On bread, fish and urban ministry

Posted on August 21, 2013 Written by Mark McIntyre 6 Comments

I thought of a little boy who was going to a church meeting carrying his lunch. It was about two thousand years ago when Jesus was teaching the crowds and the disciples came to Jesus suggesting that he disperse the crowd so that they don’t pass out from hunger. Jesus took that boy’s lunch of bread and fish and multiplied it so that everyone could eat.

J. I. Packer on our response to Scripture

This reminds me that the goal of reading Scripture is not the gathering of knowledge for its own sake. The goal of theology should not be understanding for its own sake.

The enemy’s best tool

Church leaders have the opportunity to deprive our great enemy of his best and most effective tool. What is that tool? It is us when we are more concerned about our own glory and reputation than we are of God’s glory and reputation.

Thank God for the children

In my last post, I wrote about some church leaders’ misunderstanding of the role of the building in worship. This was in response to a note that I had gotten from a reader. In that note, the writer also said that the pastor of the church he visited made a comment about not allowing children […]

Tune my heart . . .

It is precisely because Jesus died and rose again that I can have hope to be other than I am. For what could I pray if there was no hope that my sin has been conquered? For what could I pray if Jesus did not rise and demonstrate that sin and death are vanquished? What hope have I without the Cross and the empty tomb?

Defective raw material?

It is a bit surprising that when Samuel went to the house of Jesse to anoint one of Jesse’s sons as king, David was the last one that either Jesse or Samuel thought had the raw material for kingship.

The blessing of being poor (in spirit) – Matthew 5:3

Matthew 5:3 reads: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (NASB) One must assume that Jesus knew what he was doing when he put this Beatitude first in the list. Blessed are the poor in Spirit. Luke’s record shortens this saying to simply, “blessed are you who are poor” […]