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Is Jason Goes To Hell the best Jason movie? The brothers are certainly willing to make a case for it! Happy halloween T4G fans! hope you've enjoyed this ghoulish season!
WHAT IS GOING ON--- The double-mindedness and hypocrisy in the -ShepCon2024 Truth Triumphs Conference is staggering. John Piper has been pulpit sharing and conference slumming with a who's who of sketchy, female, cursing, pervert, heretic preachers for years. He NEVER should have been invited to speak at the Shepherds' Conference and he should be immediately disinvited with a clear explanation as to why. --In a truly sad and shocking display of double-mindedness, Pastor John MacArthur just publicly declared TGC-T4G-MLK50 and the men associated with it to be -Christianity astray-- --https---twitter.com-i-status-1759628155160084963-. Yet, John Piper is a diehard -TGC, -T4G man- was a -MLK50 speaker- is a promoter and defender of -BethMoore, -DougWilson, -NTWright, -MarkDriscoll, -TimKeller, and -SamAllberry- and is a pulpit sharer with -MattChandler, -LigonDuncan, and the rest of the -woke -socialjustice compromised who's who crowd. MacArthur's duplicity has made the Shepherd's Conference and his own pulpit an open door for John Piper and TGC's liberal, egalitarian, woke, social justice, same-sax attracted Christian apostasy that MacArthur rightly judged as -Christianity astray-- --What is our pastoral duty in light of these tragic and indisputable facts-- In obedience to the Lord's command to elders in Titus 1-9, our duty is to -by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict-- To speak truth in love- To warn God's people- To call for and pray for the repentance of all those directly involved and those defending or willfully turning a blind eye to the Truth Triumphs Shepherds' Conference in reality being the Truth Trampled -Christianity Astray- Conference.
WHAT IS GOING ON--- The double-mindedness and hypocrisy in the -ShepCon2024 Truth Triumphs Conference is staggering. John Piper has been pulpit sharing and conference slumming with a who's who of sketchy, female, cursing, pervert, heretic preachers for years. He NEVER should have been invited to speak at the Shepherds' Conference and he should be immediately disinvited with a clear explanation as to why. --In a truly sad and shocking display of double-mindedness, Pastor John MacArthur just publicly declared TGC-T4G-MLK50 and the men associated with it to be -Christianity astray-- --https---twitter.com-i-status-1759628155160084963-. Yet, John Piper is a diehard -TGC, -T4G man- was a -MLK50 speaker- is a promoter and defender of -BethMoore, -DougWilson, -NTWright, -MarkDriscoll, -TimKeller, and -SamAllberry- and is a pulpit sharer with -MattChandler, -LigonDuncan, and the rest of the -woke -socialjustice compromised who's who crowd. MacArthur's duplicity has made the Shepherd's Conference and his own pulpit an open door for John Piper and TGC's liberal, egalitarian, woke, social justice, same-sax attracted Christian apostasy that MacArthur rightly judged as -Christianity astray-- --What is our pastoral duty in light of these tragic and indisputable facts-- In obedience to the Lord's command to elders in Titus 1-9, our duty is to -by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict-- To speak truth in love- To warn God's people- To call for and pray for the repentance of all those directly involved and those defending or willfully turning a blind eye to the Truth Triumphs Shepherds' Conference in reality being the Truth Trampled -Christianity Astray- Conference.
WHAT IS GOING ON?! The double-mindedness and hypocrisy in the #ShepCon2024 Truth Triumphs Conference is staggering. John Piper has been pulpit sharing and conference slumming with a who's who of sketchy, female, cursing, pervert, heretic preachers for years. He NEVER should have been invited to speak at the Shepherds' Conference and he should be immediately disinvited with a clear explanation as to why. In a truly sad and shocking display of double-mindedness, Pastor John MacArthur just publicly declared TGC/T4G/MLK50 and the men associated with it to be "Christianity astray!" (https://twitter.com/i/status/1759628155160084963). Yet, John Piper is a diehard #TGC, #T4G man; was a #MLK50 speaker; is a promoter and defender of #BethMoore, #DougWilson, #NTWright, #MarkDriscoll, #TimKeller, and #SamAllberry; and is a pulpit sharer with #MattChandler, #LigonDuncan, and the rest of the #woke #socialjustice compromised who's who crowd. MacArthur's duplicity has made the Shepherd's Conference and his own pulpit an open door for John Piper and TGC's liberal, egalitarian, woke, social justice, same-sax attracted Christian apostasy that MacArthur rightly judged as "Christianity astray!" What is our pastoral duty in light of these tragic and indisputable facts? In obedience to the Lord's command to elders in Titus 1:9, our duty is to "by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict!" To speak truth in love! To warn God's people! To call for and pray for the repentance of all those directly involved and those defending or willfully turning a blind eye to the Truth Triumphs Shepherds' Conference in reality being the Truth Trampled "Christianity Astray" Conference.
David Schrock is the Pastor for Preaching and Theology at Occoquan Bible Church in Woodbridge, VA, and a professor at Indianapolis Theological Seminary. Like many pastors, he was encouraged to read a little book called “Divided by Faith” many years ago. After careful biblical and theological reflection, David has published a book that is a point-by-point rebuttal to “Divided by Faith” called “Dividing the Faithful.” We discuss what led him to reevaluate the understanding many evangelicals have been sold regarding race in the church and highlight key errors in “Divided by Faith.”Support the show!! - https://www.patreon.com/chasedavisDividing the Faithful - https://amzn.to/40LfImxChrist Over All - https://christoverall.com/Follow David on Twitter - https://twitter.com/DavidSchrockSupport the showSign up for the Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/chasedavisFollow Full Proof Theology on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/fullprooftheology/Follow Full Proof Theology on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/fullprooftheology/
We react to that video clip where Mark Dever casts shade on the Presbyterians saying that to defend the gospel you need to ditch infant baptism and embrace credo baptism. Apparently he is not calling on T4G for this task…. Restless excluded from Dever's Gospel Defenders(tm) reacts with joy and spice. An episode not to miss. This week on our patreon show we discuss a conspiracy related to Elon Musk. Subscribe to the youtube as we plan to continue to live stream these reactions. You can follow this podcast all over the internet. twitter, instagram. or facebook Or email us at restlesspodcasting@gmail.com
About VictorVictor is an Independent Senior Cloud Infrastructure Architect working mainly on Amazon Web Services (AWS), designing: secure, scalable, reliable, and cost-effective cloud architectures, dealing with large-scale and mission-critical distributed systems. He also has a long experience in Cloud Operations, Security Advisory, Security Hardening (DevSecOps), Modern Applications Design, Micro-services and Serverless, Infrastructure Refactoring, Cost Saving (FinOps).Links Referenced: Zoph: https://zoph.io/ unusd.cloud: https://unusd.cloud Twitter: https://twitter.com/zoph LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grenuv/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is brought to us in part by our friends at Datadog. Datadog's SaaS monitoring and security platform that enables full stack observability for developers, IT operations, security, and business teams in the cloud age. Datadog's platform, along with 500 plus vendor integrations, allows you to correlate metrics, traces, logs, and security signals across your applications, infrastructure, and third party services in a single pane of glass.Combine these with drag and drop dashboards and machine learning based alerts to help teams troubleshoot and collaborate more effectively, prevent downtime, and enhance performance and reliability. Try Datadog in your environment today with a free 14 day trial and get a complimentary T-shirt when you install the agent.To learn more, visit datadoghq.com/screaminginthecloud to get. That's www.datadoghq.com/screaminginthecloudCorey: Managing shards. Maintenance windows. Overprovisioning. ElastiCache bills. I know, I know. It's a spooky season and you're already shaking. It's time for caching to be simpler. Momento Serverless Cache lets you forget the backend to focus on good code and great user experiences. With true autoscaling and a pay-per-use pricing model, it makes caching easy. No matter your cloud provider, get going for free at gomomento.co/screaming That's GO M-O-M-E-N-T-O dot co slash screamingCorey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. One of the best parts about running a podcast like this and trolling the internet of AWS things is every once in a while, I get to learn something radically different than what I expected. For a long time, there's been this sort of persona or brand in the AWS space, specifically the security side of it, going by Zoph—that's Z-O-P-H—and I just assumed it was a collective or a whole bunch of people working on things, and it turns out that nope, it is just one person. And that one person is my guest today. Victor Grenu is an independent AWS architect. Victor, thank you for joining me.Victor: Hey, Corey, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.Corey: So, I want to start by diving into the thing that first really put you on my radar, though I didn't realize it was you at the time. You have what can only be described as an army of Twitter bots around the AWS ecosystem. And I don't even know that I'm necessarily following all of them, but what are these bots and what do they do?Victor: Yeah. I have a few bots on Twitter that I push some notification, some tweets, when things happen on AWS security space, especially when the AWS managed policies are updated from AWS. And it comes from an initial project from Scott Piper. He was running a Git command on his own laptop to push the history of AWS managed policy. And it told me that I can automate this