Kenneth Berding

Theology 101: Just to clarify— It’s “leading worship,” not “performing.” It’s “the pulpit/table,” not "the stage.” It’s “the service,” not “the production.” It’s “the sanctuary,” not “the auditorium.” It’s “the congregation,” not “the audience.”

What we lose when the Bible is only on a screen: 1. You remember where the verse lives on the page and aids memorization. 2. The page shows you much more at once. You see the context, not just a few verses at once. 3. The page keeps your notes. Years from now they will still be there, in your own hand. 4. The page cannot distract you with a notification. It only asks to be read. 5. The page is something your children watch you open and they know it’s the Bible. The screen gives much. The page gives more.

Worth reading slowly.

Thanks for forwarding this, Justin. I listened all the way through. Excellent. I really hope it encourages a lot of people to get into the Word--and hide it in their heart.

@TheJustinSchell Hi Justin. You can learn more about this community in this blog post here: kennethberding.com/2025/11/10/liv…

@BerdingKenneth Do you have a document that describes the one year program you guys were leading?

The Thirty-Minute Prayer Meeting 8 years 70 residential students More than 100 community dinners Hundreds of one-on-one meetings And approximately 350 morning prayer meetings Twice a week we have been praying with the college men and women who have shared life with us at the one-year residential discipleship program Trudi and I have led during these past eight years. But it’s (sadly) coming to an end this month. We are committed to continuing active ministry with college students, but in a less than two weeks, we’re moving out of The Berdhouse and into a normal house about a mile from Biola University where I teach full-time. But before we say goodbye to this ministry, I thought you might appreciate a description of how we’ve been able to pray together so many times for so many years. Maybe you’ve been thinking of starting a small-group prayer meeting with some spiritually-minded Christian friends, but only have thirty minutes to allot to it. How do you host a vibrant prayer meeting in only thirty minutes? I’m sure there are other ways we could have approached this, but to keep us on track, we decided to follow a simple plan. Such an approach has helped us actually pray and not use up our time in chit chat or extensive sharing of prayer requests. Here is one outline that you, too, could use to lead a successful thirty-minute prayer meeting. Divide your time in half—more or less. During the first fifteen minutes, read and respond to a preselected passage of Scripture. During the second fifteen minutes, pray about one or two (rarely three) prayer burdens someone in the group has been carrying. The First Fifteen Minutes: Start on time. Announce your preselected passage, allow everyone a moment to locate the designated passage—tell everyone ahead of time to bring a Bible—and then read the passage aloud. (HERE are seventy passages we’ve discovered work well for group prayer.) Keep in mind that you only have thirty minutes to pray. Latecomers can catch up. After reading aloud the selected passage, the leader should briefly (and gently) remind the participants how to pray consecutively through the passage. Here are your reminders: 1. Work from top to bottom (moving through the passage together). 2. Pray short prayers (no more than a few sentences). 3. Pray actively and repeatedly (avoiding too much silent space). 4. Prayers of agreement with what someone else has already prayed, responsive thanksgiving for a truth found in the passage, or a petition (praying for something to happen) that the passage elicits are all fine. Encourage people to respond in whatever way seems appropriate. The leader can simply conclude the first fifteen (or so) minutes with “Amen.” The Second Fifteen Minutes: Transition with a comment like: “Let’s turn now toward requests. Has anyone brought a prayer burden that you have already been carrying that we can join you in praying? The key is to gently coach people not to randomly suggest something that just came into their minds to pray about, but only to share prayer burdens that they are already carrying. (Rather than: “I think it would be good if we prayed about…”; more along the lines of: “I’ve been burdened recently to pray this…”) The content could be personal (such as an individual crisis, someone else’s suffering, or the name of a friend who needs to come to the Lord), or it could be broader (like praying for revival or responding to a global calamity). At this point, let me offer one suggestion. If you’ve been sitting for the first fifteen minutes, invite everyone to stand up for the last fifteen minutes of prayer. That’s been our practice at The Berdhouse. We have discovered that this keeps us awake and focused—especially since we normally pray together in the early mornings! Of course, it is possible to successfully pray without ever standing up. During this second fifteen-minute segment, pray—again, relatively short prayers—about the one prayer burden that has been shared until you’re done. Multiple people should pray through the request (even repeatedly) until the Lord hasn’t put anything else on anyone’s hearts to pray. When the request seems to have been appropriately prayed through, the leader can simply say “Amen.” Sometimes this one request will take up the entire second half of the prayer time, though sometimes you will have enough time to pray through one more request (and infrequently through a third). What if no one brings a prayer burden to share? If I’m leading, I will normally do one of two things. I will encourage everyone to bow their heads and ask the Holy Spirit to bring to mind something that he wants them to share. Then I’ll add: “If something comes to mind which you think is from the Lord, go ahead and share it.” This can create a bit of space for someone to share a request that is a bit closer to home—perhaps something that he or she has been hesitant to share. Alternatively, I will sometimes suggest a specific prayer request for the global church. (See prayer guides HERE and HERE). Praying for our brothers and sisters outside of our own localities keeps our prayer meetings from only focusing on the little worlds we create for ourselves. Again, when the time is up, simply say “Amen” and perhaps something like “Have a wonderful day in the Lord” to signal that the meeting is finished. It’s important to finish on time, otherwise people will be reluctant to come again in the future. That’s been our pattern for the past eight years. There are probably other ways to successfully host a thirty-minute small-group prayer meeting, but this approach has borne fruit for members of The Berdhouse for the past eight years. One additional thought: There are ways to kill a prayer meeting. If you’re the one leading a gathering for prayer, keep this in mind and gently coach your Christian friends with soft reminders each time you’re together. Many Christians have developed bad habits that negatively affect prayer meetings and require some gentle coaching to keep them on track. For more on this, see HERE.

