Gospel.com Blog

Just before Jesus died on the cross he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This chilling question is the first line of the first verse of Psalm 22, a song of tremendous torment and devoted hope.

Paul Lusher over at The Center for Church Music has four short reflections on how Psalm 22 relates to Lent, or what he calls The Season of the Cross. They’re excellent articles that speak of the power of music and importance of worship during this season.

From the introduction to the first article:

No believer can read this Psalm without being confronted with the reality of Christ’s crucifixion. It inspires adoration – and a desire to understand what we can learn from this astonishing text. While we’ll never know if our Lord actually sang these words while hanging form that accursed tree, its words are infused with a holy wonder that can only inspire reverence and awe.

How are you commemorating Lent? There’s no Scriptural requirement to mark the season of Lent, of course. But many Christians find it helpful to mark the period of time before Easter with some sort of deliberate spiritual activity, whether it’s giving up a specific habit, denying yourself something, or engaging in a regular practice like devotions or Scripture reading.

Several writers from the IVPress community are engaging in Lent journeys and are sharing them online—and they invite anyone to participate along with them. The Strangely Dim blog has a good roundup of these; here’s a quick look at what these writers are doing for Lent:

• At Likewise Books, author Tamara Park is sending out a short email each week of Lent with a reflection, song, Scripture, and image to help you focus on Christ. Likewise encourages anyone who wants to receive the weekly emails to write to likewise@ivpress.com and put “Lenten Sacred Encounter” on the subject line.
• Author Kimberlee Conway Ireton is posting a devotional reflection on her blog each week of Lent. Her reflections are based on readings from the Revised Common Lectionary.
• David Zimmerman, author of Deliver Us from Me-ville, is posting a quote from that book on his blog each day of Lent. Accompanying those quotes is a Me-ville reading guide you can follow to read through the book along with him during Lent. It’s all at his Loud Time blog, where he’s begun posting excerpts.

These are three solid ways of journeying through Lent—and there are certainly many more good Lent resources out there. We’ll share them here as we come across them in the weeks to come!

Two new features were unveiled today at the Bible Gateway, one of them specifically related to Lent (which officially began today on Ash Wednesday). Here’s a quick rundown of the new items:

• A new Lent reading plan. Have you ever thought about making a commitment during Lent to help you focus on the meaning of Easter? Committing to spending more time in the Bible is always a good idea, and a Lent plan that walks you through each of the four Gospels in time for Easter might help you do just that. Read more about the Lent reading plan on the Bible Gateway blog.
• On a somewhat related note, the Bible Gateway now makes it possible to subscribe to a reading plan (such as the aforementioned Lent reading plan) via email, so you can have each day’s Scripture reading delivered to your inbox. It’s still in beta, but if you’re interested, head over to the Bible Gateway to read more about it and subscribe to an email reading plan.

Stop by the Bible Gateway, try out the new features, and let the Bible Gateway team know what you think!

What does a Christian life look like in the world of academia? Last December, InterVarsity’s Graduate & Faculty Ministries put on the Following Christ conference, where speakers like N.T. Wright and Andy Crouch talked about faith and the academic world. And fortunately for those of us who didn’t attend, they’ve collected audio and video from the conference and put it all online for free at the Following Christ conference website.

The highlight of the site is the archive of conference audio, which contains over seven hours of audio from the conference’s plenary sessions, including a three-part study of Colossians by N.T. Wright and an exhortation to understand science as worship by Francis Collins.

If you’re a grad student or a faculty member in the hallowed halls of academia (or even if you’re not), this is a site worth checking out—it’s living proof that the Christian faith is alive and well in the world of higher education.

Arab Vision is a media ministry that produces television programs for the Arab world. They have Arab Christians working at every level of their ministry in order to produce quality Christian programming for countries largely untouched by Christ.

