Peter got things turned around. He was sleeping when he should have been praying and fighting when he should have been surrendering.

Imagine an ordinary church. We’ll call it Riverside Community. Certain folks in the congregation are respected, though for different reasons. Andre is the most successful businessman. Steve is the biggest giver. Ken can fix anything. Charlie has been around for 40 years. Miguel hopes to eventually become a pastor. Is any of them qualified to be a deacon? One of the tragedies in church life today is the lack of attention given to what biblical deacons are—and aren’t. Many churches seem content to continue operating from custom and tradition on this subject, with Bibles closed. Yet we must all face the uncomfortable fact that Jesus doesn’t mince words when addressing leaders who cling to tradition on matters where God has spoken (e.g., Matt. 15:1–9). And a deacon’s character is something on which God has spoken. Character Is Paramount After listing marks of eligibility for the office of pastor/elder in 1 Timothy 3:1–7, the apostle Paul turns his attention to the office of deacon: Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well. For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus. (vv. 8–13) Fascinatingly, Paul doesn’t seem too interested in what potential deacons can do. His focus is squarely on who they must be. (Don’t miss this easy-to-forget lesson: God cares more about character than about gifting.) Now back to Andre, Steve, Ken, Charlie, and Miguel. Should any of them be installed as a deacon at Riverside? Perhaps. The answer, though, rests not on their previously listed attributes but on whether their lives embody this all-important biblical paragraph. Paul doesn’t seem too interested in what potential deacons are able to do. His focus is squarely on who they must be. What’s most extraordinary about this list of virtues? How ordinary it is. Deacons must embody the kind of character expected of all Christians. But they should be exemplary in the ordinary. Deacons are the people of whom you should be able to say, “Do you wish to grow as a servant? Do you desire to foster unity? Watch them.” Character Isn’t Everything According to the Bible, character is paramount. But it’s not quite everything. Deacons aren’t installed to have quiet times, after all. They’re charged to perform tasks. Deacons’ work through the centuries has focused chiefly on tangible needs, particularly caring for the poor and vulnerable. Their work should never involve less than such “mercy ministry.” The larger principle of the deacon’s role, though, includes anything in a church’s life that threatens to distract and derail pastors from their primary responsibilities (see Acts 6:2–4). Every deacon should be skilled at spotting practical needs and then taking the initiative to meet them efficiently. But the best deacons don’t just react to present problems; they anticipate future ones. They love to brainstorm creative solutions to anything that might potentially impede the work of the pastors and the flourishing of the Word. Biblical deacons, therefore, are like a congregation’s offensive linemen, whose job is to protect the quarterback. They rarely get attention, much less credit, but their labors are utterly indispensable for guarding and advancing Word ministry. Without effective deacons, pastors will suffer incessant distraction and get sacked by an onrush of practical demands. Biblical deacons are like a congregation’s offensive linemen, whose job is to protect the quarterback. So if eyeing future deacons, look for godly saints who see and meet needs discreetly (they don’t need or want credit), at their own expense (they sacrifice), and without being asked (they take the initiative to solve problems). Warning signs in a candidate, then, will include not merely a tendency to be quarrelsome but also a tendency to be disorganized or unreliable. Someone who regularly flakes out, or never returns emails, or always needs to be told what to do isn’t yet a good fit for the office. A deacon must be reliable, neither angling for authority nor needing to be babysat. Show me a church with distracted pastors and a derailed mission, and I’ll show you a church without effective deacons. Wanted: Shock Absorbers In Acts 6:1–7, a crisis was brewing in the Jerusalem church. While the Hebraic widows were eating just fine, the Hellenistic widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food. So the apostles rose to action, instructing the congregation to identify seven men—forerunners to deacons—to solve the problem. This was no mere culinary quibble. The apostles were faced with a natural fault line that threatened to fracture the unity Christ died to achieve. The gospel insists, after all, that our unity in Christ supersedes any worldly difference. So, make no mistake: the apostles didn’t delegate the problem to others because it wasn’t important but because it was. They could have imposed a swift, superficial solution and moved on. Instead, they laid the groundwork for an ongoing solution and a permanent church office. Show me a church with distracted pastors and a derailed mission, and I’ll show you a church without effective deacons. Given the root problem of disunity facing the seven, we can conclude deacons should be those who muffle shock waves, not make them reverberate further. Contentious people make poor deacons, for they only compound the headaches deacons are meant to relieve. And here lies the ultimate reason deacons must have a knack for solving problems: to safeguard unity. On top of godly character and practical wisdom (Acts 6:3), an ideal deacon will have a track record of embodying and encouraging this cycle: sees a problem → wants to safeguard unity → thinks creatively → solves the problem The best deacons, Scripture insists, are far more than spreadsheet wizards or those who know their way around Home Depot. They’re mature believers with fine-tuned “conflict radar.” They’re where suspicion and gossip go to die. They love solutions more than drama. And they rise to respond, in creatively constructive ways, to promote the harmony of the whole church, to the praise of greatest Servant (Mark 10:45).

