Daniel Darling's Blog, page 13
December 3, 2020
Christmas During COVID: What the Incarnation Speaks to Our Troubled World
As 2020 careens to a close and we limp into Christmas season, most of us aren’t feeling very jolly. It may be the most wonderful time of the year, but we’re just hoping to make it through December. Preferably with a vaccine.
Few us thought last year when we celebrated the season, that in a year this strange word called COVID would upend so much of our lives. And even as the virus began to spread, none of us thought pandemic Easter would turn into a Corona Christmas. And yet here we are.
It’s been a rough year. Natural disasters. A global pandemic. Racial tension. A divisive election. And probably a dozen other things that would grab headlines in a normal year. Most of us aren’t really feeling. Some of us are mourning deep losses. Every one of the 250,000 plus who have died from COVID has a name and a family and a face. There will be empty spaces at too many tables this year.
“Christmas is just what God ordered for a broken world.”
And the economic pain has been shattering. Lost businesses. Lost jobs. Lost retirement. Kids who assumed a year of school and friends and summer camps and graduation have been forced to spend so much time, in their formative years, staring at a piece of glass, forging community through their cameras.
This Christmas, more than any in recent memory, will mean loneliness, hardship, and pain. For many, Zoom will replace the warmth and hugs and handshakes of the holiday. And yet we Christians might lament, but not despair, for it is precisely in this season that we most need Advent. Christmas is just what God ordered for a broken world.
Here are three timely takeaways from the incarnation of the Son of God for 2020. Read more here:
The Way Home: Jared Moore on kids and culture
Jared Moore joins me on The Way Home podcast to talk about teaching our kids how to think about and embrace pop culture—movies, music, social media, and cultural artifacts. He helps parents walk through and navigate some of these challenges beyond just what is right and what is not right but how we consume cultural artifacts and look in them for themes that relate to biblical truths.
This episode of The Way Home Podcast is sponsored by Faithful Counseling. At Faithful Counseling, you’ll find professional mental health counseling from a Biblical perspective. Visit faithfulcounseling.com/wayhome for a 10% discount off your first month.
Show Notes
Guest Biography: Jared is the co-author of The Pop Culture Parent: Helping Kids Engage Their World for Christ. He also co-hosts The Pop Culture Coram Deo Podcast (available everywhere). Jared has a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and has served in pastoral ministry since 2000. He and his wife Amber have four children. Jared enjoys spending time with his wife, playing games with his children, Batman, the NFL and NBA, and playing the guitar.
Facebook:
@AllTruthIsGodsTruth
Twitter:
@jaredhmoore
Podcast:
All Truth is God’s Truth
Website:
jaredmoore.exaltchrist.com
Book:
The Pop Culture Parent: Helping Kids Engage Their World for Christ
This episode of The Way Home podcast is sponsored by Faithful Counseling. Visit faithfulcounseling.com/wayhome for a 10% discount on your first month’s membership.
November 19, 2020
The Way Home: Gene Getz on ministry and teaching the Bible
Gene Getz joins me on The Way Home podcast to talk about his long years in ministry and what he’s learned from when he started ministry to what ministry is like today. He gives advice for teaching and preaching the Bible, and we talk about his brand new resource with B&H publishers, the CSB Life Essentials Study Bible.
This episode of The Way Home Podcast is sponsored by Faithful Counseling. At Faithful Counseling, you’ll find professional mental health counseling from a Biblical perspective. Visit faithfulcounseling.com/wayhome for a 10% discount off your first month.
Show Notes
Guest Biography: Dr. Gene Getz, Host and teacher of Renewal Radio, is the Chairman Emeritus for CCBT and has been a Senior Pastor, Professor and author of more than 60 books. He has been a church-planting pastor in the Dallas Metroplex since 1972 and has served as an adjunct professor at Dallas Theological Seminary. Gene is President of the Center for Church Renewal and serves as Pastor Emeritus of Chase Oaks Church (formerly Fellowship Bible Church North) in Plano, Texas.
Facebook: @GeneAGetz
Twitter: @GeneAGetz
Instagram: @geneagetz
Website: bibleprinciples.org
New Resource: CSB Life Essentials Study Bible
This episode of The Way Home podcast is sponsored by Faithful Counseling. Visit faithfulcounseling.com/wayhome for a 10% discount on your first month’s membership.