thing using a deployment pipeline and so on, and to tweet every time a new change is detected from AWS. So, the idea is to monitor every change on these policies.Corey: It's kind of wild because I built a number of somewhat similar Twitter bots, only instead of trying to make them into something useful, I'd make them into something more than a little bit horrifying and extraordinarily obnoxious. Like there's a Cloud Boomer Twitter account that winds up tweeting every time Azure tweets something only it quote-tweets them in all caps and says something insulting. I have an AWS releases bot called AWS Cwoud—so that's C-W-O-U-D—and that winds up converting it to OwO speak. It's like, “Yay a new auto-scawowing growp.” That sort of thing is obnoxious and offensive, but it makes me laugh.Yours, on the other hand, are things that I have notifications turned on for just because when they announce something, it's generally fairly important. The first one that I discovered was your IAM changes bot. And I found some terrifying things coming out of that from time to time. What's the data source for that? Because I'm just grabbing other people's Twitter feeds or RSS feeds; you're clearly going deeper than that.Victor: Yeah, the data source is the official AWS managed policy. In fact, I run AWS CLI in the background and I'm doing just a list policy, the list policy command, and with this list I'm doing git of each policy that is returned, so I can enter it in a git repository to get the full history of the time. And I also craft a list of deprecated policy, and I also run, like, a dog-food initiative, the policy analysis, validation analysis from AWS tools to validate the consistency and the accuracy of the own policies. So, there is a policy validation with their own tool. [laugh].Corey: You would think that wouldn't turn up anything because their policy validator effectively acts as a linter, so if it throws an error, of course, you wouldn't wind up pushing that. And yet, somehow the fact that you have bothered to hook that up and have findings from it indicates that that's not how the real world works.Victor: Yeah, there is some, let's say, some false positive because we are running the policy validation with their own linter then own policies, but this is something that is documented from AWS. So, there is an official page where you can find why the linter is not working on each policy and why. There is a an explanation for each findings. I thinking of [unintelligible 00:05:05] managed policy, which is too long, and policy analyzer is crashing because the policy is too long.Corey: Excellent. It's odd to me that you have gone down this path because it's easy enough to look at this and assume that, oh, this must just be something you do for fun or as an aspect of your day job. So, I did a little digging into what your day job is, and this rings very familiar to me: you are an independent AWS consultant, only you're based out of Paris, whereas I was doing this from San Francisco, due to an escalatingly poor series of life choices on my part. What do you focus on in the AWS consulting world?Victor: Yeah. I'm running an AWS consulting boutique in Paris and I'm working for a large customer in France. And I'm doing mostly infrastructure stuff, infrastructure design for cloud-native application, and I'm also doing some security audits and [unintelligible 00:06:07] mediation for my customer.Corey: It seems to me that there's a definite divide as far as how people find the AWS consulting experience to be. And I'm not trying to cast judgment here, but the stories that I hear tend to fall into one of two categories. One of them is the story that you have, where you're doing this independently, you've been on your own for a while working specifically on this, and then there's the stories of, “Oh, yeah, I work for a 500 person consultancy and we do everything as long as they'll pay us money. If they've got money, we'll do it. Why not?”And it always seems to me—not to be overly judgy—but the independent consultants just seem happier about it because for better or worse, we get to choose what we focus on in a way that I don't think you do at a larger company.Victor: Yeah. It's the same in France or in Europe; there is a lot of consulting firms. But with the pandemic and with the market where we are working, in the cloud, in the cloud-native solution and so on, that there is a lot of demands. And the natural path is to start by working for a consulting firm and then when you are ready, when you have many AWS certification, when you have the experience of the customer, when you have a network of well-known customer, and you gain trust from your customer, I think it's natural to go by yourself, to be independent and to choose your own project and your own customer.Corey: I'm curious to get your take on what your perception of being an AWS consultant is when you're based in Paris versus, in my case, being based in the West Coast of the United States. And I know that's a bit of a strange question, but even when I travel, for example, over to the East Coast, suddenly, my own newsletter sends out three hours later in the day than I expect it to and that throws me for a loop. The AWS announcements don't come out at two or three in the afternoon; they come out at dinnertime. And for you, it must be in the middle of the night when a lot of those things wind up dropping. The AWS stuff, not my newsletter. I imagine you're not excitedly waiting on tenterhooks to see what this week's issue of Last Week in AWS talks about like I am.But I'm curious is that even beyond that, how do you experience the market? From what you're perceiving people in the United States talking about as AWS consultants versus what you see in Paris?Victor: It's difficult, but in fact, I don't have so much information about the independent in the US. I know that there is a lot, but I think it's more common in Europe. And yeah, it's an advantage to whoever ten-hour time [unintelligible 00:08:56] from the US because a lot of stuff happen on the Pacific time, on the Seattle timezone, on San Francisco timezone. So, for example, for this podcast, my Monday is over right now, so, so yeah, I have some advantage in time, but yeah.Corey: This is potentially an odd question for you. But I find an awful lot of the AWS documentation to be challenging, we'll call it. I don't always understand exactly what it's trying to tell me, and it's not at all clear that the person writing the documentation about a service in some cases has ever used the service. And in everything I just said, there is no language barrier. This documentation was written—theoretically—in English and I, most days, can stumble through a sentence in English and almost no other language. You obviously speak French as a first language. Given that you live in Paris, it seems to be a relatively common affliction. How do you find interacting with AWS in French goes? Or is it just a complete nonstarter, and it all has to happen in English for you?Victor: No, in fact, the consultants in Europe, I think—in fact, in my part, I'm using my laptop in English, I'm using my phone in English, I'm using the AWS console in English, and so on. So, the documentation for me is a switch on English first because for the other language, there is sometimes some automated translation that is very dangerous sometimes, so we all keep the documentation and the materials in English.Corey: It's wild to me just looking at how challenging so much of the stuff is. Having to then work in a second language on top of that, it just seems almost insurmountable to me. It's good they have automated translation for a lot of this stuff, but that falls down in often hilariously disastrous ways, sometimes. It's wild to me that even taking most programming languages that folks have ever heard of, even if you program and speak no English, which happens in a large part of the world, you're still using if statements even if the term ‘if' doesn't mean anything to you localized in your language. It really is, in many respects, an English-centric industry.Victor: Yeah. Completely. Even in French for our large French customer, I'm writing the PowerPoint presentation in English, some emails are in English, even if all the folks in the thread are French. So yeah.Corey: One other area that I wanted to explore with you a bit is that you are very clearly focused on security as a primary area of interest. Does that manifest in the work that you do as well? Do you find that your consulting engagements tend to have a high degree of focus on security?Victor: Yeah. In my design, when I'm doing some AWS architecture, my main objective is to design some security architecture and security patterns that apply best practices and least privilege. But often, I'm working for engagement on security audits, for startups, for internal customer, for diverse company, and then doing some accommodation after all. And to run my audit, I'm using some open-source tooling, some custom scripts, and so on. I have a methodology that I'm running for each customer. And the goal is to sometime to prepare some certification, PCI DSS or so on, or maybe to ensure that the best practice are correctly applied on a workload or before go-live or, yeah.Corey: One of the weird things about this to me is that I've said for a long time that cost and security tend to be inextricably linked, as far as being a sort of trailing reactive afterthought for an awful lot of companies. They care about both of those things right after they failed to adequately care about those things. At least in the cloud economic space, it's only money as opposed to, “Oops, we accidentally lost our customers' data.” So, I always found that I find myself drifting in a security direction if I don't stop myself, just based upon a lot of the cost work I do. Conversely, it seems that you have come from the security side and you find yourself drifting in a costing direction.Your side project is a SaaS offering called unusd.cloud, that's U-N-U-S-D dot cloud. And when you first mentioned this to me, my immediate reaction was, “Oh, great. Another SaaS platform for costing. Let's tear this one apart, too.” Except I actually like what you're building. Tell me about it.Victor: Yeah, and unusd.cloud is a side project for me and I was working since, let's say one year. It was a project that I've deployed for some of my customer