Ian Kirk

#Christian #Husband to Pastor @JoniKirk #Father #Pastor @EnumclawNaz, former #manufacturing #purchasing Manager, geek+ 🐘@[email protected]

[Mark Chironna @markchironna]

Jesus doesn’t treat faith as a way to avoid thinking. He assumes the world makes sense, that God’s will can actually be understood, and that truth can be checked. He tells people to look at results (“fruit”), to notice what actually happens when they follow certain ideas, and to line things up with what God is really like. For Jesus, knowing isn’t just “having information in your head”; it’s about being honest in your heart and willing to do what’s right once you see it.

One of Jesus’ main tools is questions. He doesn’t just hand out quick answers; he asks things that make people stop and think. When people push him about power, money, or rules, he often replies with a question that exposes what they’re really after. His questions make people face their own motives and decide what they actually believe, instead of hiding behind slogans or group opinions. He’s not dodging; he’s forcing people to think for themselves.

[Dwight McKissic @pastordmack]

Why Cornerstone Church Will Continue To Partner With Women To Preach To The Gathered Assembly, Regardless of the Outcome of The Mohler Amendment!!!!

1. Joel and Peter prophesied that women would “prophesy” in the last days(Joel 2: 28; Acts 2: 17).
2. Phillip’s four daughters served the church as prophetess(Acts 21: 7-9).
3. Paul empowered women to prophesy in gathered assemblies(1 Corinthians 11: 4, 5).
4. Paul empowered Phoebe to address the gathered assembly, and told the men to show her hospitality, and to do whatever she asked them to do(Romans 16: 1, 2).
5. Paul affirmed Junia as an apostle(Romans 16: 7). Gifts are given without regard to gender(Eph. 4: 11, 12; 1 Corinthians 12).
6. Paul named Euoida and Syntecche as having “contended at my side in the cause of the gospel”(Phillipians 4: 2, 3). Paul also affirmed Nympha and the church in her house(Colossians 4).
7. Paul listed Priscilla’s name before Aquilla in Romans 16: 2, and acknowledged “the church that meets at their house.”

The only question remaining for me is, if the Mohler Amendment is ratified on its second reading, shall I await the disfellowship vote(which I will not appeal or contest)? Why would I await a vote to be disfellowshipped?

History would record that Cornerstone Church stood up for the word of God, and women who proclaimed his word. We’d rather not be disfellowshipped, but the tradition that I hail from suggests martyrdom leaves a mark in history for ancestors to track your trail, that they may be inspired to stand up for the truth of God’s word and his righteousness.

My only regret with regard to my time in the SBC is not allowing the SBC to disfellowship our church because of our continuationist theology, as Paige Patterson/& certain SWBTS trustees were once recommending. The IMB later abandoned their biblically indefensible cessationist policies forbidding their missionaries from praying according to the dictates of their conscience in private.

God may be giving Cornerstone a second opportunity to allow the SBC to disfellowship us, because we partner with Junia, Phoebe, Anna, Phillip’s four daughters and Lottie Moon, in empowering women to address the gathered assembly.

It took ten years for the SBC to correct the error of their ways in restricting the missionaries private prayers. Don’t know how long it will take them to get this women in ministry issue right. I may be in my grave when it happens, but I lean towards leaving a witness that every church didn’t follow Mohler off this cliff. Some churches stood up for biblical righteousness and examples, and were willing to pay the price of disfellowship in doing so.

[Ian Kirk @starlyth]

@PieterLValk Got it. Thanks!

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

Artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships, and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences. They may imitate or even simulate, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational, and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom. #MagnificaHumanitas

[Mark Chironna @markchironna]

You bear the image of God. So does the person you most disagree with. So does the person who has hurt you. So does the one whose choices have made it nearly impossible to see that image any longer. This is not sentimentality. It is the hardest claim Christians make. It does not require us to call evil good. It requires us to remember that no human being is ever outside the reach of the mercy that knows how to restore the likeness wherever the image still endures.

[Frank Turek @DrFrankTurek]

Ever felt stumped when a child asks why God allowed the tree in the Garden? Hillary Morgan Ferrer shares a brilliant way to explain the logic of the Garden that makes the whole story click for both kids & adults. @MamaBrAplgtics #God #Theology
👉https://t.co/vQgTb9WqDf

[Ian Kirk @starlyth]

@dualravens Thanks for sharing!

