The aged prophet Isaiah showed up at the bedside of the middle-aged king. Hezekiah was only about 39 years old and terminally ill. But the prophet was not bringing good news, “Set your house in order, for you shall die, you shall not recover” (Is. 38:1).
The weak king cried out to God, “’ Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight’. And Hezekiah wept bitterly.” (Is. 38:3).
“We are currently experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in US history. It is greater than the First and Second Great Awakening and every revival in our country combined...but in the opposite direction.” This is the conclusion of the largest and most comprehensive study of dechurching in America by sociologists Ryan Burge and Paul Djupe. In The Great DeChurching, pastors Jim Davis and Michael Graham unpack why and how over the past twenty-five years, forty million of those who formerly attended church no longer do so.
Jerusalem, Israel
3:15 am, April 13
I sat up in bed to a wailing sound I had never heard before, but knew immediately: an air raid siren. Our building rattled to the booms of interceptors from Israel’s missile defense system hitting their inbound targets. I pulled back the curtains and watched as sprays of light streaked the sky.
Iran launched 170 drones, 20 cruise missiles, and 120 ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for Israel’s purported attack on an Iranian embassy in Syria.
Nothing is more iconic to the Tucson landscape than the saguaro. The emblematic cactus is to the Sonoran Desert what the palm tree is to Miami: hard to imagine without it. Saguaros typically live between one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy-five years, not sprouting its trademark arms until around thirty to seventy years of its life and growing to around fifty feet tall.
For those Sonoran Desert natives, we intuitively know where saguaros thrive. They love the rocky (both granite and volcanic) soil at the foothills of the five beautiful mountain ranges that surround Tucson.
I drove a little manual 2005 Scion xB for about eight years. It finally gave out after 230,000 miles. I loved that little car. It was fuel-efficient and required minimal maintenance. But it is undeniably close to the least powerful car on the road. I’m pretty sure that on its specs, next to 0-60mph, it says, “Eventually!”
Unless I was lined up against someone from a nearby retirement community, I was the last car to reach the speed limit coming off a stoplight. Unsurprisingly, more aggressive drivers with more powerful vehicles tended to treat my little Scion like a safety cone on the road, more like an obstacle than a fellow traveler.
Christians claim that the only way to restore our relationship with God is through Jesus Christ. This is an exclusive claim: there is only one way to God. But why would God be so narrow? Isn’t it arrogant for Christians to say Christianity is superior to other religions or worldviews? Isn’t inclusivism a better way than exclusivism?
As one bumper sticker and meme says: “God is too big to fit into any one religion.”
1. How to Meet God at Your Lowest Point: Jane Marczewski guest posts over on Ann Voskamp’s blog. She has cancer and has been given only a 2% chance of survival. Jane recently auditioned on America’s Got Talent and received the golden buzzer. You’ll want to read her post and then watch her memorable performance. She writes, “I have heard it said that some people can’t see God because they won’t look low enough, and it’s true. Look lower.”
2. Not this Man, but Barabbas! Keith Mathison nails it here, “I hear and read Christians almost every day saying that their biggest concern is the direction in which the United States is headed. Or they are most concerned about the collapse of Western civilization. Granted, many people are concerned about these things because of their love for their children or grandchildren… The problem occurs when our main concern is fundamentally a political concern.”
3. 5 Cultural Shifts We Need to Know to Reach Our Neighbors: Mark Clark begins with this truth, “The highest good is now individual freedom and happiness.” All five are helpful in considering how to reach our neighbors with the gospel.
4. Romanticizing Death: A fellow Tucson pastor, Rod Hugen reminds us that to understand the power of Jesus conquering death we must come face to face with the ugliness of death. He concludes, “I live in the time when death is still the enemy, but with the sure knowledge that death is defeated and will one day be no more. It is an exhilarating time, freeing me to seize life and to take joy in the journey, knowing that Christ’s resurrection is a reality. Death defeated is far superior to death romanticized.”
5. PT Barnum’s 10 Most Famous Human “Freak” Show Attractions: If you’ve seen The Greatest Showman you’ll appreciate how this video humanizes the various people that Barnum promoted (and often exploited) in his show.
Let’s not soft-pedal this. Christianity’s claims about the Bible are patently absurd.
Let’s pause and consider Christianity’s claim. Christians claim that we have in our possession a book that contains a message from the Creator of the universe to us. The book we are talking about was written in a time period roughly between 4,000 and 2,000 years ago. To claim such an ancient book has any relevance whatsoever for a modern reader is an absurd enough claim, but to claim it is the word of the source of all life itself? That is hard to believe.
Isn’t this book written by human beings full of legends? Isn’t it full of contradictions? Hasn’t it been proven false?[i] How can we possibly trust that it is the message God has for us?
Let me make the stakes of this conversation completely clear. If we can’t trust the Bible, then it’s a book that might have use for historians or perhaps to be read alongside Aesop’s Fables. But if it is the Word of God, we ought to devote ourselves to this book. If God really wrote a message to us, then every person is duty-bound to take this message seriously.
The skeptic’s challenge is that the Bible is a story, it is not reliable history. I’m going to respond to this challenge with seven responses. The first will be shared in this post, the following six in the next two weeks.
The most important question regarding the trustworthiness of the Bible is whether or not there was a man named Jesus Christ who lived in the first century in Palestine, who claimed to be the Messiah, who died on a cross and rose again. The trustworthiness of the Bible stands or falls on its claims about Jesus of Nazareth.
2019 was a heavy reading year for me. This year I read 101 books: almost two a week. I love learning and reading is of my favorite forms of learning. If you’re wondering how I read that many books, I’m going to reflect on that next week.
This year you could divide my reading into six (plus one) categories: Christian Living, Theology, Apologetics, Pastoral Ministry, Leadership, and Fiction. The plus one is in the fiction category. I got on a John Steinbeck kick, so I pulled out an extra Steinbeck category. If you’re interested in tracking my reading, getting fuller reviews (I review every book I read), and sharing with me your favorites, I use Goodreads and would be happy to have you friend me there. Here were some highlights for me in 2019:
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