Kenneth Berding

Professor of New Testament at Talbot School of Theology/Biola University. Follower of Jesus Christ first and foremost. Connect at

[Randy Alcorn @randyalcorn]

“For me, true contentment on earth means asking less of this life because more is coming in the next. Godly contentment is great gain. Heavenly gain. Yes, heaven will galvanize your heart if you focus…on a Person, Jesus, who makes heaven a home.” – Joni Eareckson Tada

[Kenneth Berding @BerdingKenneth]

Following is the introduction to a message I preached on 1 Corinthians 9:1-18 at Redemption Hill Church on March 22, 2026 as part of the preaching series on 1 Corinthians. In the introduction I raise the question of why everything in the Bible isn’t easy to understand.

When God got a hold of my 14-year-old heart while thinking about how the brevity of life and the length of eternity, one of the fruits of my spiritual awakening was that I started reading the Bible a lot. Most of what I read I understood. And, of course, I could understand the main things—since God wrote his word to reveal his character, plans, and purposes to us. But on almost every page I came across questions I couldn’t understand.

This was hard for me to accept. There was a part of me that thought that the Bible should be easy to understand. I mean, if it’s really from God and if God wrote it to teach us his character and ways, including the way of salvation, you would think that it would be easy to understand, wouldn’t you?

The answer to that question is that understanding the main teachings of the Bible is easy to understand. The primary truths of the Bible are emphasized and repeated so many times that to miss these truths would be like not being able to recognize a barn door while standing twenty feet away from it.

If you spend any time in the Bible, you cannot possibly miss:

that God is a holy God—and that he is also a God of love
that human sin is a huge problem
that Jesus is himself God in the flesh
that Jesus came into the world to save sinners from eternal separation from God
that the way he did it was dying on the cross
that he proved he had the power and authority to forgive our sins by rising from the dead
that Jesus is coming back again as judge
that there is a glorious future when God will make everything right
Seriously, you couldn’t miss these clearly-taught truths—and many other truths like these—unless you simply refuse to accept them.

But I took the observation that the primary things in the Bible are easy to understand and extrapolated from that truth the false notion that everything in the Bible ought to be easy to understand. And when I ran into really hard questions, they became almost existential problems for me early in my Christian life. But the only reason they were such a problem for me was because of my assumption that everything in the Bible ought to be easy to understand.

Where did this assumption come from? I’ve thought about this question for years and now believe that the main reason was because in my mind I had separated the world of experiment and observation (science and the social sciences) from the world of aesthetics (beauty, music, feelings). I grew up in an engineering family where we analyzed and tested everything. But my family was also very musical; we focused on beauty, especially the music you listen to or create—not so much the visual arts. But I struggled to figure out how to integrate these two sides of my brain.

You see, there is a direct sort of way that music impacts you—whether you like it or not. But you do not receive direct impact from an idea that you do not understand. In other words, I was superimposing my ideas of beauty onto a Bible which, although it is beautiful, also makes truth claims—some, and only some, of which are difficult to understand.

I was assuming that God should be easy to comprehend—that everything about God should be immediately accessible. But unless God himself chose to create a world in which everything is simple to understand—and tells us that it is so—I was simply forcing my assumption upon God that his communication should be easily and quickly understood, at least by me.

One moment of reflection, though, will demonstrate that understanding everything about God and his word cannot always be easy. God is infinite in wisdom and knowledge, and my brain is the size of a potato—which means that it has all sorts of limitations. We only have access to knowledge of God to the extent that God chooses to reveal that knowledge to us.

But because God is infinite—which is something the Bible clearly teaches—then it cannot be the case that we will understand everything. Otherwise, that comprehensive understanding would be evidence of a human-constructed religion rather than something that came from an infinitely wise God.

For more on the clarity (perspicuity) of Scripture, see chapter 2 in my book Bible Revival: Recommitting Ourselves to One Book.

Share this:

[Kenneth Berding @BerdingKenneth]

@edstetzer Both Trudi and I are praying for you.

