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“The sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which the child of God rests his head at night, giving perfect peace.” So said the inimitable Charles Spurgeon. Or did he? He might have said, “When you go through a trial, the sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which you lay your head.” Or maybe he said both, or maybe he said something halfway between. Either way, it’s clear that in Spurgeon’s dark hours he found comfort in a particular attribute of God: his sovereignty.

During the summer at one of our Summit campuses, an Afghan woman—I’ll call her Hadiya—showed up to VBS and, with a very limited vocabulary, let the staff know she was there for her 5-year-old to attend the event. She opened up her phone and showed them a picture of a lady who she called Amanda and said that this lady invited her while she was at the park. Hadiya had wanted to come because she’d heard of the church before.

I’m convinced we’re prone to make entirely too much of the most public gifts and entirely too little of the most private. We laud those who stand at the event podiums to preach the Word. We celebrate those who sit on the conference panels to answer our questions. We honor those who pen the few bestselling books. When given the opportunity, we surge forward to shake their hands, to snap a selfie, to share encouraging words.

Trying to tame sin rather than killing it is as silly as people making pets out of predatory animals. I once read an article with the headline, “Pennsylvania Woman Killed by Pet Bear.” This woman had raised a black bear named Teddy from cubhood, and for nine years, there were no incidents. But then, one day, as she was cleaning his cage, the bear mauled her.

Nearly every language has a short repetitive word for “father.” For example, in English, it’s “Dada.” In Spanish, it’s “Papa,” in Indonesian, “Bapa,” and in Turkish, “Baba.” Who comes up with these words? Babies do because humans have a primordial desire to reach out for a parent, someone who loves us perfectly and can take care of us.

A while back, my good friend Tony Vance sent me an article and asked for my feedback. After reading only the title, “Why Are You Still A Christian, After Reading This? (Thorough)”, I answered: because Jesus. With a little prodding, (and some late night facepalming), I worked through Ben Alonzo’s piece, and jotted down some responses to his work. Shake Your Faith: The Truth In this section, Ben points out he was a hardcore Christian “until I started questioning what was actually in the Bible.” My first response to Mr. Alonzo, “Just how ‘hardcore’ were you if Bible study wasn’t even a part of your Christianity?” Choosing Jesus was a hard decision for me. In fact, just yesterday I shared with some close friends that I believe being a faithful Christian is the hardest job in the world. Bill Hybels in his book, “Courageous Leadership”, recounts a speech he gave to a group of Harvard business students. One student asked how church leadership had anything to do with secular success. “You are the best and brightest this world has to offer. You are going to do great things and make the best widgets and gizmos ever known. But the church is charged with changing the world.”...

For many people, growth in Christ is primarily growth in knowledge of Bible facts and doctrines. Maybe you love digging deep in the Bible, unpacking original meaning, listening to sermon podcasts, and reading books. And I’m right there with you; I love knowledge. But the point of the Bible is not to fill your head with knowledge. The point is to fill your heart with wonder. All Bible study should end in worship. And worship isn’t just the 20 to 30 minutes of singing you do every weekend during your church service. It’s how you respond to God, how eagerly you obey him, and how much you treasure him. The fact that Paul ends Romans 9–11 in an explosion of worship illustrates for us that the purpose of Bible study is not just to expand our spiritual understanding but also to set our hearts on fire with passion. Romans 9–11 contains some of the most difficult and deep doctrine in all of Scripture.

Every religion, every worldview is telling a story. They're trying to take the things we know about the world and fit them together into a big picture. Do you want to learn more about the true Story of Reality? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxU0UNlnnOA

Do you weep over your sin? There must be some things in life that bring you to tears, but is your sin one of them? We would all do well to consider these powerful words from Thomas Watson’s The Godly Man’s Picture for he warns “how far are they from being godly who scarce ever shed a tear for sin” and goes on to explain the beauty and necessity of repentance.

it’s not true that we’re dealing with “a translation of translations of translations,” as if the original Greek first went into Chinese which went into German which went into Polish and finally we got around to putting it into English. No, we’re able to translate directly from the original Greek and Hebrew, so at worst we’re dealing with a translation, full stop. But what should we say about that last idea, the charge that all we have available to us are “hand-copied copies of copies of copies of copies?” Copypock. Er, I mean, poppycock. That’s what we should say. Let’s think for a moment about the question of transmission—that is, can we be confident that the original text of the Bible was transmitted accurately to us through the centuries? As we begin to consider that question, we should just right off the bat acknowledge the gigantic glittering elephant standing here in the room: We don’t have the originals....