[Patrick Oden @dualravens]

@starlyth I was looking for something about Orange Scott and found this absolute gem. Very dense read but gets deep in their reasoning so worth it

[Matthew Barrett @MattMBarrett]

We live, as philosopher Josef Pieper put it, in a world of “total work.” ...the modern world makes work our identity...we are what we achieve and produce. -@pgutacker

All you graduates out there, read Gutacker's corrective @CTmagazine https://t.co/zfCwy0UCNe

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

Myth: "I only wear vegan fabrics. Better for the animals, better for the planet."

Let's check in on Doris's annual contribution.

Once a year, in late spring, Doris is sheared. The procedure takes approximately three minutes. Doris does not enjoy it. Doris does not, by any visible measure, suffer from it. Doris is, immediately afterwards, a noticeably more comfortable animal in the British summer.

The fleece weighs approximately 3 kilograms. It is sold to the British Wool Marketing Board for, depending on the year, between £0.40 and £2.50 per kilogram. The shearing costs more than the wool fetches. Brian is shearing Doris at a loss.

The wool is then:
- Naturally flame-retardant
- Naturally antibacterial
- Moisture-wicking
- Biodegradable
- Renewable, annually
- Carbon-storing while in use

The replacement, in performance fabrics:
- Polyester
- Polyamide
- Acrylic
- Polypropylene
- All petroleum-derived
- All shedding microplastics on every wash
- All requiring fossil fuel inputs to produce
- All non-biodegradable, with a typical landfill lifespan of 200-500 years

A single wash of a polyester fleece can release up to 700,000 microplastic fibres into the water system. These fibres are now in: every tested water source on earth, every tested human placenta, every tested rainfall sample, the deep ocean, the Arctic ice, and the lungs of marine mammals.

A single wash of a wool jumper releases: nothing. The wool, when eventually disposed of, returns to soil within a few years.

The fabric being marketed as the "ethical" alternative to wool is plastic.

The plastic is "ethical" because nobody has been asked to slaughter the polymer.

The polymer also has not been asked.

Doris, by being a sheep on a fell, is producing the most thoroughly sustainable performance fabric humans have ever made.

Brian is selling it at a loss.

The fashion industry, meanwhile, is selling petroleum at a profit and calling it ethical.

Reject plastic. Wear wool.

Doris is, this morning, growing next year's batch.

[Brad Brisco @bradleybrisco]

Most churches in the West are built on institutional maintenance logic: maintain the building, pay the staff, grow attendance, sustain programs. But the Kingdom operates on movemental logic: send people, multiply disciples and communities, realign structures that don’t serve the mission.

Institutional thinking asks: how do we get more people into our things?

Movemental thinking asks: how does the reign of Jesus spread through networks, neighborhoods, and systems?

#mDNA

[Tom Wright @profntwright]

Perhaps the sharpest contrast is that the "works of the flesh" are all looking inward: they are all "about me." Sexual immorality uses another person to gratify one's own desires. Idolatry and sorcery are attempts to manipulate the world into the shape I would like it to be. Hostility, anger, and party spirit are all about me and my friends squaring off against some other group. Drunkenness enables me to sink into a private world, and though the wild parties may give an appearance of "togetherness," they are hollow at the core, a glossy parody of real friendship. By contrast, most of the "fruit of the Spirit" is explicitly outward facing: love, obviously, then great-heartedness, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness. Not only do these require other people if they are to be practiced (as we saw, Christian virtue differs at this point from the lonely Aristotelian kind), they are specifically looking out into the wider world and community. They are, in the technical language, exocentric: they orient the person toward others. The three others, "joy," "peace," and "self-control," would probably be seen by Paul as likewise corporate. Joy can no doubt be private, but it longs to be shared and is thereby multiplied. The inner harmony implied by "peace" is not, for Paul, something that can collapse into private self-satisfaction; it manifests itself in the genuinely like-minded fellowship of which he speaks so often, as for instance in Philippians 2:1-5. "God has called you in peace," he says of marital harmony (1 Cor 7:15). And, as for self-control–well, it is one thing to keep one's passions and moods on a tight leash when alone, but it is quite another to restrain them when other people around are acting in ways that provoke the sleeping dragon.
–Galatians

https://t.co/sheTwuDmEi

[Tevin Macharia Mukabana @TevinMacharia]

