Author: Brance
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Weekend Reads 11/21
Here are a few links we found interesting or worthwhile this week, and we pass them on to you for reading over the weekend. Choose Hospitality Over Entertaining – “It revealed my own lack of understanding about the nature and purpose of hospitality. In my self-righteous desire to offer advice, I had confused hospitality with…
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Fear and Fruitfulness, part I
Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord,who walks in his ways!You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands;you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vinewithin your house;your children will be like olive shootsaround your table. [Psalm 128:1-3] This psalm presents us…
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A Second Motive For Church Discipline
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. (1 Corinthians 5:6-7) In a previous post we began to look at the verse…
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A Motive For Church Discipline
you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 5:5) Church discipline is one of the marks of a healthy church. Yet church discipline is sorely lacking in American churches today. There are many reasons for…
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Recounting God’s Wondrous Deeds
We give thanks to you, O God; we give thanks, for your name is near. We recount your wondrous deeds. (Psalm 75:1) We see this theme of recounting God’s deeds throughout the psalms. It is a practice tied to hope in the midst of trouble, and joy and thanksgiving at all times. It is most often…
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Weekend Reads 5/30
Here are a few links we found interesting or worthwhile this week, and we pass them on to you for reading over the weekend. Learn From Calvin and Hobbes About the Medium and the Message – “Watterson was worried that the very existence of these products would sap the power from the real thing; that…
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Selflessness in Prayer
Arise, O God, defend your cause; remember how the foolish scoff at you all the day! (Psalm 74:22) This verse captures the essence of the prayer in this psalm. Things have gone terribly wrong for the people of God. Enemies have come into the land and destroyed the temple. They “profaned” the temple, tore it…
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To be near God
Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. (Psalm 73:25) What a great verse! And one we are probably too quick to quote and sing, without carefully thinking through what it says. Do we really mean these words when we say them? The first part is…
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Judging in the church
For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? (1 Corinthians 5:12) It is very popular in American culture to say that Christians aren’t suppose to judge anyone. But we find in this verse that we are to judge those “inside the church”…
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Weekend Reads 4/25
Here are a few links we found interesting or worthwhile this week, and we pass them on to you for reading over the weekend. I Love My Black Letter Bible – “The miracle of inspiration means the whole Bible is the voice of God. While central and foundational, the fourfold Gospel witness is no more true…