Links

This page has a modge podge of things that I have found useful. It contains everything from quotes and books that I like to podcasts, videos, and slideshows.

If you don’t want to scroll through the entire list, you can click on one of the links below and filter the resources by specific category.

I will update this list as I discover new resources.

Male/Female Relationships in the Church

Practical Theology for Women
January 9, 2016

Yet, as any single woman who walks into an evangelical church knows, sometimes it feels like not much with the opposite sex is left for her at all. She has to avoid making eye contact or smiling too much with pretty much every man in the church for fear of being thought of as forward or too interested. I hear this from a lot of women and have experienced it myself. Our sex-crazed secular culture has radically infiltrated the church, and our battles against it have often made us hyper aware of sex instead of giving us a counter cultural way of thinking about male/female relationships in the Body of Christ.

I loved this article from Wendy Alsup.

A Cry for Justice
December 18, 2015

TRRB1VTGJD

“Subverting the meaning of the real 10 commandments to foster worship of an institution that will pass away when Christ returns, is the height of purveying the false gospel that marriage is to be esteemed and honored above God himself.”

This is an important article. Read it HERE.

Concerns with the Homeschooling Movement?: RC Sproul Jr. Responds

R.C. Sproul Jr.: Jesus Changes Everything
June 23, 2015

I’m writing from this year’s Christian Home Educators of Colorado conference. It’s always encouraging to be here, to visit with friends and to be encouraged. I always find homeschool conferences encouraging.  That said, where there are people, there are sins to be concerned about, and that includes we who homeschool. Here are five things I believe are a current danger.

Five points that nail it. Read them HERE.

Do Christians Have Rights?

BJUGrace
March 3, 2015

In some Christian circles people are taught, “When you get angry, it’s because you thought you had rights, and you thought those rights were violated, but that just shows your pride and self-centeredness. Everything you have belongs to God, so if you’re unhappy, you’re claiming a right you should have given up, and you’re in sin. You’re not entitled to anything, but God will give you everything you need. So that should make you happy, and if you’re not, you’re in sin.” (This is paraphrased from an explanation of the concept that I found in a forum. My impression was that the one explaining it was a proponent of the teaching.)

So imagine you’re a vulnerable person (for example, a child, or a naïve young woman) in an outwardly Christian home or institution that is covertly extremely abusive. (These are far more common than you might think.) You’re taught that you have no rights.

Then you’re sexually violated. Again and again. Besides whatever threats and manipulation and lies the evil offender might snarl or whisper in the dark or write on the wall with your blood, in your ears is ringing the dictum, “You have no rights. Christians have no rights.”

The fallacious nature of this argument and the odious results are—or should be—painfully, painfully obvious. But someone asked me to please address this issue from a Biblical perspective, because she grew up thinking that the Bible taught that she hadno rights. (“We had no right to expect safety. We had no right to defend or protect ourselves. We had no right to be angry. We had no right to feel sadness.”)

Read the rest of this article HERE.

Don’t Hold Your Hair Back When You Throw Up

Credo House
May 12, 2015

Martin Luther once made a controversial statement: “Be a sinner. Sin boldly.” I love Luther. He did not hold his hair back when vomiting. He let the vomit shine for all to see. Luther was keenly aware of his sin, and of grace. Luther’s comment was meant to provocatively communicate something much deeper. “Sin boldly . . .” the statement begins; it continues, “. . . but believe more boldly.” Luther did not care much for self-righteousness. He did not like masks. He did not like trying to impress people. He was continually attempting to make those who were satisfied with their own works recognize their own utter depravity. “Look in the mirror,” he might have said. “You are a wretch. Let your wretchedness be seen. If you clean yourself up, you may fool yourself into thinking that you don’t need grace.” What a terrible place to be: Self-fooled and graceless. Therefore, when you sin, sin boldly and let it be known (don’t hold your hair back).

Oh boy. I just loved this. Read the rest HERE.

Let “Bible-Belt Near Christianity” Die? Um. Yes.

