There are many different perspectives and helpful truths that are surfacing on the internet right now relating to COVID-19. A lot of things are changing rapidly, and people want to know how to handle it. Some Christians are excited to see how God can use the coronavirus to bring about His glorious purposes. Others are wanting wisdom for navigating changing dynamics. Some are desperate for God’s peace and comfort, while others are eager to find ways to serve during this crisis.
#FlatteningTheCurve has called for a fast learning curve, especially for shepherds who are seeking to lead both their family and flock through the complexity of this pandemic. The following list functions as a reference of helpful articles for those who are trying to respond to the new dynamics and lead their loved ones well for the glory of God.
BJU Seminary does not fully endorse every aspect of the following articles. (Last updated: March 25)
CHURCH COMMUNITY DURING COVID-19
- Taking Church Online in a Coronavirus Age (Jay Kim)
“As we temporarily direct our congregations to these online spaces, it is of utmost importance that we clarify this digital reality as a temporary compromise rather than an ongoing convenience.” - Take Heart, Pastor. Your Church Won’t Be Empty Sunday (Jonathan Cruse)
“If nothing else, perhaps the COVID-19 crisis will curtail our habit of counting heads more than caring for souls. As we peer into an empty sanctuary, where it seems our congregants are invisible, we’d do well to remember what theologians call the invisible church…. Another powerful reality we preachers need to be reminded of in coming weeks is this: the One for whom we preach is always in the audience.” - Avoiding Disunity amid Difficult (Coronavirus) Decisions (Jason Seville)
“We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thess. 5:12–18) - Banished from the Public Means of Grace (Denny Burk)
“Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: Though I removed them far off among the nations, and though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary to them for a while in the countries where they have gone.’” (Ezekiel 11:16) - How the World Worshipped on One of the Most Unusual Sundays in Church History (Tim Challies)
“Would it be an exaggeration to say that Sunday, March 22, 2020 was one of the most unusual Sundays in the history of Christianity? I was eager to document this unusual Sunday, so opened up my address book and got in touch with people all across the world to ask if they would record their experience by taking photographs. I received responses from more than 35 countries. The following galleries show how the world worshipped at home on one of the most unusual Sundays in all of church history.”
THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS DURING COVID-19
- No Plague Will Come Near You? (Ken Casillas)
“It is truly a blessing to see God’s people fighting fear and anxiety with the words of Scripture. On the other hand, the use of some passages raises perplexing hermeneutical issues when those passages are read carefully. Here I want to consider one such passage, a popular one at this time: Psalm 91.” - Theological Reflections on the Pandemic (Brian Tabb)
“Disease and death have indelibly marked the human experience east of Eden.… Sin is the ultimate pandemic, infecting every son of Adam and daughter of Eve.” - 8 Things the Coronavirus Should Teach Us (Mark Oden)
“How are we, as Christians, to respond to such a crisis? Answer: with faith not fear. We are to look into the eye of the storm and ask, ‘Lord, what are you wanting me to learn through this? How are you seeking to change me?’” - Living in the Shadow of the Coronavirus (Chinese Missionary)
“Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by. I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me” (Psalm 57:1–2). - What Courage Might Corona Unleash? (Marshall Segal)
“The reality of death has not changed. What’s changed over the last several weeks, at least for some of us, is that we now are consciously considering what will inevitably happen to each and every one of us. And if we’re willing to hear and receive what God is saying through COVID-19, even an awful, deadly virus might become a strange and bitter mercy.” - Ten Ways COVID-19 Can Work for Our Good (Brian Najapfour)
DEALING WITH ANXIETY DURING COVID-19
- Comforting Words from God for Anxious Times (Jim Berg)
“In times of uncertainty and vulnerability, God’s words will comfort us based upon our current perspective of God. It is not enough just to know what He has said to us in troubling times and repeat a Bible verse as a distraction from the more troubling thoughts in our minds. We must also know well the One who said them for our soul to trustingly rest in them.” - Anxiety, Waiting and the Coronavirus (Alasdair Groves)
“God knows that these reminders of our dependence are frightening and place profound strain on us (even when things turn out well in the end). That’s why he shows us that we can trust him and wait on him. He has been his people’s helper over and over and over again across the millennia—and he will help us now no matter what may come.” - Should Christians Be Anxious About the Coronavirus? (Todd Wagner)
“Corrie ten Boom, along with other faithful from among the nations, led courageously in the face of the Nazi fascism—a different form of deadly virus. And she reminds us, ‘Worry doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrows, it empties today of its strength.’ In times of crisis, the world needs steady people who are strengthened by God’s grace and selfless by God’s power.” - Fighting Fear and Anxiety (Keith Mathison)
“All of these things are under the control of our sovereign Father in heaven. Of course, this is easy enough for us to say, but we all too easily take our eyes off of God and dwell on the dangers surrounding us. Is there anything we can do to fight worldly fear and anxiety? I believe Paul provides one important clue by contrasting fear with prayer.” - Nothing I Suffer Surprises God (Vaneetha Risner)
“Trusting God means believing that even if the worst happens, God will be sufficient. Replacing ‘what if’ with ‘even if’ is one of the most liberating exchanges we can make. We trade our irrational fears of an uncertain future for the loving assurance of an unchanging God.”
