Thoughts from Mark Farmer

...for the movie Up . It is animated, but isn't for kids. The children at the early showing we attended were constantly asking the adult...

I have added a link to Christianity Today . The flagship of evangelical magazines, CT was founded by Billy Graham and provides excellent, th...

I have a post today at jesuscreed: http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2009/06/friday-is-for-friends-joey-spi.html#preview . The topic is...

Isaiah 6:1-8 has long been seen by Protestants as a model for worship. Not that it is complete or unchangeable, but the stages of Isaiah...

See you in a week or two, after surgery and recovery. Mark

I have found a love for the last book in the Bible such as I have never had. The turning point has been Richard Bauckham's The Theology ...

I John 3:2 contains this puzzling statement: [W]e know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. How c...

It has been about ten years since I first read Dallas Willard's claim (see the last three posts below) that asking is the way God has g...

Today we finish the passage from Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy. He is discussing the well-known verses in the Sermon on the Mo...

Dallas Willard describes what happens as we "back off" from trying to fix or improve others and they begin to open up (see yesterd...

One of the best books I have read on the Christian life is Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God ...

A friend brought to my attention the following You Tube video by a Christian group, Go Fish, taking a stand for the old tradition of saying ...

You can read my short post about the Gospel today at  http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/ . Note that this is a new address for jesuscreed...

Scot McKnight teaches Bible at North Park University in Chicago. His jesuscreed.org blog is a major internet hub for evangelicals and pastor...

I received a forwarded e-mail with a subject line about Barack Obama's "Not Exactly's", claiming to have been penned by Bi...

There is a post today on Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed site that I wrote regarding Alan Jamieson's book, Chrysalis . Here is the link:...

That's the title and theme of a book just out written by two 19-year-olds, Alex and Brett Harris. (Yes, they are twins.) The subtitle is...

Thanks to Laurel for this excellent interview with the son of a Hamas leader who has decided to follow Jesus. Mosab Hassan Yousef is refresh...

For years I have been experimenting with different ways of presenting the gospel in a way that is both simple and complete enough to be sati...

I find that complaining begins in my head. Why do I think complaining thoughts? The truth is, it is because of what the apostle Paul calls...

I googled "Why do people complain", and this is by far the most enlightening response I found.People  have had to deal with compla...

A small group of pastors was talking the other day about how many significant and stressful trends and events are in the news now that affec...

At our weekly men's conversation over Saturday breakfast this morning, we talked about our fathers.  We talked about the impact they had...

One of the best things in life is to hear the story of how Christ has turned a person's life around. In this 8-minute video, a creative ...

Edward Hopper was the grandson of an American Baptist church planter and pastor in Nyack, New York. As a young man he spent several years (...

Last week at a local Barnes and Noble, a large Cecropia moth that had only a sort time before emerged from its cocoon was clinging to a pill...

Jean and I liked this film of C.S. Lewis's story very much.  It has a maturity and an impact that the first film in the series, The Lion...

The Comments have now been activated.  Click on the link under a post to add your comments.  Brief, constructive comments are appreciated by...

"Sexy" is now sometimes used to describe political policies and other decidedly non-sexual entities. It basically means sufficien...

This past Sunday I began a sermon series called "Back to the Basics."  It has long impressed me that the one thing that Jesus sai...

Yesterday on www.jesuscreed.org (probably my favorite web site), a home-schooling mom asked a searching question about the passage in Joshua...

In  just over a year at ABCW, I have moved from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) to Today's New International Version (TNIV), and...

A second help to getting our mind around Christ's intercession for us (Romans 8:34) is to look at how he prayed for people during his ea...

In this morning's sermon on Romans 8:31-39 we tried to get a better feel for what Paul means in v. 34 when he speaks of Christ's int...

A second "Bible vitamin" that George Patterson (see previous post) encourages for congregations is "dialogue to develop"...

George Patterson was an early and healthy influence on my church planting ministry.  I am happy to acknowledge him as the inspiration behind...

A rich, sensitive and heart-warming film about two childhood friends in Kabul and how they respond in different ways to evil.  Their choices...

Toynbee (see previous post) says that a society grows in response to challenges through the action of a creative individual or small minorit...

Historian Arnold Toynbee, in his A Study of History , saw the growth and decline of civilizations as depending on how they responded to the ...

This blog will get into gear during the first full week in May.   One of its features will be answers to questions sent in by readers.  Plea...

Day after tomorrow I'll be presiding at the funeral service for the fourth member of our congregation to pass away in the past our month...