Posts from September 2024
Appreciating and Correctly Reading the Stories within the Gospels
If you have read Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John — the Gospels — you know that not only do they tell the story of Jesus’ life and present Jesus’ teaching, but they are made up of individual stories. I prefer to call these brief accounts “episodes.” So the one story about Jesus is made up of multiple episodes about Jesus. For example, we see the “leper” episode in Mark 1:40-45, followed by the “paralytic down through the roof” episode in…
Our CCW Books Are Free. Why?
We have given tens of thousands of our books and ministry tools away over the years. In the beginning of our ministry we gave everything away, but we were mostly giving away pamphlets and booklets. As we began to publish more books, and were upgrading to better quality printing and binding, we decided that we needed to work with a price structure that would allow booksellers to sell our books also, to help us disseminate our works better. So, for…
Natural Disaster and Pastoral Comfort
We must acknowledge that the most troubling problem emerging from any large scale natural disaster is not that people die. That is a real human and emotional issue, but not the most significant one. Hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, fires, tornados or floods do not change the statistics on the number of the human race experiencing death by even one digit. A typhoon in Bangladesh swept away between 300,000 and 500,000 lives in 1970,[1] and the worldwide influenza pandemic of 1918 exterminated…
Confession Confusion – A Letter From Jim
Dear CCW family, I’m sitting in a coffee shop writing this with all of you in mind. I have been aware over the years that a lot of confusion arises in people’s minds about confession of sins. I would like for us to think this through. For one thing, a person without Christ might believe that confession of individual sins before God is a necessary part of what it means to come to Christ. If one believes that confession of…
Guidelines for Children
RULE # 1 WE ALWAYS TELL THE TRUTH. "Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who deal truthfully are His delight." Proverbs 12:22 "A lying tongue hates those who are crushed by it, and a flattering mouth works ruin." Proverbs 26:28 (New Jerusalem) "But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life." Revelation 21:27 RULE…
God Above All Governments
You may disagree, but I believe biblical history and subsequent Christian history demonstrates that radical internal holiness, godly enthusiasm to follow Christ, and courageous truth-inspired faith in him regardless of the societal externals or the diffidence and even hatred of those around us, do more to accomplish the will of God in the world than the seating of any government over the people. The government may or may not support the Christian viewpoint. It did not in New Testament days…
How to “Get Over it” When You Taught Poorly
If you teach the Bible regularly, you know the experience of wishing you had done better — sometimes much better — immediately after you finished. I have been there. I once spoke at a men’s retreat of a church different than my own. About halfway through my message, I could feel in my soul that things were going poorly. The men seemed unenthused. Two guys were whispering to each other and laughing. I pressed on, but it never improved. Afterwards,…
No Lay-up Shot: A Lesson from the Masters
For some reason unknown to humankind, my older brother got to play golf on the distinguished Augusta National Golf Course, the course where perhaps the best tournament of the year is held—The Masters. It was there that the following life-shaping event took place. He was playing through the course with the required caddy. After he landed in the middle of hole 13 of the notorious 3-hole Amen Corner, he asked the caddy for a certain short iron. Astonished, the veteran…
Dear Eden from Sweden
I write poetry for my grandchildren as their “PaJim.” This is one. We have a strain of Swedish ancestry on my wife’s side — a farm family in Sweden who moved to Canada and then to Minnesota in the 1800s. This poem reflects that connection. Likely the members of that family used “kulning” to call the cattle. Before you read this poem, listen to the enchanting kuhning of Jonna Jinton at this address to understand the poem better: https://youtu.be/KvtT3UyhibQ?feature=shared. The…