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Showing posts from June, 2023

How Prayer and Encouragement Can Transform Relationships

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  by Bart Denny Have you ever had someone in your life who just knows how to push your buttons? (Tell me I'm not the only one!) Maybe it’s a coworker who’s always one-upping you. Or a family member who corrects everything you say. Or maybe—even more uncomfortably—it’s someone in your church pew on Sunday. Here’s the thing: we all have difficult people in our lives. And, if we’re honest, sometimes we’re that difficult person for someone else. I once heard about a man whose brother-in-law made every family gathering an exhausting competition—job, car, vacations, you name it. After one too many venting sessions, his wife gave him a piece of advice that changed everything: “Why don’t you just pray for him?” His first prayer was less than gracious—something like, “Lord, help him be less annoying.” But over time, that changed. His prayers softened, and so did his heart. Eventually, though the brother-in-law hadn’t changed a bit, this man discovered something profound: peace. That’s ...
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Your Church Deserves Its Reputation in the Community

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by Bart L. Denny, Ph.D., Th.M. How does your community view your church? Do you even know? First, I ought to say that it’s easy to find out. Just go to the nearest grocery store and ask the cashier. Go to places nearby where there are people and ask them what they know. You’ll find out. Your church either has a good, bad or—perhaps most likely—no reputation. And let me be blunt: no matter your church’s reputation—good, bad, or none—you deserve it. It doesn’t matter if you argue the minor points where you think people have been unfair; you have given off an impression. Several months ago, I talked to a deacon chairman who shared that his church had a bad reputation in the community. I got the distinct sense that he thought the community had been unfair. First, I would say that it doesn’t matter whether such judgment is unjust or not. The reputation you have in the community is the reputation you have—that’s what you’ve got to work with. But had the community really been unfair? The ...
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Original Sin: Inherited Corruption or Inherited Guilt? (and Why It Matters)

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by Bart L. Denny, Ph.D., Th.M. Maybe you’ve heard the term “original sin.” You might be surprised to learn that there is considerable debate about precisely what the phrase “original sin” entails. Christians hear the term original sin and have differing conceptions of it. Reading the Bible, I have always understood original sin to mean what I more often heard described as a “sin nature,” an invariable propensity to sin inherited from our first father, Adam. Except for Jesus Christ, the God-man, all have sinned, and none can help but sin. All flavors of orthodox Christianity have accepted that humankind inherits a sinful nature and that no human can attain sinless perfection in this life. This sinful nature, because it has come down through Adam, might be considered “inherited corruption.” One of the consequences of this inherited corruption is the eventual physical death of all human beings. But I never recognized that this understanding of original sin, common among Baptists, Arminian...
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