Category: Links

Links for the Weekend (2024-04-19)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Why Gentile Inclusion Doesn’t Affirm Same-Sex Marriage

One of the arguments made in support of same-sex marriage among Christians is that the opening up of the gospel to the Gentiles demands a radical rethinking of Old Testament positions. Rebecca McLaughlin does a good job in this article showing why the broad inclusion of the Gentiles in the church is the reason we have New Testament teaching against same sex relationships.

Like me and every other sinner who repents and trusts in Jesus, my young friend has been washed, sanctified, and justified in Jesus’s name. The invitation to repent and trust Jesus is on offer to you now, regardless of your sexual attractions, history, or long-embraced identity. The only person who has ever loved you perfectly—so much that he endured the most excruciating death for you—is reaching out his arms to you today. He’s paid the price so you and I and any human on this earth can enter into everlasting life with him. Don’t buy the claim that anyone is barred from this by Christian sexual ethics. And if you have not repented and believed in him, don’t wait.

Why Christian history?

Why should Christians pay attention to the history of Christians and the church? This article provides ten short, compelling answers.

Morning After Solstice

Our poem of the week: A delightful sonnet reflecting on time after the summer solstice (the day of the year with the most daylight).

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Six Ways to Respond to God’s Steadfast Love. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2024-04-12)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Prioritizing Our Marriages During the Child-Raising Years

Far too often a couple’s lives revolve around their children and their marriage suffers. This article offers some good counsel.

She was a year away from all the kids being out of the house. While some look forward to this stage of life, my friend was dreading it. She and her husband had grown apart after years of focusing solely on their children. Their marriage was sustained by the distractions of football and soccer games, teen gatherings in their home, and shuffling kids to and fro. Now, the looming prospect of a quieter house with no distractions between them was unwelcome.

Try to Be More Awkward

In order to show love to others at corporate worship, Brianna Lambert wants us to embrace our awkwardness. Find out what she means!

The small greetings I hear from the men and women beside me in church remind me I’m loved. They tell me of the beauty of the fellowship of the body of Christ. They pull me out of my singular focus and remind me I’m part of something bigger—bigger even than the group of families in my small group or who share my similar life circumstances. They lift my eyes to the beauty of the diverse group of church members God has placed around me—people I want to get to know better and learn from. I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to revel in this had the people beside me stayed silent. 

What does it mean that God rested?

CCEF counselor Darby Strickland shares a video meditation on what it means that God rested. She suggests some implications this has for us as well.

Thanks to Phil A for his help in rounding up links this week.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2024-04-05)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Christ’s Resurrection Is the Amen of His Promises

It’s so, so important that we properly understand Christ’s resurrection and what it means for his followers. An eternal existence floating among clouds is not resurrection at all!

If this event is historically true, it makes all other religions false, because Jesus claimed to be the only way to God. To prove this, He predicted He would rise three days after His death. And He did. John Boys (1571–1625), the Dean of Canterbury, put it beautifully: “The resurrection of Christ is the Amen of all His promises.”

God Delivers from the Suffering He Ordains

Many people (including Christians) struggle with the description of God as sovereign. How can God bring us into suffering and then also deliver us from it? Here’s John Piper’s attempt at an answer.

This is why thousands of people have found that the sovereignty of God over their suffering is a precious reality, because it means none of our suffering is meaningless, none of it is owing to the weakness of God or the folly of God or the cruelty of God, but all of it is owing to wise and loving and holy purposes of God for those who trust in his goodness in the midst of it. And the very power and wisdom and love that governs our sorrows now is the same power that will deliver us in God’s all-wise timing.

Tea Cakes with Jesus

Our poem of the week: What might it look like if Jesus visited our messy home and showed us his love there?

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Now, We Laugh. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2024-03-29)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Good News! You Can’t Engineer an Experience with God

In this article, Trevin Wax explores the mystery of prayer and why it might be a good thing that we cannot manufacture feelings of closeness with God whenever we want.

