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Articles by Christopher Ash
A Checklist to Help Identify Your Anger and Help for What to Do Next
Heart Desires and Attitudes The Bible has plenty to say about anger—not just our own anger but also God’s. Anger is an important emotion for many reasons. God’s anger is important because it reveals the holiness of our God. He is a God who will not tolerate rebellion and sin. Our human anger, on the other hand, is important because it reveals so much about the desires and attitudes of our hearts. The other reason our anger is important is that it is capable of doing so much harm.
Forgiven to Fear God
ABSTRACT: The fear of God is an often neglected or misunderstood concept, but it is vital to Christian faith. Conversion to Christ does not remove the fear of God but transforms it from simple terror into glad, humble reverence. This proper fear marks the life of saints as they learn to walk in the joyful path of obedience set before them. In this life of godly fear, by which believers imitate Christ, all other fear is banished.
Crossway+ Special: Up to 50% Off Select Commentaries
An Exclusive Offer for Crossway+ Members Now through February 25, 2026, Crossway+ members receive 40% off volumes from the ESV Expository Commentary, The Psalms: A Christ-Centered Commentary, and the Preaching the Word commentary series and receive 50% off when purchasing a full set. Not a Crossway+ member? Sign up for free.
How Isaiah Prophesied That Jesus Would Submit and Suffer
Allusion-Seeking and Thread-Pulling in Isaiah 50:4–9 The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward. I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.
Our Sorrows Keep Getting More Sorrowful and Joys Keep Getting More Joyful
Worse and Better Many years ago, as a young Christian, I listened to some tapes from the All Souls Tape Library of a series of talks by John Stott entitled “Tensions in Christian Experience.” I think one of them was on sorrow and joy.
Follow Your Emotions and You’ll Find Your Idols
Idols of the Heart Two grease-dripping, foot-long, melt-in-the-mouth tender cheesesteaks. This, I learned, had been dinner the past three straight nights for the man now fidgeting in the soft, wingbacked chair in my counseling office. While a caloric catastrophe, his over-indulgence in Philly’s finest fare (and I do recommend you try the authentic item if you are ever in the greater Philadelphia area—just one per day though) was actually a victory for our work together.
Ways Christians Can Develop and Maintain a Healthy Emotional Life
Be Vulnerable and Notice You’ve got all kinds of emotions if you’re a human being, and you have them because of the things you love. What you love is going to shape what you feel, and the overflow of what you treasure and care about is going to flow into how you have an emotional life. So the question then becomes: What is a healthy Christian emotional life? What does a godly emotional life look like? How do you nurture that? How do you actually pursue that?
Who Are the Righteous Mentioned Throughout the Psalms?
The Lord Watches Over and Guides the Righteous We meet “the congregation of the righteous” and are promised that the Lord “knows the way of the righteous” right at the start of the Psalter (Ps. 1:5–6). But who are they? We will never make friends with the Psalms, let alone begin to enjoy and appropriate them in our devotions, until we know. They appear again and again, especially in book 1 (Pss.
9 ways to honour your aging parents
The fifth commandment to ‘honour your father and mother’ takes on new meaning when parents become frail and dependent. Christopher Ash suggests nine ways you can care for them with grace Dave and Kathy have three teenage children. The oldest is off to college this autumn. Dave’s dad died ten years ago and his mum lives nearby, enjoying good health in her early 80s. Kathy’s mum has just died suddenly and unexpectedly. Her dad is quite frail and lives a five-hour drive away. Kathy is an only child.
Remember These Two Things When Your Emotions Feel out of Control
Embrace God’s Design for Your Emotions The issue of controlling your emotions when you feel totally out of whack or when you feel like your emotions own you and they just spill out and you can’t manage them is really tricky. It's tricky because what you want when you’re in that situation is to press a button and just have your emotions come under control. I know how I'm going to feel. I can shape how I’m going to feel.
10 Key Bible Verses on the Heart
This article is part of the Key Bible Verses series. All commentary notes adapted from the ESV Study Bible. 1. Proverbs 4:23 Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Read More Heart in Proverbs regularly refers to the center of one’s inner life and orientation to God, from which a person does all thinking, feeling, and choosing. Taking words of wisdom into the heart is vital (they are life, Prov.
3 Verses from the Psalms That Teach Our Families About Singing
We Are All Called to Sing All of Scripture calls us to sing. There is a hymnbook in the middle of the Bible, a songbook that every family can use. It’s called the Psalms. Each psalm gives us words to sing, words to pray, words to share. The very first psalm is a wonderful place to start. It describes the one who worships and listens and follows the Lord: He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.
