After a somewhat brief ceasefire, the conflict between the terrorist organization, Hamas, and the sovereign nation of Israel is back in full swing. The conflict, which started with a terrorism attack on a peacetime population in October of ’23, has resulted in massive loss of life and incredible unrest for the populations living closest to it. This past week, it had gotten bad enough that the residents of the Gaza Strip (Hamas’ home territory) took to the streets in mass protest of the terrorist organization. This sort of behavior is largely unprecedented in the Islamic-ruled Middle East, which shows just how bad things are on the ground there.

As believers, we ought to have extreme compassion on those who suffer under such regimes, even though they share no semblance of our faith in Jesus. The Lord himself showed great compassion to those who were ‘not of the house of Israel’ when he saw their needs in this life (cf. Mt. 15:21-28). Our job is to be the salt of the earth (Mt. 5:13)—to be a source of goodness and compassion wherever we come in contact with the world. If we cannot muster even a small amount of compassion when we see suffering in another part of the world, how will we accomplish true compassion with real impact when we see suffering close to home?

I pray that this particular conflict will be resolved soon. I pray the same for the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. And I pray for the day to come when all of the leaders and the citizens of the nations will move toward Zion—the spiritual mountain of God; the seat of his power; the center of his authority and his goodness (cf. Isa. 2:1-3). I pray for the day when Christ will be enthroned as king in all men’s hearts, and all the conflicts of this world will vanish, along with the suffering they cause.

- Dan Lankford, minister

Transcription / Notes:

Last week, Dan put forward this beautiful idea: What if we came to know the Bible so well that the teachings of the Bible naturally flowed out of us? That’s what I want! I want the teaching of the Holy Spirit to become second-natured, to become my natural inclination. Accomplishing that starts with establishing a consistent habit of Bible reading and not just daily reading but good daily reading. So, this week, we thought we’d offer a few tips on what good daily Bible reading looks like.

1) Be Patient

In the Bible, the Gospel is often compared to a seed. Like a seed, if the Gospel is planted in your heart and allowed to grow it will inevitably transform your heart, your life, your actions (Matthew 13:18-23; Galatians 5:22-23). At the same time, like a seed, this process takes time, and we need to be okay with that. If daily Bible reading isn’t having a life-altering effect after two weeks, remember that Jesus personally taught His apostles for three years and by the end of His ministry they still didn’t quite get it (John 14:9). Be patient.

2) Quality Over Quantity

Sometimes in our impatience we try to speed up the growth process. Like a procrastinating college student, we cram loads of Bible study into tiny sections of time to make up for years of neglected study, but that just doesn’t work. That’s not how hearts change. So, good Bible students learn to emphasize quality over quantity. It’s better to just let five words sink in than to let 1,000 words go in one ear and out the other (I Corinthians 14:19). Just read a chapter, or a chunk, or a verse and allow it to sink in.

3) Master Meditation

When you close the book make sure to take something with you. Maybe it’s a thought, a promise, or a question. Whatever it is, take it and keep it with you through the day. Remember it. Meditate on it. Dwell on it. Absorb from it every ounce of edification it provides. This is what David did, what he longed to do – he anxiously waited for the night watches because in those moments of solitude he meditated on God’s word (Psalm 119:148). We should do the same.

Next week, Dan will have a few more Bible study tips to share!

- Jonathan Banning

In Christian bookstores, you can often look over the new releases and get a sense of what’s happening in the broader world of all that’s called ‘Christian.' I did that recently at Focus of the Family Bookstore, and here are some of the titles:

• Take Your Life Back; How To Stop Letting the Past and Other People Control You
• I Shouldn’t Feel This Way; Name What’s Hard, Tame Your Guilt, and Transform Self-Sabotage into Brave Action
• I Declare War; 4 Keys To Winning The Battle With Yourself
• The Bondage Breaker; Overcoming Negative Thoughts, Irrational Feelings, Habitual Sins
• Neighbor, Love Yourself; Discover Your Value, Live Your Worth
• Take Back Your Life; A 40-Day Interactive Journey To Thinking Right So You Can Live Right

What’s the common factor here? They’re all promising to help re-gain control of our thoughts; to help us overcome difficult things like guilt, regret, comparison, and tension. They all promise that if we follow the steps, we’ll be free from what’s negative inside us. It says a lot about our cultural moment when this is what Christian writers and publishers know people will buy in order to find help.

