YOUR SATURDAY SEVEN - Week 24
Compiled by: Rob Martinez, September 3, 2022
Your Saturday Seven is a hand-selection of seven articles from this week that will hopefully be a blessing to you. You can see more past articles here. Note: I do not necessarily fully endorse or agree with all content posted.
1. LIVE YOUR VIRTUES, DON’T JUST SIGNAL THEM.
By: Aimee Joseph, 8.30 / TGC
“While the term may be freshly minted, the idea of putting virtue on public display for the sake of image or approval is nothing new. The Pharisees could be considered the original virtue signalers. Acutely attuned to truth and being right, the Pharisees were known for overt and ostentatious shows of their own virtue. They were in the habit of putting their attempts at righteousness on display for all to see, mostly for the sake of their image and power.”
2. WE NEED TO STOP APPLAUDING FALLEN PASTORS.
By: Dave Miller, 8.29 / SBC Voices
“Yes, these churches love their pastors. As a pastor, I appreciate that. They want to believe the best of him and for him. That is natural and perhaps honorable. Standing ovations for confessing sin are not. We do not applaud sin. We grieve over it, but we do not cheer it. Save the standing ovations for the football field. Please, churches, please stop! This practice needs to end.”
3. WHY “ORTHODOX” RATHER THAN “CONSERVATIVE?”
By: Roger E. Olson, 8.29 / Patheos
“I said in that blog essay that I prefer to be labeled “orthodox,” and I will add “evangelical.” Call me an “orthodox evangelical,” meaning, not liberal, not fundamentalist, not conservative among evangelicals.”
4. THINKING ABOUT DEATH.
By: Terry Enns, 8.31 / ACBC
“The inclination of the heart is to avoid talking or thinking of death. The believer in Christ does well to think on death, for it gives him a desire for the next world, while loosening his attraction to this world, and deepening his love for and dependence on Christ for his final and ultimate hope.”
5. FIVE GOALS OF SYSTEMS AND STRUCTURES.
By: Ron Edmondson, 8.31
“That statement will surprise some of the people who have worked with me in the past. I can be known as someone who runs from rules at times. I always say a stop sign in a parking lot is a suggestion. “Wet paint” signs to me actually read “Test me. But an organization is only as healthy as the systems and structures put into place. I’m not always the best ones to create them, but I recognize the need for them.”
6. THE MISSING INGREDIENT IN TODAY’S PREACHING.
By: Leland Rykan, 8.30 / Crossway
“To teach and preach the Bible in keeping with its literary nature requires us to identify the human experiences that are placed before us in the text. This takes time, but we can quickly develop a knack for doing it. The payoff is that the voice of authentic human experience will be sounded from the pulpit and Sunday school lectern. The Bible is more than a book of ideas, and the authors of the Bible acknowledged this when they gave us a literary Bible.”
7. HOW TO START FAMILY WORSHIP.
By: Sam Luce, 9.1 / Thomas Nelson
“We deeply want a revival of domestic religion. The Christian family was the bulwark of godliness in the days of the puritans, but in these evil times, hundreds of families of so-called Christians have no family worship, no restraint upon growing sons, and no wholesome instruction or discipline. How can we hope to see the kingdom of our Lord advance when His own disciples do not teach His gospel to their own children?”