MINISTRY OPPORTUNITIES DURING COVID-19
- 9 Ways to Love Your Neighbor in This Pandemic (Justin Earley)
“One of the primary postures of a Christian is outward. Our salvation means that the curse of the inward curve of sin is broken, and we’re now free to turn outward—to love God and neighbor (Gal. 5:1)…. Our salvation means that the curse of the inward curve of sin is broken, and we are now free to turn outward—to love God and neighbor. From plagues in the Roman Empire to cholera in 19th-century London, the church is replete with examples of rejecting fear and embracing neighbor love—even when it means self-sacrifice and risk.” - Dear College Students: The Mission Isn’t Canceled (Paul Worcester)
“School may be canceled, but the mission isn’t. Paul instructs us: ‘Be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.’” - Practice Hospitality, Especially during COVID-19 (Rosaria Butterfield)
“In practical ways, in our neighborhood, this means that while our neighbors who are doctors and nurses are working long hours, we are serving them by walking their dogs and sharing our provisions with them. They have to go out (dogs and doctors); we don’t.” - ‘Church Life Goes On’: Italian Pastor Reflects on COVID-19 (Leonardo De Chirico)
“Nothing—coronavirus included—can stop the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.” - Coronavirus: Opportunity for the Church to Be the Hands of Christ (Ken Ham)
“In all things I gave you an example, that so laboring ye ought to help the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that he himself said, It is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35).”
FAMILY DYNAMICS DURING COVID-19
- 9 Ways to Work Efficiently from Home (Devin Maddox)
“A sense of spiritual security is the best foundation for thriving in every other aspect of our day.” - Don’t Waste Your Family Quarantine (Courtney Reissig)
“Our job as parents, above all else (even more than figuring out work-life balance and disappointment), is to help our kids see the God who is there, and give them language for crying out to him in times of trouble.” - Never a Better Time for Family Prayer (Megan Hill)
“As families are stuck at home, we have an opportunity to together take up the largely invisible, outwardly unremarkable tool of prayer. We can’t see the danger, but we know the One who sees everything. What’s more, the excuses for prayerlessness—too little time, too much going on—are wiped from the calendar.” - How to Talk to Your Family About Social Distancing (Joe Carter)
“Unfortunately, we all know groups that—out of ignorance or obstinance—are willfully avoiding this essential public health practice. Here’s how to talk to various family members about how they can stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution.” - How Do I Take Risks Without Being Unwise? (John Piper)
“I don’t want to prescribe precisely when love calls for self-protection and when love calls for self-risk, but the burden of the New Testament is to infuse the faith and love that leans toward self-risk rather than toward self-protection. And I suspect the double reason for that is that, on the one hand, we are selfish by nature…. And on the other hand, the second of the double reason for why the New Testament leans this way is that the glory of God shines much more brightly in the countercultural, counterintuitive risk-taking of God’s people for the sake of love than it shines in self-protection.”
LESSONS FROM OTHER CRISES SIMILAR TO COVID-19
- 5 Lessons from Spurgeon’s Ministry in a Cholera Outbreak (Geoff Chang)
“And now, again, is the minister’s time; and now is the time for all of you who love souls. You may see men more alarmed than they are already; and if they should be, mind that you avail yourselves of the opportunity of doing them good. You have the Balm of Gilead; when their wounds smart, pour it in.” - C. S. Lewis on the Coronavirus (Matt Smethurst)
“This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading… not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.” - What the Early Church Can Teach Us About the Coronavirus (Moses Lee)
“(1) Christian sacrifice for their fellow believers stunned the unbelieving world as they witnessed communal love like they’d never seen (John 13:35), and (2) Christian sacrifice for non-Christians resulted in the early church experiencing exponential growth as non-Christian survivors, who benefited from the care of their Christian neighbors, converted to the faith en masse.” - Responding to Pandemics: 4 Lessons from Church History (Glen Scrivener)
“May we—with our own pandemic—live out the wisdom and way of Jesus before a watching world.” - How DC Churches Responded When the Government Banned Public Gatherings During the Spanish Flu of 1918 (Caleb Morell)
“The influenza of 1918 provides an example of how churches in Washington DC responded to a public health crisis and government orders to close churches. During one of the worst epidemics to ever hit our country, churches respected the directives of the government for a limited time out of neighborly love and in order to protect public health. Even when churches began to disagree with the Commissioners’ perspective, they continued to abide by their orders. This demonstrates a place for freedom of speech and advocacy while respecting and submitting to governing authorities.”
PRAYERS, OTHER LISTS, AND FREE RESOURCES DURING COVID-19
- 5 Prayer Requests from Behind the Coronavirus Curtain (Colin Clark)
- Five Ways to Pray During the Coronavirus Pandemic (Voice of the Martyrs)
- A Prayer for Working from Home (Will Sorrell)
- Resources for Christian Leaders During the Coronavirus Pandemic (Faith & Leadership)
- All the Free and Discounted Stuff for these Difficult Times (Tim Challies)
- Free Viewing of the “The Pilgrim’s Progress” Animation (RevelationMedia)
This post first appeared on Seminary Viewpoints.