[Ed Stetzer @edstetzer]

Donna and I were on our flight to San Francisco—but not seated together.

The flight attendant come up to me and said, "You've been upgraded to first."

I said, "Well, my wife in 9A, let's upgrade her."

"Yes," he said, "That's actually your seat and we offered the upgrade and she said to give it to you."

So, that, boys and girls, this is the most Ephesians 5:21 moment we have ever had. :-)

[Kenneth Berding @BerdingKenneth]

For today’s post, I’ve extracted twelve brief passages from my new book (with co-author Keith Krell): God’s Purposes in Our Pain: 10 Ways God Uses Suffering for Our Good. I hope you’ll receive spiritual encouragement from these short excerpts—though, of course, the impact will be greater if you can get a copy of the book and read these words in context.

What Does “Why” Mean?

“So what does why mean? Ken speaks a foreign language that makes it a lot easier to answer this question. That language uses two question words in place of our one English word why. Each of the two words, though, is nuanced differently from the other. One looks backward: ‘From what cause?’ The other looks forward: ‘To what end?’ English can make this discussion confusing by combining both ideas into a single word. As a result, many of us unknowingly struggle even to know exactly what question we’re asking when we ask why God allows suffering.”

The Job of the New Testament

“Second Corinthians is sort of the book of Job of the New Testament. But unlike Job, 2 Corinthians offers actual answers to the question of why God permits his children to suffer.”

Life is Pain

“The great theologian Westley from The Princess Bride once commented, ‘Life is pain, Highness! Anyone who says differently is selling something!’”

Comfort as Spiritual Strengthening

“The Greek word translated ‘comfort’ in these verses means more than merely soothing us when things are hard. It means ‘to help by giving encouragement’ or even ‘to instill someone with courage or cheer.’ In this passage, the emphasis is on God spiritually strengthening us during our sufferings so that we will be able to spiritually strengthen those who suffer. So instead of comfort making us comfortable, Paul emphasizes that God’s comfort makes us spiritually strong.”

The Importance of Trust

“There are probably a thousand reasons why God allows suffering to enter the lives of his children. But one of the most common reasons—and one of the most fundamental—is stated in 2 Corinthians 1:9: ‘Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was [in order] to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.’ One of the main purposes for divinely permitted suffering is to learn to trust in God and to stop trusting in ourselves. It is more important that we learn to trust deeply in God than live a life free from suffering. Trust is that important.”

Golden Repair

“Kintsugi is a Japanese term that means ‘golden repair.’ This art form involves fixing broken pottery with gold, making the cracks visible instead of hiding them. Kintsugi artists believe that damaged objects have special beauty; the difference between their original perfect state and their current imperfections adds to their appeal. This technique has become well known in Japanese art, and some artists even break pottery on purpose so that they can later repair it with gold, which is meant to celebrate its flaws. Kintsugi provides a beautiful illustration of what God does in and through us. He takes cheap and fragile pottery and infuses it with gold, which holds the fragile broken pieces together. In Paul’s analogy, the treasure—that is, God’s glory in the gospel—emerges from inside us, from simple, inexpensive, and fragile pots.”

Manifesting Jesus

“Oh, how much we long for the life of Jesus to be manifest through us! We don’t desire suffering for its own sake. But when we do suffer, we long for others to see Jesus in us, despite our weak, broken, and hurtling-toward-death bodies. And we long for Jesus to be displayed in you, too.”

Waking Up in the Presence of Jesus

“Many of us have undergone surgery at some point. An anesthesiologist enters the room, starts an IV drip, and puts us to sleep. We fall asleep in one room. When we awaken, we’re in a different room. The surgery is finished and we’re greeted by someone different than when we went to sleep. Similarly, when we pass from this life, we will awaken in a different yet much better place—and best of all, in the presence of Jesus!”