@johnbotkin Done. Thanks, John.

@BerdingKenneth This is gold. Thank you for sharing! Your faithfulness is encouraging. One note, the originally linked resources (marked HERE) did not come through here on X. Any chance you can post links in replies? Blessings!

@nelson_hsieh7 Thanks for letting me know, Nelson. I copied it over from my personal blog and all the links disappeared. See my follow up comment.

@BerdingKenneth I’m starting a group up in the fall, so great ideas here I think there’s a few missing links in this post where you write HERE

Sorry that the links didn't come through. The same post is on my personal blog with all the links (five or six) included. Go to: kennethberding.com/2026/05/09/the…

Believers - at your workplace: 1. Don't complain 2. Watch your words 3. Encourage others 4. Pray for your team 5. Walk away from gossip 6. Work like it's worship 7. Do everything with excellence Honor Christ in all you do.

“Ah, friends, if you would but in good earnest set upon reading of the holy Scriptures, you may find in them so many happinesses as cannot be numbered…and if all this won’t draw you to read the holy Scriptures conscientiously and frequently, I know not what will.” – Thomas Brooks

Announcement: Talbot's annual Anchored Conference begins in two weeks, and there is a flash sale going on right now. This will be a time to recharge with a powerful lineup of proven leaders as plenary speakers (Ed Stetzer, Jeremy Treat, Sean McDowell, Jen Wilkin, among others) and a terrific set of breakout sessions from expert guides: Fred Sanders, Carmen Imes, Kyle Strobel, Clint Arnold, and many more. Register and check out the entire program at: #overview" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">biola.edu/anchored#overv…

Recently, a friend turned 40, and I was reflecting on that season of my own life. I remember when I hit 40, I wondered if most of my best years were behind me. Little did I realize then that my most spiritually impactful years in this present life were still ahead. epm.org/resources/2026…

5 Myths About the Trinity: Here's a brand new audio version of a short article I wrote for @crossway in 2018. Hope it helps! crossway.org/articles/5-myt…

