StephenBarkley.com

Few things are more fun for a teenage boy than sneaking into the girl’s cabins at camp. I remember indulging in a little covert operation once with a friend of mine. We had dodged security and made our way in to the so-called holy of holies. After hanging out for a while, we heard the [...]

There are two verses in the New Testament that just drive me crazy when people misinterpret them. The second one is part our text today. Here they are:
Do not worry about . . . what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what you ought to say. [...]

We’re approaching Christmas. Picture Jesus, the newborn infant, lying in a manger. Now answer these questions:

Did the newborn Jesus cry like any other newborn or was he supernaturally peaceful?
Would the newborn Jesus be recognizable as something different from the rest of humanity by a stranger, or would he look just like any other crying baby?
Hebrews [...]

I don’t understand why people pray that other Christians would be anointed. I’ve led worship quite consistently for the last decade, and for some reason, “the anointing” people pray for is more important for musicians—at least that’s what I’ve been able to figure out. Everyone knows that while preachers need to be anointed, it’s the [...]

Halloween was highly controversial in Bible College. Half the school was hopped-up on Rebecca Brown and Chick Tracks, while the other half thought Halloween was all about cute kids and candy.
I found myself among the candy contingent. That explains why, in my third year of college, my friend and I dressed up like Kiss (including [...]

John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world . . .”
1 John 2:15 says, “Do not love the world . . .”
There’s an apparent contradiction—a mixed message—here. You can’t get around it linguistically. The same author wrote these verses using the verb agapaō for love and the noun kosmos for world in each case. [...]

If there’s one thing any self-respecting preacher should be good at, it’s the ability to digress. I’m sure you’ve heard a few diversions from the pew. One minute the speaker’s following the inner-logic of the message, the next minute he’s off on some tangent.
John does that exact thing in these verses. One minute he’s locked [...]

I’m still adjusting to the whole parenting thing. Let me share one of my frustrations with you: toys. I remember watching the commercials that came on during cartoons as a kid, longing to own every single trinket that was marketed towards my age bracket. Now, I feel differently. I’ve turned my back on that childhood [...]

Contradictions. Flip-flops. U-turns. These words get a lot of mileage on CNN every election season. The pundits on one side are always looking to find opposing views within the other camp. The public can put up with a lot of things from a candidate, it seems, but not a change of mind.
A surface reading of [...]

In Another Land, the final album of Larry Norman’s famed trilogy, has a catchy little track on the CD reissue called Looking for the Footprints. The lyrics are simple: Looking for the footprints of the man who wears the sandals. If you’ve heard it, you’ll remember. If not, buy yourself a copy! That one-line song [...]