On Rob Bell

Read here for thoughtful interaction.

Books On The Bible

Look here for some great resources on the integrity of our Scriptures.

Check Out These 19-Year-Olds

Ah...needed antidote to our lazy, immature culture and Christianity.
These guys are inspiring.

Babies Go To Heaven

John Piper gives a brief perspective as to why.

Cross-Centered Parenting

If you've an interest in parenting that is God-glorifying, you ought to listen here.

On Interpreting the Bible

Dale Davis writes (The Word Became Fresh),

...I wonder if a good chunk of our hermeneutical problem may simply be a heart problem. Maybe we get off the track in our interpretation because our eyes are fastened on the wrong object. I often feel like the spiritual pigmy I am when I read the words of the sons of Korah in Psalm 43.3-4:

O send out thy light and thy truth;
let them lead me,
Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God my exceeding joy...

God - my exceeding joy. Do I usually think of him that way? Seek Him as such? Have this God as the center of my vision? Must he, should he not be such even in - especially in - my biblical interpretation? Maybe our problem is a spiritual one....Maybe it's a matter of worship.

Preaching on Suffering

C. J. Mahaney shows us how. Download it here:

Of course, more than teaching us how to preach, he teaches us how to live.

A Review of "The God Delusion"

Read it here.

Christians in Politics

Here is a powerful example. Sometimes we glorify God more in the way we handle our failures....

- the following is from Justin Taylor's Blog:

Romney and Rumors

Joe Carter apologizes. Here's the full post:

Earlier this week I made reference to a rumor going around about Mitt Romney. Several readers--including a few men who I respect greatly--gently chastised me for making the remark. As my friend Steve Camp wrote in a comment, "You dishonor the FRC and the body of Christ by joining in on this type of negative pandering.

My initial reaction upon hearing such criticism was to become defensive and offer rationalizations for my action. I wanted to justify my behavior by pointing to my pure motives and good intentions. I wanted to say that they were wrong and I was innocent.

But they are right; I am guilty of behaving shamefully. I owe an apology not only to Mitt Romney but to all of the readers of this blog. I am truly sorry that I stopped so low as to spread such gossip.

My disgrace is compounded by the fact that I had to be chided by my friends rather than being pricked by my own conscience. And instead of immediately admitting my wrongdoing I tried to ignore it. I certainly deserve the damage this will do to my reputation and hope that it is anomalous action and not reflective of my true character.

Look here for context/ background.

What Is Spirituality?

Tony Reinke gives clarification.

Are Mormons Christians?

Rob Bowman attempts to clarify.

Thanks to BTW for the reference.

Reading List for Pastors

Or thoughtful Christians...

From 9Marks and the Gospel Coalition.

Timothy McVeigh and Dorothea Day

John Piper on the beauty of being "Conquered by Christ."

Is Christianity Intellectual Suicide?

Listen to Mark Dever's answer.

Or download here.

The Modern Creed

By Steve Turner, English journalist

We believe in Marx, Freud and Darwin.
We believe everything is okay, as long as you don’t hurt anyone to the best of your definition of hurt and to your best definition of knowledge.
We believe in sex before, during and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun. We believe that sodomy is okay.
We believe that taboos are taboo.
We believe that everything is getting better despite evidence to the contrary. The evidence must be investigated and you can prove anything with evidence.
We believe there is something in horoscopes, UFO’s, and bent spoons.
Jesus was a good man just like Buddha, Mohammad and ourselves. He was a good moral teacher, although we think basically his good morals were really bad.
We believe that all religions are the basically the same, at least the ones we read about. They all believe in love and goodness. They only differ on matters of creation, sin, heaven, hell, God and salvation.
We believe that after death comes nothing because when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing. If death is not the end, and if the dead have lied, then it’s compulsively heaven for all except perhaps Hitler, Stalin and Chingis Khan.
We believe in Masters and Johnson. What is selected is average, what’s average is normal, and what’s normal is good.
We believe in total disarmament. We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed. [The good guys] should beat their guns into tractors and [the bad guys] would be sure to follow.
We believe that man is essentially good-it’s only his behavior that lets him down. This is the fault of society; society’s the fault of condition; and conditions are the fault of society.
We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him and reality will adapt accordingly; the universe will readjust and history will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth, except the truth that there is no absolute truth.

