Welcome to Ref21!
Welcome to Ref21! It probably sounds strange to be welcomed to a page that you have read for nearly twenty years! Ref21 has been a staple of daily Christian reading for literally thousands of believers. So, why act as if…
Tag Christian Living
Applying the Beatitudes
The Beatitudes, according to Matthew, mark the beginning of Jesus’ public teaching ministry. They are the first things that Jesus emphasized as he proclaimed the Gospel of the Kingdom. Unlike Moses at Mount Sinai, Jesus began his Sermon on the…
Mercy for Migrants
I was once struck by a brief radio address given by a Jewish Rabbi on the morning of Yom Kippur. She spent the whole time allotted to her talking about Isaiah 58 and how it links to the deliverance of…
Sobriety and the Gospel
In my previous post, I discussed how patience (along with the closely-related virtues of endurance and perseverance) is one of the most valuable Christian virtues in connection to Christian maturity. However, there is another virtue of the Christian life which,…
A Biblical View of Race(s)
The topics of racism, social justice, and racial reconciliation have been hotly debated topics within the Church and on social media for some time now. One of the questions that I have routinely encountered from Christians in these debates concerns…
Patience and Maturity
Over the past several months, I’ve taken a break from regular writing and blogging because I’ve been pondering the importance of Christian maturity. The apostle Paul himself stated that one of the central goals of his ministry was to “present…
Salvation by Ideas? God Forbid!
Recently, I’ve had three conversations that all circle around one significant topic: Christianity as a mere intellectual exercise. In the first, a seminary student told me of a conversation with his son: “Dad, I believe in the Christian faith. I…
How Not to Fall Away
“I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus. The popular phrase for this is ‘deconstruction,’ the biblical phrase is ‘falling away.’ By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not…
Loving the Church, For Better or Worse
Something is terribly wrong when professing Christians do not identify with the church and love being a part of her. Something is wrong when professing Christians fail to be passionate about every aspect of the church and long to invest…
When You Say You’ll Pray…
Have you ever gotten a request from a fellow brother or sister in Christ asking for immediate prayer? Perhaps he is facing a temptation for which he needs help resisting. Or maybe she is feeling overcome by grief or sorrow…