Join Me in Suffering Many American Christians think that Christians who suffer for Jesus live somewhere else—in nations where Christians endure imprisonments, beatings, and martyrdom for their testimony. But how can this be the only kind of suffering that the apostle Paul has in mind if he invites Timothy to join him in suffering? Physical persecution is something that happens to someone, right? Can someone enter into sufferings? Paul seems to think so. “So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God” (1:8). “Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2:3). Paul invites Timothy to join him in suffering. That’s an unusual invitation. Does this mean that Christians are supposed to try to suffer? Is that what Paul means when he invites Timothy to join him in suffering? The answer, I believe, must be no. It’s clear that in 2 Timothy, Paul doesn’t intend for Timothy to try to get thrown into prison or martyred. Rather than isolating the above-quoted verses, if you read them with sensitivity to the letter’s literary context, you can see what Paul intends when he invites Timothy into suffering. Paul is exhorting his young friend and mentee to do hard things and make sacrifices to get the gospel out and build up Christian communities. In some cases this results in persecution, but only in some cases. This observation keeps us from separating ourselves—that is, those who reside in countries largely free of persecution—from those who live in countries where external persecution is a lived reality. Paul’s words apply to us, too. That doing hard things and making sacrifices is Paul’s point gets reinforced throughout the letter when Paul calls on Timothy to make various kinds of sacrifices. I see eight sacrifices Paul calls on Timothy to make (or that he reminds Timothy that he has already made) in 2 Timothy. Along with each example, I will comment on how each sacrifice constitutes a type of suffering. Here are eight sacrifices in 2 Timothy—in the order they appear in the letter. Sacrifice 1: Doing the slow and patient work of passing on the faith to mentees who will then pass on what they have learned to others (2:2). How is this suffering? To a spiritual mentor it can feel like nothing is movingin the one with whom they are spending time and trying to inculcate wisdom; rather it frequently feels like doing one-on-one spiritual training is a waste of time. Sacrifice 2: Not getting entangled in the affairs of everyday life; staying focused and hard-working (2:4-6). How is this suffering? A Christian must battle to keep from getting pulled into the things of the world. A Christian either fights the battle or gets assimilated. Sacrifice 3: Patiently correcting and instructing people who speak foolish and ignorant words (2:14, 23-26; 4:2). How is this suffering? Christians who correct those who speak foolish and ignorant words, even when correction is expressed wisely and lovingly, often become targets for backbiting and gossip from those whom they seek to reprove. Sacrifice 4: Fleeing youthful lusts (2:22). How is this suffering? Anyone who has fought against temptation will be painfully aware that saying no to one’s sinful urges can be excruciatingly difficult. Sacrifice 5: Doing ministry in places where physical persecution is more likely to take place (3:11-12; cf. Acts 13:45, 50; 14:2, 5-6; 14:19). How is this suffering? Some places are simply more dangerous for Christians to live in or even visit. Your decision to relocate to a more dangerous place makes you susceptible to future suffering. Sacrifice 6: Faithfully preaching during seasons of high receptivity and low receptivity, “in season and out of season” (4:2-4). How is this suffering? Faithful preaching demands substantial grit by a preacher to keep proclaiming and applying God’s word when such preaching appears to have little impact. Sacrifice 7: Doing the work of an evangelist (4:5). How is this suffering? A Christian who shares his or her faith is likely—at least sometimes—to feel the social embarrassment of talking to people who don’t agree…or even strongly disagree. Sacrifice 8: Visiting prisoners—and thereby risking association with a person deemed to be a criminal (4:9). How is this suffering? You might find yourself associated with someone viewed by the state as a criminal or even end up in prison yourself. (Note that Timothy did eventually land in prison, see Hebrews 13:23. Notice also the example of Onesiphorus who was “not ashamed of my chains” 2 Tim 1:16). These eight categories of sacrifices appear to be what Paul has in mind when he invites Timothy to join him in suffering. Practically, this means that if you are a Christian, you can be certain that God will at various moments in your life call you to do hard things or sacrifice yourself to get the gospel out and build up his church. Here are a few examples (among many) of the types of (hard) things God might call you to do. Move into a less safe neighborhood to meet the physical and spiritual needs of your new neighbors. Invite younger believers to join you in street witnessing (or beach or park witnessing) to model how to effectively share the gospel. Step into harder long-term church ministries. (Think of a pastor/elder who sometimes has to enforce discipline when a church member sins and refuses to repent). Open your home through hospitality (hard for introverts). Escape for a three-day solitary prayer retreat to pray about the ministries God has given you to do (hard for extroverts). Substantially scale down expenses to free up money for the work of the Lord. Relationally connect with the persecuted church. When we acknowledge the various types of sacrifices Paul mentions in 2 Timothy, we will better understand how Paul can claim that: “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (3:12). Do all Christians, including those living in the USA, suffer persecution? Yes—or at least employing Paul’s categories, all Christians should be making sacrifices for the sake of the gospel and God’s church. Though Paul wrote these words just after mentioning Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra (where Paul and his co-workers were verbally opposed and had rocks literally thrown at them—almost killing Paul in Lystra [3:11]), notice that Paul immediately follows 3:12 by writing about imposters who “go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (3:13). In other words, everyone who follows Christ will experience hardship—sometimes of the Lystra-stoning type, but sometimes through having to deal with imposters in the church. There are various ways following Christ can result in hardship. Are some places in the world worse for Christian suffering than others? Yes, Christians in countries like North Korea, Afghanistan, Eritrea, and northern Nigeria face extreme danger for their Christian testimony, including imprisonment, beatings, and martyrdom. We dare not minimize that fact. But this does not mean that we who live in very or relatively free places can whistle our way through life on the assumption that we don’t need to suffer the way some Christians do. The theme of intentionally entering into hardship in 2 Timothy (for the gospel and God’s church) applies equally to someone living in the USA as it does to a Christian living in Iran, Sudan, or Myanmar. As Paul writes, “But you…endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry” (4:5). I know. This goes against one of the predominate cultural values shared by people throughout North America and Western Europe: avoid hardship whenever possible. But Paul would disagree with this culturally-conditioned impulse. In the final letter Paul writes before his death, Paul instructs his mentee (along with any who would later read 2 Timothy) to intentionally join him in suffering—to enter into various kinds of sacrifices for the sake of the gospel and the church of Jesus Christ. ---------- Early announcement: In June of 2026, only two months from now, pastor Keith Krell and I will release a book entitled: God’s Purposes in Our Pain: How God Uses Suffering for Our Good (Crossway). It’s already available for pre-ordering.

