Once upon a time, there was a season in the church year known as “Advent.” The word comes to us from the Latin for “coming.” The purpose of the season was to anticipate the coming of Christ to earth; it was a season that focused on waiting.
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Sean McDowell: Getting the Gospel to Generation Z + “Baba O’Riley” (The Who)
“Generation Z.” “iGen.” “Centennials.” Whatever you happen to call this generation, the children who drew their first breaths in the years between Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic” and Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” are the first generation of digital natives in human history. But how secure is the faith of these teenagers and young adults? And how […]
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Church History: When Did Churches Stop Baptizing by Immersion?
As part of my research for the chapter on baptism in a book written by the faculty of Southern Seminary, one of the questions I wanted to answer was, “When did churches leave behind the New Testament practice of immersion?” The answer is, “Far later than you probably think.” Most of the students I teach […]
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Apologetics: Who Wrote the Gospels?
Open your Bible to the table of contents and take a look at the list of books in the New Testament. There, you’ll find the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John leading the list. But were Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John really the ones who wrote the Gospels? If so, how do we know?
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Culture: Why Pay Taxes?
This week, millions of Americans will once again endure the filing and, in some cases, the payment of taxes—three months late, this time around, due to the challenge of the coronavirus pandemic. Taxation has never been particularly popular among Americans, having once incited several dozen Bostonians to dress up as Mohawk warriors and toss tea […]
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Culture: How Scripture Became Part of the Story that Ended Slavery
For centuries, the Scriptures were twisted and distorted to provide support for racism and race-based slavery. It is no exaggeration to state that the enslavement of African Americans would never have persisted as long as it did without the support of persons who claimed to follow Scripture. At the same time, Christian ethics were also one […]
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Culture: The Long Shadow of Racism in America
The institution of American slavery has been called America’s “national birth defect.” “Black Americans were”—in the words of one professor of political science—“a founding population [of the American colonies]. Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together, Europeans by choice and Africans in chains.” These events happened far more recently than many Americans seem […]
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Church History: The True Story of St. Patrick
This week, in the year AD 461, Patrick of Ireland passed away. Ever since the early seventeenth century, churches have designated March 17 as St. Patrick’s Day. Prohibitions on feasting during the season of Lent were traditionally lifted on this day, and green had been associated with Ireland at least as early as the seventeenth […]
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Podcast: Caring for the Souls of Singles in Urban Contexts
There are more than 100 million single adults in the United States. In 2016, 53% of adults in the United States were unmarried, and 64% of these individuals had never been married. Since an overwhelming percentage of singles are moving into urban contexts, urban congregations must learn to minister effectively with single adults. In this episode of the Urban Ministry Podcast, Lilly Park—professor of biblical counseling at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—joins me to talk about how churches in the city can help single adults to pursue God’s calling for their lives.
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Culture: Comic-Book Superheroes in a Christian Worldview
“Comics are the new Bible,” film critic Anne Billson recently declared, “and devotees never tire of seeing their idols save the world.” Her elevation of comic books to canonical status in the culture is overstated, but I think she may be close to the truth in suggesting that part of the current appeal of comics is […]
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Family Ministry: The Simplicity of Family Discipleship
How does family discipleship happen? The same way that we “disciple” our children in certain sports and certain teams. Read this brief post to find out how to form your children’s souls in the same way you form their preferences in sports.
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Podcast: Leave a Review, Receive a Free Book
I recently launched a podcast focused on defending the Christian faith entitled Three Chords and the Truth: The Apologetics Podcast. If you’re interested in any way in apologetics, here’s something that I’m wondering if you might be willing to do.
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Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey: What Is Apologetics? + “The Age of Aquarius” (The 5th Dimension)
Click here to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Three Chords and the Truth is a new podcast that brings together apologetics, theology, and the history of rock and roll. In the Three Chords segment of this week’s program, Garrick Bailey and I talk about what apologetics is and why Christians should care about it; […]
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Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey: Why Apologetics? + “God Gave Rock and Roll to You” (KISS)
Click here to download this episode from iTunes and learn why apologetics matters. Welcome to a new episode of Three Chords and the Truth: The Apologetics Podcast! Three Chords and the Truth is a new podcast that brings together apologetics, theology, and the history of rock and roll. In the Three Chords segment of this week’s program, Garrick Bailey […]
[Read More...]Podcast: Partnering with Other Organizations in Urban Contexts
Click here to subscribe to this urban ministry podcast on iTunes. GUEST: Jesse Eubanks The gospel that we proclaim as believers in Jesus Christ is an all-sufficient for salvation. But the compassion of Jesus calls us not only to seek the salvation of people’s souls but also to care for physical and emotional needs. In […]
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Apologetics: Jesus of Faith, Jesus of History, or Jesus of Eyewitness Testimony?
“The more I probed the Bible,” Reza Aslan declares in the introduction to his bestseller Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, “the more distance I discovered between the Jesus of the gospels and the Jesus of history” (xix). The result of this discovery—at least in Aslan’s estimation—is that the New Testament Gospels should be […]
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Culture: The Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Metanarrative of God
Every human being is hungry for a single overarching storyline that ties all of our smaller stories together. Since 2008, evidence for this hunger has been as close as your nearest cinema. That’s when the release of Iron Man marked the genesis of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is not merely a series of movies, neatly […]
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Leadership: Why I Had to Rewrite My Book on Leadership
An earlier version of this post was published on The Gospel Coalition website. “‘Touch not mine anointed.’ That’s what this book says!” the preacher stormed, flapping his Bible above his head. “There are people in this church right now who are trying to touch God’s anointed—but I won’t let them stretch their hands against me!” […]
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Leadership: What’s the Point of Priesthood in the Church Today?
This post on prophet, priest, and king as leadership typology is excerpted from my book The God Who Goes Before You. You can purchase the book here. Over the past century, several Reformed scholars and church leaders have presented the threefold office of Christ—the munus triplex of prophet, priest, and king—as a typology for church […]
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Leadership: A Disposition toward Submission
This post on suffering and submission in leadership was written with Michael Wilder and is excerpted from our book The God Who Goes Before You: Pastoral Leadership as Christ-Centered Followership. You can order the book here. After a meal with his disciples in the upper room, Jesus made his way to a familiar place (John 18:2) […]
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