Earlier this month I preached on Daniel 1 in Brookside Church's short series on Daniel. To see that fuller series, click here. A number of people have asked that I make this sermon accessible a bit more broadly (beyond Brookside's website and YouTube channel — both great places by the way!) With that request in mind, see below for my sermon on Daniel 1 preached on June 9, 2024. I have included the following formats below: 

• Video 
• Audio
• PDF of manuscript (unedited, but it'll give you a close approximation of what I say)
• Skeleton outline of sermon

I.     Introduction

II.    Body

       A.  The realities of exile (Daniel 1:1-7)

       B.  The response in exile (Daniel 1:8-14)

            1. Conviction

            2. Character

       C. The triumph over exile (Daniel 1:15-21)

            1. Daniel and friends pass the test and grow in influence

            2. The presence of God "behind the scenes" (some form of "God gave..." in vv. 2, 9, 17)

            3. Nebuchadnezzars disappears. Daniel remains. (v. 21)

            4. Jesus' triumph over exile 

III.   Conclusion 

What IS the church? 

The last two months have seen churches empty on Sundays, and significant shifts to the programs of the local church. We've now seen by experience what many have always known to be true: The church is not the sum total of its programs. Nor is the church simply the building that many visit on Sunday mornings. 

But this realization simply invites another great question - the one that starts this post: What, then, IS the church?

This question isn't abstract. The way we answer this question has massive practical  implications for how we continue to navigate the ever-changing landscape and move into what everyone is calling "the new normal." 

So let's dig into this question and briefly look at three biblical and theological truths about what the church IS. The church is a transformed people living with a God-given purpose who are shaped by 6 key priorities. 

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Please note the usual disclaimer, that my recommendation of this article is not necessarily an endorsement of everything else on the site where this was posted. As always, read both discerningly and graciously, and with the Bible as your final authority.

Summer is upon us!

If you've got some extra time over the next couple of months - maybe you're traveling a bit, or your summer schedule allows you more time to read for other reasons, or you just want some book recommendations as you maintain a habit of reading - here are a few books (in categories we should keep on our radar screens) you may want to consider. These are books that I've either read recently myself, or am hoping to dig into in the next couple of months.

I encourage you to explore these books a bit (each is linked to their Amazon page where you can learn more), then choose whichever one or two jumps out at you most and dig in! 

If you ever check out either the Library or the footer of this site, where we highlight the top 5 posts of the previous month, you'll have seen "What's Good about Having the Bible on Mobile Devices? And What's Dangerous?" has been on this "Top 5" streak for a while (a long while!). And it's understandable why.

We should WANT to make the Bible accessible in all of the ways we can. Getting God's Word into the hands of as many people as possible is a good thing. But we should also want to be aware of any dangers that can accompany recent trends - not so we avoid the trend itself (and all its benefits!), but so that we can mitigate against particular dangers and have them on our radar screen.

If you've not checked out the post, you can do so here.

So as a nod to the popularity of this post, I'm officially going to "retire the jersey." I'll leave the post just as it is on the site and will include it in the "retired jersey" category of this site's "Library" page. However, moving forward I'll no longer include it in numbers 1-5 of each month's top posts (even though it continues to rank highly among the website "hits" for individual posts), thus allowing room for other posts.

Interested in other posts that have gotten a lot of traffic on this site recently? Click here to check 'em out!

Many of you are likely familiar with the Netflix hit show, "Stranger Things" (season 2 releases in just a couple of days!). I, for one, watched it last year and really enjoyed it.

Surely, part of my enjoyment was nostalgia - since I grew up in the 1980s (the setting of the show). But that's not all. Much of my enjoyment was because of excellent story telling and how Stranger Things helps us picture a "re-enchanted world" where there's more going on than science can fully explain. In the secular West, I wonder if more and more people hunger for this re-enchantment - echoes of a memory instilled in us as image bearers of God. The popularity of Stranger Things suggests that this musing of mine (and many others, including Mike Cosper and James K.A. Smith, both teasing out Charles Taylor) - that people hunger for re-enchantment - is correct. 

The story Stranger Things tells is intricate enough that I won't try and reduce it to a few sentences. I'll focus instead on just one feature of it. As season 1 unfolds, the viewer learns that in the world of Stranger Things, there's something of an alternate dimension running alongside our own - a world with its own creatures; a world that's darker and a bit more decayed; a world that sometimes interrupts our own, and has points of contact with it. In Stranger Things, this darker-and-decayed alternate dimension is called "the Upside Down."

Here's where I'll stop describing Stranger Things and draw a connection to our own world, by asking a question: What if OUR world is really the Upside Down? 

As the Brookside Institute champions the value of biblical literacy, we don't do this in some abstract or indifferent way. We want to value biblical literacy so that we're transformed by the Bible.

If that's the case, that means there's a whole lot riding on whether the Bible is a trustworthy book. Some version of "Can I trust the Bible?" is being asked in lots of ways today, and so responding to this question is important. Here's why: The greater our confidence IN the Bible, the more we'll base our lives ON the Bible. We'll never base our lives on something we don't have confidence in.

This last weekend, I spent about 30 minutes responding this question, "Can I trust the Bible?" Check out the video below to see what I said.

• 4 Great Resources to Boost Your Confidence in the Bible
• Come Hungry to the Bible
• How to Study the Bible on Your Own​