Midweek Roundup - 10/8/14
Each Wednesday we share recent links we found insightful and helpful. These are often related to Crossway books, Bibles, or authors—but not always. We hope this list is an interesting and encouraging break for the middle of your week.
1. Lindsey Holcomb on the church and women at risk
The Christian church has, at its best, been known for exemplary love and sacrificial service to “the least of these”—the poor, oppressed, and marginalized. Such service has provided a powerful witness for the gospel. By upholding the dignity of all human life as the image of God, and by tangibly expressing the biblical ethic of personhood that flows from it, the church has the opportunity to be a light to the nations by welcoming the weak and powerless to find grace, mercy, and rest in Jesus Christ.
Unfortunately, many victims who reach out to churches in times of need receive blame, disbelief, suspicious questions, bad advice, platitudes, and shallow theology instead of care and compassion. Rather than pat answers, victims need practical victim advocacy full of biblical and theological depth.
2. Christ and Pop Culture reviews The Wonder-Working God
Through it all, Wilson writes with a clear and conversational style, and deftly exposits the miracles in the Gospel accounts. If you’ve never read a book by Wilson, you’re in for a great read. He is passionate about seeing the glory of Jesus more clearly, and this book, as well as others he has written will help you see the glory as well. I could see this book being perfect for a new Christian, or even for someone who is exploring the Christian faith, but hasn’t quite committed.
3. Courtney Reissig on discontentment and the purpose of marriage
Gary Thomas has said that the purpose of marriage is to make you holy, not happy. Of course, a side benefit of marriage is companionship, shared experiences, and—many times—true happiness. But that’s not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is to make us like Jesus. We don’t get to the final day on our own. Marriage is one of God’s good means to sanctify us and bring us safely home.
A long-term view of marriage (and life for that matter), saves us from the propensity to bolt when it gets hard or is less than we expected. God has promised to get us to the final day more like Jesus than when we started (Phil. 1:6).
4. Tim Challies reviews Churches Partnering Together
In Churches Partnering Together, the two pastors share their vision for churches partnering together for the sake of the gospel.
Their dream is to see what they call kingdom partnerships. “A kingdom partnership is a gospel-driven relationship between interdependent local churches that pray, work, and share resources together strategically to glorify God through kingdom-advancing goals they could not accomplish alone.”
5. Jeff Vanderstelt on mission and gospel identity
Whenever the people in the churches that Paul influenced went sideways, he didn’t just confront their wrongdoing and tell them what to do. He started by reminding them of who God is, what God had done for them in Jesus, and who they were in light of that truth. Then he reminded them of how believing the truth about the gospel and their new identity would lead them to different behavior. Paul knew that all of our behaviors result from what we believe about who God is as revealed through what God does, leading to what we believe about who we are. God’s work in Jesus Christ grants us a whole new identity, and this new identity leads to a whole new way of living.