Helping Our Students Navigate Doubt, Deconstruction, and Faith | Cody McCully

Review of Andrew Rillera’s ‘Lamb of the Free’ | John Whittaker

Click here to read the full article at RENEW.org: https://renew.org/review-of-andrew-rilleras-lamb-of-the-free/ [https://renew.org/review-of-andrew-rilleras-lamb-of-the-free/]  This is an audio version of a written Article from RENEW.org * Check out other great articles on RENEW.org here: https://renew.org/articles/ [https://renew.org/articles/] The aim of Lamb of the Free (Cascade Books, 2024) is to argue against penal substitutionary atonement (PSA). This shouldn’t surprise anyone. It has become in vogue to question or to dismiss PSA, even to the point of labeling it divine child abuse. It’s true, there have been poor formulations of PSA, but the basic idea is that in his death, Jesus bore the penalty for our sins. That’s a pretty basic and fundamental understanding of one of the atoning purposes of Jesus’ death. In fact, nothing is more central to the Christian faith than the atonement which is why evaluating this book is so important. What’s more, this book has attracted all sorts of attention, especially online among YouTubers and podcasters. In fact, just last year John Mark Comer created quite a stir when, to be provocative on his Instagram, he raised the question if this book was the final blow against penal substitutionary atonement. The reaction Comer received was so great that he had to issue a restatement and clarification on his Instagram. You can find a number of mostly positive reviews of Lamb of the Free on YouTube. Spoiler alert: I have been spending a lot of time in the books of Exodus and Leviticus for recording the latest episodes for The Listeners Commentary. As a result, I found the reading of this book combined with the number of glowing popular reviews of it online to be a frustrating and head-scratching experience. The book makes a number of errors that seem so obvious that I find it hard to understand how those errors can be missed or ignored. Listen for more... Join RENEW.org's Newsletter: https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/ [https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/] Join RENEW.org at one of our upcoming events: https://renew.org/resources/events/ [https://renew.org/resources/events/] Get the RENEW.org App -- https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/ [https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/]  Be sure to like, subscribe and follow on social media!  You can find us on: Instagram: @the.renew.network  Facebook: Renew.org  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork [https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork] Twitter: @therenewnetwork TikTok: the.renew.network  Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/RENEW [https://rumble.com/c/RENEW]

What Does It Mean to Be ‘Above Reproach’? | Daniel McCoy

Click here to read the full article at RENEW.org: https://renew.org/what-does-it-mean-to-be-above-reproach/ [https://renew.org/what-does-it-mean-to-be-above-reproach/]  This is an audio version of a written Article from RENEW.org * Check out other great articles on RENEW.org here: https://renew.org/articles/ [https://renew.org/articles/] Have you seen the movie Hoodwinked? It’s an animated movie in which the story of Little Red Riding Hood is told from four different-but-complementary perspectives. (If the hour is late and you need a quick illustration for how the Four Gospels tell the same basic story from different perspectives, it’ll do.) One interesting facet of Hoodwinked—that may or may not be significant by the end of the movie—is that a bunny rabbit keeps making random appearances throughout the movie. You wouldn’t think much of the quiet, unassuming rabbit except that he keeps popping up at important parts of the movie. And so it goes with the phrase “above reproach” in the New Testament (also translated “blameless” or having “nothing against them”). We might miss the phrase altogether—except that it keeps popping up in important parts of the New Testament. It’s the first qualification of an elder that he be “above reproach” (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:6). It’s a criterion for being a deacon (1 Timothy 3:10) as well as a charge from Paul to the evangelist Timothy (1 Timothy 6:14). Perhaps most importantly of all, it’s what we need to be true of us “on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:8). Listen for more... Join RENEW.org's Newsletter: https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/ [https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/] Join RENEW.org at one of our upcoming events: https://renew.org/resources/events/ [https://renew.org/resources/events/] Get the RENEW.org App -- https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/ [https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/]  Be sure to like, subscribe and follow on social media!  You can find us on: Instagram: @the.renew.network  Facebook: Renew.org  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork [https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork] Twitter: @therenewnetwork TikTok: the.renew.network  Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/RENEW [https://rumble.com/c/RENEW]

So You Want to Be a Shepherd? | Bob Turner

Click here to read the full article at RENEW.org: https://renew.org/so-you-want-to-be-a-shepherd/ [https://renew.org/so-you-want-to-be-a-shepherd/]  This is an audio version of a written Article from RENEW.org * Check out other great articles on RENEW.org here: https://renew.org/articles/ [https://renew.org/articles/] Be a Joiner, a Team Player, and a Collaborator This is a team; not a competition among individuals. Most of the best ideas won’t come from you, and that’s probably for the best. Excellent teams are not the ones with the great ideas; they are the ones with the most energy behind the good ones. Having an entire leadership team aligned around a B- initiative is more than enough to help a church flourish. Don’t let perfection get in the way. Just join. Encourage the Ones Who Currently Serve This is not like Congress, where the way to get a seat is by criticizing the incumbent. The current shepherds may not be smarter than everyone else, but they do know more about the role. Great shepherds are encouragers; aspiring leaders should start exercising that muscle. Listen for more... Join RENEW.org's Newsletter: https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/ [https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/] Join RENEW.org at one of our upcoming events: https://renew.org/resources/events/ [https://renew.org/resources/events/] Get the RENEW.org App -- https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/ [https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/]  Be sure to like, subscribe and follow on social media!  You can find us on: Instagram: @the.renew.network  Facebook: Renew.org  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork [https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork] Twitter: @therenewnetwork TikTok: the.renew.network  Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/RENEW [https://rumble.com/c/RENEW]