The art of sentence length by Gary Provost

A Handy Way to Demonstrate the Stability of the Greek New Testament Text [This article was first posted on the Good Book Blog on March 6, 2013. I’ve had a lot of opportunities to refer people to this post, so I decided to share it today with readers of Kindle Afresh. I hope you find it helpful!] People sometimes get up-tight when they first learn of the existence of variations in the text of the Greek New Testament, but their concerns are baseless. The text of the New Testament is far-and-away the most attested and stable text of any ancient document. In fact, if you question the stability of the text of the New Testament, you probably ought to disregard just about everything you think you know about ancient history since almost all the important historical manuscripts from which such history is derived are from copies that are far later and of far poorer quality than are our New Testament manuscripts. I recently discovered a convenient way to demonstrate this! For my birthday this past year my wife gave me the recently published The UBS Greek New Testament: Reader’s Edition with Textual Notes. I was delighted to finally own a Greek Bible that included definitions of infrequently used Greek words alongside of textual notes (notes that display variations among Greek manuscripts and that list some of the important manuscripts that form the basis for the text we use for translating). But when I opened the book for the first time, I was surprised (and, I’ll be honest, somewhat disappointed) to find only a few textual notes—far fewer than I expected. It turns out that the editors made a conscious decision to only include variants that they deemed important for the meaning of a text. I’ll let them describe what they did in their own words: “Compared to the NA27 and the UBS4, the edition at hand focuses on places where variants from the reading of the USB4 signifantly impact the meaning of the text” (p. 11*).” Before I make my big point in this post, please allow the sentence I just cited to teach you something about textual criticism. Some of you think that I just made two scribal mistakes while typing in that quote. (Did you catch them?) No, those two mistakes are actually in the printed text of the volume—a volume published by text critics no less! (Ouch…) The two printed mistakes are “USB4” (instead of “UBS4”) and the spelling of the word “signifantly” (instead of “significantly”). But to read that sentence, you had to do a bit of impromptu textual criticism! So at this point let me ask you a question: How much did those two variants impact your understanding of the meaning of the sentence? You probably understood the sentence without difficulty (and perhaps didn’t even notice the UBS4/USB4 difference the first time you read it). The types of changes found in this English sentence are analogous to the vast majority of textual variants found among New Testament manuscripts. Now to the main point of this post…  The editors of the Greek New Testament my wife bought me for my birthday (and there are no better editors than this group) claim that the only variants that they included are the ones that significantly impact the meaning of the text. In other words, they don’t think that other variants significantly impact the meaning of the text. So they have gathered together in this volume the ones they consider the important ones. And what do you discover when you actually look at the “significant” differences? You discover how stable our text really is! Following is a list of every variant found in 1 Corinthians that the editors of this volume deemed important for determining the meaning of the text. (I have translated them into English for you.) 1:14  “I give thanks to God that…” / “I give thanks to my God that…” / “I give thanks that…” 2:1  “while proclaiming to you the mystery of God” / “while proclaiming to you the testimony of God” (“mystery” and “testimony” look very similar in Greek) 5:5  “in the day of the Lord” / “in the day of the Lord Jesus” / “in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ” / “in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” 7:15  “God has called you in peace” / “God has called us in peace” (“you” and “us” are extremely close in Greek) 10:9  “Nor let us test Christ” / “Nor let us test the Lord” / “Nor let us test God” 11:24  “This is my body that is for you” / “This is my body that is broken for you” / “This is my body that is broken [different word] for you” 13:3  “And if I give my body that I might boast” / “And if I give my body that I will be burned” / “And if I give my body that I might be burned” (The difference between these three variants is a single letter.) 14:34-35  These two verses are sometimes included after verse 40 instead of in the position found in most manuscripts but there is no significant change to it. 14:38  “But if anyone disregards, he is disregarded” / “But if anyone disregards, let him be disregarded” (same word, different tense) 15:49  “we will bear the image of the heavenly one” / “let us bear the image of the heavenly one” (one letter difference, and they sound almost identical) That’s it! That’s every significant variant in 1 Corinthians. I remember my father coining the word “underwhelmed” when I was a child. Are you feeling underwhelmed at this moment? You should be. That’s the point. If you exclude from the wider discussion the two longer passages that seem to create the most discussion among my students (John 8 and the ending of Mark), and a handful of other passages in the New Testament that are a bit more important, you have just gotten for yourself a glimpse into the kind and quality of the so-called “significant” New Testament variants. So when maverick scholars attempt to convince you that the Greek text underlying the New Testament that you read, love, and strive to obey is unstable, you probably shouldn’t take them very seriously. God has marvelously preserved His Word. The UBS Greek New Testament: Readers Edition with Textual Notes offers us a convenient way to demonstrate that such a claim is true.