In an exclusive Friday interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, President Joe Biden Biden fell back to the claim that his poor debate performance was due to a cold, and claimed that he was ill enough that he required a Covid test prior to the debate.  When asked directly by Stephanopoulos about his health in recent months, Biden retorted, “Can I run a 110 flat? No, but I’m still in good shape.” President Biden says he did not rewatch the first presidential debate.George Stephanopoulos: "Did you know how badly it was going?"Biden: "It's nobody's fault but mine."pic.twitter.com/7x5jagWj8p— The American Conservative (@amconmag) July 5, 2024 Stephanopoulos, who is best known for his role as Bill Clinton’s White House Communications Director and a staunch Clinton-loyalist, tried to keep the conversation about Biden’s health rather than policy. For instance, at one point Biden stated that in a hypothetical second term, he would “straighten out the tax system,” “make sure we’re in a situation where we have healthcare for all people,” and have taxpayer-funded childcare and eldercare. Stephanopoulos declined to inquire about the substance of these major policy proposals and instead pivoted back to asking about Biden’s health.  On top of bringing up large policy proposals, Biden also highlighted his foreign policy record, touting NATO expansion and aid to Ukraine. Stephanopoulos also questioned Biden’s electability against Donald Trump. Biden claimed that the race is a “toss-up” and that he does not think “anybody is more qualified to be president or win this race than me.” In response to questions about whether Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, or Hakeem Jeffries would be able to persuade him to drop out of the race. Biden countered, “I’m not going to answer that question; it’s not going to happen.”  The post Biden Faces Stephanopoulos in Confrontational Interview appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs Taiwan Should Not Present Itself as Another Ukraine Taiwan is fundamentally different in its relation to American interests—and competes for limited American resources. Credit: Amelia Y Taiwan’s government often argues that its security is closely linked to that of Ukraine, while also downplaying concerns that U.S. military support for Europe comes at a cost for the Indo-Pacific. The most prominent example yet comes courtesy of Taiwan’s former Foreign Minister Joseph Wu,  who recently claimed that the world should be “defending Taiwan by defending Ukraine.” Shortly after, Wu took over as Secretary General of Taiwan’s National Security Council, making it clear that linking Taiwan to Ukraine is a priority of Taiwan’s government.  Secretary General Wu, a fierce freedom fighter who spent his years at the foreign ministry pushing back against China’s aggression, has a rational basis for claiming that Taiwan’s security is linked to democratic countries’ support for Ukraine. Yet going all in on this strategy and dismissing legitimate concerns about U.S. military credibility in the Indo-Pacific may not be the best approach for Taiwan’s engagement with a United States facing costly security challenges in Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific.  Ukraine has a major advantage over Taiwan in generating and maintaining international support: The world clearly views Russia’s invasion as an aggressive violation of a sovereign country’s borders. Conversely, China has been dangerously successful in spreading the lie that Taiwan’s fate is an “internal affair” of China. Taiwan is right to underscore that China’s efforts to “reunify” Taiwan by threatening or using force are matters of international concern. Secretary General Wu directly addresses this in his essay, arguing that “peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait can be maintained only by viewing and treating it as an international issue.”  Wu is also speaking to the U.S. Congress by drawing parallels between Taiwan and Ukraine. From Taipei’s perspective, Taiwan’s most urgent existential threat is not the Chinese Communist Party, but the loss of bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress. Since the U.S. severed diplomatic relations and our defense treaty with Taiwan in 1979, Taiwan’s near-universal support in the American legislature has been the defining enabler of its continued existence, technological development, democratic transition, economic success, and military capabilities. Congressional support counterbalances U.S. presidents’ tendencies to embrace Communist China and undergirds other countries’ relations with Taiwan. Taiwan just can’t afford to alienate the majorities in Congress that continue to vote in favor of U.S. assistance for Ukraine.  Wu went further, however, with the unqualified statement that U.S. military support for Ukraine “does not detract from the defense of places such as Taiwan.” Unfortunately, this simply isn’t true.  American support for Ukraine draws on finite resources that are also needed to support Taiwan and ongoing American entanglements in the Middle East. This applies both to scarce munitions and weapons systems that the U.S. defense industrial base is failing to produce sufficiently, and the political will of a justifiably war-weary American public. Taiwan needs the support of the Members of Congress who are concerned with those tradeoffs, not just the majorities who recently voted in favor of further Ukraine aid.  Unlike Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a military contingency involving Taiwan would probably involve the United States as a combatant. The U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” reserves the right to come to Taiwan’s defense because a Taiwan conflict would have a direct, severe impact on the economic wellbeing of American families and significantly harm American national security. Even were this not the case, to ensure the success of an attack on Taiwan, China may also attack U.S. treaty allies Japan and the Philippines. Beijing would possibly make a preemptive strike on the U.S. military itself, including in Okinawa and Guam.  