Prayer can be frustrating. We’re fully aware of prayer’s importance in the Christian life, but it’s easy to be disappointed by lackluster results. Maybe you see God answering your prayers, but maybe you don’t. Maybe you feel a sense of God’s closeness at times, but maybe you don’t. Maybe your Bible reading pops with insight that leads you to respond to God with thanksgiving, but maybe it doesn’t.

How (and How Not) to Fight Sin

This is a direct, no-nonsense article about sin, providing ways we should (and ways we should not) fight against it.

To avoid the prowling tempter, you must set up intentional protection against temptation. You must “make no provision for the flesh” (Rom. 13:14) by setting up barbwire, as it were, at all access points. Make it as difficult as possible for you to access something that is sin or might lead you to sin.

dependency

Poem of the week: dependency, by Abigail Moma. This is a great little poem about what it means to come to God like a child.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2024-03-22)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Truthful Thinking Is Greater Than Positive Thinking

I appreciated this alternative to positive thinking: truthful thinking.

The world is broken, and people are complex. Life isn’t easy. Positive thinking won’t change the fact that our world is hurting and full of trauma. Sure, positive thinking may change the way we perceive the world around us, but it won’t address anything beyond our own self-absorption.

More than a Social Gospel

A lot of Christian ministries and ministers like to quote Charles Spurgeon; he was very quotable! This article shows that Spurgeon is not easily categorized as an only-evangelism or an only-social ministry historical figure.

For those who embrace the social gospel, social ministry is at the heart of the gospel. For Spurgeon, social ministry flows out of the gospel. Spurgeon believed ministry to the poor, though not the gospel itself, nonetheless enhances the witness of the gospel. In this sense, social concern serves gospel ministry. It serves the preaching of the gospel by validating the message and providing a tangible expression of Christ’s love toward those in need. In this way, the two are inextricably linked together.

In the Home Depot Parking Lot

Our poem of the week: a delightful meditation on baby babble as holy speech and the privilege of having a front row seat.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Does God Just Tolerate Me? If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2024-03-15)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

We Who Have Few Talents and Sparse Gifts

If you’ve ever thought God might use you more for his kingdom if you had more talents, money, or influence, this post from Tim Challies is one you should read. It’s a great lesson about contentment with what God has given us.

The fact is, the God who used spit and dust to cure a man of his blindness can most certainly make use of you. And I assure you that if you had great talents, you would simply compare yourself to those who have more still. If through greater gifting you had greater opportunity, you would still not be satisfied. If you cannot be satisfied with little, you will not be satisfied with much.

How does the Holy Spirit help me pray?

This is another one of those videos from Ligonier that answers an important question in a short, helpful way. Here, Michael Reeves talks about how the Holy Spirit helps us to pray.

Lenten Sonnet | February 26, 2018

Poem of the week: Andrew Peterson with another Lenten sonnet. This one is about nature warming in the spring.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2024-03-08)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Our limits are a gift from God

We don’t often thank God for our limitations, but Aaron Armstrong argues that might just be what we need to do.

Even more than reminding us that we are not God, our limits encourage us to see the goodness of life together. Of being part of a community that bears one another’s burdens, weeps with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice. People with whom we can share our weaknesses, and God uses to carry us forward.

When the Walk Becomes a Crawl: One of the Most Hopeful Reminders I’ve Read about Sanctification

Justin Taylor shares an excerpt from a David Powlison book that gives great encouragement about the speed and direction of sanctification.

But, in fact, there’s no formula, no secret, no technique, no program, no schedule, and no truth that guarantees the speed, distance, or time frame. On the day you die, you’ll still be somewhere in the middle. But you will be further along.

10 Reasons the Old Testament Matters to Christians

Christians don’t often need to be convinced of the value of reading the New Testament. But the Old Testament is a different story. Here’s a list of ten reasons the Old Testament really matters, with great explanations.

