July 26, 2026

The SEND U Blog

Reflections and Resources for Lifelong Learning for Missionaries

Category: Gospel

Theology, Book Reviews, Holy Spirit, Gospel

Book Review: Prepared by Grace, for Grace.

INTRODUCTION: Historical theology does not often get a place at the table in missiological discussions. Its neglect can leave us at the mercy of current thinking and trends. Reading theologians from other eras guards us against our blind spots. Other eras have their blind spots too but they are usually different than ours. Historical theology is a safeguard against cultural bias. The book that I was asked to review looks at the Puritans, whose works I have spent a lot of time reading. Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley have written a book titled, Prepared by Grace, for Grace: The Puritans on God’s Ordinary Way of Leading Sinners to Christ (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2013). The volume deals with an issue central to missiology. The authors write in the introduction:      … Read the whole post
Gary Ridley1 min read
Worldviews are interpreting your stories
Gospel, Storying, Worldview, Contextualization

Worldviews are interpreting your stories

In communicating the gospel message, whether through Bible stories or Discovery Bible Studies, we need to be aware that our hearers will interpret what they hear through their worldviews. In a 1993 issue of the MARC Newsletter, Bryant Myers wrote about what happened after showing the Jesus Film in a Fulani village in Africa: The white missionary walked back to the village with the women, listening to their animated conversation. Something didn’t make sense. “What was it that so captivated your attention?” He asked. “The Christian man from the coast who made the magic!” they exclaimed. Confused, he asked, “What magic?” “We’ve never seen a shaman who had the power to make people get up and move about on a sheet and talk,” they explained. What message had the village women heard? From the point of view of the missionaries showing the Jesus film, they had heard the good news… Read the whole post
Gary Ridley1 min read
Keeping Evangelism and Discipleship together
Disciple-making, Theology, Evangelism, Gospel

Keeping Evangelism and Discipleship together

During my college years I was involved in a coffee house ministry that reached out to street people in Worcester, Massachusetts. Many who dropped in were under the influence of drugs and alcohol. One of the evangelists said to me that if he could just get someone to say the sinner’s prayer (even if they were drunk), there was one more on the way to heaven. This was certainly an extreme separation of evangelism and discipleship, certainly also a distortion of evangelism. In the 1970’s I often observed and participated in evangelism that had little emphasis on discipleship. Now some talk about discipleship before conversion. So the pendulum swings. I have heard presentations on discipleship that did not even mention the cross and the resurrection. Perhaps that was assumed. But the cross and resurrection are matters of “first importance” that Paul reminds the Corinthians of in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4:… Read the whole post
Gary Ridley1 min read
Meditation on Heaven and Hell
Theology, Training, Doctrinal Statement, Gospel

Meditation on Heaven and Hell

Sinful humanity naturally looks at life through the wrong end of the telescope. For them time is long and eternity is short; this life is large, the afterlife is small; this world is real, the world to come is unreal. So writes Sinclair Ferguson in “Pastoral Theology: The Preacher and Hell,” chapter 10 in Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment, ed. by Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007, kindle location 5762.… Read the whole post
Gary Ridley1 min read
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