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The other day I heard a guest on NPR describe blogging as old technology. Weblogs were what people used to do in the days before social media. He was a young, hip entrepreneur. His company sells T-shirts, or as he called it “gear,” so I suppose he would know. I was startled to find this out. But I guess I should have known. My age should have told me that what I thought was cutting edge was actually the internet’s equivalent of “dad jeans.” If I can do this, I suppose anyone can. Still, I feel powerful every time I click publish on my WordPress blog. Suddenly the thoughts I’ve labored over are out there for the whole world to read. I feel like Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg Church. Within minutes I start checking my stats to see if the Reformation has begun. But just because we put something out there is no guarantee that anybody will be interested in it (or even know where to find it). The more voices in the room, the harder it is to make out what is said. Often when I post, I wonder if I am only adding to the background noise. In 1439 Johannes Gutenberg revolutionized publishing in Europe by using printing presses that employed mechanical, movable type. He was to the world of books what Henry Ford would eventually become to the automotive industry. Gutenberg didn’t invent books or printing, but his technology made them affordable and available. Books weren’t just for the rich or the church anymore. Now ordinary people could own books, and for many, it meant they could publish them as well. The internet mirrored Gutenberg’s revolution and extended it. Thanks to the internet, we are all writers, publishers, and broadcasters now. Unfortunately, with so many other voices crying in the digital wilderness, one must startle to be heard. The attention of the multitude is reserved for the loudest, strangest, angriest, or crudest voice. Such an environment is toxic for those who merely want to reflect. It is even worse for those who set out to tell the truth. These days publishing in any form seems to be more about marketing than it is about words and ideas. We sell the sizzle instead of serving meat. In the process, we may end up selling our souls to be heard. The effort that is required to capture the attention of an audience that has become deafened by the sound of so many voices can cause Christian communicators to shade the truth, smoothing the sharp edges in an attempt to make it more palatable. We may succumb to the temptation to exaggerate, telling our own story but with a flourish that makes us seem more interesting than we are. We resort to cheap sentimentalism and manipulation. Or maybe we just get cranky. When I preached regularly as a pastor, I discovered that in my earnest desire to hold the wandering attention of my audience, I sometimes limited the emotional range of my sermons.  Looking back, I think I had confused volume with dynamism. Or maybe it was a function of my personality, which tends more toward critical thinking than chirpy effervescence. Whatever the reason, it meant that my sermons were disproportionately “prophetic” in tone. On most days there was more thunder than sunshine in them. After one of these sermons, someone approached me and wanted to know if everything was alright. “Why do you ask?” I said. He smiled n

John Koessler's latest book, On Things Above: The Earthly Importance of Heavenly Reality, is now available. You can get it from Amazon. 

Dr. John Koessler is an award-winning writer and retired faculty emeritus of Moody Bible Institute. John writes the Practical Theology column for Today in the Word and a monthly column on prayer for Mature Living. He is the author of 16 books. His latest book , When God is Silent, is published by Lexham Press. You can learn more about John at https://www.johnkoessler.com.

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That God does have feelings is the inevitable conclusion for anyone who takes divine self-revelation seriously. The Bible often speaks of God’s emotions. It does so in such human terms that we are sometimes disturbed by the thought. This is especially true of the three primary emotions which the Bible seems to mention in connection with God: love, anger, and jealousy. The problem is not that we can’t relate to such references but the opposite. We are all too familiar with these kinds of feelings and believe that God should rise above them.

John Koessler's latest book, On Things Above: The Earthly Importance of Heavenly Reality, is now available. You can get it from Amazon. 

Dr. John Koessler is an award-winning writer and retired faculty emeritus of Moody Bible Institute. John writes the Practical Theology column for Today in the Word and a monthly column on prayer for Mature Living. He is the author of 16 books. His latest book , When God is Silent, is published by Lexham Press. You can learn more about John at https://www.johnkoessler.com.

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The worship wars are over. In church after church that I visit, we all seem to be singing the same handful of songs. To me they seem more like chants and shouted slogans than than anything else. Melodically uninteresting and lyrically unimaginative, the music we are singing in the church these days isn’t composed, it is compiled. It feels more like the work of a committee than it does the creation of an artist. That’s because the songs we sing are often the result of a production process that might best be described as creation by committee. If you doubt this, count the number of names listed at the end when the song’s credit appears.

John Koessler's latest book, On Things Above: The Earthly Importance of Heavenly Reality, is now available. You can get it from Amazon. 

Dr. John Koessler is an award-winning writer and retired faculty emeritus of Moody Bible Institute. John writes the Practical Theology column for Today in the Word and a monthly column on prayer for Mature Living. He is the author of 16 books. His latest book , When God is Silent, is published by Lexham Press. You can learn more about John at https://www.johnkoessler.com.

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Practicing the present doesn’t mean that we live our lives with a kind of animal immediacy, thinking only of what we need or desire in the moment. It is not reactive living that responds to whatever stimulus I happen to be experiencing in the moment without reflection. Christian living in the present tense demands a kind of self-consciousness that is guided by the Holy Spirit and filtered by the truth of God’s Word. It is a reflection of our capacity to act as a volitional being created in the image of God.