What’s the real solution to a mind that is anxious, frustrated, regretful, and restless? What will all the ideas in those books boil down to if they’re correct? Ultimately, they’ll be rehearsing truths from God. Truths such as, ‘Don’t be anxious; trust God’ (cf. Mt. 6:25-34), and ‘Believe it when God says you’re forgiven’ (cf. 1 Jn. 2:12), and “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Tm. 1:7).

What can we do to gain and maintain control of our minds? Ultimately, we gain control by surrendering control—by becoming so thoroughly indoctrinated with God’s ways that “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). Only that will win the battle over self.

- Dan Lankford, minister

The things in my life that I know best are the ones that I recall and revisit every day—the “I could do that with my eyes closed” kind of stuff. I know my way around the house because I navigate it every single day. I know the way I drive to work without thinking about it. I know my family by daily interactions. I know my native language by perpetual usage. These and many others are a kind of knowledge so regular and deep that I take it for granted. They are a kind of knowledge that I’ve gained, not just by amassing facts, but by repetitive experience.

What if we added knowledge to our faith like that? What if our knowledge of Christianity was so deep that it became fully natural to us? What if our knowledge of the things of God was so ingrained by daily experience and exercise that we took it for granted as the natural and normal way of life?

How can we do that? By revisiting, recalling, and refreshing the Christian way in us every. single. day.

In Deuteronomy 17, God prescribed regulations for the ideal king who would lead his people, and they were exceedingly simple. They come down to his restraining his own power and prestige (vv. 14-17) and continually reading God’s word (vv. 18-20). I find those rules powerfully instructive: More than being savvy politicians with deep knowledge of political science, God wanted the kings to have knowledge of him. And how would they come to a point where that knowledge is their natural path? By engaging the written word every. single. day.

Daily Bible reading is a habit that Christians sometimes write off as “a good idea, but not really commanded.” And while that’s technically true, it’s not good spiritual wisdom. The reality is that the more often we engage the words and ways of God, the more natural they become for us. Over time, they become the only way that we know to do life. They become the things that we can do and say without thinking about them, because we have come to know them on a whole different level. “Add to your faith… knowledge [that comes from daily habits].”

- Dan Lankford

“In those days also I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah…” (Neh. 13:23-24)

Ashdod is a very old city, dating back approx. 3,700 years. It was a city of the Philistines in Old Testament times and was a linchpin of some conflict between them and God’s people (cf. Jos. 11:22, 1 Sm. 5). But in the time of Nehemiah, as quoted above, the problem with Ashdod was not conflict; it was compromise.

In Nehemiah’s time, some of the people of God had intermarried (again) with the nations around them, and they had made so much room in their lives for the culture of their foreign wives’ people that some of their children had already lost an understanding of their native language—Hebrew—in a single generation. This is exactly the problem of intermarriage that Moses had warned them about generations before, and it represents another BIG step away from God and their rightful Israelite identity. The problem was that Israel was supposed to be the influence for good in the world, not be influenced for bad by the world.

There is an inherently and close-to-home danger that Christians can be warned about from this passage: namely, that covenant children—those being raised by Christian parents—aren’t being taught some things that should be our distinctive characteristics, just as the children of the tribe of Judah apparently weren’t being taught. I see trends that may seem small, but which indicate a move away from the “native language” of Christianity and toward only speaking “the language of Ashdod.” Some elements of Christian life that ought to be natural to us, but which are easily lost when they’re not deliberately taught. Things like:

• Bible knowledge—even the basics, like the order of the books—is increasingly hard to find among religious children, even in conservative groups like us.
• The importance of worship—that attendance at assemblies actually takes precedence over many other life events and situations.
• The practice of hospitality—that it’s not a burden, but a joy. That it’s not a pretentious show of self and wealth, but a humble gift that we can give to others. And that it’s a job for every believer, whether we have little or much in earthly goods.
• The gladness of fellowship—that our bonds in Christ are to be enjoyed, elevated, cherished, and seen by others as a sign of our devotion to Christ (cf. Jn. 13:35).
• The path of humility—the truth that no one should think of himself/herself as the most important people in the world; even our children. They should not be made to think that they are the most important person, even to us as their parents. Because God is the most important person. Period.
• The comfortable, warm, and rightly-fitting place of things like hymns, psalms, quoting scripture, bedtime prayers, and Bible reading in our home lives. These and others are things that ought to be the native language of Christian home life.