Practical Postmodernists | Virgil Hurley

Click here to read the full article at RENEW.org: https://renew.org/practical-postmodernists/ [https://renew.org/practical-postmodernists/]  This is an audio version of a written Article from RENEW.org * Check out other great articles on RENEW.org here: https://renew.org/articles/ [https://renew.org/articles/] Many Christians today consciously or subconsciously let their personal experience determine their interpretation of the Bible. It’s easy to make that mistake. Any Bible study group accidentally encourages it when they proceed on the basis of, “What does this verse or text mean to you?” A Bible passage’s significance or application might vary from person to person—but the passage means what it means. It honestly shouldn’t matter what a Bible passage “means” to us until we determine what God meant by it in the original context. And only when we are syncing our understanding with what God meant in the original context should we apply it to ourselves. By skipping that crucial step—sincerely seeking what God meant to communicate—we too easily let our feelings and experience determine our interpretation. Perhaps I’m calling out something that isn’t a problem in many of our churches today—but I fear it is a very real problem. Do any of these sound familiar? * I need to be baptized for the forgiveness of my sins? But I already feel saved without it. * Sex only in marriage? But we’re in a committed relationship. In fact, we’re engaged. * Evangelize? But this person already seems like they’re saved, even if they don’t technically believe in Jesus. * Tithing? But I feel good giving $10 from each paycheck. * Regular church attendance? But I feel I can’t say no to these other weekend obligations. We’ve heard that Christians can sometimes be “practical atheists,” but I’m seeing more and more “practical postmodernists” among us. “Postmodernism [https://renew.org/postmodern-theories-playing-out-in-todays-world/]” is a philosophy that views truth claims suspiciously, favoring a personal or tribal experiential view of “truth.” We can see its influence wherever truth becomes whatever resonates with how people feel—validated or invalidated based on their personal experience. Listen for more... Join RENEW.org's Newsletter: https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/ [https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/] Join RENEW.org at one of our upcoming events: https://renew.org/resources/events/ [https://renew.org/resources/events/] Get the RENEW.org App -- https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/ [https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/]  Be sure to like, subscribe and follow on social media!  You can find us on: Instagram: @the.renew.network  Facebook: Renew.org  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork [https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork] Twitter: @therenewnetwork TikTok: the.renew.network  Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/RENEW [https://rumble.com/c/RENEW]

What’s Sunday Really For? | Jordan Arnold

Click here to read the full article at RENEW.org: https://renew.org/whats-sunday-really-for/ [https://renew.org/whats-sunday-really-for/]  This is an audio version of a written Article from RENEW.org * Check out other great articles on RENEW.org here: https://renew.org/articles/ [https://renew.org/articles/] Back in the 1950s, the Austrian zoologist Konrad Lorenz discovered a fact of nature everyone should know: ducklings, it turns out, are gullible. Arriving in the world without any innate picture of what a mother duck should look like, they imprint on the first moving object they see after hatching. If it happens to be their mother, all goes swimmingly. But if it’s a red balloon drifting across the barnyard, they will fall in line just the same, and that first impression orients them for life—which is either a joke played by nature’s God or a parable waiting to be overheard. Now, granted, Christians are not ducks—Jesus likened us more often to sparrows, after all. But it is safe to say we are no less impressionable than sheep. And very often the traditions we first encounter ossify into a stubborn expectation of what Christianity is and must be—whether their origin is biblical, cultural, or merely idiosyncratic. Small wonder, then, that for many the “worship service”—their church’s pattern of hymns, prayers, offering, sermon, and communion—becomes something like a red balloon. Whether raised in pews or “born again” in a gleaming “worship center,” we take those first communal practices as definitive. Flyers advertise “worship times.” “Worship leaders” summon us with a “call to worship.” In some traditions, even the benediction before dismissal takes this form: “We pray our worship has been pleasing and acceptable to You.” And when the church reinforces—sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly by linguistic habit—that what we do in the assembly carries the special provenance of “worship,” set apart from the rest of life, the impression only deepens. Listen for more... Join RENEW.org's Newsletter: https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/ [https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/] Join RENEW.org at one of our upcoming events: https://renew.org/resources/events/ [https://renew.org/resources/events/] Get the RENEW.org App -- https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/ [https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/]  Be sure to like, subscribe and follow on social media!  You can find us on: Instagram: @the.renew.network  Facebook: Renew.org  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork [https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork] Twitter: @therenewnetwork TikTok: the.renew.network  Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/RENEW [https://rumble.com/c/RENEW]