Who Are the Pharisees Today? Christ’s Invitation to Modern-Day Pharisees.
Who are the Pharisees today? The Pharisees emerged after the Maccabee revolt as a group dedicated to restoring the Jewish people’s dedication to the law. Although the Pharisees began with worthy goals of steering the Jewish nation back to covenant faithfulness, by the time of the New Testament, many Pharisees formed the leading edge of...
Daniel McCoy
Thor: Love and Thunder Review and Reflection
Thor: Love & Thunder Review I will admit that I came into Thor: Love and Thunder with relatively low expectations, especially after watching other recent installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Thankfully, it’s been long enough since Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home that I think I’ve detoxed from that standard of action and...
Nathan Storms
What Are Latter-Day Saints? The Basics of the LDS Church in 10 Questions, 10 Definitions, and 10 Quotes
What Are Latter-Day Saints? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was founded by Joseph Smith in the US in the 1830s. Smith tells of receiving visitations from heavenly persons telling him not to join any established churches and bestowing on him and his companions two priesthoods said to have been lost to the...
Daniel McCoy
Five Reasons Every Church Should Love Their Community
If you drive down the street in just about any town, you are sure to see a church or two or thirty. As you pass each of these buildings marked by stained glass, steeples reaching up to the sky, and a sign out front with Sunday service times, you wonder to yourself, “I wonder who...
Matt Stieger
Two-Fisted Fighting (Spiritually): The Importance of Relationships AND Truth
I am the lead pastor/minister of a church in Post Falls, Idaho, but many people who know me have heard about my past in wrestling. At the collegiate level, I wrestled in national championships. They also know I was an unbeliever who took my skills learned in wrestling to the streets. Unfortunately, fighting was a...
Jim Putman
Philosophy Questions: Why Is Philosophy Important?
Why is philosophy important? Philosophy is important because, as the “love of wisdom,” philosophy carves out space for wrestling with life’s most important questions. When broken into its main branches, philosophy boils down to studying what is good (ethics), how we know (epistemology), how to think (logic), and what exists beyond the physical (metaphysics). When...
Daniel McCoy
What is Atheism? Definitions, Demographics, & Types of Atheists (Part 1)
What is atheism? Although some atheists define atheism weakly as merely a lack of belief in gods, atheism is traditionally more than a denial: It is the belief that no God or gods exist. I always thought there was a basic consensus on what atheism is, and within a small measure of difference, I still...
Allan Payne
Lord’s Prayer: Deliver Us From Evil
Seriously? The last word in the Lord’s Prayer is “evil”? That’s a terrible ending (Matt. 6:13). An early Christian community couldn’t handle it, so they decided to come up with some nice little flourish they could say that would end the prayer on a positive note. “Maybe something about God’s kingdom and glory or something.”...
Jeremy Bacon
What, How, and Why We Pray for Our Nation
As disciples of Jesus, should we regularly pray for our nation? In 1 Timothy 2:1-4, the apostle Paul urged public prayers in church for public leaders. He described these as a practice that “is good and pleases God.” He encouraged that we pray “for kings and all those in authority” as a way of seeking...
Daniel McCoy
What Is Jainism? The Basics of Jainism in 10 Questions, 10 Definitions, and 10 Quotes
What are the basics of Jainism? Jainism is a religion arising from India which invites its adherents to liberation from rebirth by seeking non-violence and shedding karmic matter. It teaches how a soul can be purified of this karmic non-life (ajiva) through following the teachings of its founder Mahavira. Mahavira is the most recent of...
Daniel McCoy
Twisted Scriptures: 5 Bible Verses Taken out of Context
We’ve all done it. You’re having a rough day and need some inspiration, so you do a quick google search. Maybe you type in “most inspiring Bible verses” or “verses to get me through a hard time.” Within seconds you’ve got an entire list of positive Bible verses from a Southern Living blog post. You...
Emily Richardson
More Than Watchmen: Reflections on Waiting on and Wrestling with God
“Out of the depths I cry to You, Lord; Lord, hear my voice.” Have you prayed words like these before? When the depths are close at hand, are you able to cry out in this way? To make a request for the Lord’s attention as the writer of Psalm 130 does here is bold. It...
Nathan Storms
What Is Sikhism? The Basics of Sikhism in 10 Questions, 10 Definitions, and 10 Quotes
What are the basics of Sikhism? Sikhism is a monotheistic religion arising out of India which sought to show that God transcended both Islam and Hinduism. It was founded by Guru Nanak, whose leadership passed through a succession of Gurus, until the tenth declared that the Sikh holy book, the Adi Granth, was the final...
Daniel McCoy
God’s Power to Redeem Men: Reflections from a Founder of Promise Keepers
Can God take broken men and restore them? Can God take sinful men and make them into Christlike husbands and fathers? Can God take men who have trouble keeping their commitments and make them into promise keepers? David Roadcup was…
David Roadcup
Why Not Abortion? An Answer to My Teenage Daughter
Yesterday, I was on the road coming back from two weeks at a summer conference for high school students when I got a call from my daughter. She was full of questions and anxiety. Like the rest of us, she had just heard about the SCOTUS ruling overturning Roe. She had already seen students expressing...
Chad Ragsdale
How Do You Live Your Best Life? And Why Saying ‘No’ Is More Freeing Than You Think
How do we live our best life? Our musicians sing the answer. Our movies tell stories about it. Our politicians make speeches and pass laws to promote it. And each of us, well, we post our answers on Instagram, Be Real, TikTok, Twitter, and more. And what’s our answer to how to live our best...
