The Gospel Coalition

Heaven touches down on planet earth through our gathered churches. And when this happens, you offer the citizens of your nation the hope of a better nation, the residents of your city the hope of a better and lasting city. No matter what challenges you face as an American or non-American, ethnic minority or majority, rich or poor, your hope for a just and peaceful society should not rest on the kingdoms of this world. It should rest on the King himself, who is establishing his heavenly kingdom in the outposts we call the local church. - Collin Hansen and Jonathan Leeman

One benefit of preaching in various churches across the continent and in other parts of the world is getting a glimpse of how different congregations worship and follow the Lord’s commands. Case in point? The variety of ways in which the Lord’s people celebrate the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is communion with King Jesus at his table with his people. We eat the bread and drink the cup, giving thanks for his body and blood, and we’re strengthened for service by this foretaste of the feast to come. You can find a wide spectrum of practices associated with the supper, sometimes in the same denomination. And because the way we partake of the supper is inextricably intertwined with the event’s meaning and significance, it’s no wonder we see Christians throughout history coming to blows over what’s taking place or the proper way of observing this sacred ritual. There’s the East vs. West divide over leavened or unleavened bread and the ongoing debates over whether intinction (dipping the bread in the cup) symbolizes something untrue in our Christology, not to mention the famous showdown between Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli at Marburg, with Luther—exasperated and exasperating—scrawling on a board Hoc est corpus meum (“This is my body!”). Cards on the table—I’m one of those old-timey Baptists who isn’t “memorial-only” but believes in the strengthening grace of the supper via an encounter with Christ through the Spirit, and who wishes all churches celebrated the supper every Sunday. “Amidst us our Beloved stands” is the first line in Charles Spurgeon’s Communion hymn. The pushback I get regarding frequency is that weekly participation would make it less meaningful (although the same principle seems not to apply to preaching, praying, singing, or taking up an offering). Maybe we’d alleviate that concern by changing how we take the supper from time to time—so different approaches can highlight various facets of the beauty of Christ meeting us at his table. In what follows, I’m laying out a few ways I’ve seen the supper taken in evangelical congregations, with an eye to different facets of beauty in how we follow the Lord’s command to eat and drink together in remembrance of him until he comes.

If you’ve studied the principles of Bible interpretation, you know “allegory” is a bad word. Allegory is a way of reading a text that takes the details and makes them say something other than what they appear to mean. Because the Bible is God’s Word and because the Bible tells of people, places, and events from human history, we cannot read its historical narratives allegorically. Seen in that light, “allegory” is a bad word. Or is it? Throughout his letter to the Galatians, the apostle Paul reviews Genesis’s account of Abraham’s life. At one point, Paul looks at how Abraham came to have two children (Ishmael and Isaac) from two different women (Hagar and Sarah). In his exposition, the apostle says something startling: "Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother." (Gal. 4:24–26) It appears Paul has done what our teachers told us not to do. He seems to have taken a historical account from the Old Testament, made it say what it didn’t say, and labeled his reading “allegory.” Let’s take a closer look at what Paul is doing.

Melissa Kruger and Courtney Doctor talk with Jen Wilkin about how to embrace a more beautiful and biblical view on bodies, aging, beauty, and youth. They discuss why we should see aging as a gift rather than a disease, and how we can prepare our spirits for the decline of our bodies. This conversation will not tell you where to “draw the line” when it comes to pursuing a more youthful appearance through beauty treatments, but it will renew your perspective so that that question will seem less important. ??ON THIS VIDEO: 00:00 Clarity and purpose in aging 8:56 Impact of cultural moment on aging 17:03 Discipleship and aging 22:54 Theology of the body and aging 37:08 Living in light of eternity 42:46 Advice for younger women

Don Carson: Have you ever tried to share your faith with someone in postmodern guise, and this person responds to you, “Look, I’m happy for you if your Jesus gives you meaning in life and a sense of direction. That’s good. We all have different forms of spirituality, don’t we? With you it’s Jesus, and if he helps you, I’m happy for you. With me it’s the vibrations of crystals. I’m quite a spiritual person, and I don’t like it when you start cramming your Jesus down my throat”? Now what do you say? It may be it is the part of wisdom to back off a little and give at least a little more space and keep befriending the person, but sooner or later, mustn’t you say something like this? “Look, Charles, the one thing I can’t do is back off, because this God made you. He made you by the Word, who came into history as Jesus, and therefore, you owe him. The fact that you don’t see that constitutes the most abysmal danger. I would be less than a friend if I did not warn you of that. You owe him. You are not independent.” In Scripture again and again, human responsibility, human accountability is grounded in the doctrine of creation. My mandate this week in the morning biblical expositions is to lay out some of the turning points of confessional Christianity. Yesterday, I began with?Genesis 3, and two or three of you have rightly asked me why I didn’t begin with?Genesis 1. Wow! It’s because I had to make some choices. You will also observe I’ve said nothing about the Abrahamic covenant. I’ve said nothing about Sinai and the Law yet. I have said nothing about the rise of the kingdom. There are great turning points in the Bible that must be understood to make a cohesive pattern, but here I want to take a minute to go back to?Genesis 1, as it were, because the very presupposition of?Genesis 3?is creation. The presupposition of human responsibility to God is the fact that God made us. We are not independent in the first place. God is not our peer, a sort of souped-up human being. “He knows a little more, but good grief, he shouldn’t flaunt it.” No, we are made by him and for him, and the first measure of our rebellion is we deny our creaturely status. ----- In this lecture, Don Carson explores the profound theological themes in the prologue of John’s Gospel (John 1:1–18), emphasizing the significance of the Word (Logos) as both the inner thought of God and the outward expression of his self-disclosure. Carson highlights the dual roles of the Word as light and life, and he contrasts the law given through Moses with the grace received through Jesus Christ. Listen to the Carson Center Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. For an episode transcript:?https://lnkd.in/gR5gGstX