John Koessler's latest book, On Things Above: The Earthly Importance of Heavenly Reality, is now available. You can get it from Amazon. 

Dr. John Koessler is an award-winning writer and retired faculty emeritus of Moody Bible Institute. John writes the Practical Theology column for Today in the Word and a monthly column on prayer for Mature Living. He is the author of 16 books. His latest book , When God is Silent, is published by Lexham Press. You can learn more about John at https://www.johnkoessler.com.

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We put our house up for sale a few weeks ago. It sold quickly, but it unnerved me to have strangers peering into our closets and judging us for even a few days. As anyone who has purchased a home can tell you, the experience is just as awkward for the buyers. Perhaps even more awkward. Buying a house is like getting engaged after a round of speed dating. You spend a few minutes with the object of your desire frantically trying to gauge what its bones really look like under all that makeup. Then with fingers crossed you commit your life and fortune to it.

John Koessler's latest book, On Things Above: The Earthly Importance of Heavenly Reality, is now available. You can get it from Amazon. 

Dr. John Koessler is an award-winning writer and retired faculty emeritus of Moody Bible Institute. John writes the Practical Theology column for Today in the Word and a monthly column on prayer for Mature Living. He is the author of 16 books. His latest book , When God is Silent, is published by Lexham Press. You can learn more about John at https://www.johnkoessler.com.

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When I was a pastor, I found that the hardest part of visiting church members at the hospital was leaving them in the same condition I found them in when I entered the room. It seemed to me that my visits should make a difference. If they did not, what good were they? On each occasion I read Scripture, spoke words of comfort, and prayed. Yet when I was done people seemed no better off. t’s one thing to talk about practicing the present when life is ordinary. But sometimes the circumstances that visit us arrive for the long term with no sign of leaving. They don’t come for a short stay. They move in and become part of the family.

John Koessler's latest book, On Things Above: The Earthly Importance of Heavenly Reality, is now available. You can get it from Amazon. 

Dr. John Koessler is an award-winning writer and retired faculty emeritus of Moody Bible Institute. John writes the Practical Theology column for Today in the Word and a monthly column on prayer for Mature Living. He is the author of 16 books. His latest book , When God is Silent, is published by Lexham Press. You can learn more about John at https://www.johnkoessler.com.

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When my friend Ray was diagnosed with cancer, he startedreading obituaries. He found comfort in the newspaper’s daily litany of thedeparted. Somehow it made him feel less alone. Like a pilgrim who is travelingin company, instead of someone who stumbles along a difficult path by himself.It was the ordinariness of the thing that helped him the most.I feel something similar whenever I thumb through the oldyearbooks in the faculty lounge. Their faces framed in horn-rimmed and cat-eyeglasses, the images of former faculty gaze back at me with pursed lips or shysmiles. I do not recognize any of their names. They are long forgotten by theschool they once served. Along with them are rank upon rank of students who arealso long gone. They are not remembered either. Indeed, most of them werehardly known when they were here. Like the majority of us, they were justordinary people.It’s hard to be ordinary. Especially in a culture whichworships the heroic. This is particularly true of the Christian world. AuthorWendell Berry writes that the Judeo-Christian tradition favors the heroic. “Thepoets and storytellers in this tradition have tended to be interested in theextraordinary actions of ‘great men’–actions unique in grandeur, such as mayoccur only once in the world” he explains. This is a standard that isimpossible for ordinary people to live up to.As a young Christian, I remember being captivated by thestory of Jim Elliot, one of the five missionaries who lost their lives whenthey attempted to bring the gospel to the Huaorani people of Ecuador. When Iwas finished I got down on my knees and prayed that God would make me a martyrtoo. It was a foolish prayer, prompted more by romanticism than by devotion. Itwas a request born of youthful impatience and a rash hunger for glory. Not atall like the real martyrs, most of whom stumbled into their unique calling.It takes another kind of courage and a different skill setto follow the path assigned to the majority. “The drama of ordinary or dailybehavior also raises the issue of courage, but it raises at the same time theissue of skill; and, because ordinary behavior lasts so much longer than heroicaction, it raises in a more complex and difficult way the issue of perseverance”Berry observes. “It may, in some ways, be easier to be Samson than to be a goodhusband or wife day after day for fifty years.”On some days we feel like we are only going through themotions, merely shuffling along as we pass into oblivion. Instead, we aretraveling in company. We are upholding the world with hundreds of small andordinary efforts. We make the bed. We drive the kids to school and worry aboutthe kind of day they will have. We go to work. We clean the bathroom. We waitfor the end of the world and the dawning of the age to come. It is a kind ofliturgy.Practicing the present requires that we reclaim a sense ofthe eternal significance of the mundane spaces in our lives. We don’t do thisby trying to change the quality of our experience in those areas. The mundanewill still involve the mundane but by accepting the ordinary as a context inwhich God is present. The ordinary tasks assigned to us by our calling and lifesituation are no less meaningful to God than those that are extraordinary. We don’tneed to be attempting great things all the time. We don’t need to m

John Koessler's latest book, On Things Above: The Earthly Importance of Heavenly Reality, is now available. You can get it from Amazon. 

