Tag: David Mathis

Links for the Weekend (2024-09-13)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

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

4 Reasons You Might Think the Bible Is Boring

If we’re bored with the Bible, we might need to question the way we’re approaching it.

The Bible is the Drama of the ages, the Story of all stories. In this book we read of the living God’s acts of creation and redemption. We see the true story of the world. It rivals all other epics and transcends ancient myths. The Bible is not like any other book.

If you’re bored with the Bible, have you wondered why? A variety of explanations exist, and any (or several) of them could identify the problem. Let’s consider four possibilities.

Will You Love Jesus in Five Years?

David Mathis uses the metaphor of training in this article—how can we condition our souls to love Jesus now and in the future?

The question is not whether we are training our souls right now or not. Oh, we are training them. Unavoidably so. With every new day, in every act and choice. With every thought approved and word spoken and initiative taken. With every desire indulged or renounced. With every meditation of our hearts in spare moments. With every click, like, and share. With every podcast play, video view, check of the scores on ESPN, or browse of the headlines news. With every fresh opportunity to show love and compassion received or rejected. In all the little moments that make up our human days and lives, we are constantly becoming who we will be and ever reshaping what our hearts pine for and find pleasing. The question is not if we’re reshaping our souls but how.

The Shallows

Our poem of the week: The Shallows, by Michael Stalcup. This is an arresting poem about God’s creation as beautiful art—with a wonderful final line!

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 (1/15/2021)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

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

Are Paper Bibles Better?

At Desiring God, David Mathis urges us to read our Bibles deeply and meditatively. And, for some people, this might mean that they need to spend more time with a physical Bible.

I want to invite you, here at the outset of a new year, to join me in doing something countercultural: get a paper Bible and learn to read it differently from your phone and other screens, and make the words of God your rock in a world of multiplied words of sand. You don’t need an old tattered, torn, marked up, and re-covered Bible like mine. You might consider, though, whether paper might make a difference in your time alone with God. There is some research to consider, not just my experience.

A Word of Hope for Those with Chronic Pain

This was written during Advent, but I think it is still helpful. We all experience chronic pain or know someone who does. What does it look like for people with such pain to wait in hope?

Waiting in chronic pain can wear you down, shrivel your love, fill you with self-pity, and poison your heart. Or it can refine your character, build your patience and endurance, and increase your longing for God. Whether our waiting does the one or the other largely depends on what we believe is on the other side of this suffering.

How to Overcome Temptation

Jared Wilson reflects on Jesus’s temptation by the devil and what we can learn from it about fighting sin.

Thanks to Jesus, temptation doesn’t have to be our undoing. Until he returns, we will struggle with sin, but we can fight against it and the constant attraction to it we face, if we will cling to Christ’s grace and follow Christ’s example in staying alert, staying focused, and staying in the word that gives power.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article by Sarah Wisniewski called I Am Not Enough. 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 (12/4/2020)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

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

Advent in a Global Pandemic

David Mathis writes about the themes of darkness and light as they relate to this year and the Advent season. The bottom line? “But Advent looks darkness square in the eye and issues this great promise for our season of waiting: darkness will not overcome the Light.”

Advent, the season of waiting and preparation before the high feast of Christmas, is a chance to regain spiritual sanity, and create fresh and healthier rhythms personally and as a family and as churches. As we enter the six darkest weeks of the year in this hemisphere, we will pivot midway to mark the greatest and brightest turning point in all history: the birth of Christ. And perhaps this Advent will begin restoring what the locusts have taken this year.

An Advent Series on Christmas Carols

The Daily Grace Podcast is doing a series during Advent which examines Christmas carols. There will be a new carol explored each week (new podcasts are posted on Tuesday mornings) including a performance by an artist, history on the background of the song, and reminders of the gospel message throughout. Here’s a link to the first episode in this series—the subject is the song “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”

Older Women, Young Churches Need You

Hannah Nation explains why older women are such a crucial part of local churches, especially churches with lots of younger members. She also explains how younger women can benefit from relationships with their elders in the faith.

These concerns bring to mind the words Paul wrote to Titus. He writes that older women “are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled” (2:3–5). Older women who mentor, disciple, and care for younger women are an essential part of a biblical community.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article by Sarah Wisniewski called Quarantine, Regret, and the Gospel. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Thanks to Maggie A and Sarah W for their 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 (1/3/2020)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

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

Seize the Morning

Many people are in a reflective and/or goal-setting mode at the beginning of the year. David Mathis helps us think about how we might make the most of our mornings. (I recognize that the morning may not be a good time for everyone, but many of these principles can apply to any time of day you’d like!)

The Bible never commands the modern “quiet time.” Nor does it specify that we must read our Bibles first thing in the morning. In fact, the concept of Christians having their own copy of the Scriptures for private reading is a fairly recent phenomenon in the history of the church. So, here at the outset of the year, we’re not talking mainly about an obligation but an opportunity.

For Christians, getting our souls within consistent earshot of God’s voice in his word is as basic as sleeping and eating and even breathing. Our fully human Savior himself said, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). If Jesus needed his Father’s revealed words for daily human living, how much more his fallen brothers?

Is Your New Year’s Resolution Biblical?

I love the impulse behind this article. Just because it’s a new year and we want to turn over a new leaf doesn’t mean that’s a good leaf to turn over!

You may think your goal is to lose weight this year. But what’s the goal behind losing weight? Your motive may have to do with self-image, your health, or having the energy to go on an adventure you’ve always dreamed about.

Help! I Want to Read the Bible, but I Find It Boring

It’s hard to find a more honest title than this one! And, if we’re honest, I think many of us feel the same way. Katherine Forster has written some advice that you may find helpful. (This is written by a teenager but certainly not only for teenagers!)

If we’re honest, I think we’ve all been there. It took years before I learned to enjoy and love the word—and that was after I became a Christian. Here are a few things I learned as a young person struggling to find a love for the Scripture. Perhaps they’ll be helpful for you, too—especially if you’re also a teen!

Bible Reading Plans for 2020

I shared this link last year, but it’s worth sharing again. Ligonier Ministries has put together a great list of Bible reading plans for 2020. Check it out and see if anything resonates with you and your Bible reading goals for the year.

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