The text messages and emails began arriving in clusters last month, all with a similar message: “Please pray for me; I’ve been laid off.” I pastor a church near Washington, D.C., where government jobs typically insulate us from economic downturns. Recent policy changes, though, have triggered widespread layoffs among federal employees and contractors, affecting nearly everyone in our congregation. Our church family, once characterized by professional stability, now reflects the face of economic uncertainty. I should have been better prepared. During the Great Recession, I experienced the gut-wrenching reality of job loss firsthand. I remember the shock of the initial news, the quiet shame of sending out my résumé, the growing anxiety as savings dwindled, and the identity crisis that emerged in the first weeks of unemployment. Yet despite this experience, I was surprisingly ill-equipped to minister effectively to my congregation in their time of need. The painful lesson I learned is one many church leaders face: Personal experience with hardship doesn’t automatically translate into knowing how to shepherd others through it. Most pastors and church leaders know exactly what to do when members face a health crisis or the loss of loved ones, but we’re often less equipped to address unemployment. In a culture where “What do you do?” is typically the first question we ask on meeting someone new, the loss of employment can feel like the loss of self. We need to do a better job of acknowledging that unemployment isn’t merely an economic hardship but a spiritual problem that often triggers a profound identity crisis.

On December 19, 2024, Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson released the first two episodes of his megahit Beast Games. It has since become Prime Video’s most-watched unscripted TV show, with more than 50 million viewers. The winner took home a $10 million cash prize, the largest reality TV payout in history. MrBeast runs YouTube’s biggest channel, targeted toward young adults. Unsurprisingly, Beast Games is marketed as a family friendly show in the vein of American Ninja Warrior or The Amazing Race. That’s why I was surprised to see that the show’s main cultural reference point (more on this later) is the Korean series Squid Game, a hyperviolent Netflix hit that tells the fictional story of exorbitantly wealthy Koreans using a massive cash prize to manipulate exorbitantly poor Koreans into playing life-and-death remixes of children’s games. The show critiques predatory entertainment and highlights the corrupting nature of materialism and greed. It gives gruesome expression to the truth that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils” (1 Tim. 6:10). MrBeast not only seems to have missed the social critiques of Squid Game but has taken them one step further and inverted them. Beast Games doesn’t challenge greed, materialism, or predatory entertainment. It revels in them. Despite being billed as clean fun for the whole family, it teaches a twisted message: The love of money is the root of great entertainment.

There is no doubt in my mind that churches that show kindness will have still better pastors as a result; for it is only natural that their pastors will return to their pastoral leadership with a fresh determination to love and care for, to teach and preach to, and to pray for these who have so loved them. . . . We must never underestimate the significance of our simple, practical, loving kindness to our pastors. - Christopher Ash

One unintended consequence of live streaming worship services is the subtle shift toward every church reenvisioning its congregational worship as a broadcast. This is nothing new for larger churches. Throughout Christian history, the greatest pastors and theologians delivered sermons that were written down and circulated, a practice that can’t help but alter the preaching moment at some level. A pastor prepares a sermon for a particular flock while knowing the message may be “overheard” by others. In the media age, it was first radio and then television that nudged congregational worship toward a broadcast mentality. But live streaming, combined with social media (especially since COVID-19) has accelerated this development for nearly all churches, in a way that’s unprecedented in church history. I’ve commented before on some unintended side effects of this trend, including the strain on denominations when everyone’s churches are immediately visible and accessible. But there’s another side effect that concerns me—a shift that’s easy to miss because it’s not about production quality or online reach. It’s about the worshiper.

In church, we’re constantly encouraged to pray more. For young preachers especially, no matter the sermon text, the same applications constantly reappear: Go to church more, read your Bible more, and pray more. It’s not that those applications are wrong, especially the one to pray more. After all, Paul instructed the Thessalonians to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). Every Christian knows we should pray more. Yet what we most need when it comes to prayer isn’t a greater sense of guilt. If a book is going to help us pray, it needs to invite and inspire rather than simply inform. In Pour Out Your Heart: Discovering Joy, Strength, and Intimacy with God Through Prayer, Jeremy Linneman, the lead pastor of Trinity Community Church, inspires readers to move beyond intellectual acknowledgment of the need to pray and into a vibrant, God-dependent practice of prayer. He begins by establishing our identity as children of the Father and then moves into practical instructions.