Supporting Others during Suffering

“Elephant researcher Virginia Morell makes a comment about elephants that could apply to the way Christians should support each other: ‘They help baby elephants stuck in mud holes, use their trunks to lift other elephants that are injured or dying, and even reportedly reassure distressed individual elephants with a gentle touch of their trunk.’ God uses suffering to spur us to help other Christians who are stuck in the mud, to aid those who are injured or dying, and to reassure distressed people with a gentle touch or hug.”

Accelerating Spiritual Growth

“As we’ve carefully observed other Christians suffer, we have come to believe that suffering accelerates the process of spiritual growth in a way that nothing else can, so long as those who are suffering remain receptive to whatever provisions God grants during their season of suffering.”

Counteract Conceit

“The early church father Irenaeus, writing about Paul’s thorn in the flesh only a little more than a century after Paul’s death, comments, ‘For there is nothing evil in learning one’s infirmities…rather it has even the beneficial effect of preventing him [Paul] from forming an undue opinion of his own nature.’ Despite his deep admiration for the apostle Paul, this early Christian writer recognized that even Paul was at risk of developing ‘an undue opinion’ of himself. Irenaeus understood, as we all should, that God used Paul’s chronic physical pain in a beneficial way to help him counteract conceit. If this was the case with Paul, certainly it will be the case for many of us.”

A Conduit for the Power of Christ

“What was Paul’s response to this message that God was not going to heal him but would increase his power through Paul’s weakness instead? Did Paul turn his why into a whine? Did he stubbornly insist that God remove the thorn? Did he permit himself to sink into a long-term seething anger catalyzed by unmet expectations? No. He responded, ‘Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me’ (12:9). Paul proclaimed that, going forward, he wouldn’t fight his weaknesses; he welcomed them so that he might become a conduit for the power of Christ.”

I would love for you to pick up a copy of God’s Purposes in Our Pain: 10 Ways God Uses Suffering for Our Good and share it with a Christian friend who is wrestling with the why-suffering question. I’ve been deeply helped by the truths from God’s word unpacked in this book, and I’m praying fervently that through it God will strengthen the faith of many brothers and sisters in Christ who are enduring pain of various kinds.

https://t.co/Ko8UbNcSEF

[Kenneth Berding @BerdingKenneth]

Whenever one of my students says that he or she wants to become I writer, I almost always ask, "What are you writing right now?"

[Tony Reinke @TonyReinke]

John Piper last week to writers (6/22): “If you’re a writer, you write. Period. You don’t publish. That’s neither here nor there. You might. Or you might not. If you’re a writer, you write. And one reason you write is that you cannot *not* write. And one of the reasons for that is because you find it so *something*. For me, it is so *illumining*. It’s discovery. There are eyes in your pencil. There are eyes in your keyboard. I don’t *see* until I try to *say*.”

[Kenneth Berding @BerdingKenneth]

Today is launch day for God’s Purposes in Our Pain: 10 Ways God Uses Suffering for Our Good. Keith Krell (my co-author) and I have been eagerly awaiting this day so we can share this book with you. Free shipping at Amazon.com--and 25% Prime Day discount too. https://t.co/YJDtQa4PV0

[Kenneth Berding @BerdingKenneth]

This article I wrote for Crossway's blog just went live.

[Crossway @crossway]

Saying the words “everything happens for a reason” in most instances is either unhelpful—or even harmful. What would be a better response?
https://t.co/y2pbcTZHnl

[Matt Smethurst @MattSmethurst]

Nine Marks of a Healthy Paragraph

1. Be clear.
2. Get concrete.
3. Deploy verbs.
4. Stay organized.
5. Get moving.
6. Vary the rhythm.
7. Be warm.
8. Revise humbly.
9. Write to serve.

Hope this advice helps your writing.

https://t.co/anntC7QWzG

[Pastor Rich Bitterman @w_bitterman]

The joy of Christ is not fragile enough to be killed by grief.

I have walked back to my truck after praying with hurting people and felt the silence sit beside me all the way home. Grief can change the air in a house. Even prayer can shrink to a whisper because the heart has spent all its strength trying to stand.

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11).