There is a side of the Christian journey many people are not prepared for…
You begin to pray more seriously than ever before…
You start fasting, seeking God, separating yourself from certain habits…
You even give your life fully to Christ…
And instead of things getting easier…
it feels like everything begins to fight you.
Doors that used to open easily start closing.
Battles you never noticed before suddenly become intense.
You even visit a prayer center expecting relief… but when you come back, the pressure increases.
And deep within you, a question rises:
“God… why now?”
Let me tell you something most people won’t say clearly:
This is where warfare begins.
Before you got serious with God, you were not disrupting anything.
You were not confronting systems.
You were not breaking patterns.
But the moment you decided to align your life with God, you made a declaration in the spirit:
“I am no longer available for darkness.”
And that decision… comes with a response.
The Bible already warned us in Ephesians 6:12 that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, and spiritual forces.
That means some battles are not about people…
They are reactions from the spiritual realm to your growth, alignment, and awakening.
Understand this deeply:
The enemy does not waste time on what he already controls.
He fights what is trying to escape.
So when your prayer life becomes consistent…
When your hunger for God increases…
When you begin to say “no” to sin and “yes” to righteousness…
You are no longer passive.
You become a threat.
And let’s talk about something many avoid…
There are patterns, covenants, and altars—some ancient, some inherited—that may have had influence over your life or bloodline.
When you come into Christ and begin to walk in light, you are not just changing your lifestyle…
You are breaking agreements.
And not every system lets go quietly.
But listen carefully:
Resistance is not a sign that you are losing.
It is often proof that you are confronting something real.
This is where many believers make a costly mistake…
When things become hard, they withdraw.
They reduce prayer.
They become discouraged.
They start thinking, “Maybe this path is not working…”
But that is exactly what the enemy hopes for.
Because the moment you stop pressing, you lose momentum.
Hear this truth and let it settle in your spirit:
When warfare increases, your response must be to intensify—not retreat.
Pray more, not less.
Seek God deeper, not casually.
Stand stronger, not weaker.
Because prayer is not just a religious activity…
It is:
A weapon
A covering
A system of alignment
A way of enforcing heaven’s authority on earth
Even Jesus walked this path.
Right after His encounter and affirmation, He was led into a season of testing (see Matthew 4).
So if your experience feels like: “I encountered God… and then everything became intense…”
You are not strange.
You are walking a pattern of spiritual growth.
Let me encourage your heart:
Do not interpret battles as God’s absence.
Do not interpret pressure as punishment.
Do not interpret resistance as failure.
Sometimes, what you are experiencing is not destruction…
It is construction.
God is building:
Your endurance
Your discernment
Your authority
Your capacity to stand
There are dimensions of victory you cannot step into casually.
They require:
Consistency
Discipline
Depth in prayer
A strong foundation in the Word
And never forget this:
Darkness only reacts when light shows up.
So if your life is provoking resistance, it means something in you is shining.
This is not the time to go back.
This is not the time to compromise.
This is not the time to give up.
This is the time to:
Stay on your knees
Stay in the Word
Stay aligned with God
Stay consistent even when it feels hard
Because there is an end to every battle.
Every altar speaking against you will be silenced.
Every chain will break.
Every delay will turn into a testimony.
.

[The Biblical Man @Biblicalman]

Crucifix Honey

Every April they sweeten the cross.

Package the blood. Soften the nails.

Put a choir behind the screaming
so it sounds like music.

Crucifix honey.

He died on a garbage hill covered in flies
while Jerusalem ate dinner.

Not in a cathedral.

Not in a painting.

Not in the stained glass window
your grandmother pointed at
when you were six
and told you that man loved you.

On a trash heap.

Outside the city.

Where they dumped dead animals.

Where the dogs came at night.

That’s where God died.

Naked.

Bones showing through His back.

Mouth so dry His tongue stuck to His jaw.

Soldiers underneath Him gambling for His shirt
like it was a scratch-off ticket.