on their local account, and it was very useful. And so, I was thinking that it could be a SaaS project. So, I've worked at [unintelligible 00:14:21] so yeah, a few months on shifting the product to assess [unintelligible 00:14:27].The product aim to detect the worst on AWS account on all AWS region, and it scan all your AWS accounts and all your region, and you try to detect and use the EC2, LDS, Glue [unintelligible 00:14:45], SageMaker, and so on, and attach a EBS and so on. I don't craft a new dashboard, a new Cost Explorer, and so on. It's it just cost awareness, it's just a notification on email or Slack or Microsoft Teams. And you just add your AWS account on the project and you schedule, let's say, once a day, and it scan, and it send you a cost of wellness, a [unintelligible 00:15:17] detection, and you can act by turning off what is not used.Corey: What I like about this is it cuts at the number one rule of cloud economics, which is turn that shit off if you're not using it. You wouldn't think that I would need to say that except that everyone seems to be missing that, on some level. And it's easy to do. When you need to spin something up and it's not there, you're very highly incentivized to spin that thing up. When you're not using it, you have to remember that thing exists, otherwise it just sort of sits there forever and doesn't do anything.It just costs money and doesn't generate any value in return for that. What you got right is you've also eviscerated my most common complaint about tools that claim to do this, which is you build in either a explicit rule of ignore this resource or ignore resources with the following tags. The benefit there is that you're not constantly giving me useless advice, like, “Oh, yeah, turn off this idle thing.” It's, yeah, that's there for a reason, maybe it's my dev box, maybe it's my backup site, maybe it's the entire DR environment that I'm going to need at little notice. It solves for that problem beautifully. And though a lot of tools out there claim to do stuff like this, most of them really failed to deliver on that promise.Victor: Yeah, I just want to keep it simple. I don't want to add an additional console and so on. And you are correct. You can apply a simple tag on your asset, let's say an EC2 instances, you apply the tag in use and the value of, and then the alerting is disabled for this asset. And the detection is based on the CPU [unintelligible 00:17:01] and the network health metrics, so when the instances is not used in the last seven days, with a low CPU every [unintelligible 00:17:10] and low network out, it comes as a suspect. [laugh].[midroll 00:17:17]Corey: One thing that I like about what you've done, but also have some reservations about it is that you have not done with so many of these tools do which is, “Oh, just give us all the access in your account. It'll be fine. You can trust us. Don't you want to save money?” And yeah, but I also still want to have a company left when all sudden done.You are very specific on what it is that you're allowed to access, and it's great. I would argue, on some level, it's almost too restrictive. For example, you have the ability to look at EC2, Glue, IAM—just to look at account aliases, great—RDS, Redshift, and SageMaker. And all of these are simply list and describe. There's no gets in there other than in Cost Explorer, which makes sense. You're not able to go rummaging through my data and see what's there. But that also bounds you, on some level, to being able to look only at particular types of resources. Is that accurate or are you using a lot of the CloudWatch stuff and Cost Explorer stuff to see other areas?Victor: In fact, it's the least privilege and read-only permission because I don't want too much question for the security team. So, it's full read-only permission. And I've only added the detection that I'm currently supports. Then if in some weeks, in some months, I'm adding a new detection, let's say for Snapshot, for example, I will need to update, so I will ask my customer to update their template. There is a mechanisms inside the project to tell them that the template is obsolete, but it's not a breaking change.So, the detection will continue, but without the new detection, the new snapshot detection, let's say. So yeah, it's least privilege, and all I need is the get-metric-statistics from CloudWatch to detect unused assets. And also checking [unintelligible 00:19:16] Elastic IP or [unintelligible 00:19:19] EBS volume. So, there is no CloudWatching in this detection.Corey: Also, to be clear, I am not suggesting that what you have done is at all a mistake, even if you bound it to those resources right now. But just because everyone loves to talk about these exciting, amazing, high-level services that AWS has put up there, for example, oh, what about DocumentDB or all these other—you know, Amazon Basics MongoDB; same thing—or all of these other things that they wind up offering, but you take a look at where customers are spending money and where they're surprised to be spending money, it's EC2, it's a bit of RDS, occasionally it's S3, but that's a lot harder to detect automatically whether that data is unused. It's, “You haven't been using this data very much.” It's, “Well, you see how the bucket is labeled ‘Archive Backups' or ‘Regulatory Logs?'” imagine that. What a ridiculous concept.Yeah. Whereas an idle EC2 instance sort of can wind up being useful on this. I am curious whether you encounter in the wild in your customer base, folks who are having idle-looking EC2 instances, but are in fact, for example, using a whole bunch of RAM, which you can't tell from the outside without custom CloudWatch agents.Victor: Yeah, I'm not detecting this behavior for larger usage of RAM, for example, or for maybe there is some custom application that is low in CPU and don't talk to any other services using the network, but with this detection, with the current state of the detection, I'm covering large majority of waste because what I see from my customer is that there is some teams, some data scientists or data teams who are experimenting a lot with SageMaker with Glue, with Endpoint and so on. And this is very expensive at the end of the day because they don't turn off the light at the end of the day, on Friday evening. So, what I'm trying to solve here is to notify the team—so on Slack—when they forgot to turn off the most common waste on AWS, so EC2, LTS, Redshift.Corey: I just now wound up installing it while we've been talking on my dedicated shitposting account, and sure enough, it already spat out a single instance it found, which yeah was running an EC2 instance on the East Coast when I was just there, so that I had a DNS server that was a little bit more local. Okay, great. And it's a T4g.micro, so it's not exactly a whole lot of money, but it does exactly what it says on the tin. It didn't wind up nailing the other instances I have in that account that I'm using for a variety of different things, which is good.And it further didn't wind up falling into the trap that so many things do, which is the, “Oh, it's costing you zero and your spend this month is zero because this account is where I dump all of my AWS credit codes.” So, many things say, “Oh, well, it's not costing you anything, so what's the problem?” And then that's how you accidentally lose $100,000 in activate credits because someone left something running way too long. It does a lot of the right things that I would hope and expect it to do, and the fact that you don't do that is kind of amazing.Victor: Yeah. It was a need from my customer and an opportunity. It's a small bet for me because I'm trying to do some small bets, you know, the small bets approach, so the idea is to try a new thing. It's also an excuse for me to learn something new because building a SaaS is a challenging.Corey: One thing that I am curious about, in this account, I'm also running the controller for my home WiFi environment. And that's not huge. It's T3.small, but it is still something out there that it sits there because I need it to exist. But it's relatively bored.If I go back and look over the last week of CloudWatch metrics, for example, it doesn't look like it's usually busy. I'm sure there's some network traffic in and out as it updates itself and whatnot, but the CPU peeks out at a little under 2% used. It didn't warn on this and it got it right. I'm just curious as to how you did that. What is it looking for to determine whether this instance is unused or not?Victor: It's the magic [laugh]. There is some intelligence artif—no, I'm just kidding. It just statistics. And I'm getting two metrics, the superior average from the last seven days and the network out. And I'm getting the average on those metrics and I'm doing some assumption that this EC2, this specific EC2 is not used because of these metrics, this server average.Corey: Yeah, it is wild to me just that this is working as well as it is. It's just… like, it does exactly what I would expect it to do. It's clear that—and this is going to sound weird, but I'm going to say it anyway—that this was built from someone who was looking to answer the question themselves and not from the perspective of, “Well, we need to build a product and we have access to all of this data from the API. How can we slice and dice it and add some value as we go?” I really liked the approach that you've taken on this. I don't say that often or lightly, particularly when it comes to cloud costing stuff, but this is something I'll be using in some of my own nonsense.Victor: Thanks. I appreciate it.Corey: So, I really want to thank you for taking as much time as you have to talk about who you are and what you're up to. If people want to learn more, where can they find you?Victor: Mainly on Twitter, my handle is @zoph [laugh]. And, you know, on LinkedIn or on my company website, as zoph.io.Corey: And we will, of course, put links to that in the [show notes 00:25:23]. Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.Victor: Thank you, Corey, for having me. It was a pleasure to chat with you.Corey: Victor Grenu, independent AWS architect. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with an insulting comment that is going to cost you an absolute arm and a leg because invariably, you're going to forget to turn it off when you're done.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.