His joy.

He said this with betrayal already moving toward Him..thorns and nails waiting down the road. Still, Jesus spoke of joy as something He could place inside His people.

The world gives joy that depends on good circumstances. Christ gives joy with scars in His hands.

This is the joy sorrow cannot bury. It lets tears fall in the presence of the Savior who wept at a grave, bled on a cross and walked out of His own tomb alive.

Grief can sit at the table, but it cannot take the throne. Christ remains and His joy keeps breathing where the world expected silence.

[Kenneth Berding @BerdingKenneth]

It's only one week from the release of my new book (with Keith Krell): God's Purposes in Our Pain: 10 Ways God Uses Suffering for Our Good. Free shipping from Amazon if you purchase it on release day (June 23). I can't wait to share it with you! https://t.co/8W1fCFXtPI

[Kenneth Berding @BerdingKenneth]

Seven Things to Do to Prepare for Spiritual Warfare

Do you want to be ready when you face spiritual warfare? Do you want to be prepared when you encounter attacks from Satan and his host of demons? The Bible tells us to get ready (Eph 6:10-14a). How can you prepare for spiritual warfare?

Here are seven things you can do to get ready. These seven means-of-grace will train you to be ready for any sort of satanic attack, whether it is a dramatic attack (threatened by a demon-possessed person, Mark 5, Luke 8), an assault on your beliefs (2 Cor 10:3-5), or a mundane temptation (1 Cor 7:5; 1 Thess 3:5). Here are seven ways you can prepare for spiritual attack.

1. Prepare for spiritual warfare by learning and leaning into Christian doctrine. When you face spiritual attacks of any kind, knowing what is true about God, his plans, and his purposes will prepare you better than almost anything else. Learn the contours of Christian doctrine—including the historic Christian affirmations found in the ancient creeds and as taught in various catechisms throughout history. Buy a systematic theology book and read it. Solid Christian doctrine will strengthen your Spirit-empowered resolve whenever you face spiritual attack.

2. Prepare for spiritual warfare by practicing the daily Christian “walk.” You will not be prepared for spiritual attack until you have habituated yourself into the practice of righteous living. A daily Christian walk is grounded in Christ’s own righteousness—but we must appropriate the positional righteousness we received at salvation and incorporate it into our minute-by-minute existence. A lot of spiritual attack comes at the level of temptation. One of the most effective things we can do to prepare for spiritual attack is to grow in the practice of righteous living rooted in the righteous standing we have received from being united with Christ.

3. Prepare for spiritual warfare by studying apologetics. Know what you believe and why you believe it. Practice sharing the gospel with unbelievers in situations where the stakes are not so high, that is, in moments when you might not even use the language of spiritual warfare. Prepare persuasive reasons for your faith ahead of time (1 Peter 3:15). One common spiritual-warfare scenario is when you are trying to share the good news with an unbeliever. Second Corinthians 10:3-5 teaches that strongholds are arguments raised up against the knowledge of God. Preparing to answer such arguments—by studying apologetics—is one way to prepare for spiritual warfare.

4. Prepare for spiritual warfare by growing your faith. How do you grow your faith? You can grow faith by stepping into situations where faith is crucial to the task ahead of you. Pray for people to be healed. Get involved in overseas missions. Do something hard that you think will glorify God. Enter into hardship and make sacrifices for the sake of Christ. Watch God meet you, empower you, and help you in those situations. Then you’ll have experience with faith when you face an attack from Satan or experience spiritual warfare of any kind.

5. Prepare for spiritual warfare by remembering your salvation. Recall what God did when he saved you, deeply own it, and live into it daily. Spiritually root yourself by remembering what God did when he saved you. In Romans 6, the Apostle Paul says that to deal with temptation, you need to remember that you died, were buried, and were raised with Christ. Constantly remind yourself of what happened at salvation. Bring these truths to mind repeatedly. During times of spiritual attack, you will need to remember your salvation.