4 Emotions That Are Hidden Beneath Your Anger
The Complex Emotions Beneath Our Anger We should take time to notice the way that other emotions are so often at work alongside, or underneath, our anger. We could begin, for example, by noticing how often we seem to enjoy the experience of anger. Anger can empower us, energizing us to face a threat or confront a difficulty. In our anger, we find the strength to resist a bully or the determination to launch a campaign.
Can Jesus Pray “Imprecatory” Prayers?
Prayers for God’s Judgment It is usual to speak of the “imprecatory psalms” or “imprecatory” passages in the Psalms (from the Latin imprecare, “to invoke harm or curse someone”). But Bernhard Anderson (1916–2007) says that “it is doubtful whether these Psalms should be described as ‘imprecatory’ or cursing Psalms.”1 He quotes Claus Westermann, who writes, “The distinctiveness of the curse lies in the fact that it is aimed directly, without any detour via God, at the one it is meant to hit.
Does Psalm 91 Promise Too Much?
A Cheering Psalm “In the whole collection there is not a more cheering Psalm,” wrote Charles Spurgeon of Psalm 91.1 But does it promise too much? Can it possibly be true?2 Who, if anyone, can claim it? It is all in the singular. One person declares his or her faith, and that same person is given the promises. We should first reject a not-uncommon approach, which sees this blessed person as being anyone who has sufficient faith. If you believe these promises enough, they will come true for you.
Savor Christ in Every Psalm
With Christ, I rejoice that, first and fundamentally, Christ himself is the blessed man of Psalm 1; Christ is the righteous man of Psalm 15; Christ has the pure heart called for in Psalm 24. It is Christ who fulfills the high calling of the Psalms, Christ who can sing them with perfect assurance, Christ who ascends to the Father, and Christ alone who brings me there. The Psalms set before us unnumbered blessings. Each one of them is yours and mine in Christ.
July 2024 New Releases
New Books and Bibles Below is a list of the new and notable resources releasing this month from Crossway. Titles include Saved by Nancy Guthrie and the ESV Scripture Journal, Spiral-Bound Edition: Old and New Testament Sets. Saved: Experiencing the Promise of the Book of Acts Nancy Guthrie In Saved, bestselling author Nancy Guthrie provides an accessible, theologically sound guide to the book of Acts.
4 Psalms You Didn’t Realize Point to Christ
When we read a psalm of praise such as Psalm 145, we are not being asked to carry the burden of praising God on our own; rather, we are invited to join the choir of Jesus as he leads us in praise. The initiative is with Jesus, the song is by Jesus, the tune is set by Jesus. All we do is join in. And that makes praise a joyful and glad calling. For some years now I have been on a voyage of discovery in the book of Psalms.
What Does Psalm 37:4 Mean?
Even if you or I genuinely love God and delight in him, which of us can put our hand on our heart and say that we do this perfectly? Which of us does not have times—sadly, many times—when what consumes our hopes and affections is not God but some blessing we hope God will give us? A job. A wife. A child. A healthy body. Or whatever it may be. And yet the moment I fall short of perfect delight in the Lord I disqualify myself from the promise that God will give me the desires of my heart.
Can Jesus Pray Prayers of Repentance?
Jesus Can’t Be Penitent If the Psalms give a window into the human emotions and affections of Jesus Christ, we must ask what we are to understand when the psalmists express repentance for sins. Can Jesus Christ be thought to have prayed these prayers? The obvious answer is no because Jesus Christ is without sin (John 8:46; Heb. 4:15); he has no sin to confess and no need for forgiveness. Perhaps, we think, we should say that Jesus does not and cannot pray these expressions of penitence.
Savor Christ in Every Psalm: The Joy of Singing with Jesus
For the greater part of church history, Christians have viewed the Psalms through the lens of fulfillment in Jesus Christ. In particular, they have read the Psalms as the songs of Jesus — songs sung by Jesus in his life on earth, and songs in which the risen and ascended Jesus still leads his church in singing on earth. Imagine you are sitting in a grand concert hall. On the stage is a vast choir, and in the center, one man conducts and leads the choir in song.
What Does Psalm 37:4 Mean?
This article is part of the What Does It Mean? series. Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. —Psalm 37:4 The Heart’s Desires Doesn’t that sound terrific? Anything I want, and it will be mine! Until I think a little harder. Suppose my heart desires for my boss to be sick or die. Will God give me that? Suppose my heart desires, by some deceit, to get the credit for something I didn’t do. Will God give me that? Suppose my heart desires my neighbor’s pretty wife.
4 Psalms You Didn’t Realize Point to Christ
Read the Psalms in a Christian Way For some years now I have been on a voyage of discovery in the book of Psalms. In particular, I have wanted to know how we, as new covenant believers today, ought to read and sing the psalms. I have known, of course, that the New Testament quotes some psalms about Christ.
