The Bible was written with the assumption that we are the rational and spiritual beings God made us to be, giving us the created dignity of marrying our belief with reason. Christian faith is true not only because we really want to believe it but also because the truth it believes is the most plausible of all explanations. (Andreas Köstenberger, Darrell Bock, and Josh Chatraw)

by Cesar Vigil-Ruiz

Feliz Friday! Another week of fellowshiping with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and His bride, the church, has come and gone. It’s always a joy to bring you this week’s links, and I hope and pray that it brings you closer to the One who is the Truth!

• Which is the preferred type of pastor you would want to serve under: a single or married one? Steve DeWitt was a single pastor for 19 years before entering marriage, and has now been ministering as a married pastor for 3 years. Check out his article on this very issue, and let’s celebrate God’s wisdom in using both to bring about His kingdom purposes!
• Here are some words of wisdom on learning evangelism if you think of yourself as a beginner in this area. There’s some good reminders for us all here.
• What do women wish men knew about beauty? Nicole Whitaker (co-author of the new book True Beauty with her mom, Carolyn Mahaney) has written a beautiful post that us guys need to read. If we’re going to live in the family of God, we need to grow in our love for our sisters in Christ. This would be a good start, men. Whitaker follows up with a post about the crisis of beauty in our culture and church, followed by the solution. Read up!
• Are you known for being a gossip or a brash person with your words? Do you have a filter for the things that you say? Sometimes I hear others speak their mind and immediately justify/excuse it with, “That’s just my personality.” As Christians, are we allowed to throw out the ‘personality’ card when it comes to speech? I believe the suggested three questions from the True Woman blog is a good place to start if you want to be have ‘seasoned’ speech (Colossians 4:6).
• Last week, I mentioned the Theological Primer for Counselors series that Paul Tautges began for us all to benefit, and up until that time, he had seven out of ten posts done. Here’s the rest: the doctrine of progressive sanctification, the local church, and the return of Christ. Don’t miss out on reading this! It is succinct, full of content and easy to absorb. This will definitely be a resource I return to again and again.
• Here’s another post that I think is worth ready simply because of the title of the post: Pre-Marital Counseling Asian-American Stlyle (Part 1). Written by Ben Shin (who has spoken at LBC in the past), he gives a dose of what issues come up that are unique to Asian-Americans in their pursuit of marriage. Notice this is part 1, so be sure to check for the part 2!
• Recently, I was able to attend the IBCD Spring Conference in Escondido, IBCD being a biblical counseling organization that offers further training for people wanting to grow in giving biblical counsel in the church. This most recent conference dealt with practicing affirmation from Pastor Sam Crabtree from Bethlehem Baptist Church (where John Piper ministered up until recently). I’d encourage everyone to give it a listen; there’s much wisdom to learn about this subject.
• Lyndon Unger continues his series on practically applying the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture, this time using a strange example to bring up a simple but well-rounded method at getting a deeper understanding of a topic that Scripture surprisingly addresses.
• Coming at it from a counseling angle, what do you do when Scripture seems to fall silent in a counseling issue? Ed Welch has some hope-filled words that can be a lead-in to you growing to be a more biblical counselor.

That’ll do it for this week! Please continue to pray for some of our collegians, as they wrap up their finals and rest up for the final quarter of the year! Way to go, guys!

Soli Deo Gloria