November 12, 2020
The Way Home: Alisa Childers on wrestling with your faith and finding answers
Alisa Childers joins me on The Way Home podcast to talk about her book, Another Gospel, and her story of wrestling with doubts about the central claims of Christianity and how she found answers that solidified her faith. She is courageous in taking on false teaching that some Christians are tempted to believe.
This episode of The Way Home Podcast is sponsored by Faithful Counseling. At Faithful Counseling, you’ll find professional mental health counseling from a Biblical perspective. Visit faithfulcounseling.com/wayhome for a 10% discount off your first month.
Show Notes
Guest Biography: Alisa Childers is a wife, a mom, an author, a blogger, a speaker, and a worship leader. She was a member of the award-winning CCM recording group ZOEgirl. She is a popular speaker at apologetics and Christian worldview conferences, including reThink. She has been published at The Gospel Coalition, Crosswalk, the Stream, For Every Mom, Decision magazine, and The Christian Post. Her blog post “Girl, Wash Your Face? What Rachel Hollis Gets Right . . . and Wrong” received more than one million views. You can connect with Alisa online at .
Facebook: @alisachilders
Twitter: @alisachilders
Instagram: @alisachilders
Website: alisachilders.com
Book: “Another Gospel?: A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity”
November 5, 2020
The Way Home: Kristen Wetherell on fighting an unhealthy sense of fear
Fear has been an ever-present part of our lives in 2020. It’s true that we have a lot of things to fear – the COVID-19 virus, economic shutdowns, unrest, racism, and more – but Christians are often tempted to give way to an unhealthy sense of fear. Kristen Wetherell joins me on The Way Home podcast to talk about her book, Fight Your Fears, how fear has played out in her own life, and what encouragement she has for people going through this interesting and difficult year.
This episode of The Way Home Podcast is sponsored by Faithful Counseling. At Faithful Counseling, you’ll find professional mental health counseling from a Biblical perspective. Visit faithfulcounseling.com/wayhome for a 10% discount off your first month.
Show Notes
Guest Biography: Kristen Wetherell is a wife, mother, and writer. She is the author of Fight Your Fears: Trusting God’s Character and Promises When You Are Afraid, co-author of the award-winning book Hope When It Hurts: Biblical Reflections to Help You Grasp God’s Purpose in Your Suffering, and editor of 12 Faithful Women: Portraits of Steadfast Endurance. She has contributed to several compilation books and writes regularly for digital publications such as The Gospel Coalition, Revive Our Hearts, and Unlocking the Bible.
Kristen also enjoys teaching God’s Word to women of local churches. She and her husband, Brad, live in Chicagoland, are members of The Orchard, and are parents to Joanna and John. You can connect with Kristen on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Twitter: @KLWetherell
Website: kristenwetherell.com
Latest Book: Fight Your Fears: Trusting God’s Character and Promises When You Are Afraid
Why It’s Okay To Cheer on Good Economic News
This year has been gut-wrenching for many on almost every level: a global pandemic sweeping through our country has left well over 200,000 dead and many other sick, the restrictions many states have enacted have left many others without work, especially those who labor in the service and hospitality industries, and political and social unrest has roiled the country. The headlines every day are rarely encouraging.
Many pastors and church leaders are leading from a position of uncertainty, especially economically. While many of our ministries have stabilized because of the faithful giving of Christians, still we are nervous about future economic stability.
What economic flourishing points toward
Christians often have a tense relationship with the economy. On the one hand, we understand that missions and ministry is supported by the generous giving of God’s people. It takes money to hire and train and employ and publish. And yet we understand that a love of money, an all-out obsession with dollars and cents can be thoroughly corrupting.
What’s more, Christians in prosperous countries like the United States can easily become too conformed to the age, too pursuant of a materialistic life that robs them of the cross-bearing, self-denying call to follow Jesus into his mission in the world. Pastors are right to call their people away from an obsession with the American Dream and into a life of holiness and sacrifice for the kingdom of God.
And yet, as much as prosperity can be corrupting, we shouldn’t necessarily root for economic despair in our country either. Economic flourishing in a society means that people in our communities have meaningful work, jobs that help them fulfill their God-given dignity and contribute to healthy, vibrant communities.
Seek the common good of the city, not its destruction
Recessions and depressions have real world consequences that can be crushing: men and women who can’t support their families, the poor who get even poorer, and the accompanying physical and mental toll that often results in more social brokenness.
Of course we know that God can often use such times of despair to get people’s attention, to revive his church and to awaken a sense of their own mortality to draw people to himself. And during times of despair, we should earnestly pray and plead for the Spirit of God to visit us in this special way. Revival often follows times of national suffering. These moments can wrench us away from our idolatries.
