Gospel.com Blog

Our last post talked about the holiday that springs to most people’s minds when they think about October 31—Halloween. But Christians have another reason to celebrate today: it’s Reformation Day! If you’re not familiar with the Protestant Reformation, today’s a perfect day to read up a bit on one of the most influential events in all of church history.

Although there’s only one Reformation Day each year, the actual Reformation was spread across many years and involved many different people—theologians, preachers, writers, and everyday Christians. The Wikipedia entry provides a good rundown of the Reformation. If you want to delve more deeply into the people and events that make up the Reformation, the Christian History Institute can help:

• There’s no question that the most famous figure of the Reformation was Martin Luther, who nailed the famous 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenburg church. He’s also famous for his defiant words when charged by the Church to recant: “Here I stand; I can do no other.”
• John Calvin was another major Reformation figure. Among other things, he “reformed” the city of Geneva, Switzerland, and his ideas continue to exert a major influence on Christianity today.
• John Hus was another early reformer who challenged the sale of indulgences by the Church. His story has a grimmer ending the some of his fellow reformers: he was burned at the stake in 1415.
• John Wyclif also preached out against unscriptural practices in the 14th century church. Church authorities were so upset by his ideas that after his death, “orders were given for his writings to be destroyed, his bones exhumed and burned, and the ashes to be thrown into the nearby river”!

The Reformation might seem like dry and boring history at first glance—but a glance at any of the above articles shows that it was a movement based around some truly fascinating individuals whose hearts burned with a desire to see the Christian church set back on a Biblical course. Read up on some of these characters—you might find yourself with a deeper appreciation for the hard work and fearless preaching that shaped the church as it exists today!

It’s the spookiest day of the year! Tonight the streets will be filled with little ghosts and goblins all searching for one thing: candy. And with Halloween come a lot of questions for Christians. Is it OK for a Christian to celebrate Halloween? Is Halloween a harmless and fun holiday? An evil, occultic event that should be avoided? What’s a Christian (particularly a Christian with young kids who want their fair share of Halloween candy) to do?

There are several good articles around the Gospel.com community on Halloween and its spiritual significance (or lack thereof). James Watkins has written some useful material on the subject: see his 2005 essay Should Christians Celebrate Halloween? It covers Halloween history and provides a well-thought-out perspective that draws on the writings of the Apostle Paul. Watkins has written articles about several other Halloween-ish topics like ghosts and Harry Potter.

And if you’re looking for a thorough historical perspective, you can’t do better than Christian History Institute’s overview of Halloween, from its pagan roots to its modern incarnation. At the end of the essay is a point/counterpoint pair of articles presenting two different approaches to the question of “should Christian celebrate Halloween?”.

And finally, there’s been some good discussion (and a poll) about Christians and Halloween over at the ThinkChristian blog. So whether you’re dressing up and going trick-or-treating tonight or are staying indoors and avoiding all the creepiness, take a few minutes to think through the questions raised by these articles!

Part of discipleship is understanding the necessity of the spiritual disciplines, and there’s no greater discipline than Prayer. Dr. Krejcir of Discipleship Tools writes about prayer in this way:

Prayer is not just a selfish wish list to get God to cater to our needs and whims; rather, it’s true purpose and the reason it is also a discipline is to shape us by what He has revealed, and to grow in faith, character, perseverance, and maturity.

No one would argue that a healthy prayer life is integral to a Christian’s life, but health is not just a matter of daily repetition. The same article from Discipleship Tools has a series of questions to ask yourself concerning prayer:

1. How would you define The Discipline of Prayer? Are you a person who naturally prays in all situations you face—from daily life to future activities for your own needs and those of others, too? If not, why not?

2. What part does prayer play in your relationships with church members, friends, coworkers, and family? If you see a need, do you first pray? If not, what do you do? What should you do?

3. How does prayerlessness counteract prayerfulness? What is the cost to the Kingdom of God when the church does not engage in prayer or teach and encourage its people to be people of prayer?

Personally, I know that far too often prayer is a secondary solution rather than my primary action. If any of these questions piqued your interest there are a few more and some other thoughts on prayer to ponder in the rest of the article.

What comes first—evangelism or discipleship? It’s commonly thought that discipleship is a one-time process that Christians must go through after they’ve accepted Christ but before they start sharing the Gospel with others. Is discipleship like taking a class in school—you do your homework, graduate, and are then free to move on to the “real” Christian life?

In an article at Lausanne World Pulse, Kumar Abraham argues that this approach isn’t necessarily the best (or most Biblical) way to understand discipleship. Rather than seeing evangelism and discipleship as two separate activities, we should consider them two closely integrated facets of the Christian life:

But which comes first—evangelism or discipleship? Some argue that without doing evangelism, discipleship is impossible. Some say it is only a disciple of Christ who can evangelise. Others may ask why we should even separate the two. [...]

The Bible teaches the integration of evangelism and discipleship. “We proclaim (announcing the gospel publicly) him, admonishing (warn believers) and teaching (the word) everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ” (Colossians 1:28). While evangelizing, we disciple; while discipling new believers, we encourage them to share the gospel.

There are many more articles about discipleship and evangelism in the World Pulse archives.

We’re off to the Internet Ministry Conference this week! That means posting here will be a bit light, but we’ll be keeping busy blogging over at the conference blog. Over the next several days, we’ll be attending workshops and sessions about every aspect of online ministry. If you’re curious about the conference, be sure to check there for blog posts (or watch the conference Twitter feed) from us and other conference attendees.

