Grow

The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis In this classic book, Lewis presents a series of letters from an elder demon to his nephew. The purpose of the book is to present Lewis’ beliefs about how our enemy works to distract us from God and then destroy us. You can purchase a copy from most bookstores, borrow a copy from most libraries, or purchase a digital copy from Amazon.

Simply Christian by NT Wright NT Wright’s book is designed to explain some of the most basic elements of the Christian faith. While it’s not exhaustive, it is simple and easy to understand. If you’re looking for a simple way to explain our faith to someone who won’t listen to a recitation of Scripture, this is a great place to start. You can purchase a copy from most bookstores, borrow a copy from most libraries, or purchase a digital copy…

Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster A classic work that explains various spiritual disciplines and encourages the reader to make use of them in their everyday life. These disciplines are broken into three parts: Inward (meditation, prayer, fasting, study); Outward (simplicity, solitude, submission, service); and Corporate (confession, worship, guidance, celebration). You can purchase a copy from most bookstores, borrow a copy from most libraries, or purchase a digital copy from Amazon.

It’s February. The ground hog has come and gone, and statistically, you’ve probably already given up on your New Year’s Resolutions. Ever wondered why? For the past few weeks, I’ve been teaching a class on Wednesdays about how to create and accomplish our New Year’s resolutions. In the first we of the class, we answered the question I asked you at the start of this post: Why do our resolutions fail? In the second week, we looked at how to…

In Exodus 14, the Israelites were on their way out of Egypt when they came upon a considerable road block: the Red Sea. As the Egyptian army approached to either return the Israelites to slavery or to massacre them, the people began to panic. Moses did the only sensible thing–he prayed–and God told him what to do. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east…

In my first post in this series, I explained that the word “gospel” meant “good news,” specifically, in a royal sense. So, “Good news [about or from] the king.” For us then, the “gospels” are good news about King Jesus. There are four books that we have labeled as “gospels”: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In my second post, I explained, briefly, who wrote each gospel, why, and to whom they were writing. In this final post, I’d like to…

Today we’re going to continue our look at the Gospels by discussing the different authors and their emphases/audiences for these four books. (If you missed the first post in this series, you may want to go back over it.) Those who base their skepticism of Christianity based upon inconsistencies in the testimony of the Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are right to argue for a cohesive, valid witness, in general, but the various incidents they present as evidence of inconsistencies…

As we approach Easter, I thought it might be nice for us to look at the Gospels. For some of you, this will be very basic, but I’m writing this with all Christians, both new and old, in mind. First up, let’s start with the very term “gospel.” It’s a word that has a long history, but in the interest of time, its history can be traced back to the Greek word euangelion, from which we also take our word…