6. Prepare for spiritual warfare by saturating yourself in the Word of God. Read it. Study it. Think deeply about it (that is, meditate on its meaning and implications for life). Memorize it. Grow in your love for it. Let God’s Word change the algorithm that affects what you think about.

7. Prepare for spiritual warfare by praying constantly. Turn your thoughts and attention to the Lord repeatedly throughout the day. Pray small prayers and big prayers. Even write them down. Mentally pray your way around the world for Christians who suffer. Become a person who is characterized by prayer. Prayer is a powerful way to ready yourself for spiritual warfare. When in doubt about what to do when encountering any sort of spiritual attack…pray.

The Apostle Paul Already Gave Us This List

This list of seven things to do to prepare for spiritual warfare is just a restatement of Paul’s list of the armor of God in Ephesians 6:10-20. Paul’s metaphor of the soldier’s armor has become so familiar to many of us that we have forgotten that God (via a letter of Paul) is instructing us to do certain things in preparation for spiritual warfare. Granted, there is some disagreement among New Testament scholars about what some of these metaphors represent. But I have done diligence in trying to offer what I think are the most likely referents for each metaphor. So, how did Paul himself state the seven preparations-for-spiritual-warfare I summarized above?

1. …having fastened on the belt of truth (v. 14)
2. …having put on the breastplate of righteousness (v. 14)
3. …as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace (v. 15)
4. …take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one (v. 16)
5. …take the helmet of salvation (v. 17)
6. …[take] the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (v. 17)
7. ��praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication…making supplication for all the saints (v. 18)
So, how do you prepare for spiritual warfare?  You deeply learn about and habituate yourself to these seven practices. If the apostle Paul could address you directly, he would encourage you to develop these seven habits in preparation for the evil day. And then he would probably stand up and boldly challenge you with a few more words:

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore!"

He not only would challenge you with those words; he did challenge you with those words—since I just quoted from Ephesians 6:10-14a. He follows that challenge with seven things you can do to prepare for spiritual warfare. Let me once more summarize those seven areas using only one word each—all Paul’s own words:

1. Truth
2. Righteousness
3. Gospel
4. Faith
5. Salvation
6. Word [of God]
7. Prayer

----------

Only twelve days until the launch of my new book (with Keith Krell): "God’s Purposes in Our Pain: 10 Ways God Uses Suffering for Our Good." I can’t wait to share it with you!

[Kenneth Berding @BerdingKenneth]

How is a Christian Different from a Non-Christian in relation to Sin? (Romans 6)

One important way that a Christian is different from a non-Christian in relation to sin, according to the apostle Paul, is that a Christian is not stuck in sin, whereas a non-Christian is. I’ve decided to coin a new theological word today 😊to describe this difference: "stuckness". The apostle Paul uses a stronger metaphor in Romans 6 to describe the same concept, the metaphor of slavery. But the idea is the same.

Paul’s main point in Romans 6 is that we should view sinning as incompatible with the freedom Jesus provided when we were united to his death and resurrection. As Paul pursues that main point in Romans 6, he also answers the question before us in this post: What has changed in relation to sin now that we are united to Christ?

What does Paul say about that? Here are six key verses from Romans 6 that answer the question of what has changed in relation to sin for the believer in Jesus:

Verse 6: We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

Verse 7: For one who has died has been set free from sin.

Verse 14: For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Verse 18: and, having been set free from sin, [you] have become slaves of righteousness.

Verse 20: For when you were slaves of sin….

Verse 22: But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God….

Because of what Paul writes elsewhere in this chapter, we know that Paul doesn’t think that a person who has come into relationship with Christ is sin-free; otherwise Paul would not repeatedly exhort his readers not to sin (vv. 1, 11-13, 15, 19). Instead, Paul must be saying that the power of sin is broken. You are not fated to sin when you are tempted. You are no longer stuck in sinning.

Notice how Paul describes the Christian’s former state as having been “slaves of sin”; but now, Paul says, we have been “set free from sin” and are “slaves of God.”

