And...my wife recommends it.
HT: Justin Taylor
10.21.2008
The Debate on Gay Marriage
Thoughts for your Prop. 8 decision from Al Mohler.
Human society is a complex reality, but certain constants have framed that reality for human beings. One of those constants has been the institution of marriage. The respected status of the heterosexual pairing, set apart for exclusive rights and respected for its functions for the society, is among the most important of those constants.
10.17.2008
How To Train Your Kids To Love God's Word
From Justin Buzzard:
As parents, especially as dads, it's important that we train our children to love God's Word. Here's the single greatest way I know how to do this: Show your children every single week of their lives that YOU love God's Word.
10.16.2008
Modern Persecution - Let's Pray For Our Suffering Brothers and Sisters
Eric Ortland reports:
I'm sure some of you have heard about the persecution in India, in the northern province of Orissa - about 50,000 Christians have had to flee their homes under persecution by extreme Hindus. Churches have been burned and Christians have been tortured and martyred for their faith in Jesus.
10.14.2008
A Review of the ESV Study Bible
From Tim Challies:
...I think the ESV Study Bible is an incredible resource. A long list of endorsers have expressed their excitement for its theological faithfulness, its accessibility, its insight, its scholarship, its practicality and its sheer excellence. I would simply append my name to this list. I agree wholeheartedly with C.J. Mahaney who writes, "I can't imagine a greater gift to the body of Christ than the ESV Study Bible. It is a potent combination indeed: the reliability and readability of the ESV translation, supplemented by the best of modern and faithful scholarship, packaged in an accessible and attractive format. A Christian could make no wiser investment for himself, a pastor could recommend no better resource for his congregation." This is a powerful resource and one that can aid any reader of Scripture. It is one I recommend wholeheartedly.
10.09.2008
"Make War!"
Tony Reinke quotes John Piper:
I hear so many Christians murmuring about their imperfections and their failures and their addictions and their short-comings. And I see so little war! ‘Murmur, murmur, murmur… Why am I this way?’ MAKE WAR!”
He adds (from Ed Welch):
There is a mean streak to authentic self-control. Self-control is not for the timid. When we want to grow in it, not only do we nurture an exuberance for Jesus Christ, we also demand of ourselves a hatred for sin. The only possible attitude toward out-of-control desire is a declaration of all-out war. There is something about war that sharpens the senses. You hear a twig snap or the rustling of leaves and you are in attack mode. Someone coughs and you are ready to pull the trigger. Even after days of little or no sleep, war keeps us vigilant.
This is a fight, my friends (Col. 3.5):
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you...
10.08.2008
A Tribute To My Dad On His Birthday
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
10. My dad is a man. He takes a benevolent responsibility for everything in his domain. He cultivates, protects, and teaches.9. My dad works hard and never quits. As a Naval Academy grad, when he lost his job due to an airline going out of business, he did whatever it took to provide for his family - selling phone books, painting houses. I'll never forget that.8. My dad is my friend and my dad. He knows how to play, and takes time to spend good, fun time with his family. But he is also serious about obedience, and you'd feel it if you were out of line. How thankful I am that my dad disciplined me!7. My dad is full of integrity, and he made darn well sure I was too. He is committed to his church. As kids, we were going. Period.6. My dad is open. You can talk to him about anything and he will listen to you. And he'll change his mind if he thinks you're right.5. My dad is very generous. He is always giving of himself, his time, and his money in order to bless others and build the Kingdom.4. My dad loves me. I've never, ever doubted it. He is always there as a wise support.3. My dad loves my wife and kids with all his heart.2. My dad loves my mom and is uncompromisingly committed to her.1. My dad loves Jesus and is submitted to His Word. That's what makes him who he is.
10.07.2008
D. A. Carson on Trends in the Church
Scott Thomas took notes.
If you ever want to feel like you have the intelligence of a NASCAR fan that just finished off a six-pack (I think it's a Red Neck law), then listen to D.A. Carson talk about, well, anything. Don is fluent in something like 7 languages and has written over 45 books. He is the esteemed Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School near Chicago. For instance, Carson said in his talk to us, "To be a non-perspectivalist is to be omniscient." Nobody in the room was smart enough to argue with him over that.
Don spoke at a luncheon at Bethlehem Baptist Church (John Piper) on Friday September 26, 2008 just before the Desiring God Conference. I attended this lunch with about 40 other church leaders. Don spoke for an hour about five trends in the American church that are troubling to him.
HT: Tim Challies
10.01.2008
9.27.2008
9.26.2008
An Award I'll Never Win
Pastor of the Year - the one who pleases all the people all the time.
That is so biblical! Embarrassingly, it appears to have been used...