[:29] Intro [6:22] Insecurities of Life and Ministry - Rev. Brian Habig [27:10] Julie Lowe - Safeguarding Our Families Safeguards: Shielding Our Homes and Equipping Our Kids Not If, But When: Preparing Our Children for Worldly Images www.ccef.org www.T4G.org www.crossway.org/RYM40 www.rym.org
Good morning, Church! Please turn with me in your Bibles to Colossians 4:2-6. Before we read the text, I want you to write down three names. Your name: _______________________. The name of someone within our church body: ___________________. The name of someone outside of our church. ______________________. The purpose of this exercise is to remind us that: You and I need to hear the Gospel afresh this morning. Someone else in our Church needs to hear the Gospel through you. There are those around us who are desperate for the Gospel. The hope is that we would draw each of these people with us through this sermon in prayer. That we might even move toward them later this week as we gather ideas while listening, and seek to build them up after you have been built up by the word. I will now read Colossians 4:2-6, and then we will pray together. This is our second-to-last sermon in Colossians. We are going to be focusing on verses 5-6, but we will also read and look at verses 2-4 because they are deeply connected to where we are going today. Let's hear God's word. 2 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. 3 At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— 4 that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. 5 Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. Heavenly Father, we come before you in prayer this morning in order to express our gratitude to you. You created the heavens and earth and everything in them by the power and authority of your word. You sent Jesus as the Word so that you might be known (John 1:18), and even though we have never seen you, we love you (John 20:29) because your word has come alive in us. You breathed out the word in the Scriptures to make us wise for salvation (1 Tim. 3:14-15). All we want this morning is to gaze upon your beauty in the temple (Psalm 27:4). Thank you for giving us your word. We pray that you would make us more like Jesus through it. Use your word to accomplish your will in our hearts. We open our hearts to you now. Jesus, thank you for being the complete and perfect embodiment of this text. You are not asking us to do anything that you have not already done in your life, death, burial and resurrection. We thank you that all obedience is a Gospel call to fellowship with the living Christ, who is seated at the right hand of the throne in heaven. Jesus you are wise. Gracious. And, true. Cause us to be obedient to you out of the overflow of our nearness to you in personal joy and admiration. Jesus, we love you. Holy Spirit, we ask that you would give us the strength "...to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:18-19). Impress upon us the weight and magnitude of knowing God. Change us from the inside out. Unite us in an ever-deepening fashion with the Person and Work of Jesus Christ. We pray this together in Jesus' name, amen. I want to begin by stating this simple point: Jesus is prayerful, wise, and seasoned by grace. Do you agree? That would be very easy to prove by a quick read of the Gospels. On the other hand, we are prayerless, graceless fools. Do you agree? It would take just a 24 hour walk through one of our days to prove this point. Do we want to be devoted to prayer, to live wisely before outsiders, and season all our speech with grace? Then, we must look to Jesus. I want to remind us of this very important truth: "...We come to know God best not by looking at God exclusively, but by looking at God and then looking at ourselves–then looking at God, and then again looking at ourselves." We must remember the Gospel: God Saves Christians into Prayerful, Wise, and Seasoned Lives to the glory of God through the Person and Work of Jesus Christ. The commands (as we will see in a moment) of the New Testament are an invitation to joyful obedience, not moralistic self-loathing. Jesus is not interested in beating you up to be better you, or in you beating anyone else up to be a better them. He is interested in saving and sanctifying sinners through the joyful experience of trusting him. This sermon is not about your improvement mainly, it's about God. God saves sinners. God saves sinners from sin. And he saves sinners from sin and into his righteousness by grace through faith. Grace and faith are a free gift, but they also come with commands. The aim of this sermon is to explain how three commands (to pray, be wise, and gracious) are inextricably linked in the Christian life to God himself. Once we see the connections, we will seek to weave them into our own Christian lives. To briefly illustrate all three of these characteristics, Proverbs 24:30-34 depicts two men. One wise, the other foolish. The writer says, I passed by the field of a sluggard, by the vineyard of a man lacking sense, and behold, it was all overgrown with thorns; the ground was covered with nettles, and its stone wall was broken down. Then I saw and considered it; I looked and received instruction. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man. What a powerful image. One man is alert, awake, walking, meditating, praying, observing, thinking, and even composing riddles to make his insights memorable. He is leaning forward in his life. He has clear judgment, discernment, and he is open to reason. "He receives instruction." He has an open mind. He is wise. And, he captures his thinking for his own benefit as well as for generations to come. Well done. The other man, the sluggard, is being lulled to sleep. He's drowsy and snoring. He's dozing through life. Based on the status of his field, it seems obvious that this is a pattern. Each day he gets up to say, "I'll deal with this tomorrow, not today." Then, he watches YouTube videos until he falls asleep again. He settles into rest, hands folded. Slowly but surely, poverty climbs over his broken walls, into his unkempt field, and takes advantage of this sleeping sluggard like a robber. His life is ripped from him with ease. While this Proverb is applied to economic poverty, its principle is universal. Personal lazinessbrings about spiritual, emotional, psychological, and intellectual poverty. Because of sin, we are born into, and we perpetuate unkempt fields of unresolve, or places of poverty, all over our lives because, in our sinfulness, we would rather fold our hands than roll up our sleeves and walk with God. We are all sluggardly. Jesus, on the other hand, is the sage. He is wise. He is gracious. He is prayerful. Our lack of spiritual growth, depth with God, and connection to others is directly related to our own inability to wake up spiritually. Passing by your life and mine would be an exposition of spiritual poverty. So, God rescues sinners into prayerful, wise, and seasoned lives to the glory of God. He does this through Jesus. The sage in Proverbs 24 is open to grace. "He receives instruction" by grace. The posture of his heart is not moralistic, self-effort. It's the joyful welcoming of God's reality. He is inviting God to instruct him in a posture of humility. The sluggard is found ignoring God. The wise man sees that God is missing. One author writes, "God is of all missing persons the most missed, except that [missing him] comes not as an ally of darkness but as its adversary, not as a symptom of darkness but as its antidote." By missing him, He is searching for him and acknowledging his reality. Another author writes, "Sin is trying to succeed by ignoring reality." Doesn't that sound like all of us? We all want to coast with hands folded into an intimate relationship with God, others, and ourselves, but we are blocked by our own foolishness. We falter and fail in prayer. We slip and stumble in our relationships. We speak and say the wrong things at all the wrong times. "Who will rescue us from our bodies of death?" (Romans 7). We are limping through life in weakness and wandering. Some of us as pilgrims are sleeping along the roadside. And yet, Jesus comes to us, and he is compelled to save us for his own glory. Jesus shows us a better way. He alone is prayerful, wise, and seasoned by grace. And, he saves us into his life by commanding us to walk with him. If you read the book of Colossians in one sitting, you can see that it is saturated with prayerful, wise, and seasoned words. Paul models his prayer life by saying, "We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you…" (Col. 1:3), and "...we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding…" (Col. 1:9). Day and night, Paul is praying with a group of other people. Paul and Timothy are like the persistent widow in Luke 18, who will not let God go until he blesses the Colossians with wisdom. Paul is prayerful. Paul is wise. Paul is wise because he knows that all true wisdom comes from God, and that Jesus is the embodiment of all that is wise. He says that in Christ, "...are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:3). So, the wisest thing a person can do is to: "walk in him [Jesus], rooted and built up in him and established in the faith…" (Col. 2:6-7). The wisest thing we can do is believe Jesus. Paul commends belief in Jesus, and calls the Colossians to pray and appropriate this wisdom from God by walking the Christian life. He writes, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Colossians 3:16-17). We are called to sing to each other, not in frozen isolation but in a joyful, life-giving community. The Christian life is an abundant, prayerful, wise, and seasoned life, indeed! Out of the overflow of the Christian life comes our approach to the world. And yet, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is to have the Colossians (and us!). Sin wants to make the Colossians like the sluggard in Proverbs 24, drowsy and dumb. They have been assaulted by spiritual seduction, nearly kidnapped by false teachers (Col. 2:8-15). They are at times distracted by regulations regarding food and the liturgical calendar (Col. 2:16-23). They are being lured by sex, idolatry, anger, lying, and all manner of worldliness as their flesh claws at their new life in Christ. They are struggling to worship as families, work as unto Christ, and live a life worthy of the Gospel (Col. 3:14-25). Does this sound familiar? We are still struggling with sin, aren't we? Paul concludes this letter by offering three exhortations: Pray. Walk. Speak. Do all of this to the glory of God. Repeat. I think the main issue that this text brings up for us is this: When we are prayerless, we stop walking with God in wisdom toward others. Instead, we normally begin to walk away from God and others simultaneously and grow in our own personal protectiveness. We put our walls up. When