His mother stood there.

Couldn’t touch Him.

Couldn’t hold His hand.

Just watched the boy she nursed in a barn
choke to death on a Roman post
while flies landed on what used to be His back.

And the church put a frame around it.

Sanded down the wood.

Took the splinters out of the cross
and made it smooth enough to hang
around a pretty neck.

We turned the execution of God
into decoration.

The Romans drove the nails.

We gold-plated them.

Crucifix honey.

He sweat blood in a garden
because His body tried to die
before they could kill Him.

And we walk past it every Sunday
like it’s wallpaper.

He carried His own death up a hill
on a back that didn’t have skin on it.

And we put the cross on a bumper sticker
between the stick figure family
and the fish.

He screamed.

And we made it a holiday.

[Ian Kirk @starlyth]

@Alienware Laptop FTW!

[Timothy Keller (1950-2023) @timkellernyc]

Some have said that my being attacked by both the “right” and the “left” is a sign I am teaching truth because truth is found in the middle between extremes. I appreciate the support, but that’s not accurate.

First, it's important to note everyone occupies SOME middle because there’s always someone to one side or the other on issues who thinks YOU have compromised. Nearly everyone is in a ‘middle’—the question is: which middle is the right one?

Second, Christians should never seek a middle ground for its own sake. The goal should be to take positions that do justice to the Biblical teaching, regardless of whether the world sees you—in its categories-- as an extremist or a moderate.

Third, often Christians look like they are taking a “Third Way,” not because they are moderates but because, in being biblical, they combine what the world considers extreme positions that normally cannot go together. The Bible’s view of humanity in the imago Dei is far more optimistic about human nature than Rousseau's, & yet its view of human sin is far more pessimistic than Hobbes'—both at once! It might be fair to call that a 3rd way between alternatives, but it is not a half-and-half middle way.

Fourth, when Christians formulated the doctrine of Christ’s person, was it a halfway between Docetism (Christ isn’t really human) and Ebionism (Christ isn’t really divine)? No, Jesus is not half God and half human but fully God and fully human. The biblical doctrine IS NOT a middle way. It “diagonalizes” the alternatives (C.Watkin). It “subversively fulfills” the alternatives (D.Strange) That is, it fully critiques both and yet fulfills the best aspirations of both at the same time, without merely combining them or borrowing from them. The biblical position is not somewhere on a spectrum between alternatives—it is off the spectrum yet acknowledges the concerns of all the positions.

5th, my main criticism of so many Christians on social media who attack from the “Right” or from the “Left" is that they unknowingly wed the faith with secular political ideologies. On the right, people make idols of individual freedom and of the market and demonize government. On the left, people make idols of sexual expression, racial identity, and the State, and demonize religion and love of country. Biblical faith sees all of these as good things, but relativizes them before God and his love and grace. All things were made good (Gen 1), all things are fallen (Gen 3)-yet God through Jesus is redeeming all things. For more 1) On social-cultural idols see R.Niebuhr, “The Christian Church in a Secular Age” 2) On personal-inner idols see D.Powlison, “Idols of the Heart and Vanity Fair” 3) For a deep dive on idolatry see M.Habertal and A.Margalit “Idolatry”.

[Sharon Hodde Miller @SHoddeMiller]

“I urge you to live a life WORTHY of the calling you received.”

And what does such a life look like? Building a large platform? Amassing influence? “Doing great things for God?”

Nope. Paul instead says: be humble, gentle, patient. And bear with one another in love.

[chuck degroat @chuckdegroat]

Someone asked me this week if it’s painful to be continually involved in situations and stories involving moral failure or character crises, especially within churches and Christian institutional leadership.

I simply said, “Yes! It’s really hard.”

They followed, “How do you hold it all?“

I noted a chapter I wrote in Healing What’s Within called “Say Hello,” and I said, “Throughout the day, I greet what’s there –

Hello sadness.

Hello anger.

Hello confusion.

Hello cynicism.”

Which is to say, it will only fester and eventually combust if it’s ignored.

But if our emotions and bodily sensations are companioned through self-compassion and an experience of God‘s kindness and curiosity, we have a chance of cultivating a heart tenderness that will sustain us through it all.