K. Rex Butts

“Although the writing of Acts ends with twenty-eight chapters, the acts of participating in the mission of God do not. There are subsequent chapters. Our chapter, perhaps titled…” || A Subsequent Chapter: Acts and the Ongoing Mission of God

A Subsequent Chapter Acts and the Ongoing Mission of God

I'm always thankful people are reading the Bible. In his commentary on Acts, Willing Jennings says this about Paul in Acts 28, “Paul has come to a great point of clarification—everything pivots on Jesus of Nazareth. Paul is trying to turn the reading practices of his own people in a new direction in, toward and through the life of Jesus."

Lat’s pray that churches can meet people where they are at and as they read the Bible together, help lead people to live as followers of Jesus Christ who embody the kingdom of God.

“Nobody needs us to be liberals or conservatives. What they need is for us to be the body of Christ, to remember our baptism, and be the people Jesus has taught us to be.” || Our Baptism Matters: Neither Liberals Nor Conservatives but Followers of Jesus

Our Baptism Matters Neither Liberals Nor Conservatives but Followers of Jesus

Dear Christian. Being conservative or liberal is rubbish in comparison to knowing Christ. So what matters is not being the left or right but being formed in Christ. I’m not saying we can’t have opinions on different matters that others might consider to be liberal or conservative. But in an age and society where people’s identities are being consumed by partisan affiliation, let’s not lose sight of our goal. Remember these words of the apostle Paul, that they may be the desire of our lives too…

“I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” - Philippians‬ ‭3‬:‭10‬-‭12‬ (NIV)

Reading the Bible is great but how we read the Bible also matters. Having humility is a part of that how, for we are all capable of co-opting the Bible to support our own pre-conceived ideas. So read the Bible but read it with humility.

The Dunning-Kruger effect means that we are prone to trust our own fool-hearted expertise over actual science even though there isn’t any credible research to support the conclusion our expertise has drawn.

Self-perception is often self-deception… self-expertise surely is!

I have served as a minister/pastor for about twenty five years now. Doing so has meant preaching on most Sunday’s as well as some other speaking engagements. On more than a few occasions I have said something with the best intentions but that was hurtful to others. My words, though intended for good, did harm.

When I was younger, I wanted to respond in a defensive manner. I wanted to justify myself by saying that people just misunderstood me or maybe they had other unresolved issues that were contributing to their adverse reaction. Maybe that was the case but at the end of the day, something I said caused harm and becoming defensive, trying to justify myself, only caused further harm.

Anyone who speaks publicly has a difficult task because anything they say can cause harm on any given day. It doesn’t matter if their rhetoric was misunderstood or not fully heard in context. The bottom line is that their words caused harm. Our attempts to justify only do further harm. Just because someone’s words were not hurtful to us doesn’t mean they weren’t hurtful.

For those of us who are Christians, who want to see God’s redemption and reconciling work at hand, we first must be honest with the truth. If someone’s words were hurtful to others, we must acknowledge that harm even if such words were not hurtful to us. If we can’t do that, then we’re just part of the problem.

“Most Americans are in shock, grieving, and rightly concerned for the future of our nation. Yet there are outliers on both ends of the ideological spectrum who seem inclined to assign a deeper meaning to Kirk’s murder—one that instrumentalizes it to galvanize further support for their respective camps and causes.”

“Now is the time for every Christian, regardless of our political affiliation, to beat our swords into plowshares and do the hard work of uprooting the false necessity of violence in our nation. We must demonstrate that the new operating principle of Christ’s kingdom is a divine love that is even stronger than death (Song 8:6).”

https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/09/charlie-kirk-death-girard/?utm_source=chatgpt.com&fbclid=IwdGRleAM1I61leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHpIAV41WwB3_zEuKw1pLIZ42vEh7K8pxdlVXQr4xkn2_t2yOTMuUoH1skJpV_aem_3zK1hj9ASOpJZMh6J3Uvxw

Charlie Kirk Is Not a Scapegoat - Christianity Today When we instrumentalize violence, we side with the accuser rather than with Christ.

Words have consequences. We all are guilty of saying something unkind, unnecessary, and sometimes even hurtful. Wisdom means giving consideration to how we speak and the kind of cultural seeds we sow with our rhetoric. The well-known acronym T.H.I.N.K (Thoughtful-Helpful-Inspiring-Necessary-Kind) is a great place to begin considering how we speak to others. This goes for everything from our public discourse to how we speak with our husband/wife and children.