Tag: Jacob Crouch

Links for the Weekend (2024-06-14)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

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

How to Not Exasperate Your Children

Hannah Carmichael wrote a helpful article discussing ways parents often exasperate their children and then what to do when that has happened.

Spending more than 15 years counseling young adults wrestling with the ramifications of how they were parented has prompted me to think deeply about specific parenting behaviors that lead to feelings of anger and discouragement in most children. There’s a type of parenting that crosses the line from instructive and nurturing to oppressive and exasperating. And it’s important we understand the difference both because our parenting has ramifications for our children and because our parenting is a reflection of the gospel.

Don’t Be Half a Berean

Jacob Crouch looks at the example of the Bereans in Acts 17. He notes that these early Christians had two characteristics worth emulating.

When Paul went to Berea, he encountered a group of people who were “more noble” than others in their reception of the gospel. They received the word with all eagerness, and they examined the Scriptures to make sure that what Paul said was true. What a glorious account of these folks, and what a great example to emulate. I’ve loved this verse for a long time, and it has encouraged me often. But, I’ll admit, that sometimes I’ve been only half a Berean.

Monday Morning’s Cupboard

Our poem of the week: a lovely poem about hospitality by Kate Gaston.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called The Sabbath Proclaims the Gospel. 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 (2023-12-15)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

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

Think You Know the Christmas Story?

How many of our go-to Christmas images are shaped more by myth and misconception than the Bible?

These five misconceptions remind us that sometimes our picture of scriptural stories is shaped more by popular perceptions and modern retellings than by the text itself. But when we take a closer look at the biblical clues, a wonderful—and hopefully more accurate—picture emerges of what happened that night nearly 2,000 years ago.

15 Strategies for Men to Strengthen Their Friendships

It’s no secret that friendship for men can be difficult and rare. Drew Hunter offers some strategies for men to build up friendships.

Isn’t this what the God of love has done for us? Jesus came to be face-to-face with us, and he walks in friendship with his people. This is why the best strategy for stronger friendship is to enjoy friendship with the friend of sinners.

There Is No Inconvenience Too Great For Godliness

Here’s a compelling call to pursue godliness regardless of the cost.

We love comfort. We love the path of least resistance. But here’s the question for a Christian: What wouldn’t you do to be godly? Is there anything too hard? Is there any inconvenience too great? When Jesus says to cut off hands and pluck out eyes, He’s not saying it with a wink. He’s communicating something deadly serious. We can’t wear kid gloves when dealing with sin. Sin leads to hell. What would we wish we had done if we were to find ourselves there?

More Light, Lord

Here’s your poem for the week. (It’s short and lovely.)

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Immanuel: The Story of Christmas. 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 (2023-06-30)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

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

How Does the Doctrine of the Bodily Resurrection Shape the Life of the Local Church?

No surprise here: the doctrine of the bodily resurrection is important in many ways for the Christian life!

By teaching the doctrine of the bodily resurrection, local churches will be casting a more accurate vision of future life. Better than going away to heaven is being raised to dwell forever with the Lord in a new creation. The new creation will be material, not just spiritual, so a life of embodied immortality fits with the future consummation.

Hospitality Is About More Than Food

I appreciated this article about hospitality, which addresses who hospitality is for and what it can look like.

We were once alienated from the people of God, strangers from the covenant of promise, and yet God brought us near through the blood of His Son (Eph 2:12-13). As the hymn goes, “Jesus sought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of God. He to rescue me from danger interposed His precious blood.” We get a chance to love the stranger as a beautiful gospel picture to the lost world.

God’s Pleasure is Not Reserved for a Particularly Faithful Few

In this article, the author meditates on the commendation, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Who exactly might expect this greeting from the Lord?

But there is sometimes a subtext behind these words. A subtext that makes us wonder whether we will hear such words. Have we been good and faithful servants? Have we done enough to get this commendation from Jesus? The worry for many of us is that we don’t consider ourselves to be as godly as the people to whom we typically apply this. Some of us definitely aren’t considered as godly as them by other onlookers either. Perhaps this commendation isn’t for us? The subtext is that only those who have been good and faithful servants will hear these words.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Connecting Biblical Hope to Promises. 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 (2023-05-19)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

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

Don’t Give Up Too Quickly

We are told in Scripture to persevere in prayer. Here’s a short article about why that might be.

I’ve been thinking that our Heavenly Father handles our requests in a similar way. There might be something that we’re excited about. We hurry into prayer with the faith, excitement, and discernment of a child. Then the Lord doesn’t immediately answer. He doesn’t say yes and doesn’t say no. Instead, through his silence and apparent inactivity, he says that it’s time to wait.

Willing Spirit, Weak Flesh: The Real Meaning of Matthew 26:41

Here’s a great example of careful Bible study and reading Scripture in context. Zach Hollifield takes a look at the famous comment from Jesus, “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”

Peter is forced to see that while he has all the right desire in the world to remain faithful to Jesus, there is also a chasm of weakness lying between that willingness and his actual carrying it out.

I’m So Glad It’s You

This link is a confession/prayer which is a wonderful model of looking to God as the sovereign one in the midst of suffering.

I’m so glad it’s You. None of it makes sense to me, but it was done in perfect wisdom. Who else could be trusted to wound like this? All Your works are perfect, and You are infinite in wisdom. I trust that Your ways are higher that my ways, and Your thoughts than my thoughts. I’m so glad it’s You.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called What Makes a Good Friend? 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 (2023-04-14)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

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

3 Reasons to Believe in the Resurrection

Believing in the Resurrection might not be as absurd as some would want you to think!

Here are three features of our world that are already Easter-like. They already have a life-from-the-dead shape to them. I don’t offer these as watertight proofs of God. But I do raise them as suggestive pointers.

Humility and Overcommitted Busyness

I’m not sure I’ve connected busyness with a lack of humility before. This article might spark some good questions to ask yourself!

At first glance, the pathological busyness of our day seems disconnected from questions of humility, but it is precisely in caving to the pressure to be endlessly doing that our humility is most frequently vanquished. This often happens without a fight or even an awareness that we ought to be battling the temptation to arrogate to ourselves more activity than the Lord has handed us. Whether working on a job or a home, spending an evening with friends, or even attending to our spiritual growth, we so often live as if we could and should do more than we can and are called to.

What do you do when you are spiritually dry?

There’s some bracing common sense in this article. We need to hear it because we often do the opposite!

There are so many things that can be done, but I want to give one piece of advice with two practical applications for those who feel spiritually dry: Don’t stop going to the fountain. Often when we feel dry, we are tempted to neglect the one thing that will satisfy our souls. Think about it: When you feel dry, what things do you want to toss out? Bible reading, prayer, fellowship. But this is the problem. If you are dry, spiritually thirsty, the worst thing you can do is go to the desert! You need to go to the fountain!

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