What Does It Mean to Be Fearfully and Wonderfully Made?
There is something so intricate and meaningful about how God has made us that we really should be in awe of that fact.
Articles by Sam Allberry
29 results found
An Open Letter to the Church on Singleness
Let’s not neglect what Scripture has to say about singleness. It may well surprise us. It will certainly bless us.
Why It Matters What We Do with Our Bodies
We might think it doesn’t matter what we do with our bodies, but the Bible repeatedly and powerfully shows us this is not the case.
Unrealistic standards of beauty are being pushed on us almost constantly by the media, and the cumulative effect is that it can leave us thinking about our bodies in a seriously distorted way.
Where Are All the Single Pastors?
Sam Allberry explains four common reasons why churches may hesitate to hire single pastors.
What Is the Christian Religion If You Subtract Our Union with Christ?
Without our union with Christ, Christianity is nothing. We’re not left with a diminished Christianity; we’re left with no Christianity at all.
A Church Is Not Just a Truth-Dispensing Center
The church is the household of God, so we can expect relationships, interaction, and shared identity to be fundamental aspects of its life.
Dear Pastor . . . Let Christ Preach
If preaching isn’t simply transferring data or trying to make people feel something through our charisma, what is it?
Does Singleness Waste My Sexuality?
There will be a time when there will be no more earthly marriage. Marriage, as we practice it now, will have served its purpose. Life then is a fulfillment of all that marriage now is meant to point to.
Does Singleness Require a Special Calling?
Many Christians have taken “the gift of singleness” to mean some special capacity to cope with it. But there are a number of problems with this way of thinking.
Cultural Singleness vs. Christian Singleness
What Christians mean by singleness is often very different to what our secular friends mean by singleness.
How Both Singleness and Marriage Testify to the Gospel
The ways we misunderstand singleness reflects the fact that we’re looking to marriage in unbiblical and unhealthy ways.
Discipline Your Body—for Christ
The Bible is littered with cautionary tales of those who seemed spiritually vibrant but in the end showed themselves to be disqualified. The key to it all is the body. It needs to be disciplined.
Steward Your Body for the Glory of God
The fact that God has made us physical means that attending to our physical life is not unspiritual; our bodies are not unspiritual.
Male and Female He Created Them
Everything else in creation reflects something of God’s glory in a general sense, but humanity alone is described as being created in God’s image.
Is Singleness an Advantage in Ministry?
Pastors being single is not prohibited by Scripture, nor is singleness necessarily a hindrance to effective gospel ministry, even in contexts where the majority of people are married.
The Promise Jesus Offers to Those Who Leave Everything Behind
Jesus is always honest, even blunt, about the cost of discipleship. He never buries suffering in the small print. He wants us to know that following him will be hard.
Don’t Define Gender Apart from the Bible
What it means to be men and women is a really complex issue and one that's very controversial today, so we need to be really careful not to go beyond what God has said.
The Benefits of Honoring Singleness
In God's economy, blessing our spiritual family becomes a blessing to us.
5 Practical Implications of Your Union with Christ
We are all born by nature into Adam. We can only be reborn into Christ. Our standing before God, our inner nature, and our eternal destiny all flow from which of these two men is our representative.
Pastor, What Do You Preach to People Who Can’t Get Their Act Together?
Titus 2 tells us that it’s the grace of God that teaches us to say no to ungodliness. If people aren’t growing in godliness, Paul says they need more grace.
Dear Pastor . . . Let’s Cultivate Honesty in Our Churches—Starting with Us
We don’t have our Christian lives fully together. In Christian ministry, we necessarily stretch the pastoral metaphor because we shepherds are, inevitably and undeniably, still sheep.
The Eternal Importance of Our Earthly Bodies
Jesus's resurrection body is the foretaste of what is going to happen to all of us. We will all be raised to new physical life.
Don’t Fall for This Misconception about Singleness
The church is family to all of those without brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters.
Your Physical Presence Is an Irreplaceable Gift
We need to realize that being embodied means that we are designed to relate to one another physically.
In Your Shepherding, Make It Obvious What the Good Shepherd Is Like
We pastors learn gentleness as we ponder carefully how anyone actually changes. We ourselves have never really changed by being scolded, cornered, pressured, or belittled.
The Christian’s Perfect Piece of Real Estate
The Bible says there is an environment in which we can truly flourish, somewhere we will truly feel we belong, where life will slot into place—somewhere that will feel deeply right.
The Liberation of Being Bought By Christ
With the gospel, if we belong to Jesus physically and bodily, then actually the only person our bodies need to please is Jesus.
Jesus didn't just experience a taste of humanity, he experienced the fullness of what it means to be physically human.