This year this blog continued to grow, both in page views and in subscribers. Thank you for reading and sharing these articles with friends and on social media, and for submitting your questions and requests for topics!
These were the top 10 most read and shared articles of 2020:
Thanks for reading and commenting this past year! If you haven’t done so yet, you can subscribe to the blog via email or WordPress and stay in touch with future posts.
God bless you, and I look forward to the year to come!
I saw a Christmas ornament advertised online today: a dumpster fire with 2020 written on it. 2020 has been a year filled with difficulty, frustration, tension, and sorrow, to the point where people are apt to say that they are “over it.”
In his letter to the Philippians, Paul said something incredible, especially when you consider the circumstances in which he wrote it:
I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel
Philippians 1:12
This statement is particularly surprising when you consider what things Paul is referring to here that had happened to him:
What Had Happened to Paul?
When Paul wrote this letter to the Philippians, he was being held as a prisoner in Rome.
Prior to his arrest, Paul had spent years traveling around the Roman Empire as missionary: preaching the gospel and starting churches, and training others to do the same. But then, some people who wanted to hinder Paul’s work and hinder the spread of the gospel, started spreading fake news that Paul was an anti-government revolutionary. As a result, Paul was arrested.
While under arrest, Paul was no longer able to travel the world to advance the gospel. Because of corruption in the judicial system, Paul was left in prison for several years, until he appealed his case to the Roman supreme court, which is how he came to be in Rome at the time when he wrote to the Philippians. Paul was under house arrest, awaiting trial, and chained to Roman soldiers 24 hours a day.
With those details in mind, consider again what Paul wrote to the Philippians:
I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel
Philippians 1:12
The things which had happened to Paul were:
The loss of his freedom
False accusations
Suffering at the hands of corrupt officials.
It would be easy to look at those circumstances and conclude that these things which had happened to Paul were preventing him from advancing the gospel, but Paul says, “No. Everything that has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel.”
Being under house arrest had obvious limitations, but it also afforded Paul some unique opportunities.
One of those opportunities was: down time, and Paul used that time to pen four letters under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit which are now part of our New Testament canon, and for the past two millennia have been used by God to bring encouragement and instruction to those who read them.
Another unique opportunity this situation gave him, was that Paul was chained to members of Caesar Nero’s Imperial Guard for 24 hours a day, the soldiers being changed out on shifts. Rather than seeing himself as restrained, however, Paul viewed this as an evangelist’s dream! It wasn’t that he was chained to soldiers, Paul thought, but those soldiers were chained to him! For hours at a time, he had a soldier’s undivided attention, and when their time was up, a new soldier would be brought in and chained to him. Paul viewed himself as a missionary to those people in that place. I imagine Paul’s biggest struggle must have been finding time to sleep because he was so excited to make new friends and tell them about Jesus.
Some of these guards, Paul tells us, were becoming Christians. If Paul had not been in custody, but had rather knocked on the door of Caesar’s Palace and said, “Hi, I’m Paul, I’d like to talk to you about your sins and convert you to Christianity,” they would have slammed the door in his face, but because of what happened to him: the injustice, the slander, and the corruption, Paul now had unique opportunity for the furtherance of the gospel which he could not have had otherwise.
Paul was able to see the opportunities in the midst of the calamity, and he wanted his readers to develop that mindset as well.
Paul’s Mindset In Our Situation
The events of this past year have been difficult and uncomfortable for all of us, from the pandemic, to the racial and political tensions, the economic hardships, the isolation, and the online fatigue. But how would the Apostle Paul have looked at this situation, and how would he, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, have encouraged us to view these circumstances? Would it not be to view them through the eyes of faith, knowing that all of these difficulties have presented us with unique opportunities for the furtherance of the gospel, and that “what has happened has really served the furtherance of the gospel”?
God has placed us who are believers here for such a time as this. May we be faithful to steward this great gospel message in a world that needs it, and may we see the opportunities in the midst of the calamity for the furtherance of the gospel.
This week I sat down with Christine Appel to discuss the history of Project Greatest Gift, a home-grown ministry that serves kids in kinship and foster care in northern Colorado at Christmastime.
Every year during the month of November, we partner with the Health and Human Services departments of Weld, Adams, and Boulder Counties to provide for children and families in the kinship and foster care systems.
In this interview, Christine tells the story of how Project Greatest Gift got started, the vision behind it, and how God has used it over the past few years.
Importantly, we also discuss what is different this year in 2020, as Project Greatest Gift expands to an online platform.
Every summer Calvary Chapel puts on a conference for pastors and ministry leaders in Southern California. This year the conference has been moved online because of COVID, but one of the benefits is that this opens up the opportunity for those who can’t easily take a week off and travel to California to be able to join and be encouraged.
This year’s conference will be August 10-13, 2020. The cost is $10, which gives you access to all of the bonus content, including a seminar I was part of with Expositors Collective on the topic of expository and Christ-centered preaching and teaching.
We are using a platform for the conference which allows a lot of interaction as well as multiple “rooms” you can join during the conference for different seminars on topics those in ministry will surely find helpful and interesting for the areas where you lead.
For Christians, Easter is our biggest celebration of the year. And yet, how do you celebrate in the midst of a crisis in which thousands of people are sick and dying, and millions are out of work and hurting financially?
Some churches have suggested that celebrations of Easter should be delayed until this crisis gets better. I disagree. In fact, I would say that there is no more appropriate time for us to celebrate Easter than in the face of sickness, instability, and death, because these things are the very reasons why Easter is good news worth celebrating!
In fact, this may be the one moment in all of our lives when we understand the weight of what Easter means, and the hope that it brings, more than ever.
The meaning of Easter is that the Lord of Life died in order to destroy death, and make it possible for us to be reconciled to Him and resurrected to “a better life” (Hebrews 11:35, 40).
This year we will be having our church’s first ever Good Friday service, but since we cannot gather physically we put out pre-packaged communion supplies for people to pick up outside of the church.
We have been pre-recording our services in order to create a worshipful experience for those who watch at home.
Theology for the People 