Still, I don’t think we should root for bad economic news that crushes our neighbors. What’s more, I think we should root for our communities to flourish in every way, economically, socially, and more. If the Jewish exiles in Babylon were instructed by the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 29) to “seek the welfare of their cities” and if Paul instructed Timothy to pray for the wisdom of our leaders (1 Tim 2:1-3) if we take seriously Jesus’ command to “love our neighbor as ourselves,” we should pray for and take joy in good economic news. A good economy means our neighbors have meaningful work, our families are provided for, and the network of public and private institutions are funded to be able to care for those who are under-resourced. A good economy means our churches and institutions have resources to do their best work. A good economy means that many escape the idleness, despair, and crime that often result from unemployment and poverty.
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photo credit: Mike Cohen
October 31, 2020
How to Keep Your Friends In An Election Season
I recorded this video for Lifeway Voices on keeping your friends in an election season. I give four reasons:
1) Determine not to let politics be a litmus test for friendship.
2) Listen to those who disagree
3) Look beyond the election
4) Take the long view
October 30, 2020
The Way Home: Alister McGrath on the power of apologetics and the life of J.I. Packer
Alister McGrath is an Oxford scholar and a prolific writer and great thinker. He joins me on The Way Home to discuss the power of apologetics, the life of J.I. Packer, and his new book, Born to Wonder.
This episode of The Way Home Podcast is sponsored by Faithful Counseling. At Faithful Counseling, you’ll find professional mental health counseling from a Biblical perspective. Visit faithfulcounseling.com/wayhome for a 10% discount off your first month.
Show Notes
Guest Biography: Alister McGrath is a scholar and writer who is presently Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford University. After initial work in the natural sciences, McGrath moved into the field of Christian theology. He is best known for his definitive and widely used textbooks on Christian theology and his authoritative biography of C. S. Lewis. As a former atheist, McGrath is fascinated by the interaction of faith, science, and atheism, and writes regularly on these themes. McGrath was born in Belfast in 1953, and holds both Irish and British citizenship. He lives in the Cotswolds near Oxford.
Twitter: @alisteremcgrath
Facebook: Alister McGrath
Website: alistermcgrath.net
Latest Book: Born to Wonder: Exploring Our Deepest Questions
October 22, 2020
The Way Home: Benjamin Watson on the continuing abortion divide and why he speaks out
This episode of The Way Home Podcast is sponsored by Faithful Counseling. At Faithful Counseling, you’ll find professional mental health counseling from a Biblical perspective. Visit faithfulcounseling.com/wayhome for a 10% discount off your first month.
Show Notes
Guest Biography: Benjamin Watson is a Super Bowl champion tight end, a writer and speaker, and a widely read and followed commentator on social media. An NFL legend, Watson was a key playmaker for teams such as the New England Patriots, Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Ravens and the New Orleans Saints. With 547 receptions and over 6,000 yards in his career, he was a model of consistency and talent through his 16 years in the league.
Watson was honored as a Walter Payton Man of the Year Finalist in 2015 and 2017 and received the prestigious Bart Starr Award in 2017. Watson also served on the executive committee of the NFL Players Association and is the founder of the nonprofit One More foundation along with his wife, Kirsten. They live in New Orleans with their seven children.
Twitter: @BenjaminSWatson
Facebook: @BenjaminWatsonOfficial
Documentary: Divided Hearts of America
Book: Under Our Skin
October 15, 2020
The Way Home: David French on the increasing problem of polarization and what we can do about it
This episode of The Way Home Podcast is sponsored by Faithful Counseling. At Faithful Counseling, you’ll find professional mental health counseling from a Biblical perspective. Visit faithfulcounseling.com/wayhome for a 10% discount off your first month.
Show Notes
Guest Biography: David French is a senior editor for The Dispatch and was formerly a senior writer for National Review. David is a New York Times bestselling author, and his next book, The Great American Divorce, will be published by St. Martin’s Press later this year. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, the past president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and a former lecturer at Cornell Law School. He has served as a senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice and the Alliance Defending Freedom. David is a former major in the United States Army Reserve. In 2007, he deployed to Iraq, serving in Diyala Province as Squadron Judge Advocate for the 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, where he was awarded the Bronze Star. He lives and works in Franklin, Tennessee, with his wife, Nancy, and his three children.
Twitter: @DavidAFrench
Latest Book: Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation
