A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – The Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) new president wants the denomination to re-focus on evangelism and church-planting. And Pastor J.D. Greear knows what he’s talking about.

Greear’s megachurch, The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina, is on track to plant 1,000 churches in 50 years.

The church’s growth stems back to its emphasis on “sending.” It’s a word the church uses often to help members understand what it believes is their personal responsibility for evangelism. [ Source: CBN News (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Egypt has invited senior Hamas officials to Cairo for talks on the continued tensions along the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel and ways of ending the dispute between the Islamist movement and the ruling Fatah faction in the West Bank.

On the eve of the visit, Hamas leaders said they were not prepared to “pay any political price” in return for economic and humanitarian projects in the Gaza Strip.

The visit comes amid increased tensions between Fatah and Hamas, with representatives of the rival parties holding each other responsible for thwarting efforts to achieve “national reconciliation.” [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – When President Donald Trump meets Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Monday, the Syrian conflict will be one of the most immediately pressing issues on a wide-ranging agenda.

As fighting wanes after seven years of war, the U.S. has made curtailing Iran’s influence in post-war Syria a strategic objective — one strongly backed by Israel. And U.S. and Russian officials have signaled that a broad framework for such a deal is likely to be the main outcome of the summit.

Any agreement is likely to be general in nature, and discussions are likely to be centered more on limiting Iran’s presence rather than ending it, analysts say. [ Source: Fox News (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – President Trump’s bare-knuckles diplomacy agitated NATO allies, but he said it paid off.

After two tumultuous days at the NATO summit in Brussels, Mr. Trump emerged claiming allies bowed to his demand that they substantially increase defense spending, relieving some of the burden on the U.S. to prop up the military alliance.

NATO allies committed to an additional $33 billion in defense spending this year, he said. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – New applications for unemployment insurance benefits dropped 18,000 to 214,000 in the first week of July, the Department of Labor reported Thursday.

Forecasters had expected around 225,000 new jobless claims. Instead, they fell more than expected to the lowest since May, when claims were plumbing the lowest levels since the 1970s.

Low claims are a good sign. They suggest that layoffs are rare and that job creation is high. [ Source: Washington Examiner (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – FBI agent Peter Strzok, whose anti-Donald Trump text messages have become fuel for the Republicans, was defiant and apologetic during a blockbuster hearing on Capitol Hill.

The daylong House Judiciary and House Oversight committee hearing delved into chaos a number of times on Thursday, and Congress put its combative side on full display.

The two committees questioned Strzok, a deputy assistant director at the FBI, for 11 hours last month following a Department of Justice Inspector General report that said he had a “biased state of mind” while working on the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server, and later when working on the Russia investigation.

Strzok’s text messages with FBI lawyer Lisa Page, with whom he was having an extramarital affair, were the subject of much of the chaos on Thursday. [ Source: Washington Examiner (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – Theresa May will come under intense pressure to secure a future trade deal with the United States as she sits down with Donald Trump just hours after he warned that her soft Brexit blueprint would “kill” Britain’s chances.

In an extraordinary interview that threatened to undermine her new Brexit strategy, painfully thrashed out with her cabinet last week, Trump questioned whether her plans upheld the referendum result and accused her of ignoring his advice.

Against a backdrop of furious protests across the country, the US president openly humiliated May by suggesting that former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, who quit in opposition to her Brexit plans this week, would make a great prime minister. [ Source: UK Guaridan (Read More…) ]

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(Worthy News) – A 10th century BCE Galilee city gate through which King David may have walked to claim a bride was uncovered by archaeologists at the recently finished 2018 season of the Bethsaida Excavations Project, excavation director Prof. Rami Arav told The Times of Israel.

Standing at 3 meters, “it is the largest and the best preserved city gate [in Israel],” said Arav. Likewise, this year’s excavation provides evidence that Bethsaida, an Aramean settlement, houses one of the earliest towers incorporated in city walls in Israel, he said.

“In the entire archaeology of the Land of Israel from 10-8th century BCE, there are no towers on city walls. Israelites did not have this feature. This is the first example of towers surrounding a city in Israel,” Arav said. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

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