Someone has said that judging others is one of the favorite indoor sports of humanity. Indeed, judging others just seems to flow naturally from a fallen heart.

Even among the ranks of the redeemed, believers battle with sinful, judgmental attitudes. In fact, one of the crushing criticisms leveled against Christianity has been those instances where professing believers have been cruel, harsh, and condemning in their action toward others.

Instead of providing a covering of comfort in the blows of life, believers have been known to shoot their wounded.  These cancerous thoughts and actions can defile many, thus falling woefully short of the command of Jesus who taught, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” (Matthew 7:1)

In context, the crosshairs of this command were upon the Pharisees whose judgments were so severe and without mercy that Jesus rebukes them for noticing the speck in another’s eye while ignoring the log that was in their own eye. (Matthew 7:2-5) Like the Pharisees before us, we can be good at speck inspecting and log ignoring.

Like the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son, we can rehearse the failures of others without taking a breath, but are often very slow to embrace our sins and failures. (more…)

Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 by Charles Murray is a fascinating and sobering cultural analysis of the last 50 years in the United States.  Written from a socially conservative, libertarian perspective, Murray argues that “our nation is coming apart at the seams—not ethnic seams, but the seams of class. ( p. 273)

Murray is careful to point out that “it is not the existence of classes that is new, but the emergence of classes that diverge on core behaviors and values—classes that barely recognize their underlying American kinship.” (p. 12)

Murray articulates the civil religion manifesto clearly, “The American project…consists of the continuing effort…to demonstrate that human beings can be left free as individuals and families to live their lives as they see fit, coming together voluntarily to solve their joint problems. The polity based on that idea led to a civic culture that was seen as exceptional by all the world. The culture was so widely shared among Americans that it amounted to a civil religion. To be an American was to be different from other nationalities, in ways that Americans treasured. That culture is unraveling.” (p. 12)

With great precision, Murray charts the disintegration of “founding virtues” that have made America exceptional among the nations of the world. He identifies four virtues that were emphasized by the founders’ of this country and consistently present through the ebb and flow of American history into the 1960’s. However, from the 1960’s to the present, Murray presents research that shows that something catastrophic has happened in the last fifty years. (more…)

Much has been written on the life and work of Adoniram Judson and rightly so.  It was just over 200 years ago that Adoniram Judson and his wife Ann set sail from Salem, MA in route to India (later arriving in Burma).  Many of those on the wharf that day no doubt thought that their departure was such a small deposit, with little hope of bearing anything substantial.

Judson was 24 years old and Ann was 23 when they left their native New England.  He would labor in Burma for 38 years until his death at age 61.  In that entire time he would only return home once, and that after 33 years of being away. From a human perspective their departure for the hardships of missionary life was a fool’s errand. (more…)

C. J. Mahaney has written a very helpful book entitled, Humility: True Greatness. In this work he tells the following story:

As I sat with my family at a local breakfast establishment, I noticed a finely dressed man at an adjacent table. His Armani suit and stiffly pressed shirt coordinated perfectly with a power tie. His wing-tip shoes sparkled from a recent shine, every hair was in place, including his perfectly groomed moustache. The man sat alone eating a bagel as he prepared for a meeting. As he reviewed the papers before him, he appeared nervous, glancing frequently at his Rolex watch. It was obvious he had an important meeting ahead.

The man stood up and I watched as he straightened his tie and prepared to leave.  Immediately I noticed a blob of cream cheese attached to his finely groomed moustache. He was about to go into the world, dressed in his finest, with cream cheese on his face. I thought of the business meeting he was about to attend. Who would tell him? Should I? What if no one did? (Attributed to Pastor James R. Needham in a 2004 illustration from www.preachingtoday.com) (more…)

With Dallas Willard’s death two weeks ago, I was reminded with gratitude of his classic text, The Spirit of the Disciplines. There was one sentence in that book that arrested me when I read it a number of years ago, and it has led to a strong commitment to promote Scripture memory in my pastoral ministry. In his chapter outlining spiritual disciplines, Willard wrote about the believer’s intake of Scripture:

“I would never undertake to pastor a church or guide a program of Christian education that did not involve a continuous program of memorization of the choicest passages of Scripture for people of all ages.” (more…)