we grow prayerless, we go inward and insular. When we go prayerless, we isolate. We stop speaking boldly, clearly, and in a gracious way. We stop looking at God. Prayerfulness, as we'll see, draws you into direct contact with the living God. When you come into contact with the living God, you realize that the Gospel is advancing in the whole world, and it is bearing fruit and increasing (Col. 1:6-7). The Gospel is the power of God (Romans 1:16), and wherever it goes, it bears fruit, both in our own personal lives and in the lives of those we speak to. God is not bound, and neither is the Gospel. This emboldens the Christian to live the Christian life. So, while Sin causes us to go prayerless, to grow foolish, and to speak unseasonably. Jesus saves us into a life of prayer, wisdom, and seasonable speech to the glory of God. This draws us to our main points: Christians are saved into prayerfulness (Col. 4:2-4). Christians are saved into wisdom (Col. 4:5) Christian are seasoned by grace (Col. 4:6). First, Christians are saved into prayerfulness. We are saying that "Christians are saved into" a Christian life of prayerfulness because of everything that comes before Colossians 4:2-4. Christians are saved from sin and into a relationship with the living God. They are transferred from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of God's beloved Son (Colossians 1:13). Every step of obedience is a step of deeper, joyful intimacy with God, a step of faith, belief, and trust in God's finished work. It's existence in a new domain. So, when Paul says, "Continue steadfastly in prayer…" he implies that the new birth has occurred, that these Colossian believers are "saints" (Col. 1:2), and that they are like children learning to walk. They have been radically reborn by the miraculous work of God. They are spiritually alive. They have repented of sin and received the grace of God in the Gospel. They have been buried with Christ and raised from the dead to walk in open communion with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Col. 2:11-12). They know God and are known by God. As such, they have taken up their new native language: Prayer. They are calling God "Father" and their fellow Christian brothers and sisters "family." So Paul writes, 2 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.3 At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— 4 that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. Benj Foreman helped us to see last week that preaching the Gospel is part and parcel of the Christian Life. It's a part of who we are. If we are not preaching the Gospel, we have to ask: do we know the Gospel? If we know the Gospel, what is standing in the way of our proclamation of it? Paul's answer: Closed doors. So, he asks for prayer so that the door might open. And, that he might make the mystery clear. We need to realize that Paul's effectiveness in ministry, his razor sharp letters, his boldness in persecution came from his prayer life and the prayers of others. Open doors and clarity of speech come from a steadfast practice of prayer. Paul says that persuasiveness, clarity, beauty, elegance are all granted to you through prayer, not a school of rhetoric. So, if you want God to throw the door of salvation open for someone, like the someone on the list you just created, pray that he does. If you want better preaching in this pulpit or the pulpit of your heart, start praying for it! Prayer begets Gospel preaching. Prayerlessness stifles Gospel preaching. There are three straightforward ways of applying this; First, Sunday Prayer Meetings. Every Sunday morning, our prayer team simply devotes itself to prayer for the preaching of God's Word and the body. If you'd like a place to put this into practice, join this group on Sunday mornings at 8am. One author provocatively states, "You can tell how popular a preacher or evangelist is by who comes on Sunday morning…but you can tell how popular Jesus is by who comes to the prayer meeting." Or, more kindly: "Our pastors are as deeply encouraged by an eager and active participation in our prayer meetings as they are by our being present on Sunday mornings." And, "If you want a better pastor, you can get one by praying for the one you already have." Ha! Take the opportunity as often as you can to learn to pray by praying every Sunday at 8am. Second, We are offering three events focused on prayer for the Women of FCBC. On Sept. 20th (Tuesday Morning), Oct. 22nd (Saturday Morning), and Nov. 12th (Saturday Morning), we are inviting the Women of FCBC to gather together to devote themselves to prayer. We believe that there is nothing better that the women of our church could devote themselves to than prayer. God is drawing us to our knees in prayer to seek God's face. Third, read books on prayer. If you want to grow in your personal devotion to prayer, and maybe you can't pray with others at a meeting like this during this season, reading a book on prayer is a great way to grow. Consider getting a few friends together to grow in this area. You can also read others' prayers. As much as we should be seeking for our church to hire well, to run effective programs, to serve each other, there is a need for us to grow in prayer. We need to go to our prayer closets, shut the door, and find deeper intimacy with God in prayer both personally and collectively. One author writes, "The true problem isn't God's absence from the world [or in the Church]. He is omnipresent. The real problem is our apathy to God's presence, which manifests itself through self-centeredness and self-concern." Prayerlessness is a sign of self-centeredness. This is an area that I'd like to personally grow as a pastor: I am personally convicted over how many times I check my email or texts compared to how many times we check-in with the living God. One author writes, "We check our smartphones about 81,500 times per year, or once every 4.3 minutes of our waking lives…" I am embarrassed how many times I seek to feed my soul with what's on my screen, over feeding my soul with the presence of God. Church, this is not a new problem. And, the solution is still the same: through the Gospel, God saves us into conversation with himself. We respond in intimate obedience through prayer. God is interested in saving you, sanctifying you, and changing you to make him more like himself. We get there by making room for him and spending time with him in prayer. Christians are saved to "...Continue steadfastly in prayer." That leads us to our second point. Second, Christians are Saved to Walk in Wisdom. Paul writes, "Now that you are all prayed up:" 5 Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. If you walk with God, you become a walking, speaking repository of God's grace in the world. Prayer emboldens you to live transparently toward others. My kids and I were at the park recently, and they were compelled by these windup and go cars. You have all seen them. You pull them back to send them forward. In the same way, our prayer life is the backward motion through which we are wound and pointed toward others. No matter if you are an introvert, or extrovert, this is where your energy comes from for people: you are strengthened through consistent prayer to move toward people in wise, timely ways. So pray, and then move toward others! Paul says, this is decidedly missional. I think The Message captures the sense well as it paraphrases this passage, 5-6 Use your heads as you live and work among outsiders. Don't miss a trick. Make the most of every opportunity. Be gracious in your speech. The goal is to bring out the best in others in a conversation, not put them down, not cut them out. Now, this phrase "Walk in wisdom toward outsiders" certainly means "among outsiders." Christians are called to live and work with lives that are open, visible, and transparent. One commentator writes, “The phrase ‘the ones outside' refers to those who are not members of the covenant community, who are predominantly Gentile, though a small group of unbelieving Jews would not be excluded” But it means more than this. Christians are called to walk toward people who are not only unlike them, but decidedly not 'one of them,' that is: to walk toward non-Christians. In other words, get on your shoes, go outside, and interact with people who don't share your central beliefs or worldview. We are to live among them and toward them. Now, in a place like Boise, ID, we might begin to grow uncomfortable with this. You might say, we just moved here to be away from 'outsiders.' Now, we get a Pastor who wants us to move back toward outsiders. That's it, we're moving to Avamore, where at least I know I'm free! This text challenges this tendency to move away. In April of this year, the pastors and each of their spouses were sent to a Conference called T4G. At this conference, David Platt argued that there are basically three possible stances that Christians can have toward one another within the local church, especially as we relate together toward those around us, toward 'outsiders': Facing inward, but disconnected. This is unwise because if you are disconnected, there is no way that you can walk wisely. No one grows in the Christian life in isolation. Maybe this is you. You are looking toward the Church, toward Christ, and toward Christian community, but you are not finding connection. You stand at an awkward distance. You are wondering if you are "in" or "out". You don't feel at home. So, you don't move toward 'outsiders.' You wonder if you are one. Facing inward, yet connected. Maybe this is you at FCBC or in Christian community. You are well connected. You know some people in our body well. You are finding yourself to be at home, united in Christ, and enjoying fellowship with others. The danger of this is that you may be keeping others out, rather than letting them in. United, yet facing outward. Platt gave us a third image: united yet facing outward. This, he said, is what it means to walk in wisdom toward outsiders. This is the mature, Christian posture toward the world. And, it is the posture that we are called to have toward those who are 'outsiders.' Application: Consider your relationships. If you are disconnected from Christian community, you are not able to obey these commands because these are not singular commands, but plural ones. Paul assumes that you are working as a member of the team in the body of Christ. Consider your habits. Is your default to go inward, not outward with your Christian community? To clasp the hands of others, only if they are like you? Do you consistently choose a night in, over a night toward outsiders in your Life Group or otherwise? Do your Christian friendships or families have an outward focus? Consider the posture of your friendships. How do you need to turn outward to face and walk toward 'outsiders?' How can we help each other to do