“No human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” (James 3:8)

James knows it is inevitable that if we communicate in words, our words will eventually spread evil. This connection cannot be broken. The web tempts us to talk, and our tongues want to start jabbering. As a result, more people talk to more people more frequently, more easily, about more things than ever before. And so sin abounds (Prov. 10:19). If James is right, more talk means there is more evil emerging than ever before—more, also, of evil’s annoying little brother, foolishness.

To judge from how Christians behave on the Internet, you’d think there are scores of primary, sacred issues worthy of all-out battle with fellow believers in public, complete with schoolyard taunts and the imputation of evil motives. Junior bloggers set themselves up as the theology police, thrashing those with whom they disagree and doing so with relative impunity or even the encouragement of readers who seem hungry for controversy. In their wake come the blog commenters, hiding behind aliases while firing off ill-considered rants, seemingly unaware of the damage such behavior can do both within the church and the world at-large. Think about unbelievers assessing the reputation of Christ by the online behavior of those who call themselves his disciples!

Such foolishness is not what Jude meant when he called us to contend for the faith. When believers “bite and devour one another” (Gal. 6:15) in front of the entire world, we not only fail in our calling to contend, but we make it far easier for unbelievers to dismiss the gospel altogether.

— Contend: Defending the Faith in a Fallen World, p. 39, 40 (Amazon | WTS Books)

I’m reading Every Good Endeavor by Tim Keller (WTS | Amazon) at the moment and it’s such a refreshing look at the concept of work. As he works to provide readers with a healthy, biblical theology of work and its “very goodness” from the beginning of creation, he reminds us that work is “one of the ways we discover who we are, because it is through work that we come to understand our distinct abilities and gifts, a major component in our identities” (p. 38).

So author Dorothy Sayers could write, “What is the Christian understanding of work?. . . [It] is that work is not, primarily, a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do. It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker’s faculties . . the medium in which he offers himself to God.”

In other words, a Christian understanding of work leads you to see your work as an act of worship.

How might our weeks look different if we grasped that concept? That rather than being a drudgery or a necessary evil, work is one of our chief expressions of worship and imaging our Creator?

I suspect many of us would find we might better be able to see the unique gifts and abilities God has given us at play in our daily routine, because we’d have a reason to exercise them with greater intensity.

We might even learn to like our jobs a little more, if for no other reason than because they offer us a chance to become more and more like our Creator and Redeemer.

What’s your view of work? Do you see it as a necessary evil or something you get to do?

Too frequently I’ve heard Christians say things like, “I’m not a theologian,” or “maybe we should leave theology to the theologians.” Every time I hear it, I nearly blow my top.

Why does it bother me so much? Because it’s just not true.

One of the most dangerous lies we can ever believe is the one telling us “we’re not theologians” or “theology isn’t important.”

I’m not alone in feeling this way. I really appreciate the way R.C. Sproul voices his frustration about this in Knowing Scripture. There, he writes:

Countless times I have heard Christians say, “Why do I need to study doctrine or theology when all I need to know is Jesus?” My immediate reply is, “Who is Jesus?” As soon as we begin to answer this question, we are involved in doctrine and theology. No Christian can avoid theology. Every Christian is a theologian. Perhaps not a theologian in the technical or professional sense, but a theologian nevertheless. The issue for Christians is not whether we are going to be theologians but whether we are going to be good theologians. A good theologian is one who is instructed by God. (Kindle location 287)

You don’t have to be formally educated, but make no mistake, Christian: you are a theologian whether you want to admit it or not. Now act like one.

Recently I’ve been reading Douglas Bond’s excellent The Mighty Weakness of John Knox. Here Bond offers a brief look at the life and impact of Knox’s ministry, with a special focus on his spiritual disciplines Knox was a powerful preacher, though he would often suggest otherwise. He was a gifted and insightful writer and theologian, despite never having completed his formal education.

But most significantly, he was a man who steadfastly relied on God’s enablement an empowerment through prayer. I love the way that Bond puts it here:

Humble Christian that Knox was, he knew his great need of divine enabling, so he both prayed and sought the prayer support of others, something men in the flesh rarely do. Americans, schooled in Emersonian self-reliance, find asking for prayer an awkward, maybe even unnecessary, task. . . . seeking prayer is a tacit admission that we are not capable in ourselves, that we are desperately needy, that the arm of flesh is weak and ineffectual. Men don’t like owning up to these realities, but prayer itself, and awareness of our need of it from others, requires an honest admission of the facts. Knox was one who owned up to the facts about himself. Because of his candid acknowledgment of his great need, he sought the aid of the God of the universe, and one way he sought it was through the prayers of fellow believers. Empowered by the Almighty, Knox became the single most significant force to be reckoned with in an entire country.

