Links & Quotes

Leaders always go first. I want to develop myself so that I have something to give to other emerging leaders around me. If I’m not growing, I’m not going to be able to help others. Check out this full conversation Greg and I had our on leadership podcast The Craig And Greg Show. And be sure to check out all of my videos on my YouTube channel.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.” —Albert Einstein

This is sort of gross, but kind of cool at the same time. “A new study in the journal Scientific Reports concludes that 12 severed hands discovered in 2011 at Tell el-Dab’a (the site of the ancient Hyksos capital of Avaris) constitute the first bioarchaeological evidence of the gruesome ‘trophy taking’ practice of amputating the right hands of defeated enemies.” Read more about this find here. This is a corroboration of the ‘trophy taking’ David performed for King Saul in the Bible.

The more scientists learn about Creation, the more in awe of our Creator I am! Recently, researchers have discovered even more happening inside our cells that keep everything operating optimally. And then there’s this: “Besides the origin of the eye, Darwin had a problem with the origin of flowering plants (angiosperms—plants that produce seeds within an enclosure, i.e., a fruiting plant), known as Darwin’s abominable mystery. The biblical model of origins maintains that the first forms of life created by God were land plants on Day 3 of the creation week. Land plants were fully-formed and functional—‘in the beginning.’”

Dan Reiland encourages leaders to look at their weaknesses differently. “The chinks in your armor allow you to develop empathy and compassion. They give you insight to human nature. They help you genuinely connect with people. Without these things it’s difficult to lead with God’s heart.”

I am a proud member of the Assembly of God fellowship, so I especially loved reading this report on Breakpoint:

“According to recent research by pastor Ryan Burge of eight major Protestant denominations, only the Assemblies of God has seen a steady increase in church membership since 1987. Each of the others, mostly denominations that are fully progressive theologically and culturally, are experiencing steady decline. 

“Denominations like The Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Presbyterian Church (USA) began long ago to move away from orthodoxy and capitulate to new ideas about sex, gender, and marriage. On the other hand, the Assemblies of God (AG) remained committed to orthodoxy on matters of Scriptural authority, the Deity of Christ, the Resurrection, and on sexual matters. It supports the protection of life at all stages, marriage between one man and one woman, and it insists that the body determines identity as male and female. 

“Christians are constantly pressured, within the Church and without, to evolve on these issues or, we are told, we will die out. It seems however, that biblical orthodoxy draws people in. Maybe because it provides an anchor in confusing times.”

Links & Quotes

I have a series of nearly 70 posts on the topic of godly leadership. Here is the latest installment about going all in. Be sure to check out all of my videos on my YouTube channel.

T.M. Moore writes persuasively to Christians to encourage them to build for the future. He wrote, “For most Christians today, the Kingdom which Daniel saw, Jesus proclaimed and brought near, and the Spirit inaugurated on that first Christian Pentecost—that Kingdom is little more than a theological idea, or a distant hope. It is not a daily reality to be sought, seized, shared, and strengthened in every nook and cranny of our Personal Mission Fields. Christians today are trapped in their past or mired in their present, and they have little or no sense of what it means to build for the future so that righteousness, peace, and joy in the Spirit increase wherever they live, move, and have their being.”

Whether you know it as the Mesha Inscription, the Mesha Stele, or the Moabite Stone, this 1868 discovery is another piece of archeological evidence lending proof to the historicity of the Bible.

And another piece of research from both paleontologists and entomologists points to the Flood described in the Bible as historically viable. Researchers discovered fossilized giant ants in Canada where evolutionists claim they shouldn’t be. The Institute for Creation Research commented, “There is no need to postulate ants trekking across the Arctic to explain the distribution. Nor is there a need to inject short ‘hyperthermal’ episodes to allow passage from one continent to another. The global Flood explains what we observe the best. The warmer pre-Flood conditions and likely higher oxygen levels explain the large size of the ants. And their fossil distribution is best explained by their transport off the highest pre-Flood hills as the waters were receding.”

“If we were to look at Jesus’s death merely as a result of a betrayer’s deceit and the Sanhedrin’s envy and Pilate’s spinelessness and the soldiers’ nails and spear, it might seem very involuntary. And the benefit of salvation that comes to us who believe might be viewed as God’s way of making a virtue out of a necessity. But once you read Luke 9:51, all such thoughts vanish. Jesus was not accidentally entangled in a web of injustice. The saving benefits of His death for sinners were not an afterthought. God planned it all out of infinite love to sinners like us, and He appointed a time.” —John Piper, Love To The Uttermost reading plan on YouVersion

Links & Quotes

“Years ago, I tried to top everybody, but I don’t anymore. I realized it was killing conversation. When you’re always trying for a topper you aren’t really listening.” —Groucho Marx

I don’t know about you, but it gets my attention when a physicist says that “dark matter makes up 25 per cent of the Universe and we have no idea what it is!” I love some of the discoveries that are being made and theories that are being proposed concerning black holes. None of this in any way shakes my belief in a Creator who spokle everything into existence. If you would like to consider the  beginning of the universe from a different perspective, check out Starlight And Time.

A reminder from a class I recently taught: you don’t have to go to a church building to be the Church of Jesus Christ—

“When the Holy Spirit is ignored or rejected, religious people are forced either to do their own creating or to fossilize completely. A few churches accept fossilization as the will of God and settle down to the work of preserving their past—as if it needed preserving. Others seek to appear modern and imitate the current activities of the world with the mistaken idea that they are being creative.” —A.W. Tozer

Entomologists have discovered powerful antibiotics in their [paper wasps’] venom, and there is also an indication the venom may be used as a possible cancer treatment.” Whoa!

Dr. Kristin Collier is a professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan and director of the school’s Program on Health, Spirituality and Religion. In a recent keynote address to medical students, she had some wise words: “The risk of this education and the one that I fell into is that you can come out of medical school with a bio-reductionist, mechanistic view of people and ultimately of yourself. You can easily end up seeing your patients as just a bag of blood and bones or human life as just molecules in motion. You are not technicians taking care of complex machines, but human beings taking care of other human beings. Let’s resist a view, of our patients and ourselves, that strips us of our humanity, and takes away from the very goal of why we went into this profession in the first place: to take care of human beings entrusted to our care in their moments of greatest need.”

The power of trusting God for our daily needs—

Dan Reiland shared a great post for leaders: 5 steps on a lifelong path to spiritual authority.

This is a short clip from a full-length video I provided exclusively for my Patreon supporters. Would you prayerfully consider supporting this ministry for just $5/month? All new supporters through the end of September will get access to both my content and access to all of the content I have already published.