Follower of Jesus. Married to the love of my life, Liz David. Father of four sons, all Police Officers. Lead Pastor of a wonderful church, Midwest Bible Church.
A woman hiking in Canada nearly became a grizzly’s next meal and the video circulating right now is genuinely one of the most intense wildlife encounters you will ever watch - her dog is with her, a massive grizzly is right there, and somehow she kept her head together long enough for both of them to walk away breathing.
That is not a small thing. Most people talk tough until nature is standing ten feet in front of them and every instinct in your body is screaming to run, and running is exactly the worst thing you can do.
Grizzlies are built to chase, they top out over 700 pounds and can cover ground faster than any human alive. The people who survive these moments are the ones who override pure fear with pure discipline and this woman did exactly that.
If you hike, camp, or spend any real time in the wilderness - bear spray is not optional, it is the difference between a story you tell and one somebody else tells about you.
Could you have kept your cool?
Hats off to her.
Man, this is beautiful. A life adorning the gospel.
Listen to what @StevenBartlett—host of one of the world’s most popular podcasts—says to Christian apologist John Lennox.
It is a long time since I preached a sermon I was satisfied with. You cannot hear my groanings when I go home, Sunday after Sunday, and wish that I could learn to preach somehow or other; wish that I could discover the way to touch your hearts and your consciences.
— Spurgeon
Seeing some response to my statement on @MikhailaFuller's podcast about speaking in tongues. Some potentially helpful clarification:
First, I am not a cessationist (though I see myself being accused of it). I state in the interview that I believe that the spiritual sign gifts (tongues, prophesy, healing) still take place today, just not normatively like they were in the Apostolic era.
Nonetheless, I hold to the standard exegetical position that biblical tongues refer to known languages. In Acts 2, the foundational instance, foreign speakers understood the disciples in their own native languages, establishing the clearest precedent for interpreting the phenomenon throughout Scripture.
Secondly, while bliblical specialists and theologians debate whether tongues encompass human languages alone or include angelic speech, the consensus recognizes that a tongue functions as a language -- either immediately intelligible to hearers or requiring interpretation. The requirement that Paul places on interpretation in 1 Corinthians 14 indicates that tongues contain objective, propositional meaning subject to translation, and his statement that “every valid instance of tongues contains intrinsic, propositional meaning" reinforces this understanding.
A prominent scholarly argument identifies glossolalia as “the miraculous ability to speak unlearned human and (possibly) divine or angelic languages,” with the most common usage of “tongues” referring to ordinary human languages. The term γλῶσσα throughout the NT carries two primary meanings: the human organ or a human language, and careful word studies demonstrate that it never denotes non-cognitive utterance.
However, scholarly consensus isn’t absolute the core agreement across interpretations centers on cognitive content: tongues communicate meaningful, intelligible information rather than incoherent utterance.
Third, the early church evidence after the Apostolic era is virtually unanimous: the Early Church Fathers consistently interpreted the gift of tongues as the capacity to speak the many languages used across the earth. Their writings indicate the gift served an evangelistic purpose enabling communication with non-Christian populations.
The Patristics universally understood “tongues” in Acts and 1 Corinthians to refer to human languages, and ancient Christians understood the biblical gift of tongues as a miracle involving intelligible human languages. When the fathers described the phenomenon, they used concrete language: John Chrysostom wrote that believers “would suddenly speak in Persian, another in Latin, another in the language of the Indians or of some other people” (Homilies on First Corinthians, Homily 35), and Augustine stated that disciples “spoke in the languages of all the nations” (Sermon 269, Sermo CCLXIX.
The most significant, and almost exclusive, early figure associated with ecstatic speech for tongues was Montanus, a 2nd-century prophet whose followers emphasized speaking in tongues; he was actually excommunicated (not necessarily for his position on tongues) around AD 177. By the late 2nd century, ecstatic interpretations of tongues were present but only in context of ecclesiastical concern.
One interesting nuance appears with Philastrius in the 4th century, who understood angels as capable of conversing in all languages and believed the apostles received this same ability at Pentecost. However, this doesn’t represent a departure from the “knowable language” framework rather, the Early Church Fathers understood the gift of tongues as the ability to speak all languages spoken by people. The Church Fathers agreed the gift was the ability to speak all languages known to humankind, an ability they ascribed to angels, suggesting the “languages of angels” would not refer to a distinct heavenly language but rather to the capacity to communicate with anyone encountered.
The historical record shows no discussion among the fathers of ecstatic utterances, unknown languages, or supernatural unintelligible speech. The gift remained firmly anchored to practical, learnable human languages throughout Patristic interpretation.
So if you've stuck around this long, I think my position is both exegetically and historically sound.
☀️ Today in Utqiagvik (the northernmost city in the United States), the sun rose above the horizon at 2:57 AM and won’t set again for 84 straight days or until August 2nd! Here's a look at a timelapse showing the sunset and sunrise this morning. #akwx
Question: "How much authority does a pastor have in the lives of his congregants?
MacArthur: "None. I have no authority. My position doesn't give me any authority. My title doesn't give me any authority. ONLY the word of God has authority."
This is evidence that Scripture did not come from the mind of man.
63,000 connections
1500 years
40 authors
3 continents
ONE cohesive story full of prophecies.
God wrote this through men.