Again, the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian in relation to sin is found in the theological concept of stuckness. A non-Christian is stuck in sinning; a Christian is not. The power of sin has been broken for a Christian. When a believer is tempted to sin, he or she does not have to sin. What a dramatic contrast this highlights between an unbeliever and a true believer in Christ! And what an encouragement it is to us who have come into a relationship with Christ by faith that we are not fated to sin!

I am not saying that a non-Christian is unable to stop a bad habit. But the non-Christian is still stuck in sinning in a general way. For example, a non-Christian might be able to stop a bad habit, but sin will pop up somewhere else in his or her life.

Have you ever played the game Whac-A-Mole? Life for a non-Christian is like playing Whac-A-Mole. The non-Christian hits the head of one sin and another sin pops up somewhere else. He goes through a ten-step program and stops drinking, but sin emerges elsewhere—in pride or sensuality or overeating. That’s because the power of sin is not broken for the unbeliever.

Maybe a different illustration can provide more clarity. A non-Christian can clean one room in her life. A house guest may view that area as under control in her life, and in a certain sense, it may be. But the way the non-Christian got that room tidied up was by moving stacks of papers, groceries, and rubbish to a different room in her house. If a guest asked to see a different room, our non-Christian friend would have to move the messiness to a different room before being able to present a clean-looking room to a guest. That’s because she is stuck in sinning. The sin can be moved around, but she cannot consistently overcome sin in her life.

A Christian, on the other hand—that is, one who has truly been united with Christ (Rom 6:5) and received the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:14)—is not fated to have sin pop up somewhere else when it has already been whacked down. Nor will she have to constantly move the messiness of one room in her house to another to make the house presentable.

This is the theological concept of stuckness. It is important for every Christian to understand this (and, actually, for every non-Christian who is starting to feel conviction over sin to understand it, too). For the Christian, although he will face temptations to sin, he is notdestined to sin. He can overcome any presenting temptation by recognizing his union with Christ and leaning into the enabling power of the Spirit.

There is more to say about this, but I’m only writing a blog post, after all—a post that is trying to answer a single question: How is a Christian different from a non-Christian in relation to sin and the temptation? One significant answer to that question is: A non-Christian is stuck in sinning, whereas the power of sin has been broken for a Christian. When a Christian faces temptation, he or she does not have to sin—he or she is not fated to sin—because, according to Romans 6, anyone who has truly placed one’s faith in Jesus Christ has been set free from the power of sin.

This article was first posted at https://t.co/yAwbXfGd31.

[Matt Smethurst @MattSmethurst]

Goodness. What a prophetic quote from 44 years ago.

[Kenneth Berding @BerdingKenneth]

Predestined to be Conformed to the Image of Christ (Romans 8:29)

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers (Rom 8:29)

Today’s devotional thought is not really focused on predestination, even if that’s the first thing my students want to talk about when they encounter Romans 8:29. Suffice it to say that predestination is important to me; I gladly dive deep—at least as deep as I can—into this doctrine with my students. But an analysis of predestination isn’t my purpose today. My aim is to think about the goal of predestination–becoming conformed to the image of Christ.

Romans 8:29 explains that God not only knew ahead of time, but also purposed that those he justified would be “conformed to the image of his Son.” God, expressing lavish, undeserved love, decided not only to call, justify, and glorify us (Rom 8:30), he planned to shape us into the likeness of Christ—to make us like Christ.

Travel with me in your thoughts to eternity past. God has just announced his decision to create a world filled with people. He didn’t have to. As Father, Son, and Holy Spirit he was perfectly happy without humans around. But he also knew that creating people would be good, which is what he joyfully exclaimed after each day of creation. But unlike all the other things he had made during the first five days of creation, he molded humans into something more like himself than anything else he had created. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion…’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen 1:26-27).

But as you know, humans fell, and great was their fall. Sin entered the world, and the image of God in humans was marred. Twisted. Distorted. It wasn’t obliterated. That’s why a human has no right to take someone else’s life; humans were created in the image of God (Gen 9:6). But Adam and Eve—and we too as their offspring—were spiritually disfigured when we allowed sin in.