Is the Story of Job Historical? (Job 1)
This article is part of the Tough Passages series. Listen to the Passage Read the Passage 1 There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. 2 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3 He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east.
Let the Youth Speak: A Case for Righteous Elihu
ABSTRACT: Contemporary scholarship (almost) universally argues that Elihu’s speeches in Job 32–37 should, like the speeches of Job’s other friends, be considered unorthodox in their portrayal of the justice of both God and Job. However, the careful weighing of culturally biased interpretive decisions and a better grasp of the context of Elihu’s speeches within the book indicate that a positive reading of Elihu has greater merit than most suppose.
Crossway+ Special: $5 Book of the Month (November 2023)
Book of the Month The $5 Book of the Month is a special promotion exclusively for Crossway+ members. Each month three hand-picked books are available at $5, $10, and $15 price tiers—all greatly discounted and available for one week only.
PHILADELPHIA FRINGE FESTIVAL 3
Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Save In a photo provided by Tony Hitchock shows, John Jarboe inMher “Rose: You Are Who You Eat,” described as a “support group for gender cannibals.” Philadelphia Fringe also offers ‘Citrus Andronicus,’ dance for the neurodiverse and more. (Christopher Ash via The New York Times) -- NO SALES; FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY WITH NYT STORY PHILADELPHIA FRINGE FESTIVAL BY ALEXIS SOLOSKI FOR SEPT. 19, 2023. ALL OTHER USE PROHIBITED.
Serve
Loving Your Church with Your Heart, Time and Gifts Let the gospel of Jesus and the example of Jesus motivate you to serve your church sacrificially. Part of the Love Your Church series. Bulk Discounts 10 for £7.00 each (save 30%) 50 for £6.00 each (save 40%) 100 for £5.00 each (save 50%) More discounts Quantity Available for pre-order. To be released on Oct.
Valuable
Bulk Discounts 10 for £6.30 each (save 30%) 50 for £5.40 each (save 40%) 100 for £4.50 each (save 50%) More discounts Quantity Extra Content Also available Description We all want to be useful to God, but often we feel that we're not, or, because of illness or other difficulties, that we can't be as active as we'd like to be. Liz Carter wants to rescue us from the spiral of feeling useless that we get caught in, and to show us that being useful isn't what Christianity is about.
What Does Perfect Anger Look Like?
Compassion and Anger What would perfect anger look like? This is perhaps the key contribution of B. B. Warfield’s seminal essay, and it may map on to a rising question in your own mind in the course of any study of the heart of Christ. Namely, how does this emphasis on Christ’s heart, his gentle and lowly heart, his deep compassion, fit with the episodes of anger that we find in the Gospels? Are we being unhelpfully partial if we focus on his gentleness? Is he not also wrathful?
11 Passages to Read to Help Fight Anger
This article is part of the Passages to Read series. 1. James 1:19–20 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Read More 2. Proverbs 14:29 Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly. Read More 3.
10 Christmas Devotionals You Don't Want to Miss
Advent is upon us! If you’re anything like me, you have all the best intentions of staying solely focused on the Christ-child this year and not getting caught up in the stress of the season. You don’t want your toddler having a fit in the toy store any more than you want to have your own meltdown in the throes of holiday traffic.
Love Your Church
8 Great Things About Being a Church Member Be inspired to grow in your love for and commitment to your local church as you understand what it means to belong to God’s family.
What to Say to Someone Suffering like Job
How to Speak to Job The book of Job does not directly tell us how to address Job-like suffering. But I think we can sketch what a helpful answer would be, if we take an approach exactly opposite from his friends. Our two compass points here are the note of condemnation that rings through almost every line of the friends’ speeches and the attitude of self-righteous superiority.
Dream Small
The Secret Power of the Ordinary Christian Life Finding contentment in Christ and pursuing the dreams he has for you. Bulk Discounts 5 for $12.00 each (save 20%) 10 for $10.50 each (save 30%) 25 for $9.75 each (save 35%) 50 for $9.00 each (save 40%) 100 for $8.25 each (save 45%) 250 for $7.50 each (save 50%) 500 for $6.00 each (save 60%) More discounts Quantity watch the trailer Also available Description We are all looking for significance and meaning in our lives.
Stop the Spread of Infectious Anger
The Corporate Dimension of Anger Anger is infectious. It is not a purely individual phenomenon; there is a corporate dimension. If you are close to one who is prone to anger or experiencing anger, you may “learn his ways”; anger may sometimes be caught. There is such a thing as being caught up in the shared anger of others, most graphically in a mob.