Moore to the Point
May 12, 2015

This is precisely what several of us have been saying for years. Bible Belt near-Christianity is teetering. I say let it fall. For much of the twentieth century, especially in the South and parts of the Midwest, one had to at least claim to be a Christian to be “normal.” During the Cold War, that meant distinguishing oneself from atheistic Communism. At other times, it has meant seeing churchgoing as a way to be seen as a good parent, a good neighbor, and a regular person. It took courage to be an atheist, because explicit unbelief meant social marginalization. Rising rates of secularization, along with individualism, means that those days are over—and good riddance to them.

Read the rest of this article and shout AMEN with me (or cuss me out, depending on your perspective) right HERE.

A Cry For Justice
April 3, 2014

He was betrayed by a man who was supposedly his close friend. An even closer friend promised to support him but fell asleep while he was agonizing, and later disowned him.  He was interrrogated and pushed from pillar to post by power-mongering men who had no fear of God. He was witnessed against by liars, was spat upon, punched, beaten, had his hair pulled, was whipped, scoffed at, ridiculed and insulted for telling the truth, taunted, stripped of his clothes and dignity, offered drugged wine, and killed by slow torture involving violent stabbing of his body, dislocation of his joints, blood loss, dehydration, asphyxiation, and eventually heart failure.

May we all flee to him, cling to him and rest in him — for he saves all who come to him with humble hearts, and he knows our griefs and pains, our weaknesses, our limping, our failures and our fears.

Read the rest of Betrayal – Our Lord Knows All About It

The Apple Slice

Design for Mankind
March 6, 2015

I’m in the kitchen now, and the toddler has thrown a tantrum, and the day has been long and hard and kind of heavy. And your smiling family portrait, the one in the orange grove where you’re wearing the chambray dress? That looks pretty nice right now. I want that instead. I want to trade the truth I’ve arrived at – that my family is precisely the gift I need and that our struggles are uniquely suited for us – for a single slice of your life that looks appealing when my eyes are glazed over and my heart is tired.

I am Eve, trading gardens for apples.

Read the rest of The Apple Slice.

God Doesn’t Care About Shells

Gary Thomas Blog
March 24, 2015

“God can and does heal and redeem broken marriages. But some individuals can and do marry evil people who resist God’s Holy Spirit but try to use God’s word as cover to keep perpetrating their evil. Marriage, like a church, to a certain extent is still a shell. If a marriage “shell” is used to allow real people to be abused and hurt, God may well take it down. Keep in mind, in the first century, Jewish women weren’t allowed to divorce their husbands. Jesus fought divorce to protect women who could be easily discarded with little prospects. His comments on divorce were to protect women, not to keep them in a harmful situation. He was caring for real people more than he was idolizing a “shell.”

Haven’t we turned this around a little? When a man preys on his wife and children, refusing to repent, almost laughing that they can’t escape his abuse because he has not been sexually unfaithful and won’t abandon them so any divorce would be “unbiblical,” and then he’s supported by well-meaning Christians who essentially say “the shell of marriage matters more than the woman and children inside the shell,” I think we’ve lost the heart of God.”

Read the rest of this article HERE.

Spiritual Maturity and Emotional Health Go Hand in Hand

Christ Centered Counseling
March 11, 2015

“True spiritual maturity is not possible without concurrent growth in emotional health. In one of my comments to last weeks’ post, I said that what’s going inside of us often repeats itself in our outside world. For example, when we’re unhealthy on the inside, we attract others who are unhealthy. When we beat ourselves up on the inside for our faults, flaws, mistakes, and failures, we are more likely to tolerate that behavior from others on the outside. When we don’t think for ourselves we are more likely to blindly follow or believe things people tell us without checking it out for ourselves. When we feel unhealthy, we also often feel incapable of taking care of ourselves or standing up for ourselves in appropriate ways. When we don’t care about ourselves or care for our soul, spirit, mind, or body then we are more likely to accept relationships with others who do not care for our body, mind, spirit and soul either.”

Read the rest of Shortening the Abuse Learning Curve by Leslie Vernick HERE.