this? What resources do we need to begin doing this well as a church? The next phrase is also very important: "Making the best use of the time." Literally, this means 'purchasing' or 'redeeming' time. In a corollary passage, Paul writes, 15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise,16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ (Ephesians 5:15-21). We are including the full context here because this is not mainly a call for effective time management, though that is part of the equation. We might make the mistake of thinking that "making the most of the time" is talking about productivity at work, or improving our own work-life balance. However, what Paul is referring to is effectiveness in walking toward outsiders for the sake of prayerful proclamation of the Gospel. He is advocating that every human interaction become charged with prayer for the sake of the of the Gospel. He says, "Don't be dumb!" Instead, "...address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs…" (Eph. 5:17-20). Fuel up on the Spirit, not wine. Let your life become profoundly marked by gratitude. Then, in our passage, he says: "Let that wise life spill out into your relationships with other people." This means that in Paul's view, that gathering together as believers is one of the most productive, wise, redemptive things that you can be engaged with. We 'gather' together so that we can 'scatter' together for the sake of the Gospel and the nations. Illustration: Church, you have shown me illustrations of this: Some of you walk toward outsiders through personal evangelism. Some of you are giving generously to the advance of the gospel through foreign missions. Some of you give your time, energy, and efforts to your neighbors. Some of you have adopted kids, giving us a living picture of the Gospel. Some of you are beautifully preaching the Gospel to your own children. (By the way! Next week, we are inviting all of our kids into service for our Family Worship Service.) Some of you lead, serve, and minister in countless ways that it's honestly hard to keep track. Wise living and making the most of the time means moving toward others. This is the kind life we are saved into. That leads us to our third point: Third, Christians are saved to be seasoned by grace. Because we are in direct relationship with the living God, and we are walking wisely, making the most of every interaction, Christians become the most interesting of conversationalists. 6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. The thrust of this text is to say that every Christian conversation is distinctively flavored and preserved by grace. Salt was used in the ancient world both as a preservative and a flavoring agent, as it is used today. Paul argues that if you understand the Gospel, and if you begin to assimilate grace into your life, your speech starts to taste good. It flavors every interaction. And, you start to see people for who they really are: unique image bearers. Rosaria Butterfield puts it this way, "The integrity of our relationships matters more than the boldness of our words." Integrity is salty. In January of this past year, I lost my sense of taste and smell as I had COVID. All my food had was a bland sense of texture. All I could taste was the slight bitterness of my coffee from time to time. This is not the way that Christians speech should taste. Rather, it should be vibrantly and graciously seasoned. This has direct application to how we approach other people's souls. Now, I am going to say something provocative. I think that gracious speech, and knowing "how you ought to answer each person," necessarily means that you get to know another person as they are. You meet them where they are. You move toward them, and not away from them. For some of us this causes fear because we are nervous about cultural assimilation. One author writes, "We in the church tend to be more fearful of the (perceived) sin in the world than of the sin in our own heart. Why is that? Here is what I think. I believe there is no greater enemy to vital life-breathing faith than cultural sameness." From this passage, if you want to really get to know another person: Pray for them. Walk toward them in wisdom. Speak graciously with them. This takes work. Time. Effort and emotional energy. In a world of instant gratification, it will be discouraging! It will also necessarily require personal friendships! I want to close by offering one quotation from J.I. Packer and then an invitation to respond to our series in Colossians by sharing your testimony: J.I. Packer writes, "...personal evangelism needs normally to be founded on friendship. You are not usually justified in choosing the subject of conversation with another till you have already begun to give yourself to him in friendship and established a relationship with him in which he feels that you respect him, and are interested in him, and are treating him as a human being, and not just as some kind of 'case'. With some people, you may establish such a relationship in five minutes, whereas others it may take months. But the principle remains the same. The right to talk intimately with another person about the Lord Jesus has to be earned, and you earn it by convincing him that you are his friend, and that you really care about him. And therefore the indiscriminate buttonholding, the intrusive barging in to the privacy of other people's souls, the thick-skinned insistence on expounding the things of God to reluctant strangers who are longing to get away–these modes of behavior, in which strong and loquacious personalities have sometimes indulged in the name of personal evangelism, should be written off as a travesty of personal evangelism. Impersonal evangelism would be a better name for them!" One great way to practice personal evangelism is by starting within the local Church. We learn to speaking the Gospel amongst our own selves. So, during 2nd & 3rd service, we are inviting you to come into my office to share a few words about how the book of Colossians has impacted you over the past 3-4 months. Our sound genius Stephen B. is over there to help you record a short clip of one way that Jesus has been enough for you as we have studied the book of Colossians. God Saves Christians into Prayerful, Wise, and Seasoned Lives to the glory of God. Let's pray.
Why are churches not hosting special revival meetings or Bible conferences like they used to? We live in the day of mega conferences such as G3, T4G, and the Shepherds Conference in California. These conferences are great and helpful, but they are mainly designed for pastors. What about church members? In this episode, Wade Lentz and Harold Smith discuss the benefits of churches hosting special meetings/conferences.
Why are churches not hosting special revival meetings or Bible conferences like they used to? We live in the day of mega conferences such as G3, T4G, and the Shepherds Conference in California. These conferences are great and helpful, but they are mainly...
Why are churches not hosting special revival meetings or Bible conferences like they used to? We live in the day of mega conferences such as G3, T4G, and the Shepherds Conference in California. These conferences are great and helpful, but they are mainly designed for pastors. What about church members? In this episode, Wade Lentz and Harold Smith discuss the benefits of churches hosting special meetings/conferences.
Today on The B.A.R. Podcast we have Dr. Geoff Chang. Geoff Chang serves as Assistant Professor of Church History and Historical Theology and the Curator of the Spurgeon Library. He is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin (B.B.A.), The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div.). Most recently, he completed his Ph.D. at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he wrote his dissertation on Charles H. Spurgeon's ecclesiology. Prior to Midwestern, Geoff worked as a database consultant until he discerned a call to ministry. Since leaving the business world, he has served on the ministry staff at Houston Chinese Church (Houston, TX) and Capitol Hill Baptist Church (Washington, DC), and most recently as associate pastor at Hinson Baptist Church (Portland, OR).He also serves as the Book Review Editor for History & Historical Theology at Themelios, the academic journal for The Gospel Coalition. Along with several other Midwestern doctoral students, he helped to found HistoricalTheology.org, where he serves as a regular contributor. Additionally, he writes for 9Marks and has published articles for magazines in the US and UK. He has also served as a speaker and instructor with T4G, Simeon Trust, and other national ministries. Currently, he is working on finishing the publication of The Lost Sermons of C.H. Spurgeon in conjunction with B&H Academic, serving as the editor of volumes 5 and 6.He is married to Stephanie and they have three children. They enjoy music, good books, working around the house, exploring the outdoors, and serving their local church. He also enjoys keeping up with his hometown team, the Houston Rockets, and beating his kids at Mario Kart. You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-b-a-r-podcast/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Chase and Noah pontificate on Acts 1:6-9 as Chase gives some of his 30 observations on verse 8 and Noah expounds on Puzzled Power. The Pals welcome Pastoral Intern Derrick Haskins to the podcast and have a blast sharing reflections from T4G, telling stories of West Center, and partake in memes galore from the Minister of Memes himself. Derrick shares about his call to ministry and his love for “The Book” as well as how his observations of study apply to all believers. To listen to any of the teaching from the T4G conference go to this link: https://t4g.org/Remember to like, subscribe, and share and don't forget to check out our website! https://pontificationpals.xyz/
We're back after a short break. Hear what we've been up to in the last month and our experience at the last T4G conference ever
More talks like this one are available at T4G.org.
More talks like this one are available at T4G.org.
More talks like this one are available at T4G.org.
In this episode of The Happy Rant, Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas wander to and fro through a variety of topics as posed by our listeners LIVE from New Albany, Indiana leading up to the final T4G conference:1. Fan encounters and celebrity moments2. Regrettable cultural choices and fashion decisions3. Pastoral and teaching mistakes4. Greeting others with a holy kiss5. Transformative books, music, and movies for us6. Slapping pastors (again)7. The “C” in Jared C. Wilson - wrong answers only8. Book endorsements 9. Ideal piece of sports memorabilia10. Who in the Bible do we identify with the most?
More talks like this one are available at T4G.org.