The Forgotten Discipline
Craig Larsen reminds us:
There are at least nine characteristics that separate sound, biblical preaching from Bible reading, memorization, and meditation:
1. Good preaching rescues us from our self-deceptions and blind spots. Left to ourselves, we tend to ignore the very things in God's Word that we most need to see. Preaching covers texts and topics outside of our control.
2. Preaching brings us before God's Word in the special presence of the Holy Spirit as he indwells the gathered church.
3. Good preaching challenges us to do things we otherwise would not and gives us the will to do them. God has given speakers a remarkable power to spur others to take action.
4. As our church communities listen to good preaching, it brings us into the place of corporate — rather than just individual — obedience.
5. Good preaching causes humility by disciplining us to sit under the teaching, correction, and exhortation of another human. Relying on ourselves alone for food from the Word can lead to a spirit of arrogance and spiritual independence.
6. Good preaching gives a place for a spiritually qualified person to protect believers from dangerous error. The apostles repeatedly warned that untrained and unstable Christians — as well as mature believers — can be easily led astray by false doctrines. Christians are sheep; false teachers are wolves; preachers are guardian shepherds.
7. Preaching and listening are embodied, physical acts. Good preaching is truth incarnated through a person who can translate its meaning from an ancient setting to today. Good preaching is truth we receive sitting shoulder to shoulder.
8. Good preachers do what most Christians are not gifted, trained, or time-endowed to do: interpret a text in context, distill the theological truths, and apply those truths in a particular time and place to particular people in a particular church. This is a challenging task for well-trained preachers who have access to 2,000 years' worth of the church's resources; how much more so for those who are not trained?
9. Listening to preaching has a low threshold of difficulty. While many spiritual disciplines sound like exercises for the spiritually elite, both young and old, educated and uneducated, disciplined and undisciplined can listen to a sermon. It is the equal-opportunity spiritual discipline.
It's often all in how you listen...
New Bible for a New Gospel?
Time Magazine announces the Green Bible.
Now there is a Bible trying to make gardeners of us all. On Oct. 7, HarperCollins is releasing The Green Bible, a Scripture for the Prius age that calls attention to more than 1,000 verses related to nature by printing them in a pleasant shade of forest green, much as red-letter editions of the Bible encrimson the words of Jesus. The new version's message, states an introduction by Evangelical eco-activist J. Matthew Sleeth, is that "creation care"--the Christian catchphrase for nature conservancy--"is at the very core of our Christian walk."
Using recycled paper with soy-based ink, The Green Bible includes supplementary writings by, among others, St. Francis of Assisi, Pope John Paul II, Desmond Tutu and Anglican bishop N.T. Wright. Several of these essays cite the Genesis verse in which God gives humanity "dominion" over the earth, a charge most religious greens read to mean "stewardship." Others assert that eco-neglect violates Jesus' call to care for the least among us: it is the poor who inhabit the floodplains.
I like the environment. I really do. But I love the gospel, and that is what the Bible is about.
9.25.2008
Mark Driscoll on John Piper
I enjoy both of these very different guys and it's cool to hear of their interactions. Be sure to check out the interview at the bottom of the link; there's some good info in there about realistic struggles in marriage.
9.23.2008
9.22.2008
Wrong Answer
Prominent emergent-church leader Brian Mclaren was recently asked the question, "What is the good news?" As Michael Krahn reports, this was his answer:
I think this is where it gets interesting because one of the ways that what we do becomes colonization, when we’re going to represent a religion and trying to make converts to a religion… but the good news isn’t the good news of Christianity, it’s the good news of the Kingdom of God. And I think that Fatmire [Muslim peace activist also present at conference and sitting next to him on the panel] working for peace, is an agent for peace, and I’d much rather her be working for peace being who she is than… becoming a person in a church worrying about the list over there on that wall. [on “the list” are things non-essentials like speaking in tongues, etc.)
So, to me there’s something we really have to grapple with about whether the border of a religion is the border of the kingdom of God. And I think that’s a question we’d be wise to raise. I liked what you said about there not being despair when you’re among the extremely needy people. Wouldn’t it be interesting if we found out that God is present wherever there’s suffering because God is there bringing healing and God is really present wherever people are working against injustice because that’s the work of God, wherever people are working for peace. And then the we find that the place that God isn’t is where you have a bunch of affluent people who are self-absorbed… and that wouldn’t surprise me why they would get depressed, because, in some way, it’s not that God isn’t present but they’re snoring through the presence of God.”
In answering, Mclaren did expose certain things that are not the gospel. But his answer is horribly wrong (It didn't include the person and work of Jesus!). Here's a better one. Compare the difference:
1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. (1 Cor. 15.1-8; emphasis mine)
HT: Tim Challies
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