God continued to tenaciously prepare the way for his children to share his image, despite the fall. And when God intends something, you can be sure that it will happen. He sent Jesus, God-in-the-flesh, the perfect image of God, to re-call, re-form, re-shape, re-create us…into the image of Christ. As some children increasingly resemble their parents as they get older, God’s intended outcome was that we would begin to look more and more like Christ.

If you ever find yourself wondering why God allows suffering to invade your life, remind yourself that God’s highest purpose for you is not your comfort, but to conform you to Christ’s image. If you ever wonder why your prayers don’t get answered quickly —and find yourself groaning under that realization (Rom 8:23-26)—recollect that God is remaking you into his image as he did with the first humans on the sixth day of creation. If you find that relationships are hard, that days are long, and that you haven’t reached the goals you set for yourself when you were young, remember that God’s primary goal for you is probably different from your youthful goals. His goal for you is Christlikeness. He is unwavering in his commitment to shape you into the image of Christ. He won’t stop until he has accomplished his purposes in you. That’s something worth staking your life on.

This post was an adaptation of devotional #35 in my book: How to Live an ‘In Christ’ Life: 100 Devotional Readings on Union with Christ.

Only one month from the release of my new book (with Keith Krell): God’s Purposes in Our Pain: 10 Ways God Uses Suffering for Our Good. It’s available for pre-order at: https://t.co/ZoWxTzyMM4 The post you just read only briefly touches on one of God’s purposes for suffering; this book will address the why-suffering question head-on. Keith (my co-author) and I are counting down the days until we can share this book with everyone!

[Dr. Michael J. Svigel @Svigel]

Theology 101: Just to clarify—

It’s “leading worship,” not “performing.”

It’s “the pulpit/table,” not "the stage.”

It’s “the service,” not “the production.”

It’s “the sanctuary,” not “the auditorium.”

It’s “the congregation,” not “the audience.”

[Dustin Benge @DustinBenge]

What we lose when the Bible is only on a screen:

1. You remember where the verse lives on the page and aids memorization.

2. The page shows you much more at once. You see the context, not just a few verses at once.

3. The page keeps your notes. Years from now they will still be there, in your own hand.

4. The page cannot distract you with a notification. It only asks to be read.

5. The page is something your children watch you open and they know it’s the Bible.

The screen gives much. The page gives more.

[Matt Smethurst @MattSmethurst]

Worth reading slowly.

[Kenneth Berding @BerdingKenneth]

Thanks for forwarding this, Justin. I listened all the way through. Excellent. I really hope it encourages a lot of people to get into the Word--and hide it in their heart.

[Justin Schell @TheJustinSchell]

What do you think? Have you listened to these Rhythm & Bible tunes yet? https://t.co/bTgIkSZrRf

[Kenneth Berding @BerdingKenneth]

@TheJustinSchell Hi Justin. You can learn more about this community in this blog post here: https://t.co/7H8X4uU0cZ

[Kenneth Berding @BerdingKenneth]

The Thirty-Minute Prayer Meeting
8 years
70 residential students
More than 100 community dinners
Hundreds of one-on-one meetings
And approximately 350 morning prayer meetings

Twice a week we have been praying with the college men and women who have shared life with us at the one-year residential discipleship program Trudi and I have led during these past eight years. But it’s (sadly) coming to an end this month. We are committed to continuing active ministry with college students, but in a less than two weeks, we’re moving out of The Berdhouse and into a normal house about a mile from Biola University where I teach full-time.

But before we say goodbye to this ministry, I thought you might appreciate a description of how we’ve been able to pray together so many times for so many years. Maybe you’ve been thinking of starting a small-group prayer meeting with some spiritually-minded Christian friends, but only have thirty minutes to allot to it. How do you host a vibrant prayer meeting in only thirty minutes?