Dr. John Koessler is an award-winning writer and retired faculty emeritus of Moody Bible Institute. John writes the Practical Theology column for Today in the Word and a monthly column on prayer for Mature Living. He is the author of 16 books. His latest book , When God is Silent, is published by Lexham Press. You can learn more about John at https://www.johnkoessler.com.

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I am a sucker for books and movies about time travel. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, the DeLorean in Back to the Future, and any Star Trek episode in which the crew of the starship Enterprise travels back to the twentieth century—I love them all. But over the years, I’ve learned a few important things about time travel. For example, as far as I can tell from these books and movies, backward is better than forward. When you travel back in time, you know what you’re getting. The future, on the other hand, is unknown and always seems to get worse. But that doesn’t mean that the past is safe. When you travel back in time, you had better not touch anything. Apparently, the smallest change can have devastating effects on the space-time continuum. You may come back to the present and find that you don’t exist. In real life, time travel is impossible, but that doesn’tmean I have no interest in the past or the future. The truth is, I’m oftenpreoccupied with both. Sometimes it’s because I’m thinking about the past,trying to understand what I have experienced and how it affects my life. Justas often I’m concerned about the future. Maybe it’s because I’m looking forwardto what comes next. More often it’s because I’m worried about it. What getslost in all of this is the present. Like the quiet child in a loud family, it’soften overlooked. Either way I tend to brush by the present, as if it weresome stranger I pass on a busy street. Or if I do give it attention, it’susually only a kind of grudging consideration—the sort you might give tosomeone who whines until your attention is wheedled away from the thing thatreally interests you . “I have been scattered in times I do not understand,” St. Augustine complained. He saw his life as one that stretched in many directions at once. Like Augustine, our minds too are scattered in time, so that our interests range far beyond the present. At one moment, we peer intently into the past, hoping for the mists to clear and longing to catch a glimpse of a present that has disappeared from view. In the next, we skip far ahead, hoping to scout out the future and stake a certain claim. Unfortunately, the beauty and value of the present is often lost. We are here in body but not in mind. We are only halfhearted in our attention and sometimes in our service. To someone whose interest is chiefly on the future, the present is only a way station. Its primary function is to serve as a staging ground for what comes next. For the person whose focus is mostly on the past, the present is a cemetery filled with monuments to the glory days that will never come again or with a painful record of the injuries and slights we have suffered. I want to propose an alternative. I call it the “practicing the present.” Practicing the present is more than the habit of slowing down and making ourselves aware of what is going on in the moment. It’s a way of locating ourselves in the world. It’s a way of seeing. Practicing the present is the habit of reining in our wandering mind and concentrating our attention on the here and now. This means, first of all, taking stock of things as they really are. What is the real landscape of my life? What do things really look like? We are doing more than assessing. We are trying to orient ourselves to reality. Those who dwell on the p

John Koessler's latest book, On Things Above: The Earthly Importance of Heavenly Reality, is now available. You can get it from Amazon. 

Dr. John Koessler is an award-winning writer and retired faculty emeritus of Moody Bible Institute. John writes the Practical Theology column for Today in the Word and a monthly column on prayer for Mature Living. He is the author of 16 books. His latest book , When God is Silent, is published by Lexham Press. You can learn more about John at https://www.johnkoessler.com.

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In the early days of my walk with Jesus, I did not believe in Hell. Or at least, I did not want to acknowledge the reality of Hell. I had heard about Hell and even prayed a prayer to Jesus to be saved from Hell as a child. But by the time I began to live seriously for Christ in my early 20’s, I had pushed that aspect of the gospel to the margins of my thinking. I was more interested in knowing whether God existed. I was attracted to Jesus because of the message of God’s love. I came to Him for the relationship.

John Koessler's latest book, On Things Above: The Earthly Importance of Heavenly Reality, is now available. You can get it from Amazon. 

Dr. John Koessler is an award-winning writer and retired faculty emeritus of Moody Bible Institute. John writes the Practical Theology column for Today in the Word and a monthly column on prayer for Mature Living. He is the author of 16 books. His latest book , When God is Silent, is published by Lexham Press. You can learn more about John at https://www.johnkoessler.com.

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The recent implosion of James MacDonald’s ministry is a sobering reminder of how easily beguiled the church is by a pretty voice. Not only is the unfolding debacle painful to watch, it also ought to send a chill of fear down the spine of pastors and church leaders. MacDonald was no heretic. He was and is a biblical conservative. His failure, if the reports are true, was one of leadership character. I am not saying this as a mitigating factor. The pastoral epistles are clear that character and leadership style are as important in determining whether someone is fit to lead as doctrine.

John Koessler's latest book, On Things Above: The Earthly Importance of Heavenly Reality, is now available. You can get it from Amazon. 

Dr. John Koessler is an award-winning writer and retired faculty emeritus of Moody Bible Institute. John writes the Practical Theology column for Today in the Word and a monthly column on prayer for Mature Living. He is the author of 16 books. His latest book , When God is Silent, is published by Lexham Press. You can learn more about John at https://www.johnkoessler.com.