Do you feel like your relationship with your kids is defined by continual conflict and clashes of will? In a recent article at the Al Menconi Ministries website, Al uses a lighthearted illustration from his own life to demonstrate that parents sometimes need to ‘choose their battles’ with their kids—while expecting obedience from your children is obviously important, choosing to make a mountain over an issue that should be a molehill can do more harm than good.

That’s just one of several articles about parent-child communication that Al’s written over the last several weeks. If you feel like there’s a disconnect between you and your kids, these essays might help:

• Are you nagging or communicating? There’s a fine (but important) line between healthy communication and plain old nagging.
• Are you just the chore-giver? Are you a loving, communicative parent, or just the person who assigns chores around the house?
• A quick fix or a real solution? If you’re like most parents, you’ve found that your kids sometimes make entertainment choices that frustrate or upset you. When this happens, do you go for the “quick fix” or do you take the time to really understand your child’s behavior?

There are hundreds more articles at the AMM website covering topics ranging from parenting to video games to music. Take some time to explore what AMM has to say about raising a healthy family!

Although released almost fifty years ago, Leslie Flynn’s book Serve Him with Mirth is a classic on humor and Christian spirituality. I just stumbled on this today and I’m glad I did. We can all use a little more humor in our lives, especially these days.

Luckily, IEDay ministries has made a free ebook of this work available. Scroll to the bottom of this page to download the ebook in a variety of formats.

From IEDay’s site:

Despite the changes of the last half-century, I am not sure that the church as a whole understands the biblical context, indeed mandate, to use humor. And many find it very hard to perceive the extent to which humor and whimsy is embedded into the vast majority of the books of the Bible. The cultural and linguistic gap between us and the books of the Old and New Testaments can prevent us understanding the frequent use of irony, whimsy, word-play and puns. We expect no humor, so we see none.

Here are a few choice quotations from the book:

How prone people are to associate the sunny, smiling face with the shallow, superficial disposition, and to link up the sad countenance with deep piety! Joy is considered a satanic instrument and melancholy a divine characteristic.

A lady said to the preacher at the door, “Everything you said in your sermon was wonderful and fitted someone or other I know.”

A man used to go forward at every consecration meeting. He always prayed the same way, “Take the cobwebs out of my life.” The preacher, a little tired of hearing him pray the same petition, knelt down beside him at the altar one night and prayed, “Lord, kill the spider!”

Nowadays, humor is commonplace in the Church and in the Christian life, but it wasn’t always so. This little anecdote really shows how grave people were:

In the late eighteenth century, John Newton, rector of St. Mary Woolnoth in England, better known as author of many well-known hymns, among them “Amazing Grace” and “Safely Through Another Week”, asked a friend, “What would you think of seeing a dray-horse jump over St. Paul’s Cathedral?” Then he added, “This would be no more than a flea does, in proportion to its size, when it jumps”.

When this remark was circulated it resulted in no small stir among Newton’s friends. A witticism from him was a matter of concern to others. Because it almost made one laugh, it was a suspicious approximation to a sin. At a ministers’ meeting at that time this saying became a topic of consideration. The verdict was that his words were a near-witticism, just shaving the edge of a precipice. He was excused on the grounds that the comment came from his genius rather than his levity.

The photo of the snowmen is from Flickr user Lawrence OP.

Yesterday we linked to a short devotional summary of the Transfiguration story, which noted its significance in pointing to Jesus’ ultimate mission on earth. But that only scratches the surface of this fascinating account, and some of you are no doubt interested in exploring it further. If so, be sure to take a look at Richard Krejcir’s thorough study of the Transfiguration story at Into Thy Word.

It walks through every element of the Transfiguration, and asks a lot of questions that might not have occurred to you on your first reading: why did Jesus only invite Peter, James, and John? Why did Peter want to build a tent? How would you have reacted if you had witnessed Jesus’ transformation?

Take a few minutes to read through the study alongside with the Transfiguration account, and try and answer the discussion questions—or print them out and bring them to your next Bible study meeting.

Yesterday we posted the story of Jesus’ mountaintop transfiguration. Today, let’s follow up on the Bible’s account with a short essay about the significance of the Transfiguration. This devotional from Christian History Institute explains why the event was so important in the Gospel story:

The transfiguration is a key event in Christ’s life. It confirmed that Christ must die on the cross. Three gospel writers report it. Their simple statements have the ring of truth. Later, in one of his letters, Peter referred to the event, too, reminding his readers that he was an eyewitness to Christ’s glory that day.

The transfiguration confirmed that Jesus had God’s approval and was pure. It foreshadowed Christ’s entry (and eventually every Christian’s entry) into glory.

That essay is one of CHI’s daily stories from Christian history, which walk through the entire year’s worth of noteworthy events from Christian history.

Next week will see not one, but two separate conferences put on by members of the Gospel.com community!

First up is the Internet Ministry Conference, hosted by Gospel Communications (creators of Gospel.com, among other things). Over 200 people—representatives of internet ministries both large and small—will gather in Grand Rapids, Michigan for four days of workshops and networking, all focused on the challenge of doing effective online ministry. Registration for IMC is closed, but keep an eye on the conference blog for updates and reports during the conference.

The other conference next week is the Revival Conference, hosted by Sermon Index. Registration is still open, and it’s free—so if you can make it down to Atlanta, Georgia next week, consider attending! There will be a live webcast of the conference on the conference website starting on October 21, so if you can’t make it, you can still participate online.

That’s a busy week—hope you can attend one of these conferences!