Restless is joined by an on the ground correspondent from the final meeting of T4G. He tells us about his experience there. He tells us about the highlights and we discuss the future of big eva mega conferences. Rate and Review this podcast right now and win! Join us on patreon where you can find everything that didn't make it into this episode. You can follow this podcast all over the internet. twitter, instagram. or facebook Or email us at restlesspodcasting@gmail.com
More talks like this one are available at T4G.org.
Restless is joined by an on the ground correspondent from the final meeting of T4G. He tells us about his experience there. He tells us about the highlights and we discuss the future of big eva mega conferences.
More talks like this one are available at T4G.org.
More talks like this one are available at T4G.org.
Too many styles of missions promise fast results. What kind of training to missionaries really need? Brooks Buser of Radius International returns to the show during T4G. Brooks and Nina Buser planted a church among the Yembiyembi people in Papua New Guinea. In 2016, they returned to San Diego. Both Brooks and Nina participate in the teaching at Radius International as well as leading and traveling to spread the word about the necessity of training. Follow Brooks on Twitter. Hear our previous conversations with Brooks here. You can watch the video version of this episode on the Missions Podcast Facebook page. Subscribe now to never miss an episode when it drops. Support this podcast and impact God's mission. Want to ask a question or suggest a topic? Email us.
Thousands of churches worldwide are closing each year. What can we do to stem the tide? Thad Bergmeier, executive director of EveryEthne, shares solutions. Join the movement. Sign up to participate in the Day of Prayer for Church Planting. You can watch the video version of this episode on the Missions Podcast Facebook page. Subscribe now to never miss an episode when it drops. Support this podcast and impact God's mission. Want to ask a question or suggest a topic? Email us.
In this episode of The Happy Rant Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas wander to and fro through a variety of topics LIVE from New Albany, Indiana leading up to the final T4G conference:1. Church decor and interesting instruments2. Writing advice and writing cohorts3. The value of writing inspiration4. Advice for D.Min students and Ronnie's classroom vibe5. Marriage advice and marriage questions
Louisville, Kentucky, home of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is a theological mecca. In this conversation, Ryan Robertson, president of Reaching and Teaching International Ministries, shares his burden to take the riches of theological rigor in a place like Louisville and unleash is across the globe. Ryan Robertson has served as the President of Reaching & Teaching since April 2020. Robertson has previously served in executive leadership positions for public companies and other non-profit organizations, and has been a board member of several different charities. In 2014, he obtained his CPA from the State of Massachusetts. Robertson is currently enrolled in the Doctor of Missiology program at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Ryan and his wife Erin have three children and are members of Third Avenue Baptist Church. You can watch the video version of this episode on the Missions Podcast Facebook page. Subscribe now to never miss an episode when it drops. Support this podcast and impact God's mission. Want to ask a question or suggest a topic? Email us.
How do Muslims think? What should Christians know about the Qur'an? And how is any of that helpful in missions? Our friend Matt Bennett, Assistant Professor of Missions and Theology at Cedarville University, returns to talk about his new book, The Qur'an and the Christian, in this exclusive interview recorded live at Together for the Gospel. You can watch the video version of this episode on the Missions Podcast Facebook page. Hear our previous interviews with Matt here. Subscribe now to never miss an episode when it drops. Support this podcast and impact God's mission. Want to ask a question or suggest a topic? Email us.
Join Garrett, Nick and Josh as they are (finally) back and are talking about the recent trip to the T4G conference. Sermons discussed below T4G.org
Why do so few seminary graduates go to the mission field? Charles Smith, vice president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and ABWE board member, and Paul Davis, ABWE president, share solutions. You can watch the video version of this episode on the Missions Podcast Facebook page. Hear our previous interviews with Charles here. Subscribe now to never miss an episode when it drops. Support this podcast and impact God's mission. Want to ask a question or suggest a topic? Email us.
When it comes to the popular methods used on the mission field today, we often talk past one another. What do we mean by “church,” “convert,” or “disciple”? Zane Pratt, vice president of training for IMB, returns to the show. Hear our previous interviews with Zane here. You can watch the video version of this episode here, or watch all of our T4G exclusives on the Missions Podcast Facebook page. Subscribe now to never miss an episode when it drops. Support this podcast and impact God's mission. Want to ask a question or suggest a topic? Email us.
Missions is no longer from the West to the rest—it's from everywhere, to everywhere. In this T4G exclusive, Live Global missionary David Prairie explains why their model is challenging traditional missions assumptions. You can watch the video version of this episode on the Missions Podcast Facebook page. Subscribe now to never miss an episode when it drops. Support this podcast and impact God's mission. Want to ask a question or suggest a topic? Email us.
Jon finishes his analysis of T4G's CRT panel between Kevin Deyoung, Mark Dever, and Bobby Scott. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/conversations-that-matter8971/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Sending missionaries is the local church's job—so why start a new parachurch missions sending organization? Nathan Sloan, pastor and executive director of the Upstream Sending explains in this exclusive interview recorded at the final Together for the Gospel conference. Nathan has a Doctor of Missiology from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Previously, Nathan and his wife Sarah served as missionaries in Kathmandu, Nepal, training national pastors and working with an unreached people group. You can watch the video version of this episode on the Missions Podcast Facebook page. Hear our previous interview with Nathan here. Subscribe now to never miss an episode when it drops. Support this podcast and impact God's mission. Want to ask a question or suggest a topic? Email us.
In this episode of The Happy Rant Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas wander to and fro through a variety of topics LIVE from New Albany, Indiana leading up to the final T4G conference:1. A T4G retrospective of our favorite moments2. The future of reformed conferences3. Angry Calvinists4. Tell me you're reformed without telling me you're reformed5. Violent Grace6. Fighting famous pastors
Jon continues to examine T4G's panel on CRT. Part 1: https://youtu.be/1Fzsu2uy0RUSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/conversations-that-matter8971/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Why do so many women and singles pursue missions—and what does it mean for biblical manhood and womanhood? Dr. Lisa LaGeorge, director of CHF Academy at Children's Hunger Fund in Sylmar, CA, returns to the show to talk about her experiences as a complementarian woman on mission. You can watch the video version of this episode on the Missions Podcast Facebook page. Hear our previous interview with Lisa here. You can also read her blog or follow her on Twitter. Subscribe now to never miss an episode when it drops. Support this podcast and impact God's mission. Want to ask a question or suggest a topic? Email us.
Prayer is the beating heart of missions. But how should we pray? Can we repeat pre-written prayers, or is that inauthentic? And what can history teach us about how prayer has sparked missions movements? Our friend Dr. Jonathan Arnold returns to the show to explain in this bonus interview. This conversation was recorded live at Together for the Gospel 2022 in Louisville, Kent. Watch or listen to more of our T4G22 exclusives. You can watch the video version of this episode on the Missions Podcast Facebook page. Hear our previous episodes with Jonathan Arnold here. Dr. Arnold serves as associate professor of church history and historical theology in the School of Theology and director of Research Doctoral Studies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has held a range of academic and ministerial positions including, senior pastor, student ministry leader, professor, and college administrator. Read more here. Subscribe now to never miss an episode when it drops. Support this podcast and impact God's mission. Want to ask a question or suggest a topic? Email us.
Wretched Radio | Air Date: April 26, 2022 https://media-wretched.org/Radio/Podcast/WR2022-0426.mp3 Segment 1 The final T4G conference just occurred. Mark Dever promised there would be crystal clarity regarding his position on CRT. There was panel moderated by Mark Dever with Kevin DeYoung and Pastor Bobby Smith. Do we disagree with anything from either of these men? Let’s hear […] The post THREE CRITIQUES OF CRITICAL RACE THEORY FROM KEVIN DEYOUNG appeared first on Wretched.
