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Showing posts from January, 2022

The World’s Choice, God’s Choice

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  by Bart Denny Read: Esther 2 When Image Shines, but Providence Reigns Ever been picked last? Maybe it was dodgeball in school. Or being passed over for a promotion. Or just scrolling through social media and feeling like everyone else has it more together, more admired, more chosen. We live in a world obsessed with image. A world that tells us your worth depends on how you look, what you post, and how many people applaud. But thankfully, that’s not how God chooses. Esther 2 might look like just another chapter in a Bible story, but it holds a mirror up to the way our world works—and how radically different God’s kingdom is. Chosen for All the Wrong Reasons? In Esther 2, we meet a young Jewish woman named Esther—strikingly beautiful, orphaned, raised by her cousin Mordecai, and now swept into a morally compromised “beauty contest” to become queen of Persia. Esther wasn’t chosen because of her faith or her wisdom. She was chosen by the world’s standards—for her...
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The One Overarching Reason Churches Close their Doors

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 I like to think of myself as a student of the root causes of the death of local churches and what it takes to turn around a congregation that’s on a death spiral before it winds up closing its doors. Dozens of books and articles seek to explain the ins and outs of church death and church revitalization. And while church deaths all have their own unique stories and individual circumstances leading up to the closure, there’s only one overarching reason a church closes its doors. That is because our Lord shut it down! What!? That’s right. The New Testament speaks only once of a church closing. Only once! That’s in Revelation, Chapter 2:1-7 (NASB, 2020), where we read: 1   “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this: “ 2   I know your deeds and your labor and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil people, and you have put those who call themselve...
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