fisher of men

  [Editor’s Note: While we cannot address every wrong in the world, the horrifying situation at Steubenville, Ohio led us to ask contributing writer, Justin Holcomb, to write on the matter of sexual assault. How can we best help those who have experienced the trauma of sexual assault? What can we do to foster a culture of safety in our communities and churches?] “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer  In the small Ohio town of Steubenville, several high-school football players have been charged in the gang-rape and kidnapping of a 16-year-old girl at multiple parties while she was allegedly drugged and unconscious. The story is making headlines after hacking group Anonymous...

The facts are well known: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) requires employers to provide insurance for their employees. As part of the mandated health coverage, businesses must include contraceptives and abortifacient drugs in their insurance plans. Hobby Lobby, owned by the Green family (strong Christians and generous philanthropists), is refusing to comply with the HHS mandate, believing that the government is requiring what is unethical and infringing upon their religious liberty. Perhaps it is tragically fitting that Justice Sotomayor denied Hobby Lobby judicial relief on December 26—St. Stephen’s Day, the day the church remembers its first martyr. Millions of Americans are already outraged. And rightly so. Our government not only allows for abor...

  What happens to a dream deferred?Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?Or fester like a sore—and then run?Does it stink like rotten meat?Or crust and sugar over—like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.Or does it explode? ~ Langston Hughes, “A Dream Deferred” Many answers to Langston Hughes’s questions came during the Civil Rights movement. When a dream was deferred there were protest marches on one hand, and the Blank Panther Party on the other. For some it meant sit-ins at lunch counters; for others it meant starting riots in Watts. The delayed dream of equally accessible educational, social, occupational, and economic opportunities shriveled up for many in the post Jim-Crow generation of African Americans. However, for some it exploded. No one likes coming to th...

President Obama kicked up some controversy by announcing that evangelical pastor Louie Giglio would be praying at the inauguration. Sexual liberationist groups quickly identified Giglio, as they did Rick Warren under similar circumstances in 2009, as “anti-gay.” After a couple of days of firestorm from the Left, Giglio announced this morning that he would withdraw. Here’s why this matters. The statement Giglio made that was so controversial is essentially a near-direct quotation from the Christian Scriptures. Unrepentant homosexuals, Giglio said (as with unrepentant sinners of all kinds) “will not inherit the kingdom of God.” That’s 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. Giglio said, “it’s not easy to change, but it is possible to change.” The Bible says God “commands all people everywhere to rep...

Sitting on the dock, looking out over the still, dark waters of the lake, I just knew. It wasn’t surprising; I’d been toying with the idea for almost a year. But now, after much prayer, and at the end of an especially meaningful retreat, everything was clear. My mind relaxed, the decision made: I was going into ministry. I can still remember that easy certainty, the calm assurance that this was what I supposed to do. In hindsight, it’s a little surprising how quickly I set aside my other plans and launched into ministry preparation. At the time, though, nothing could have been more obvious.   Three years later, everything was different. It was late, well after midnight, and the church was empty. All the kids had gone home hours ago. But I was still in my of...

  [Editor’s Note: Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is observed this year on January 20, 2013.]   Don’t get me wrong, the call to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ is a joy. Nothing is more thrilling than opening the Word of God to the people of Christ week-by-week. But it provokes my spirit to preach the Sanctity of Human Life (SOHL) emphasis on a Sunday morning. I don’t hate Sanctity of Human Life Sunday because I think it, somehow, unbiblical. No, indeed. The entire canon throbs with God’s commitment to the fatherless and to the widows, his wrath at the shedding of innocent blood. I don’t hate it because I think it’s inappropriate. Just as every Lord’s Day should be Easter, with the proclamation of the Resurrection of Jesus, and Christmas,...

[Editor’s Note: In a recent feature story for Esquire, actress Megan Fox spoke of a number of non-Christian beliefs to which she holds but then also described what it feels like to speak in tongues. (See quote below). Since such experiences are neither provable nor deniable, people are curious about what the Bible teaches. After all, what is the Christian’s authority? God’s Word or experience? Bible scholar, Ron Rhoads, offers the following brief summary on what the Bible says about speaking in tongues.]  The Holy Spirit is the one who bestows spiritual gifts on believers (1 Corinthians 1:11). Not every Christian has every gift. So Christians should be happy with whatever gift the Holy Spirit has sovereignly decided to give them. There are a number of facts about spe...

“Truly God is good to Israel.”Psalms 73:1 I don’t think we have categories today that get at what these words are saying. The words roll off your tongue so easily your mind barely has time to consider their content. The words are so familiar and mundane they barely draw interest out of us, let alone awe. At breakfast you’ll say something like, “Wow, this cereal is good!” Or, “We had a good time at the park.” Or, “Let me tell you where to get a good cup of coffee.” Or, Sam is really a good husband.” So maybe when we read that God is good what is supposed to happen inside of us doesn’t happen. When you read the words, “God is good,” your heart should be filled with wonder, amazement, gratitude, humility, and ...

Knowing and wanting to be in the Lord’s design for our lives is one of the most pivotal heart issues Christians encounter. A woman who mentored me early in my faith journey said, “The Lord wants you in His will even more than you want to be. So don’t let figuring out His will become an idol. Pursue the Lord and trust Him to keep you in His path.” When we seek God just for a formula, too often we miss Him and profoundly miss His best for us. Yes, He wants our obedience. But a beautiful thing about the Hebrew word we translate into obey in English is that it is the same word in Hebrew for hear. It’s a hearing that brings response. What the Lord wants is relationship. He wants us to hear Him, know Him, and respond. As we faithfully follow the general, foundational principles of being committe...

One of my earliest memories is of a substitute Sunday school teacher chastening me for putting a coin in my mouth. “That’s filthy,” she said. “Why, you don’t know if a colored man might have held that.” It might just be my imagination playing tricks on me, but it seems as though she immediately followed this up with, “Alright children, let’s sing ‘Jesus Loves the Little Children, All the Children of the World.’” Now, this lady probably didn’t consciously think of herself as a white supremacist. She almost certainly didn’t think of herself as subversive of the gospel itself. She never thought about the hypocrisy of holding the two contradictory worldviews together in her mind. She probably didn’t see how her dehumanizing of African-Americans was a twisted form of Darwinism rather than bibli...

[Editor’s Note: January 22, 2013 marks the 40th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision, which effectively legalized the roughly 50 million abortions that have now been committed in America. The following is an edited transcript of a sermon delivered by pastor and long-time pro-life advocate, John Piper. Audio and video versions are available at desiringGod.org.] How does abortion relate to spreading a passion for the supremacy of God in all things? The way I’ve thought about abortion over the years as a preacher—and I’m mainly a preacher, one who has to speak about abortion in the context of worship from the Bible—is to relate it to God. We always devote one Sunday (the Sanctity of Life Sunday) to abortion and one Sunday ...

Another Christmas season has come and gone. The last remaining decorations have been packed away for next year. Many people heard the wonderful story of Christ’s incarnation, and some understood it for the very first time. But the version of the Christmas story that most haven’t heard, the one that even many Christians don’t seem to understand is the one found in Revelation 12. It is this account that guards Matthew’s and Luke’s from the dangers of sentimentality. It keeps our vision of the incarnation from getting dislodged from the broader drama of redemption. And it reminds us that Christ’s Advent to earth was nothing less than a strategic, decisive military move in the raging cosmic battle between darkness and light. This is the full-orbed Christmas story that we need reminding of all ...