I worry that by neglecting things like these, we prime children for a time in their life when they recognize the native language of Christian living, but they don’t speak it. And more problematic than that: they don’t really care to learn it and regain what has been lost.

The problem between Israel and Ashdod wasn’t conflict; it was compromise. And we so often face the same problem. We are supposed to be the influence for good to the people around us; not be influenced for bad by them. And we are supposed to be the influences on our kids, not have them influenced by the people around us. If we’re letting them losing distinctive elements of God’s presence in their lives, then we’d better repent and redouble our efforts to draw them close to the heart of the father.

- Dan Lankford, minister

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Author's Note: This post was inspired by my grandfather's sermon by the same title (he drew different applications than I did, but saw a good principle in the text; see his notes in inset picture). He preached for almost 7 decades, and passed away just this past week at the age of 90. I'm writing this (and likely more to come) in his honor.

Hypocrisy among disciples is one of the greatest detriments to the expansion of Jesus’ reign in the world. It makes the Way look fraudulent when those who claim it aren’t true to it. And just as it fails intellectually, it’s an enormous emotional problem. It’s like a noxious odor to anyone who recognizes it.

I was reminded of this recently when I pulled up behind a minivan in traffic that had a Jesus fish on one side of the rear window… and a decal with a nasty swear word on the other side. On other recent occasions, I’ve talked to some young adults at work whom I know to be active at church… who complain that their favorite local bar has closed down and they’ll have nothing to do on the weekends. On another recent occasion, an acquaintance whom I know to regularly use profanity and follow his lusts freely… told me that he “pastors” a church here in our city.

That sort of thing just stinks to the mind and heart of anyone who genuinely wants Christ to be served. Like the pungent smell of vinegar or ammonia, it shocks the senses of believers, jarring us and making us want to turn away. And it must surely stink similarly as an aroma ascending before God.

And that ought to remind us just how imperative it is that we live lives of holiness and purity. Because if we can sense it in others’ lives, then how much more will they be put off by the same stench of our hypocrisy? We are a living sacrifice to come up as a pleasing aroma before God (cf. Rm. 12:1)—without a hint of off-putting hypocrisy.

- Dan Lankford, minister

Gnosis. Knowledge. Peter says that if we want to grow in Christ we need to grow in our knowledge. Yet, if you listen too much to the echoes of our culture you might find yourself discouraged in that pursuit. Here’s why:

There are many highly respected and highly visible people in our culture who would claim that it’s not possible to know the will of God. Sure, the most basic truths are discernable, like the fact that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead; but beyond those simplest truths God’s will is just kind of muddy. Some claim that the Bible itself is not clear on most issues. Others claim that the Bible is clear, but that we’ll be forever undone by our own bias and prejudice. Still others make the case that God’s word is intentionally left open to interpretation—that God wants us to draw our own subjective conclusions.

To put it simply, we live in a culture that just doesn’t have faith in our ability to know, understand, and correctly apply the word of God. But culture is wrong.

The Holy has told us clearly that we can know the will of God. Remember that Jesus promised that those who continue in His word would know the truth and it would make us free (John 8:31-32). When writing to the Colossians, Paul prayed that church would filled with the knowledge of God’s will so that they could please Him in all respects (Colossians 1:9-12). That doesn’t sound like something you would say if it were impossible to know God’s will. 

More meaningful to me is what John states at the beginning of his Gospel: “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” (John 1:18). The word translated “explained” is the Greek word, “exegeomai,” and it means to open up or unfold. That’s a beautiful idea, isn’t it? Through His life and teaching Jesus has unfolded—He has revealed—the character and the will of God. Be not discouraged in your pursuit of knowledge! You can know the will of God!

- Jonathan Banning

Most Bible readers have heard often about the importance of context when reading and studying. For some believers, that means just a verse or a sentence before and after the specific thing we’re looking at. But often, the context of a particular passage includes a whole section of the book that it’s from.

That’s what we have with this week’s daily Bible readings. All week long, we’re following Israel’s journey from the Red Sea (which they crossed in ch. 14) to Mt. Sinai (where they’ll receive the Law, starting in ch. 20). I recently heard the Exodus simply outlined in three parts: the road out [of slavery], the road between [slavery and freedom], and the road up [to God’s promised rest]. We’re with them on ‘the road between’ right now.

