “house” that is our life, or the “house” that’s the regular environment in which we live...

Few people have anything approaching an articulate philosophy—at least as epitomized by the great philosophers. Even fewer, I suspect, have a carefully constructed theology. But everyone has a worldview. Whenever any of us thinks about anything—from a casual thought (Where did I leave my watch?) to a profound question (Who am I?)—we are operating within such a framework. In fact, it is only t...

“Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7) That’s Peter’s direct and simple instruction to a church of “pilgrims” or “sojourners” scattered throughout the world, suffering persecution for righteousness’ sake. “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” The Action Cast all your anxiety. Anxiety is not meant to be held onto. It’s not a treasure or a keep-sake...

It should be the thing that greets your mind and fills your heart as you wake each morning. It should be your final thought as you settle in for a night of sleep. It should define how you face your day, and it should shape your self-reflections. It should be the thing that directs how you respond to others. It should be at the forefront of your thoughts in times of trouble or disappointment. It sh...

It’s Valentine’s season again. Strange, how in our popular culture the word “love” can be used in such a trivial way, but then also be used to refer to the deepest of relationships. “I love my wife!” “I love hamburgers!” “I love my husband!” “I love the movie Nacho Libre!” No wonder it’s so easy for us to miss the type of love God calls us to express toward, not just our favorite ...

Mike understood bonds—government bonds, corporate bonds, municiples and the rest. The team that wrote the bond trading software, however, didn’t have a clue. It was Mike’s job to teach the coders about the bond business and he hated it. One day, just before a presentation, Mike said wearily, “Jim, I really don’t believe it’s God’s will for me to be teaching Bonds 101 to a bunch of coders.” Not rea...