'culture' Tagged Posts
Christians in Conflict
Hello, LifeWay Family! It’s Edwin, and I wanted to take a moment to say how excited I am for this Sunday! For those of you who may not know, this Sunday will be my first opportunity to preach to the church as a whole! I am so elated to be able to share something that God has really been placing on my heart this year. Have you ever had a conflict with an unbeliever? Has a conversation and attempt to…
Gospel, Meet World
This Sunday I’ll be teaching again on the overall theme of the gospel and our culture. I’m going to be laying out some practical things from scripture about raising up a church family with the identity that we can find in Christ. I’ll teach some practical ways in which the body of Christ relates to the rest of the world and helps the world discover their identity as a creation of God. This is a bit challenging, because the church…
The Gospel in Our Culture
During the month of August, we are taking a few weeks to explore how to take the gospel into the very complicated culture that surrounds us. We are hopping around a little bit: On July 31, I launched the series by beginning an unfinished message about sexual identity. Last Sunday, Chris Berry taught about our government—and more importantly, how we should navigate our own relationships when we disagree politically. This Sunday, I am picking up where I left off on…
The Gospel and Our Culture
When the Church (Ekklesia) was being planted in Gentile territories in the 1st century, they quickly realized they were having to deal with issues that had long since been settled in the Jewish world of Israel—prostitution worship, emperor worship, allegiance to the government, paying taxes, polytheism, animism, child sacrifice, and many, many, many more issues. The issues today are not all the same, of course, but amazingly, most the core concerns of the historical church are the same core concerns…
Prevailing in an Unwinnable War
A couple of days ago a thought rooted in my brain: “We are in an unwinnable war.” That morning I read in Deuteronomy: “When you go out to war against your enemies and see horses, chariots, and an enemy larger than yours, do not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God, who brought you of the land of Egypt, is with you.” — Deuteronomy 20:1 Israel won many unwinnable wars. God planned it that way. Pinned between the…