I’m sure there are other ways we could have approached this, but to keep us on track, we decided to follow a simple plan. Such an approach has helped us actually pray and not use up our time in chit chat or extensive sharing of prayer requests. Here is one outline that you, too, could use to lead a successful thirty-minute prayer meeting.

Divide your time in half—more or less. During the first fifteen minutes, read and respond to a preselected passage of Scripture. During the second fifteen minutes, pray about one or two (rarely three) prayer burdens someone in the group has been carrying.

The First Fifteen Minutes:

Start on time. Announce your preselected passage, allow everyone a moment to locate the designated passage—tell everyone ahead of time to bring a Bible—and then read the passage aloud. (HERE are seventy passages we’ve discovered work well for group prayer.) Keep in mind that you only have thirty minutes to pray. Latecomers can catch up.

After reading aloud the selected passage, the leader should briefly (and gently) remind the participants how to pray consecutively through the passage.

Here are your reminders:

1. Work from top to bottom (moving through the passage together).

2. Pray short prayers (no more than a few sentences).

3. Pray actively and repeatedly (avoiding too much silent space).

4. Prayers of agreement with what someone else has already prayed, responsive thanksgiving for a truth found in the passage, or a petition (praying for something to happen) that the passage elicits are all fine. Encourage people to respond in whatever way seems appropriate.

The leader can simply conclude the first fifteen (or so) minutes with “Amen.”

The Second Fifteen Minutes:

Transition with a comment like: “Let’s turn now toward requests. Has anyone brought a prayer burden that you have already been carrying that we can join you in praying?

The key is to gently coach people not to randomly suggest something that just came into their minds to pray about, but only to share prayer burdens that they are already carrying. (Rather than: “I think it would be good if we prayed about…”; more along the lines of: “I’ve been burdened recently to pray this…”) The content could be personal (such as an individual crisis, someone else’s suffering, or the name of a friend who needs to come to the Lord), or it could be broader (like praying for revival or responding to a global calamity).

At this point, let me offer one suggestion. If you’ve been sitting for the first fifteen minutes, invite everyone to stand up for the last fifteen minutes of prayer. That’s been our practice at The Berdhouse. We have discovered that this keeps us awake and focused—especially since we normally pray together in the early mornings! Of course, it is possible to successfully pray without ever standing up.

During this second fifteen-minute segment, pray—again, relatively short prayers—about the one prayer burden that has been shared until you’re done. Multiple people should pray through the request (even repeatedly) until the Lord hasn’t put anything else on anyone’s hearts to pray. When the request seems to have been appropriately prayed through, the leader can simply say “Amen.” Sometimes this one request will take up the entire second half of the prayer time, though sometimes you will have enough time to pray through one more request (and infrequently through a third).

What if no one brings a prayer burden to share? If I’m leading, I will normally do one of two things. I will encourage everyone to bow their heads and ask the Holy Spirit to bring to mind something that he wants them to share. Then I’ll add: “If something comes to mind which you think is from the Lord, go ahead and share it.” This can create a bit of space for someone to share a request that is a bit closer to home—perhaps something that he or she has been hesitant to share. Alternatively, I will sometimes suggest a specific prayer request for the global church. (See prayer guides HERE and HERE). Praying for our brothers and sisters outside of our own localities keeps our prayer meetings from only focusing on the little worlds we create for ourselves.

Again, when the time is up, simply say “Amen” and perhaps something like “Have a wonderful day in the Lord” to signal that the meeting is finished. It’s important to finish on time, otherwise people will be reluctant to come again in the future.

That’s been our pattern for the past eight years. There are probably other ways to successfully host a thirty-minute small-group prayer meeting, but this approach has borne fruit for members of The Berdhouse for the past eight years.

One additional thought: There are ways to kill a prayer meeting. If you’re the one leading a gathering for prayer, keep this in mind and gently coach your Christian friends with soft reminders each time you’re together. Many Christians have developed bad habits that negatively affect prayer meetings and require some gentle coaching to keep them on track. For more on this, see HERE.