Can I really trust the Bible?
and other questions about Scripture, truth and how God speaks A short, readable book that explains clearly and simply what Christians believe about the Bible and how God speaks today Part of the Questions Christians Ask series.
The Good Book Company
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Disguising Ungodliness as Righteous Anger
Justified Human Anger There are a few examples in the Scriptures of human anger that would appear to be justified, but only a few. What follows is not a selection of examples; it is, so far as we can see, the entire list! When Moses comes down the mountain with the Ten Commandments, he hears the sound of wild revelry. We read that “Moses’ anger burned hot” when he hears this (Ex. 32:19). The narrative makes clear that the anger of Moses is precisely in line with the anger of God.
The Book of Job Is a Book of Joy
Deep Joy “Joy” is probably the last word most of us would use to describe the book of Job. What could be less joyful than the nightmare of Job’s suffering in Job 1–2? And does anyone find it joyful to wade through over thirty chapters of intense, agonized poetry as Job and his friends try and try and fail to figure out why Job’s tragedy happened?
We Are Both Job and Job’s Friends
Seeing Ourselves in Scripture One important question in reading any biblical text is who you, as a reader, identify with. This is easier for some texts than for others, of course. In Genesis, for example, it is not difficult to identify with the patriarchs as they struggle and endure in trusting God’s promises to bless them and redeem creation. But who do we identify with in the book of Job?
Entering into the Loneliness of Job
Job 2:11–13 11Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. 12And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven.
What Does the Bible Say about Marriage?
This article is part of the What Does the Bible Say? series. Included in This Article Definitions and Summary Why Marriage Matters for Everyday Life Key Passages about Marriage FAQ about Marriage For Personal Reflection Definitions and Summary In a Nutshell — Marriage is the public family unit formed by one man and one woman in which sexual intimacy is to be enjoyed. Summary — Marriage is an ordinance given to human beings in creation.
Help! I Don’t Know If My Words Are Helping or Hurting
The Power of Presence My husband and I (Cheryl) sped down the highway to reach our long-time friends as quickly as possible. A few minutes earlier during our Sunday morning worship service, I had received a text asking me to call right away. Hurrying out to the church patio, I made the call and learned that our dear friends’ teenage son had died unexpectedly in the early morning hours. As we rushed into the city, we were stunned and numb. All I knew was that we had to get to our friends.
3 Ways to Surrender Your Will to Christ
Saying Yes After college I moved to Alaska and was immediately asked to house-sit for a family, Bob and Pat Martin, who later became dear friends. When they told me that this also included feeding their dogs, I had no idea that they meant seventeen sled dogs! Over the next few years, I took care of their dogs so often that I knew each of them by name (and personality), and they in turn got to know me.
6 Ways to Fight the Debilitating Power of Doubt
Assess Your Doubt The doubt of wonderment will drive you to God with normal, situational questions of faith and, because it does, it will strengthen your rest and reliance on him. The doubt of judgment will progressively weaken your faith until, in practical terms, you don’t trust God anymore, and either you will feel alone in your travail or you will look elsewhere for hope and strength.
6 Questions about the Book of Job
This article is part of the Questions and Answers series. Q: Is the book of Job about suffering? A: That may seem a silly question with which to begin. “Of course, the book of Job is about suffering,” many will say. “That’s obvious.” Plenty of books, articles, Bible studies, and discussions assume that this is the reason why we study it: we hope to learn something about human distress and how to respond to it. But it’s not so clear. Sure, there is a huge amount of suffering in the book.
Don’t Search for Wisdom. Search for God.
And he said to man, “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.” (Job 28:28) How we respond to this verse is a litmus test for our hearts. In a saying that’s crucial to the whole book, God directs our attention away from our agonized questions and toward himself. He doesn’t take us by the hand and lead us to the answers; rather he beckons us to bow before the Lord, who knows the answers but chooses not to tell us.
What to Do When God Doesn’t Answer
The Weather Is Still a Mystery Even today with supercomputers, satellites, and a myriad of weather sensors, we struggle to make sense of the world’s weather systems. Here is a wildly unpredictable and uncontrollable random force on the margins of the ordered world; here, breaking into our ordered lives day by day, is chaos and threat.
3 Important Truths Job’s Friends Neglected
What They Don’t Believe The trouble with [Job’s] comforters is that so much of what they say sounds right. It would be a useful exercise to read their speeches with a pencil in hand, and to put a tick in the margin against every statement they make with which we agree. There would be many ticks, and generally high marks for doctrinal orthodoxy, so much so that it is easy to think the friends are doctrinally sound teachers whose fault is simply that they are pastorally insensitive.
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