I prefer the Apostles'.

Can A Christian Deny the Virgin Birth?

Al Mohler answers.

The Golden Compass

Al Mohler educates us to the books, movie, and a helpful Christian response.

God Magnifying God: The Debate

See the summary here:

The author concludes as follows:

Like cutting open the chest and uncovering a beating heart, to understand that our sovereign God acts in all things, and at all times, for His own glory gets at the very heart of God’s motivation. I simply cannot think of a truth more clearly presented throughout Scripture, nor can I think of a more radical worldview-changing truth.

God always acts for His own glory.

If we take our eyes off God’s magnifying of Himself in all things, we will be tempted. We’ll be tempted to downplay the demands of the Law (because we will no longer view the Law as God’s preservation of His glory). We will misunderstand the work of Christ on the Cross (that Christ met the high standards of the Father’s glory). We will misunderstand our life purpose (we do all things to bring glory to God as an act of union with God Himself). And we will misunderstand Scripture’s picture of eternal worship (we will find it odd that we circle around the throne of the Father, the throne of the Son, the river of the Spirit and sing worship forever).

Here’s the irony. To view God’s motives of grace and salvation as ends terminating in our good is to reinterpret the biblical God by our own narcissistic hermeneutics. Our greatest good and eternal joy both stand squarely on God’s motive of magnifying Himself.

In summary, if we take our eyes off God in his magnifying of Himself, we will fail to understand everything else. But most sadly, we will miss our greatest pleasure – to glorify God by enjoying Him forever!

Here is the center of Calvinism, what we call Reformed theology.

Church Planting and the Poor

From John Piper:

Today we focus on church planting and concern for the poor—eight observations on each subject. Let’s begin with observations that relate to church planting.¹ Remember, by church planting, we mean starting new churches that are not part of Bethlehem. They share the same Elder Affirmation of Faith for the leaders, but organizationally, they are separate churches, not campuses.

Observations on Church Planting

1. There are 195 million non-churched people in America, making America one of the top four largest “unchurched” nations in the world.

2. In spite of the rise of mega-churches, no county in America has a greater church population than it did ten years ago.

3. During the last ten years, combined communicant membership of all Protestant denominations declined by 9.5 percent (4,498,242), while the national population increased by 11.4 percent (24,153,000).

4. Each year 3,500 to 4,000 churches close their doors forever; yet only as many as 1,500 new churches are started.

5. There are now nearly 60 percent fewer churches per 10,000 persons than in 1920.

• In 1920 27 churches existed for every 10,000 Americans.
• In 1950 17 churches existed for every 10,000 Americans.
• In 1996 11 churches existed for every 10,000 Americans.

6. “Today, of the approximately 350,000 churches in America, four out of five are either plateaued or declining.”

7. One American denomination recently found that 80% of its converts came to Christ in churches less than two years old.

8. Hence the claim of many leaders: “The single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven is planting new churches” (Peter Wagner).

Observations on World Poverty

Then consider eight observations about world poverty.²

1. More than 1.5 billion people around the world live on less than a $1 a day.

2. More than one billion people do not have access to clean water.

3. Every year six million children die from malnutrition before their fifth birthday.

4. More than 50 percent of Africans suffer from water-related diseases such as cholera and infant diarrhea.

5. More than 800 million people go to bed hungry every day, 300 million are children.

6. Of these 300 million children, only eight percent are victims of famine or other emergency situations. More than 90 percent are suffering long-term malnourishment and micronutrient deficiency.

7. Declining soil fertility, land degradation, and the AIDS pandemic have led to a 23 percent decrease in food production per capita in the last 25 years even though population has increased dramatically.

8. A woman living in sub-Saharan Africa has a 1 in 16 chance of dying in pregnancy. This compares with a 1 in 3,700 risk for a woman from North America.

These are issues—church planting and concern for the poor—that those who follow Jesus should not ignore. Yet they are amazingly easy to ignore in America.

To The Atheist and Bishop

John Piper responds to Christopher Hitchens and John Shelby Spong in his Thanksgiving meditation.