This year’s Mother’s and Father’s Day season brought to mind some wisdom my folks shared with me years ago. These morsels of sound reason have helped me navigate the diverse oceans and streams I’ve crossed over the years. I do realize that not everyone has great parents, but mine were pretty solid. So, please let me share some of the gold I received from Bob & Reka Boersma, two lovebirds who shared an incredible adventure in life with four kids and a huge assortment of farm animals.
I love moments when I am reading the Bible, and the words I am reading come alive and arrest me. All the rules I have learned about proper interpretation are not in the forefront of my mind. The literary context is not controlling what happens in that moment. The language in which it was written is not ignored, but it is not a factor in that moment. The historical context may be obvious in the passage I am reading, but it is temporarily set aside in that moment. What the passage meant in their day pales in that moment.
In November 2009 my family had the incredible honor to adopt Mfundo from South Africa. The journey to that point was filled with unknown challenges to us, as we happened to be the first adoptive family from the United States to legally adopt in South Africa. We were not the first to try to adopt from this country; we were just the family that happened to be furthest into the adoptive pre-work when the two countries came into agreement for international adoptions.
In my last blog, I explored some of the key differences of the dynamics of Asian-American weddings specifically in relationship to “honoring” the parents and their guests at the wedding ceremony. In this blog, I’d like to discuss some of the challenges related to the relational dynamics of the different families prior to marriage. This will include “family matching,” approval of different vocations, and the transfer of authority from the father/mother to the husband and bride ...
New churches are usually much more effective at winning new people to faith in Christ than older churches. For many reasons, as a church grows older, it develops barriers that keep it from making new disciples. The list of evangelistic barriers is long and complex, but the following are a few insights as to why churches become less effective at evangelism. Once a church recognizes some of the barriers, it can then take action to eliminate them ...
Last Saturday evening, my wife and I had a delightful dinner out with two of our very best friends, John and Leah Hutchison. Before we left the house, I had about fifteen minutes to kill while Joann was still getting ready. The nerd in me has something laying right on my nightstand for just such occasions: a volume of Josephus’ Antiquities. I picked it up, intending to read a little Greek, and stumbled across a story that had escaped my memory but is worth revisiting ...
How can we finish well? Hebrews 13:7-8 gives us the primary clue. “Remember your leaders,” the writer commands, “those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (ESV). The key to finishing well is obvious from this passage of scripture: we learn how to finish well by observing others and imitating their faith.
Women’s ministry has existed throughout the centuries of Christian history, and it is here to stay. In this blog post, Nell Sunukjian shares about the ways that women have been an active part of ministry throughout the centuries.
Despite nearly five months of instability in Ukraine, students in the Talbot School of Theology Kyiv Extension are pressing on with their ministries and with their studies.
In my last blog, I discussed the concept of how the parent-child relationship is viewed differently from an Eastern Asian style than a Western American style. With this difference comes the difficulty of “leaving and cleaving” as found in Genesis 2:25. This also relates to obedience from parents for a lifetime since being a child is viewed more as a permanent status rather than an age range. This is also coupled with a long-term care of the parents supported by passages such as 1 Timothy 5:8 which states that if one does not care for his family that he is worse than an unbeliever.
I’ve begun reading into the topic of women and men in ministry. I noticed immediately that the concept of “head” stands out in the debate between egalitarian and complementarian interpretations. As a metaphor, the concepts and specific applications intended by Paul can be elusive. For help, I turned to an expert on the subject, my colleague, Dr. Michelle Lee-Barnewall. Below are her explanations of four questions as part of beginning to explore the meaning of “headship.”
Don’t you love it when you have good news to tell? “He loves me,” “I got the promotion,” “a baby is coming,” “my grades are better”—news we want to tell someone. Someone who will be glad for us. Someone who will recognize the importance of what we are telling them. When two angels announced the good news of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, they gave that good news to women. Women—who were considered to be unreliable messengers and couldn’t even testify in court—women were given the honor of passing on the best news ever transmitted—Jesus is alive!