What Greeting Should We Use on Good Friday? I never know how to greet people on Good Friday, especially when I’m walking into a Good Friday church service. “Happy Good Friday!” That greeting doesn’t seem right. Good Friday is the day we remember Jesus’s death by crucifixion. The words “happy” and “good” when commemorating the darkest Friday in human history don’t seem appropriate. “Blessed Good Friday.” This is better, but “blessed” isn’t frequently used in English anymore. Besides, if you use blessed, you must decide whether to pronounce the word with one syllabus (blest) or two syllables (bless-ed). Both pronunciations are difficult before the words “Good Friday.” I guess we could drop the word “Good” and go with: “Blessed Friday.” Or “Blessed Friday to you.” Or maybe: “Sacred Friday to you.” But these greetings make it sound like “Blessed Friday” or “Sacred Friday” are common titles for the day. And both sound overly sanctimonious to my casual Southern Californian ears. Last year on Good Friday, a friend from church, Chris Hart, greeted me with: “Happy Jesus-Died-for-Our-Sins Day” I appreciated that greeting, and received it warmly, since it focused on the meaning of the day. And somber though the day may be, forgiveness of sins is indeed a happy result. But hyphenated adjectival constructions are somewhat difficult to say. Since then, I’ve been thinking about other similar possibilities—some of them still leading with “happy” since that’s how we often greet people on holidays. Like: “Happy- Heavy- and Hope-filled Friday to you” It’s clunky, and still has the hyphenated adjective problem, but it does approximate the tone of the day, both in its heaviness and forward-looking hope. Or perhaps: “Happy It’s-Friday-but-Sunday’s-Coming” The messaging mostly works, but you still end up with the hyphenated adjective problem and need to get the intonation exactly right for someone to understand what you’re saying. And, of course, “happy” is still somewhat unsettling for a Good Friday greeting. So, I’m still unsure how to greet people on Good Friday. Changing the focus, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had a standard greeting to draw upon to greet other Christians on Good Friday the way we do on Resurrection Sunday like: “He is risen!” Response: “He is risen indeed!” By analogy, what if for Good Friday we greeted each other with: “Our sins are forgiven!” Response: “Forgiven indeed!” I like that idea, but I doubt that anyone will know to respond with “Forgiven indeed” after I lead with “Our sins are forgiven!” And I don’t particularly want to teach others on the spot what to respond. Perhaps whole churches could learn how to respond this way, but it’s more difficult for an individual to implement. If I ever try it, though, maybe I’ll take responsibility for saying both parts: “Our sins are forgiven. Forgiven indeed.” Let’s hope, though, that I don’t make someone feel like there is a standard greeting they were supposed to say that they simply didn’t know about! So I guess I’m still unsure what kind of greeting I’ll use this year on Good Friday. But I do know that the Friday Jesus died was the most important Friday in all of history. It was sacred and blessed in a way no other Friday ever was. It was heavy and hope-filled, because although his disciples didn’t know it, Resurrection Sunday was just around the corner. Most importantly, because of what transpired on that Friday, we who believe in Jesus have received forgiveness of sins. The sacrificial substitution of Jesus Christ, who died in our place, made this salvation possible and effected eternal salvation for us. That is Good News indeed. Hallelujah! “Our sins are forgiven!” “Forgiven indeed!”

Just a reminder that complete Bibles are extremely rare for much of Christian history because, as you can see from this pictures of the 7th c. Codex Amiatinus, they were massive. This one happens to be the oldest surviving complete copy of Jerome’s Latin Vulgate.