Reading of Knox’s keen awareness of his own shortcomings, his need for God to truly come to his aid, forced me to really look at how my own prayer life has been of late. Too often I’ve found my prayers to be perfunctory and cool, though I know this ought not be the case.

We have been dealing with some pretty serious health concerns at the Armstrong house of late, and that has been, like Bond’s assessment of Knox, a powerful impetus for me to ask God to strengthen my prayer life. But I don’t want to be satisfied with a healthy prayer life when everything’s going sideways. I want my prayer life to be equally strong and consistent when things are great – because that’s when I really need it most.

Recently I finished reading The Chronicles of Narnia with my oldest daughter, Abigail. We started reading the series back in mid-June and have more or less been reading a chapter a day ever since. Here are a few things I learned through the experience:

1. Her fake British accent is terrible—but hilarious.

Seriously. She’s seen the movies, so she understands the characters are English. What made reading really funny was hearing her use a fake accent when talking about the characters. “Is Petah or Lewcee in this one, Daddee?” she’d ask in her peculiar dialect. Every time she did it, I nearly lost it.

Every.

Time.

2. She can handle higher reading level books.

This is something that’s true of most kids, according to the authors of The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home. They’re able to listen to and understand stories written at higher reading levels, even if they can’t necessarily read them themselves.

This is definitely the case with Abigail. When we’re reading, she isn’t acting bored or half-paying attention; she’s really into what we’re reading, following along, asking questions, and making predictions about what’s going to happen next. It’s really cool. But the best thing for me has been seeing her start trying to read the books herself—and actually being able to do it!

3. Reading with her makes her excited about reading more.

We’ve been reading with Abigail (and all our kids) pretty much from day one, so they’re very comfortable with books in general. But what I saw with Abigail was different—she really got into the series and started making suggestions for what we could read together next. Her choice, which was completely out of the blue: Alice in Wonderland.

(Emily thinks it may be because of a Disney sing-a-long DVD.)

So that’s what we’ve just started reading. And it’s kind of weird, but in that fun, well-written way. Starting reading “big kid” books made her want to read more books, which in turn is making her want to read even more. We’ve started talking about reading The Pilgrim’s Progress, The Odyssey, and a few others although I’ll probably look for one geared slightly more toward her age group for those).

I’m super-excited about how well she’s taken to reading these kinds of books and we’re seeing it already develop into a genuine love of reading, which we couldn’t be happer about.

Parents, what are you reading with your kids right now?

I really hate the word “authentic.” Correction—I hate the buzzword that “authentic” has become. We’ve become so enamored with the idea of being “real” that we minimize and distort the seriousness of our sin. We don’t grow to hate sin more, as God does—we own our “brokenness” and tend to sit there, forgetting that God’s called us to actively put those things aside for our good and His glory.

Yesterday I reviewed Creature of the Word and really appreciated the way the authors addressed this propensity toward inauthentic authenticity. Here’s how they put it:

A gospel-centered community acknowledges the presence of sin and welcomes the confession of sin. But a truly gospel-centered community never reduces the severity of sin. To “abhor” describes the way a believer should react to sin. The word means to “shiver in horror,” the way your body reacts to an unexpectedly freezing cold shower. Believers are to shudder at things that go against God’s revealed purposes, things that harm both ourselves and others…

Sadly, a tendency exists among Christians to seek authentic environments for the sake of relishing in authenticity. These people get up after a small group meeting or some other accountability structure, slapping each other on the back for their ability to be open and honest about their sin. Yet they never take active steps together in order to combat that sin. True Jesus-centered authenticity lovingly nudges believers toward continual repentance—not just a bunch of “nobody’s perfect” confessions but actual, gospel-driven changes in lifestyle…

When God saves us, our attitude toward sin changes. Sin doesn’t become easier to commit; it becomes more despicable to us than ever.

Chandler, Patterson and Geiger, Creature of the Word: The Jesus-Centered Church (Kindle locations 975, 980, 989)