It’s been awhile since I have posted on the Good Book Blog. Since I come back to post a few times a year, I want to begin with an area of ministry that is very dear to my heart – ministry with children. In many ways, I think the church in general has a very mixed view of ministry with children. On the one hand we recognize that children are a gift, and we value them highly. On the other hand, we may often feel that “real ministry” takes place with youth and adults. Perhaps it is that we more readily see the impact of our teaching with youth or adults, and in ministry with children it is harder to see significant changes. What we may miss out on is seeing the powerful foundational nature of ministry with children that sets life directions and patterns that “bloom” later in adulthood. I, for one, recognize the critical importance of ministry with children, and the impact it can have for a lifetime. In this blog, and the one that will follow, I’ll be talking about the kinds of ministry objectives we should be aiming for in ministry with children, and some models of ministry for those who serve the children in their congregations. What I share here is adapted and expanded from some material I wrote as part of Introducing Christian Education and Formation, by Ron Habermas, published by Zondervan (2008).
Have you ever noticed how often we rank skills over character? You’re seeking to hire someone for a job. Which is more important? Skills for the job, or the character of the one seeking the job? In almost every hiring situation, skills are the focus (though I have heard that Human Resources folks are increasingly Facebook and Instagram-stalking potential employees in an attempt to ascertain whatever they can about applicants’ private lives.) I would like to suggest that in Christian ministry, character should be weighted over skills.
While watching a recent car race on television, I was impressed by the new technology that racing teams are using to improve performance. Advanced computer technology now allows crew chiefs to monitor nearly every aspect—fuel usage, engine pressure, wheel alignment, and numerous other aspects—that affect the performance of the car. In fact it’s possible to know the exact set up of an automobile so precisely that another car can be set up just like it. With all of the technology, one might think that race cars would be set up so much alike that very little difference would be observed on race day. But, some cars continue to do better at winning than others.
Recently, a friend contacted me and asked for a resource in pre-marital counseling that would be specific to some of the unique cultural needs of an Asian-American couple. I thought about this for a while and realized that I was not familiar with such a curriculum. I explained to him that I typically use material by Family Life’s Dennis and Barbara Rainey and add my own insights on some of the challenges for Asian-Americans in preparing to get married. This first blog will summarize some of those insights ...
It should come as no surprise that in times of leadership change those being led get a bit jumpy. Maybe you are waiting to see who the new senior pastor will be – the one who will have a huge stake in your future as an associate staff member. Or you are witnessing a changing of the guard in your mission organization. My wife and I, along with many of our colleagues and friends, have experienced major changes in leadership in the last couple of years, both here at Talbot (new Dean) and at church (new senior pastor). Happily, our experiences have gone very well.
There was a woman I know who fell in love and married a man from another culture, another religion, different ways very foreign to her known life. Her husband’s father had died before she met him, so she entered this single parent family wholeheartedly and her mother-in-law taught her a new way of living and loving where their house became a home and she felt she belonged.This was so true that when her husband died ten years into their marriage, she made a commitment to her mother-in-law.
You may have heard it said that email is dead. But, don’t believe it. According to a report in Harvard Business Review (June 2013), based on a survey of 2,600 workers in the USA, UK, and South Africa, people continue to spend four hours of every working day dealing with e-mail. The reason? They like it, trust it, and find it an effective collaboration tool.
Christians desire guidance for how to integrate their God life with their work life—especially those in the business sector. “Whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31, NIV). Listed below are three insightful perspectives on this issue. The first two frameworks overlap in some ways, but they also bring out distinctive contributions, and offer particular guidance to help close the Sunday-Monday gap. Some may tend to compartmentalize work life as a second class necessity, and that the real action of Christian living takes place within the church facilities. We want to bring our whole life under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, on Sunday and the rest of the week.
In my last blog, I attempted to explain some aspects of shame and how it is different from guilt, as well as to show how shame should be defined more in terms of a relational understanding rather than simply a judicial aspect of exchange. This blog will show a connection between 1st century Roman culture and 21st century Asian-American culture and the lessons that can be learned from studying and comparing both.
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