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The most recent articles, videos, blog entries, and more that have been added to ChristianUnion.org.

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Witnessing in Exile

"Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, chief of his court officials, to bring into the king’s service some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility— young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king’s palace. He was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians. The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table. They were to be trained for three years, and after that they were to enter the king’s service."

Daniel 1:3-5 (ESV)

In many ways, we Western Christians living in a post-Christian context, can relate to Daniel and company, who found themselves in exile following King Nebuchadnezzar’s hostile takeover of Jerusalem. Like Israel’s life in exile, the world around us is shifting ever so quickly; often times we’re left feeling a bit dizzy as we wonder how we should live in a culture that is so different from us—a culture and society that has different values, hopes and dreams from our own. So how should we live? How should we engage with the cultural context in which we find ourselves?

Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Renewed in the Image of the Word

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. … No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.

John 1:1-2, 14, 18 (ESV)

The devil’s persistent strategy is to take the good things God has made, corrupt them, and use them against God and His creation. The deceiver used the Garden of Eden against Adam and Eve. He still uses food, sex, ambition, friendship, authority, rest, work, and every other good creation of God in a desperate attempt to counteract the purposes of God. He is doing the same with media.

by Teal McGarvey Wojcicki & Nick Nowalk

“We are unknown, we knowers, to ourselves.”

“O God, I pray you to let me know my self.”[1]

John Calvin famously began his magisterial Institutes of the Christian Religion with this incredible claim: “Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.” In opening this way, Calvin indicated not only that Christians knowing their identity as human beings is of critical importance, but also that such knowledge is indelibly bound up with God’s identity.

HandforNicksArticle

In pursuing a uniquely Christian understanding of human identity, there are two familiar extremes that we must avoid.

Monday, August 27, 2018

First of All, Pray

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 1 Timothy 2:1-4

“First of all,” Paul tells Timothy, in his charge to him to “wage the good warfare” (1 Tim 1:18), you should pray “for all people.” This we generally understand; most of us have a list of people for whom we pray. My list includes family members, coworkers, people in my church, friends, missionaries, and those I know have current needs. Sometimes it includes a person with a heartbreaking story that’s making the rounds of social media on the internet. Too rarely does it include the people that Paul singles out here for intercession. Yes, we are to pray for “all people”, but I think Paul knows we will naturally remember to pray for those close to us. Instead, he reminds us to also, and specifically, pray for “kings and all who are in high positions.”

Sunday, August 26, 2018

Which Way Are You Leaning?

“Behold, you are trusting now in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.”

2 Kings 18:21 (ESV)

“Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish.”

Psalm 146:3-4 (ESV)

Trusting in Egypt. The invitation for King Hezekiah to consider the "pain points" of depending upon Egypt is not spoken by a prophet or other trusted source. Rather, this is high-pressure rhetoric from a conniving Assyrian official. He is deeming it folly for Judah’s king to find security anywhere else save under Assyria’s wings. He’s saying, “wise up and pay the 'protection fee' to a government power who can truly deliver you!"

Saturday, August 25, 2018

Toward a More Just Government

“And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too many to be numbered or counted for multitude. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?”

It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this.

Friday, August 24, 2018

Fasting for Fathers

My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments,
for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you.
Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Proverbs 3:1-6 (ESV)

This passage is one of the most well-known and well-loved in all of the Old Testament. It is one of my favorite passages, and, given that it is a record of a father instructing his son, my appreciation for it has only continued to grow as I have become a father for the first time this year.

Thursday, August 23, 2018

When Family is Hard

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Colossians 3:12-14 (ESV)

So much talk about family life in the church can feel like it’s describing near-heavenly experience. “True fulfillment is found in domestic life,” seems a constant refrain. It is true: marriage and children can bring incredible joy and meaning to one’s life. It cannot, however, bring ultimate fulfillment. Only God can do that.

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Waiting with Hope

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:13 (ESV)

When my children were little, my wife and I would read them The Chronicles of Narnia before going to bed each night. That has transitioned to watching The Good, the Bad and the Ugly with my now-teenage sons. The goal is the same as they grow: showing them the good, the beautiful, and the true (but adding a bit more of the reality of the bad and the ugly). I desire for them to have categories for the brokenness of the world, and the joy to which they should aspire. Every cowboy movie, even those old Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns, has a happy ending. It just takes a while (like 3 hours!) to get there.

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

The God of All Knowledge

“And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore, so that Solomon's wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. … He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. He spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of reptiles, and of fish. And people of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom.” 1 Kings 4:29-30, 33-34

Public education in the United States has become a mostly godless enterprise. Unfortunately, the more “elite” an academic institution is, the more pride it takes in a secular approach to learning. Modern educators falsely presume that the best path to knowledge is one that is without bias of religion. However, in their pursuit for untainted learning, they keep themselves from the beginning of wisdom – the fear of the Lord.