Category: Top articles

From caterpillar to something entirely new

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TEXAS GOSPEL VOLUNTEER

A caterpillar is not an impressive creature. It inches along the ground, unremarkable in appearance, carrying no hint of the glory that lies dormant within it. And yet, after a season of waiting inside the chrysalis, something extraordinary occurs. The creature that emerges bears no resemblance to the one that entered. It has wings. It has colour. It has been, in the most literal sense, made into something new.

This is precisely the image the scripture uses for what happens when a person comes to Christ. The change is not cosmetic. It is not a resolution to try harder or behave better. It is a transformation at the level of the soul itself.

When that transformation takes place, it touches everything. The direction of a person’s life changes. The attitudes that once governed their thinking begin to shift. Love, which may have been foreign or forced before, begins to arise naturally and take up residence. The person who returns home after encountering Christ is genuinely different. The same is true in their community, in their workplace, in every sphere where they move.

The scripture puts it plainly in 2 Corinthians 5:17: if anyone is in Christ, that person is a new creation. The old has gone. The new has come. This is not a metaphor for improvement. It is a declaration of rebirth.

The same invitation that has transformed countless lives across the centuries stands open to you today.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

2 Corinthians 5:17

Does Galatians 3:28 mean women can be pastors?

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JEFF TURNER

There are passages of scripture that have become focal points in contemporary debates about the role of women in the church, and perhaps none more so than Galatians 3:28. The apostle Paul writes with striking clarity: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” To many readers, this sounds like the final word on the subject of equality: if all are one in Christ, then surely any distinction of role or function within the church must also fall away.

But a moment’s honest reflection reveals that this reading proves far too much. If Galatians 3:28 means that the distinction between male and female carries no implications for church leadership or function, it would equally mean that the distinction between Jew and Gentile, or between slave and free person, carries no such implications either. In other words, any person, regardless of background, spiritual maturity, giftedness, character, or calling, would be equally eligible to serve in any role in the church. That cannot be what Paul intended, and no thoughtful interpreter of scripture has ever argued that it is.

The verse is making a specific and glorious claim about the nature of salvation. In Christ, there is no hierarchy of access, no first-class and second-class members of the family of God. The Jewish believer and the Gentile believer stand on exactly equal ground at the foot of the cross. The enslaved person and the free person are equally precious to God and equally recipients of his grace. The man and the woman are spiritually equal, equally loved, equally justified, equally heirs of eternal life. That is the point of the verse, and it is a point worth celebrating with full voice.

But spiritual equality in salvation does not automatically translate into identical roles and functions within the community of faith. For that question, we must turn to passages that directly address the structuring of the church, and Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus speak to it with care and clarity. The office of elder and overseer is to be held by qualified men, proven in character, gifted for teaching and sound doctrine. This is not a cultural concession; it is a consistent apostolic instruction given to churches in different cultures and settings.

Both truths must be held together: equal in Christ, and ordered in the church. Neither diminishes the other, and a full reading of scripture requires both.

But all things must be done properly and in an orderly way.

1 Corinthians 14:40

When the inside does not match the outside

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TEXAS GOSPEL VOLUNTEER

There is a kind of suffering that is invisible to the eye. A person can stand before a crowd leading worship, pouring out music and energy and apparent vitality, while something deep within them is quietly crumbling. One singer knew this experience all too well. To every observer, she appeared healthy and capable. Physically, she was doing well. But inwardly, she describes herself as little more than a shadow of a person, hollowed out by postpartum depression.

What brought her back was not a programme or a technique. It was biblical counsel that consistently pointed her toward Jesus Christ. Through that process, she arrived at a realisation that became the foundation of her recovery: without his presence, she is nothing. Without the daily, tangible expressions of his grace and mercy over her life, she cannot function as she was created to function.

That realisation, far from being discouraging, became a source of profound hope. And hope is not a small thing. We live in bodies that are prone to weakness, subject to illness, and susceptible to sin. Jesus himself acknowledged this reality. He never promised his followers a life without trouble. What he promised instead was something far more durable: courage in the midst of trouble, and a peace that is rooted not in favourable circumstances but in a personal relationship with him.

That overcoming is not merely a past event. It is a living reality available to you today. You do not have to win your battles alone. Whatever weight you are carrying, there is one who has already conquered it.

 These things I have spoken to you so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33

The rare and righteous gift of keeping a secret

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TEXAS GOSPEL CANADA VOLUNTEER

In an age when every moment of every day can be published to an audience of thousands in seconds, the ancient virtue of confidentiality feels almost countercultural. We have grown so accustomed to disclosure, to the assumption that experience exists to be shared, that the deliberate choice to hold something in private requires an almost conscious act of will.

Proverbs 11:13 presents this choice in moral terms. The one who goes about spreading what was shared in trust is not merely indiscreet; they are a slanderer. The one who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered. This is presented not as social courtesy but as a matter of character.

Confidentiality, practised rightly, is a form of discipline. It means restraining the impulse to announce what need not be announced. There is a particular temptation that attaches to being the first with news, the one who knows before others. It feeds something in us. The discipline of confidentiality names that temptation clearly and refuses it.

Those who are known as trustworthy keepers of confidences carry something rare and valuable. People trust them with what they cannot share anywhere else. That is a sacred responsibility, and it begins with the simple choice to be silent when silence is the most righteous response available.

 Therefore, ridding yourselves of falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, because we are parts of one another.

Ephesians 4:25

When dreams disappoint and hope goes silent

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TEXAS GOSPEL VOLUNTEER

There is something deeply human about the desire to leave a mark. We are creatures of ambition and longing. We carry dreams inside us from our earliest years, visions of what we hope our lives will become and what we hope to contribute to the world. And yet, for so many people, the story of those dreams is not one of fulfilment but of quiet disappointment. The ambitions that once burned brightly have been slowly extinguished. The hopes that sustained us have been deferred until they ache.

This is not a modern condition. It is as old as humanity itself. The sense of futility, the feeling that one’s efforts amount to nothing, that one’s life is running out before it has ever begun, these are among the heaviest burdens a person can carry.

But here is what is equally true: this longing is itself a signpost. The very fact that we were made to desire meaning suggests that meaning exists to be found. And it is found not in the achievement of our personal ambitions, but in the one who created us with purpose.

When Christ enters a life, he does not simply add a layer of religious activity to an already cluttered existence. He reorients the entire structure. He gives back what disappointment has taken away. Even in seasons when the clouds are thick overhead and the horizon is obscured, a heart that holds Christ can perceive the sunlight on the other side. Hope returns. A settled confidence in God’s sovereign goodness takes root where despair once lived.

Your unrealised dreams do not have to be the final word on your life. There is one who makes all things new.

For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

Jeremiah 29:11