Jon talks about "Conversations About Race" by Isaac Adams which was given out to every attendee at T4G 2022. PowerPoint: https://www.patreon.com/posts/65623580Discerning Christianshttps://www.discerningchristians.comHow to Use Tutorial:https://fb.watch/3SBsPg0HJn/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/conversations-that-matter8971/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Join the conversation as Matt and John talk about the NBA playoffs, T4G, and Nolan Ryan 0:00- Intro and sports 13:44-T4G 36:52- This day in sports 39:51- one thing
Jared is joined by, well, no one as he takes the mic himself because Allen and Matt were unavailable. On today's potluck, he discusses his experience at T4G, Southern Baptists' baptism Sunday, and an upcoming President Panel. We apologize the audio is a little quieter than usual, but we look forward to all being back together next week!Make sure you are following us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PotluckPodcastSBC
Jared is at T4G, so Allen and Matt get together to discuss the announced nomination of Bart Barber, the possibility of a location change for NEXT YEAR'S Annual Meeting, and some of our favorite things to eat for Easter. Dig in!!Hemphill: https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/hemphill-rejoins-swbts-faculty-to-lead-center-bearing-his-name/Barber: https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/texas-pastor-bart-barber-announced-as-candidate-for-sbc-president/Location: https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/sbc-executive-committee-to-hold-special-called-meeting/Make sure you are following us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PotluckPodcastSBC
In this episode of the Happy Rant Ted Kluck, Ronnie Martin, and Barnabas Piper wander to and fro through a variety of topics:1. Gauging our Oscars interest2. Is Will Smith an actual movie star?3. The Slap: our takes on the takes4. Who would we choose to slap if given the chance?5. A T4G royal rumbleCheck out Visual Theology: https://visualtheology.church/ (use the code Happy Rant at check out)
Huge news! Energy Drink Review: Nu Variant; Cutting out the middle man; T4G meetup?Randomizer! Thanks, Cody and Philip! Gut Check Legal is BACK!
Jon examines articles from Russell Moore and a roundtable discussion from T4G that includes Ligon Duncan, Mark Dever, Al Mohler, etc. that shows they all sensed the basic threats manifesting themselves in the current compromises. They aren't ignorant. They're calculated.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/conversations-that-matter8971/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Last month, Mark Dever and Ligon Duncan announced that the T4G conference planned for April 2022 in Louisville would be the last. The successful pastors' conference spanned 16 years, gathering Reformed pastors from a range of denominations. The last in-person conference, in 2018, drew more than 12,000. Attendees loved the preaching, the music, the books, and the fellowship. So it was a surprise to hear it was coming to an end.Sarah Zylstra explains how T4G got started, why it was a risk, and what has changed since then.In this episode:2:42 How Ligon Duncan met Mark Dever6:23 Meeting Al Mohler and C.J. Mahaney9:55 The birth of T4G12:04 Designing the conference13:32 The first T4G14:33 Growing T4G and becoming T3G18:41 The growth of the Reformed resurgence20:36 The splintering of unity in America and the Reformed fellowship23:58 Memories26:00 What T4G's end means for the Reformed resurgence26:46 T4G's legacy28:28 Looking aheadResources:T4G siteT4G playlistsThe Reason for God by Tim Keller*Young, Restless, and* Reformed by Collin Hansen
A huge thanks to Seth White for the awesome music! Thanks to Palmtoptiger17 for the beautiful logo: https://www.instagram.com/palmtoptiger17/ Discord Discussion Board: https://disboard.org/server/474580298630430751 Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/thewayfourth/?modal=admin_todo_tour YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTd3KlRte86eG9U40ncZ4XA?view_as=subscriber Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theway4th/ The Historic Faith Courses: https://thehistoricfaith.com/ The Fire Next Time - There is a sadly beautiful part in this work where Baldwin talks about black submissiveness and gentleness and asks how that can be good, or how being like Christ in that way gives him hope of heaven. "What, is heaven just another ghetto then?" Baldwin asks. With this episode, as with "His Stripes and Our Stripes," I don't at all intend to minimize suffering or support the continuing subordination of oppressed groups. Rather, my hope is that this podcast will help you to see that 1) nonviolence is not passive, but active, 2) living one's true self, like the perfect human Jesus Christ, is actually freeing, and 3) our call to Christian living is grounded in the hope of Jesus, not in circumstances, and therefore it is objective and permanent, not fickle and shifting: https://www.amazon.com/Live-Not-Lies-Christian-Dissidents/dp/0593087399/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1612546493&sr=8-1 Baucham sermon (I couldn't find the sermon link, but will have his quote at the bottom): My Post "Is the Gospel Enough?": https://www.dckreider.com/blog-theological-musings/is-the-gospel-enough Bearing Our Crosses: https://www.dckreider.com/blog-theological-musings/bearing-our-crosses The Heavenly Multitude: https://www.dckreider.com/blog-theological-musings/the-heavenly-multitude Economic Pornography and Pet Sins: https://www.dckreider.com/blog-theological-musings/economic-pornography-and-pet-sins Western Wealth Through the Bible's Eyes: https://www.dckreider.com/blog-theological-musings/western-wealth-through-the-bibles-eyes The Comfortable, White Evangelical: https://www.dckreider.com/blog-theological-musings/the-comfortable-white-evangelical CT Article: https://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2020/june/reflections-from-christian-scholar-on-social-justice-critic.html NT Wright The Day The Revolution Began: https://www.amazon.com/Day-Revolution-Began-Reconsidering-Crucifixion/dp/0062334395/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+Day+the+Revolution+Began&qid=1606930592&sr=8-1 One Orthodox thought on politics at 30 minute mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDuXFLJkDt0&feature=youtu.be Reading While Black: https://www.amazon.com/Reading-While-Black-American-Interpretation/dp/083085486X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=reading+while+black&qid=1606930574&sr=8-1 Icons of Christ: https://www.amazon.com/Icons-Christ-Biblical-Systematic-Ordination/dp/1481313185/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=icons+of+christ&qid=1606930619&sr=8-1CRT Legislation Episode Voddie Baucham Quote: It is so disheartening to see so many pastors and Christians losetheir religion and exchange it for Social Justice. Pastors marchingwith protestors who are members of BLM and marching with Christiansfor Social Justice. But then again, it is not that surprising when weunderstand that the Bible warns us that many will be seduced by falseteaching and godless ideologies. The Bible is no longer the standardfor many Christians. Social Justice is now the new standard.Christians and pastors are marching and protesting the murder ofGeorge Floyd hand in hand with god-haters? Christians and Pastors,who have Bibles are doing this. Why? Do they really care aboutjustice? Or have they bought into the false narrative that is beingpushed by Social Justice Warriors who place people into groups of theoppressors and the oppressed?The Social Justice Movement's answer for sin is redistribution ofpower and wealth. That is why you hear Christian's like Lecrae whosuggest that the solution to sin is the redistribution of power. If weget more black people into positions of power then we can stop racism.Lacrae has just abandoned Biblical Christianity and adopted SocialJustice as the answer for sin. But Lecrae is not the only one doingthis. Countless Christians and Pastors are teaching that the answerto racism is redistribution of power. By the way there is not suchthing as racism. The Bible calls it for what it is, hatred. Justiceis never accomplished by the redistribution of power. Black peoplehave extremely wicked hearts. So to replace a white person withextremely wicked hearts with black person who has the same extremelywicked heart will not fix the sin problem. The same goes for Asiansand Hispanics and all human beings. Humans have extremely wickedhearts,The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: whocan know it? (Jeremiah 17:9)The answer to injustice, murder, crime, etc., is not rioting,protesting, redistribution of power and wealth, or anything else thatsinful man can come up with. God provided the answer in the Personand work of Jesus Christ. The Gospel is the cure for sin. Did theApostle Paul call for protests when Nero persecuted and oppressed theminority culture of the Roman Empire which happened to be Christians?Did the Christians protest the unjust murder of Peter and Paul? Orthe thousands of other Christians who were murdered by Rome? But whathappened when persecution came to them? They went out preaching theGospel. Paul even preached to prison guards who were converted.But we live in a different society than that of the Roman Empire. Sowe can and should fight for more just laws and practices. And as ofthis very day, I am personally unaware of any unjust laws on the booksthat are targeting minorities. Why? Because Christians in the pastchallenged those unjust laws and put an end to them. President Trumprecently signed a prison reform act to correct some of the problemswith our penal system. And there is nothing wrong with fighting forLaw Enforcement reform acts that might address some issues as well.But, if you think that is going to stop racism, police brutality,violence, and injustice you are greatly mistaken. More cops will killunarmed black and white men, more blacks will murder other blacks,more whites will murder other whites, more children will be sold intosex trafficking, more women will be raped, more husbands will beattheir wives, and yes, even more wives will physically abuse theirhusbands, more men and women will commit sexual sin, and a higherpercentage of black babies will continue to be murdered in the womb.Many pastors and Christians have lost their way. They are jumping onthe Social Justice bandwagon without and regard as to what the goal ofSocial Justice really is. It is seeking to address sins andgrievances through a godless, anti-God, anti-Biblical worldview. AndChristian Denominations and Organizations like T4G, TGC, ERLC, SBC,9Marks, and SBTS are jumping on this bandwagon and leading manypastors and churches astray.The Gospel is of First Importance. But sadly, those who use this astheir slogan, have traded it in for Social Justice. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
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