To understand the Old Testament fully, we must start reading it as believers in the resurrected Jesus, with God having awakened our spiritual senses to perceive and hear rightly. As Paul notes, Scripture’s truths are “spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14) and only through Christ does God enable us to read the old covenant materials as God intended (2 Cor. 3:14). This, in turn, allows our biblical interpretation as Christians to reach its rightful end of “beholding the glory of the Lord” and “being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:14–18). Thus, we read for Christ.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called What My Children Taught Me About Grace. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2024-03-01)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

The Bond of Love

This article is especially appropriate for our church as we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper this coming Sunday. Keith Mathison explains the importance of the unity evident when a church takes communion.

Following Augustine, Calvin spoke of this “horizontal” aspect of the Lord’s Supper as “the bond of love.” The Supper is something that is to unite believers and encourage them to love one another. Paul tells us that Christ has only one body of which He makes us all partakers; therefore, we are all one body (1 Cor. 10:17). According to Calvin, the bread in the Supper provides an illustration of the unity we are to have. We are to be joined together, without division, just as the many grains in the bread are joined together to form a single loaf.

Talking with Kids about Gender Issues: Give Them Biblical Vocabulary

I appreciate this effort to equip parents to talk to their children about important issues of gender and sexuality.

Mom and Dad, your key priority is to love, know, and trust God and to understand how the gospel applies to our experience of gender. Christ came offering forgiveness for our sin, including rejecting His design of us as male and female. He came to draw near and heal broken hearts when gender dysphoria triggers shame, and kids feel, and are, outcast and alone. And He is near to you as you engage this vital discipleship pathway with your kids. You may be fearful and overwhelmed with this task, yet remember Jesus’ words to you, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:13-14).

The Idol of Competence

I suspect more of us worship an idol of competence than we realize.

The idol of competence is the desire to be perceived by others as capable. It springs from the belief that my worth is tied to my output. It’s productivity fueled by shame and fear. But if we want to do our work in a God-honoring manner, have joy while we do it, and truly serve God and man, we must disentangle our conception of productivity from the idol of competence.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2024-02-23)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Even Believers Need to Be Warned:
How Hell Motivates Holiness

Though we might wince at the thought of hell and using it to motivate Christian obedience, this article does a good job showing how Paul often did just this in his epistles. This article is sobering but really helpful.

When we turn to Paul’s letters, we actually notice something even more startling than the notecard over my friend’s sink. Regularly throughout his writings, the apostle not only reminds the churches of their formerly hopeless state; he also warns them of their ongoing danger should they drift from Christ. He says not only, “You deserve hell,” but also, “Make sure you don’t end up there.”

Life is More than Mountaintop Experiences

Aaron Armstrong has written a wise article about the highs and lows of the Christian life and how God’s presence is with us in everything.

But when we start chasing after spiritual highs, we also start to define our faith by them. When we get that high, life is good. We feel as though we are gaining greater insights from Scripture. Our prayers are more focused (and possibly ornate). We’re ready to do big things for God and share the gospel with that friend who doesn’t know Jesus. But when the high starts to fade, our sense of intimacy and our resolve go with it.

Lenten Sonnet | March 17, 2017

The poem of the week is a Lenten sonnet by Andrew Peterson. It’s full of Narnian goodness!

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called The Default Posture of Love. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2024-02-16)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Worse Than Any Affliction

It’s always convicting for me to read Joni Eareckson Tada write about her life and her battle against the temptation to complain.

My flesh is wasting away, and who would blame me if I complained? Certainly not the world — it’s natural for them to expect an old lady in a wheelchair to grumble over her losses. But followers of Jesus Christ should expect more from me. Much more.

Gratitude

This article reflects on the story of Jesus healing the ten lepers and draws out some helpful points about thankfulness.

There are times when I’m thankful, but I don’t take the extra step to express that gratitude to God or to the person who’s blessed me. That robs God of the glory He deserves, the other person of the gladness of knowing they made a difference, and me from the delight of counting my blessings and realizing there’s so much more for me than against me!

A Sonnet for Ash Wednesday

Poem of the week: A Sonnet for Ash Wednesday, by Malcolm Guite. Those in our Presbyterian tradition do not usually pay much attention to Ash Wednesday (the beginning of Lent), but this poem is still worth reading and pondering.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here.