When I was a young Christian in my late teens, I was “rebuke-happy.” I had no problem confronting and correcting the faults of others. The people I looked up to modeled this to me, and I benightedly followed their example.

I knew the Scriptures well; so I was cocked and loaded for bear with my Bible verses in hand. Some of my favorite texts at the time were those in Proverbs that say wise people love reproof and fools hate it (Proverbs 9:8; 12:1; 13:1, etc.)

As I grew in the Lord, I came to some painful discoveries. One of them was that I had no idea how to correct another believer in the spirit of Jesus Christ. And I did more damage than good with my “corrections.”

Another was that God didn’t want me correcting everyone else, even when I spotted faults and flaws in others (which, by the way, is no great gift or something to boast about).

Adjusting the behavior of my brothers and sisters in Christ wasn’t my job or duty. And I needed to pay more attention to my own spiritual walk than that of others (James 4:11). Continue Reading…

“All anybody needs to know about prizes is that Mozart never won one.”

~ Henry Mitchell

“I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

~ Philippians 3:14

More on receiving prizes:

An Audience of One

The Peril of Measuring Yourself Against Others

With few exceptions, the story that Christians tell others and themselves begins with Genesis 3 rather than Genesis 1. Our starting point is the fall of humanity.

The result: Everything is framed around God’s redemptive mission. It’s all about saving a lost world.

Part of the reason for this, I believe, is that evangelical Christians have built their theology mostly on Romans and Galatians. And many nonevangelical Christians have built it on the Gospels (particularly the Synoptics—Matthew, Mark, and Luke).

And for both groups, Ephesians and Colossians have been put in the footnotes.

But what if we began not with the needs of humans but with the intent and purpose of God? What if we took as our point of departure not the earth after the fall but the eternal activity within God Himself before the constraints of physical time?

In other words, what if we built our theology on Ephesians and Colossians and allowed the other New Testament books to follow suit? Continue Reading…

Last week, I notified you about our upcoming plans for the podcast. Thanks to everyone who subscribed in iTunes, the podcast hit #1 in Canada and #13 in the USA.

These rankings are unbelievable to me as I’m essentially a nobody. Unlike the others who have podcasts in the top 20, I’m not a mega church pastor, and I don’t have a television program. (And I have no plans for either.)

The interest in the podcast is simply a testament to the hunger that exists for Christ-centered messages with depth and a good dose of humor sprinkled in.

Now on to something related to the podcast.

At the encouragement of two of my friends, I’m toying with the idea of starting an Internet Radio Show.

If we end up launching it, the show will include interviews with interesting guests and lots of shtick.  Continue Reading…

Over the last three weeks, two interesting things have happened that provoked this post:

1) A new author asked me to address the issue of disagreements, especially with regard to those who write books and blogs and those who read them.

2) I had a phone conversation with a well-known webmaster who read a negative review of one of my books. Before the conversation, the webmaster was almost certain that we bitterly disagreed about many things. After we talked, however, he realized that we didn’t disagree about anything we discussed. He also realized that the review had grossly misrepresented my book.

If you have ever had someone disagree with something you’ve said or written . . . or you’ve disagreed with what someone has ever said or written, then this post is for you.

Three things by way of introduction. When people disagree with you . . .

1. Some will be charitable in their disagreement.
2. Others will be defamatory.
3. Sometimes many of the people who think they disagree with you really don’t. Continue Reading…

I’ve been following the Lord for a little over 30 years now. And as I’ve watched the passing parade, some of the most zealous, devout, committed Christians that I knew in their 20s and 30s are now atheists in their 40s.

They filed Chapter 7 on their Christian life.

Each of them shared one of three things in common:

1. They chose to become offended by God when He didn’t meet their expectations.
2. They chose to become bitter at others when they didn’t meet their expectations.
3. They made provision for their flesh and crossed an invisible line in which they were completely overtaken by it.

Holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith (1 Timothy 1:19). Continue Reading…

The early Christians wrote songs to express their spiritual experience and revelation of Jesus Christ. Some of the earliest Christian songs appear in the New Testament. Two of the most powerful are found in Colossians 1 and Philippians 2.

In addition, a strong part of our Christian heritage is the practice of writing new lyrics to well-known tunes. This practice goes back to at least the Reformers. But I suspect it precedes that.

Some of our most beloved hymns were written to existing tunes that were known and sung by the general culture.

On February 4, 2012, I delivered a message to a Christian community entitled Living in the Divine Parenthesis. The night before I brought that message, I wrote a song as a companion to the talk.

The song was written to the tune of Wavin’ Flag by K’naan — a specific version of it performed by the Young Artists for Haiti. That version of Wavin’ Flag is amazing; the Young Artists’ voices are outstanding; the cause (the need in Haiti) critically important. Continue Reading…

Read the post and be sure to scroll down to see rankings. Thanks to all of you who have subscribed.

Many of you who are long-time subscribers of this blog are also subscribed to my podcast.

Those of you who are new probably aren’t aware of it.

Plans are being laid for new episodes just around the corner.

Among them are the messages that I delivered at the 2009 Zoe Conference in Nashville, TN; never before-released messages I delivered on Colossians and Ephesians; new radio-broadcast interviews; new first chapters of upcoming books; and several “surprise” episodes that will be peppered liberally with humorous shtick.

You’ll want to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any new episodes. By subscribing, you’ll also receive the 53 episodes that have already been published. This includes past conferences messages, interviews, first chapters, and humorous sketches.

We plan to start posting new episodes in June. But we want to give you a heads-up now so you can subscribe early by the time the new episodes are published. Continue Reading…

Yesterday, I posted Part I of my interview with David Lamb on his excellent book, God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist?

Today, we resume with Part II. Be sure to read my closing word at the end of this post.

Frank: Some have suggested that the city of Jericho was already destroyed before the Hebrew people finally settled in Canaan. This is reportedly evidenced by several independent methods of dating the final destruction layers of Jericho.

If true, this is an argument against an accurate historical portrayal in Joshua. The idea being that the Israelites idealized their early historical conquests after the fact. According to Kenneth A. Kitchen’s book, On the Reliability of the Old Testament, by the time of the Exodus, the walls of Jericho would have been little more than the backs of houses that ringed the small settlement. Allegedly, Jericho was largely abandoned at the supposed time of the exodus. What is your response to this? Continue Reading…

Like their predecessors, the “New Athiests” have had a field day with the Old Testament, using it to malign God and cast aspersions on His goodness.

This isn’t terribly hard to do. Just open up Exodus, Numbers, or Deuteronomy and start reading them with a modern-Western-rational mindset.

Enter David Lamb’s compelling book, God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist?

Lamb is an Old Testament scholar. And his God Behaving Badly is a fog-clearing piece of work that does a beautiful job defending the God of Creation by shedding light on the perplexities that are generated when modern (and postmodern) minds try to make sense of the Old Testament. 

God Behaving Badly is written at a popular level, and it’s extremely accessible. Lamb also throws in some comic relief to mix it up. But the wisdom he employs throughout the book is both subtle and helpful.

This is part 1 of a 2-part interview I did with Lamb. Note that I purposely asked him the tough questions that plagued me as a young believer . . . the questions that atheists, agnostics, and Deists love to gleefully throw in the face of Christians. Check out his answers and get the book.  Continue Reading…