Some facts about Arab countries from Arab Vision’s profile:

• Almost every Arab family has a television set
• Half of all Arab homes has a satellite dish, which allow them to view channels beyond government censorship
• At least half of the Arab population is functionally illiterate

Here’s a translation of what one Algerian had to say about the ministry:

The thing I like about you is that you adapt Christianity to our own people. The Kabyl language and the culture make things relevant and it does not seem strange for any one to accept Christ. I have read the Kabyl New Testament and I was surprised to see my heart opening up.

On one of my trips to France, a Kabili evangelist told me about Christ but I declined the invitation. Another opportunity was given to me by a group of Christians but I declined it too. A third time, I was invited by the Copts on one of my trips to Egypt, and I refused again.But when I saw you speak in Kabili about Jesus and who Jesus is, I couldn’t resist, and now I want to accept Him in my life. Would you be willing to help me to find a church in the neighborhood? I have heard there is a church somewhere not too far from where I live. Thanks for your help and your availability.

Read more about Arab Vision.

Christianity Today’s added a new blog to their growing blog community! The new Christianity Today Movies blog is authored by CT editor Mark Moring and film blogger Peter Chattaway (of FilmChatBlog, one of the staples of my daily blog reading), and seems an excellent companion to the film discussions that CT has hosted over the years.

If you haven’t checked in at CT lately, they’ve been expanding their blog presence quite a bit over the last several months. In addition to their established Out of Ur blog, they added a Politics blog last year to cover the 2008 election cycle (among other things) and more recently a Christian History blog. They’ve got some solid Christian writers driving the blogs—well worth adding to your list of daily reads.

The Joshua Project is attempting to “bring definition to the unfinished task” by cataloging information on all of the people groups of the world. Think of it as an evangelistic encyclopedia for humanity.

Currently, they’ve identified the different groups in each country and are steadily working on filling in details. It’s a great way to learn about how to pray for a country; however, if this is something that strikes your fancy, you might consider researching a people group help them out. This listing about the Manchu people in China is a great example of the kind of information they’d like to have for every people group on the planet.

Happy Valentine’s Day from Gospel.com!

If you’re still scrambling to come up with a perfect (or at least acceptable) gift for your significant other, you probably don’t have any time to spare reading Reverend Fun’s collection of Valentine-themed cartoons. (On the other hand, maybe there isn’t much left for you to do besides laugh.) And of course if you’re single and pointedly ignoring Valentine’s Day, you can at least read ‘em and chuckle at the silliness of the holiday and the societal stir it causes each year.

What is a Valentine, exactly? It’s not just a mildly witty romantic card you pick up at the florist along with a bouquet of roses. Valentine—make that Saint Valentine, and there was more than one person who bore that title—was a Christian martyr, although details of his life (and his connection to what would become a holiday about romantic love) are somewhat vague. Christianity Today has a concise history of the holiday and the practice of card-exchanging on February 14, as does the Christian History Institute.

If your curiousity isn’t satisfied by those articles, the Wikipedia entry for Saint Valentine has more info, and History.com has an entire section devoted to the holiday.

A lot of Valentine’s Day material focuses on the early stages of a romantic relationship: initial courtship or dating, with some discussion of engagement or marriage. But for millions of people, the focus of Valentine’s Day isn’t a first date or schoolyard crush, but an everyday marriage relationship that has seen its ups and downs over months, years, or decades of married life.

To help husbands and wives think through their marriage relationship this Valentine’s Day, I can’t think of a better resource that ACTS International’s collection of essays about marriage and family relationships. Here are a few highlights:

• The Art of Staying in Love: is there hope for a marriage relationship after the “honeymoon wears off” and the intensity of romantic love starts to fade? Richard Innes describes what true love looks like in your marriage—love doesn’t begin and end with that butterflies-in-your-stomach feeling.
• Living Again After Divorce: it might seem wrong to talk about divorce on Valentine’s Day, but it’s a reality for countless people. If Valentine’s Day brings with it bitter memories about a divorce or broken relationship, this essay can help you gain perspective.
• Building a Healthy Marriage hits on some similar themes, encouraging husbands and wives to work on growing in love rather than just falling in love. See also Seven Secrets for a Successful Marriage, which has lots of practical advice.