The following articles have been selected because they are informative, instructive, entertaining, or simply interesting. Articles appearing in Your Friday Five do not represent an endorsement.
What It Would Mean to Overturn Roe, By Carl R. Trueman
The Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case that directly challenges our country’s abortion regime, will have repercussions far beyond the confines of abortion law. Should the Court’s decision in Dobbs overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, then the future of legal abortion in America will truly be transformed. Should Roe and Casey stand, not only will it be business-as-usual for the culture of death; it will also likely change the nature of partisan politics in the United States. The pro-life cause, particularly in Christian circles, has made support for the GOP a virtual Kantian moral imperative for many years. And the one area in which Donald Trump can be said to have exceeded expectations was that of federal judicial appointments, especially to the Supreme Court.
Expository Preaching: What It Is—and 20 Features, By Peter Adam
Expository preaching is biblical preaching. It is always the Bible [that] is being expounded, explained, or revealed. It aims to expose what is there, rather than imposing ideas on the Bible passage, using it superficially to serve another agenda or to raise a question, then finding the answer elsewhere than in the Bible.
Prayer guide on Afghanistan crisis made available for Southern Baptists, By Timothy Cockes
NASHVILLE (BP) – The SBC Executive Committee, in partnership with Send Relief, has released a prayer guide for Southern Baptists regarding the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan.
Not Just Cooperation: The Action of the Three, By Fred Sanders
When three people work together on a project, each of them does their own part of it. As Gregory of Nyssa describes it, “even if several are engaged in the same form of action, [they] work separately each by himself at the task he has undertaken, having no participation in his individual action with others who are engaged in the same occupation.” There are distances and differences between them: they take turns (distance in time), or work on different parts of the project (distance in space), or come to the project from different angles (again, space). “Each of them is separated from the others within his own environment, according to the special character of his operation.”
The Real Cost of Building a Healthy Church, By Paul Alexander
Success vs. Failure in Ministry
Visible results cannot be the metric by which we measure our ministries, which raises a disturbing question: What if the immediate results are not what you envisioned? What if, in a dark turn of God’s providence, your faithfulness starts looking like what the world would call failure? What if, for all your faithfulness and patience, your leadership is still ignored, people are still leaving, the church still isn’t adding new converts to its numbers, or the gospel is still generating more conflict in the church than you expected? What if that same problematic leader is still threatening and plotting to get you fired, precisely because you’re following [wise] counsel?