All that adds up to mean that Taiwan’s defense is a weightier debate on a more consequential conflict for U.S. interests than U.S. aid to Ukraine. In that debate, the support of the realists and skeptics among our elected leaders will be even more decisive. Taiwan needs to account for this when engaging with the U.S. Congress. Today, it is no surprise that Taiwan’s leaders continue to highlight Taiwan’s connections to Ukraine. But as Taiwan engages Congress, it should avoid dismissing the substantive concerns of those who are worried about the material capacity of the United States military to deter China as conflicts proliferate around the globe.  It will do us no good to know, as Secretary General Wu writes, that “the agendas of Moscow and Beijing” are linked, only to conclude that having taken on the former, we aren’t able to fight back against the latter.  The post Taiwan Should Not Present Itself as Another Ukraine appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics Kennedy Could Play the Spoiler—If He Gets Onto the Ballot The independent’s campaign is struggling with ballot access in key states. (Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty Images) The Democrats don’t want Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the ballot. In early March, the Kennedy campaign announced that volunteers had collected over 15,000 signatures for the candidate’s name to appear in the voting booths of the swing state of Nevada. Later that month, Cisco Aguilar, the state’s Democratic secretary of state, threw cold water on the campaign’s excitement by rejecting the campaign’s signatures for having failed to include a running mate on the candidacy petition.  Kennedy’s campaign staff reacted with frustration, claiming that the “Kennedy campaign intends to depose the Secretary of State to find out exactly which White House or DNC official concocted this scheme.”  The campaign’s ballot access attorney, Paul Rossi, insisted in a press release, “The DNC Goon Squad and their lackeys in the Nevada Secretary of State’s office are outright inventing a new requirement for the petition with zero legal basis.” Most recently, the campaign announced Friday that it submitted a second round of signatures for a spot on the ballot. In the middle of a 20-day period during which the campaign announced it had gathered enough signatures in Nevada and Aguilar announced that their petition was insufficient, NBC News reported that the Democratic National Committee had been building a legal and communications infrastructure to weaken third-party candidates. Pat Dennis, president of a Democratic opposition research group called American Bridge 21st Century, told NBC, “We see [Kennedy and No Labels] essentially as an arm of the Trump campaign and we intend to treat it as such.” Despite the pending litigation, the campaign continues to include the state in its running list of 27 states in which it has collected the necessary number of signatures for ballot placement.  The campaign also includes the states of Illinois, New Jersey, and New York and the swing states of North Carolina and Pennsylvania on the list of states in which it has collected the necessary number of signatures, even as the campaign finds itself in active litigation or disputes with state Democratic committees in each of those states. Whether Kennedy will make it on the ballot in Indiana is also up in the air. The campaign’s press office has mentioned the state twice this year, once to confirm that volunteers were collecting signatures in the state in late March and once to lament that Indiana law “permits county clerks the unilateral authority to prevent otherwise valid ballot access petition signatures from being filed with the Secretary of State by simply failing to validate petition signatures in time.”  While the state of Indiana’s deadline for independent candidates to file a petition of nomination with a county voter registration office for the verification of petition signatures was on Monday, the state will further require the same candidates to file a petition of nomination with the state after county verification on Monday, July 15. One June 21 report indicates that county officials certified about 5,400 signatures of the 36,943 required. Because of the campaign’s relative silence regarding its status in the state amid a passed deadline, Kennedy’s sustained claim that he will appear on the ballot in all 50 states is now open to question. The campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Regardless of whether the campaign fulfills its desire to land on the ballot in every state across the country, how its candidate fares during Election Month is the determining factor. And right now, the response from swing state voters is largely uniform. In Kennedy’s most hotly contested state, Nevada, the former President Donald Trump holds almost a 4-point lead over President Joe Biden, while Kennedy attracts about 8 percent of the state’s electorate, according to an average of last month’s polls.  In North Carolina, Trump has secured a 7-point lead over Biden, while Kennedy has captured about 7 percent of the state. In Arizona, Trump leads by 5, and Kennedy has about 8 percent. In Georgia, Trump leads by almost 7 percent, and Kennedy has almost 7 percent. Voters polled in Wisconsin have been more discerning, giving Trump a slight edge over Biden and awarding Kennedy about 6 percent. Pennsylvania voters offer Trump almost a 2-point lead and Kennedy squeaks out about 5 percent. In Michigan, Trump holds the same 2-point lead and Kennedy pulls almost 7 percent.  The aggregates of these polls have Trump winning in each swing state. What’s worth noting is that Biden took a marginal lead over Trump in three discrete polls last month in the swing states: One each in Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Each of those polls asked voters to choose between Trump and Biden in a head-to-head matchup. On the other hand, Trump wins every swing state poll when Kennedy and his third-party competitors are included in the calculus.  But things have changed on the national scene even since these poll numbers were collected, and the DNC is scrambling for a chance to beat the betting markets. Some have floated the independent candidate’s name as a solution to the Democrats’ sorry position. With Kennedy, though, they appear to have made their position known.  The post Kennedy Could Play the Spoiler—If He Can Even Get On the Ballot appeared first on The American Conservative.