As we said in this week’s Reader’s Guide, this is where Israel will begin to show their true colors… which aren’t pretty. They complain about God when they find places with no water (15:22-26, 17:1-7). And they disobey his simple instructions about manna, messing up in two ways: first, by trying to gather too much and hoard it for themselves (16:19-20), and second, by expecting to gather it on the day when he told them to rest (16:27-30). And if you know the rest of the wilderness story, then you know these events are only the beginning of their problems.

What was their core problem in these events? In all of those cases, they failed to trust that God would provide for them. They complained because they didn’t trust him to provide. They hoarded because they didn’t trust him to provide. They worked rather than rested because they didn’t trust him to provide.

Do we trust him to provide for us? What does our anxiety level reveal as the answer to that? What do our giving-versus-hoarding habits reveal as the answer to that? What do our work-versus-rest habits reveal as the answer to that? How are we doing at putting our full trust in our God while we live in this life—our very own ‘road between’ salvation and promised rest?

- Dan Lankford, minister

One of the main reasons (some might even say the reason) that Jesus so often ran afoul of the religious leaders of his day was this: He had total faith in God’s word and will, and they just didn’t.

When they pointed out what they saw as flaws or sins in his life, he showed them repeatedly that if they truly believed God’s word in their hearts, they would be happy to see his ways, hear his words, and accept his gracious dominion as their Messiah. But instead, they saw him as a sinner, because their faith was in their own ways rather than in what God had said.

Jesus pointed this out to them powerfully in Mark 7. When they criticized him for not living “according to the tradition of the elders” (Mk. 7:5), Jesus showed that they had more faith in that tradition than they did in God’s actual words. And their problem is always the problem when humans go beyond the word of God: we “leave the commandment” (v. 8), we “reject the commandment” (v. 9), and we “make void the word” (v. 13). He was very clear: in believing that their additions were required to make God’s word work as it should, they had rejected him. They lacked faith in him.

Hearing Jesus say that ought to be a check on our own faith. 
Are we satisfied with God’s will just as it is, or do we feel that we need to fence spirituality a little more properly than he has done? We too can fall into thinking that God’s words are sometimes not clear enough or conservative enough, so we make our own ‘traditions,’ thinking that we’re helping him. But let’s be warned: The Pharisees and scribes did that because they lacked faith in God, and we’d better be diligent not to fall into the same trap. Let’ be like Jesus and have total faith in the perfection of God’s word and his will.

- Dan Lankford, minister

Spiritual growth is a never-ending process. It’s like a marathoner’s pursuit of the perfect race—the faster they go, the faster they want to go. There’s always something more to reach for. As Peter said, the attributes of a quality spiritual life are always increasing (2 Pt. 1:8). This can be a daunting reality, but it need not be, because as we work toward growth in one attribute of spiritual life, growth happens in others simultaneously.

Knowledge—gnosis in the Greek—is one of those springboard qualities: when it grows, other growth happens. If we’ll let it, knowledge increases our virtue, steadfastness, self-control, etc. This is what God wants for us and from us. The apostles spoke freely and often about saints growing in the knowledge of God (Rm. 15:14, 1 Cr. 12:8, Ep. 1:17-18, Co. 1:19, Philemon 1:6, 2 Pt. 1:2). They didn’t want them to just believe and remain ignorant—they wanted them to possess deep understanding of God’s word, his will, and his Way.

But someone might be thinking, “Isn’t knowledge bad for Christians? Doesn’t it make people prideful? Aren’t we supposed to be about love and not about knowledge?” I’ll give the benefit of the doubt that anyone who would ask this is well-meaning, but the simple answer is, “No.” There are only a very small handful of times when learning/knowledge is negatively portrayed in the New Testament, and they’re usually when someone had an attitude or faith problem; not that they were just “too smart” (such is the case where Paul said, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up”). Knowledge of God and his word doesn’t inherently make us prideful—that’s a choice that each of us have to make. The pursuit of Bible knowledge, of worldview understanding, and of spiritual discernment ought to be a hallmark of Christians. In fact, that’s God’s stated purpose for church leaders: that they would build saints up “until we all attain to... the knowledge of the Son of God” (Ep. 4:13).

Spiritual growth is a never-ending process, so let’s keep learning, brothers and sisters. Let’s keep adding some more knowledge of the things of God to our faith.

- Dan Lankford