Although written specifically to church leaders, Mark McIntyre’s On Selective Denouncement in Attempts at Honesty applies to any Christian who openly stands against sin in others. I’ve been thinking along similar lines recently, though Mark has a take on the matter that hadn’t quite occurred to me (probably because I’ve been too lazy to remove this log from my own eye).

We can all feel intimidated when it comes to evangelism. Jordan Standridge’s article for The Cripplegate, Don’t Mess with the Message, helps brace us against that intimidation.  I greatly appreciate his Scriptural and practical encouragement.

Is it Time for a Change regarding your relationship with God’s Word?  Leslie A of Growing 4 Life issues a few challenges, including an unexpected one to those of us who really do spend time digging in to our Bibles. I always appreciate Leslie’s boldness to write things that make us examine ourselves.

John and I have been going through a few struggles. Actually, we’ve been having struggles for a couple years with relatively few breaks. So I appreciate Michelle Lesley for running Throwback Thursday ~ God’s Good Purposes in Suffering this week. As usual, she derives her principles from Scripture and helps us look to the Lord.

HT to Erin Benziger for sharing A Bad Kind of Discernment by Lara d’Endtremont on Twitter. Lara balances the abuses in sometimes self-proclaimed discernment ministries with the importance of exercising discernment out of genuine compassion for false teachers and the people they deceive. I can’t overemphasize the importance of this blog post!

I apologize for the brevity of today’s Sampler. I went to the emergency  room yesterday with the severe back pain, and found that I have injured a muscle in my back. I am not ready to do extensive typing, so there will be no Sunday hymn tomorrow and no Bible study on Monday. Hopefully by Tuesday I can post something. Thank you for understanding.