Newsom's Secret Bid For President Continues, But His Destruction of CA Speaks For Itself - Adam Carolla ENDS Gavin Newsom's Career! Shocking Revelations! *** UNFORTUNATELY AS WE HAVE LEARNED WITH THE BIDEN WIN - - GLOBALIST PUPPETS DO NOT HAVE TO ACTUALLY WIN VOTES TO STEAL THE PRESIDENCY *** 127,050 views July 2, 2024 Governor Newsom, Adam Carolla A Righteous Perspective - FAIR USE FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES - Mirrored From: https://www.youtube.com/@arighteousperspective

Joe Biden's Record-Breaking US Embassy Evacuations. (Caused By U.S. Globalist Policies) - THERE IS A SERIOUS DISCONNECT WITH REALITY THAT MANY PATRIOTS STILL STRUGGLE WITH - The Republicans vs the Democrats is one of those Great Delusions. Many have not realized that both sides are Controlled Opposition. - 4,228 views July 5, 2024 A Righteous Perspective - Yes. The 11 U.S. Embassy Evacuations is very interesting, and no one in the Media is talking about it. But the main reason that I am posting this video is to point out that even people with Good Intentions are missing the Full Context and the True Causes of World Events. - There is a Separation of the Perceived Reality and the True Underlying Reasons that have Caused these events to happen .. - AMERICA IS THE BULLY ON THE PLAYGROUND, ESPECIALLY IN AFRICA - The True Causes of the Loss of these Embassies is Not Joe Biden. He is not even Real. Nor is it just because having Dems in Power has Me ade us Weak. - America is Growing Weak because Globalist Policies are intentionally Destroying our Nation From Within. - The Rise in Resentment and Opposition to America is well Deserved because of the Globalist Policies and the Oppression that the US Government has dealt to Nations throughout the world for many Decades. This Evil that America has Taken Part in as the World's Police Force for the Globalist New World Order is Finally Catching up. And that Evil can No Longer Be Hidden. - NOR DO I AGREE WITH THIS PODCASTER IN HIS SUPPORT OF POLITICIANS. - NOR DO THESE POLITICIANS EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE WHAT I HAVE POINTED OUT ABOVE. - BUT WITHOUT THAT CONTEXT NO MEANINGFUL DISCUSSION CAN BE HAD - Simply pushing the Fake Right vs Left Narrative does Not Help. It merely CONCEALS our True Problems and leaves our enemies hidden and unnamed... - TheWarAgainstYou ********* We had to evacuate seven united states embassies under Biden. What has never happened in American history before - FAIR USE FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES - Mirrored From: https://www.youtube.com/@arighteousperspective

The man who bridged 1960s psychedelia to the indie rock wave. The post “Superb songs”: Robyn Hitchcock on his favourite album by The Beatles first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

The Meaning of Patriotism and Commitment

Why We Hate Each Other, Part II