Have you considered how feminist ideals have affected your perception of the role of women? At the Fall 2009 Northbrook Conference for Women, we considered popular ideas of women in the home, workplace, church, and culture, and how these ideas compare to God's wise and gracious design for women.
Our speaker, Carolyn McCulley, is a former feminist who now accepts the biblical distinctions between men and women.
11.10.2009
"Feminine Faith In A Feminist World"
A Conference...
11.03.2009
Excellent Help For Witnessing To Mormons
How To Witness To MormonsThe point, or goal, when using the Socratic method on Mormonism’s theological system, is to bring the Mormon to the place of seeing that Mormonism’s plan of salvation does not save him. The place of ultimate tension surrounds the atonement: this will be the climax of the conversation and it is here that the heart of the spiritual battle will be waged.
HT @douglaswils
10.21.2009
"To God Jesus Christ"
The third and final inscription makes it unmistakably clear that this place was intended to serve the religious needs of the Christian community organized in the Roman military camp. It also removes any doubt that a table once existed in the center of the hall—paid for by a woman named Akeptous: “The God-loving Akeptous has offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a memorial.”
The words “God Jesus Christ” on the next-to-last line are abbreviated in the form of a contraction consisting of the first and last letters of the two words. Above the two sacred words is a straight line. While these abbreviations and the line above indicating sacred words was later a common practice, this is their earliest attestation.b
View captions and large images.And this is the earliest inscription ever found in Israel, and perhaps anywhere, that mentions Jesus Christ!
Will You Pray?
From an old Piper sermon and very relevant to me:
I will close with a record of something God did 130 years ago in New York City. It illustrates how God has started every harvest time in history through the concerted prayer of his people. Toward the middle of the last century the glow of earlier religious awakenings had faded. America was prosperous and felt little need to call on God. But in the 1850s . . .
Secular and religious conditions combined to bring about a crash. The third great panic in American history swept the giddy structure of speculative wealth away. Thousands of merchants were forced to the wall as banks failed and railroads went into bankruptcy. Factories were shut down and vast numbers thrown out of employment. New York City alone having 30,000 idle men. In October 1857, the hearts of people were thoroughly weaned from speculation and uncertain gain, while hunger and despair stared them in the face.
On July 1, 1857, a quiet and zealous businessman named Jeremiah Lanphier took up an appointment as a City Missionary in down-town New York. Lanphier was appointed by the North Church of the Dutch Reformed denomination. This church was suffering from depletion of membership due to the removal of the population from the down-town to the better residential quarters, and the new City Missionary was engaged to make diligent visitation in the immediate neighborhood with a view to enlisting church attendance among the floating population of the lower city. The Dutch Consistory felt that it had appointed an ideal layman for the task in hand, and so it was.
Burdened so by the need, Jeremiah Lanphier decided to invite others to join him in a noonday prayer-meeting, to be held on Wednesdays once a week. He therefore distributed a handbill:
HOW OFTEN SHALL I PRAY?
As often as the language of prayer is in my heart; as often as I see my need of help; as often as I feel the power of temptation; as often as I am made sensible of any spiritual declension or feel the aggression of a worldly spirit.
In prayer we leave the business of time for that of eternity, and intercourse with men for intercourse with God.
A day Prayer Meeting is held every Wednesday, from 12 to 1 o'clock, in the Consistory building in the rear of the North Dutch Church, corner of Fulton and William Streets (entrance from Fulton and Ann Streets).
This meeting is intended to give merchants, mechanics, clerks, strangers, and business men generally an opportunity to stop and call upon God amid the perplexities incident to their respective avocations. It will continue for one hour; but it is also designed for those who may find it inconvenient to remain more than five or ten minutes, as well as for those who can spare the whole hour.
Accordingly at twelve noon, September 23, 1857, the door was opened and the faithful Lanphier took his seat to await the response to his invitation. Five minutes went by. No one appeared. The missionary paced the room in a conflict of fear and faith. Ten minutes elapsed. Still no one came. Fifteen minutes passed. Lanphier was yet alone. Twenty minutes; twenty-five; thirty; and then at 12.30 p.m., a step was heard on the stairs, and the first person appeared, then another, and another, and another, until six people were present, and the prayer meeting began. On the following Wednesday, October 7th, there were forty intercessors.
Thus, in the first week of October 1857, it was decided to hold a meeting daily instead of weekly.
Within six months, ten thousand business men were gathering daily for prayer in New York, and within two years, a million converts were added to the American churches.
Undoubtedly the greatest revival in New York's colorful history was sweeping the city, and it was of such an order to make the whole nation curious. There was no fanaticism, no hysteria, simply an incredible movement of the people to pray.
Is there a Jeremiah Lanphier among you?
9.18.2009
Do Not Be Like Mike
From Voddie Baucham:
There was a stark difference between the two acceptance speeches. As I listened to the two speeches, all I could think of was the old commercial catchphrase, “Like Mike... If I could be like Mike.” Unfortunately, in this instance, Mike was the last person anyone should aspire to be like. This was definitely not a Michael Jordan highlight. Jordan’s Speech was self-centered, indulgent, arrogant, and at times embarrassing. In contrast, David Robinson rose to the occasion and made a brief, inspiring, encouraging speech (see his speech here) that made his family, his team, and his friends proud.
8.02.2009
7.31.2009
7.30.2009
7.16.2009
Raising Kids in a Pornified Culture
Helpful. From Zach Nielson re: @betweentwoworlds.
1. Aim to give our kids a huge view of God who is gloriously delightful.2. Teach them the gospel.3. Teach them that boundaries bring freedom and obedience is a blessing.4. Talk to them sooner than later about sex.5. Begin to train your kids on how to interact with the opposite sex.6. Guard who your kids spend time with.7. Put Your Computer in a Public Place and Turn Off The T.V.8. Seek to cultivate a relationship with your kids such that they feel as though they can be open with you about anything.
Go here for the whole thing. It's worth the read, especially here in the OC.
7.14.2009
7.01.2009
Proverbs Resource
2 To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
3 to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
4 to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
5 Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
6 to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.
6.25.2009
Cut the Cable
We did. The price kept going up and we didn't want to keep up...and - pleasant (and predictable) surprise! The lack of TV has opened life up all the more with quality family and reading time. I don't really miss it.
But here's even better reasons for watching your TV watching (and not just watching TV).
6.19.2009
America's Debt to John Calvin
From World Magazine.
Piper, quoting Kuyper:
In the rise of your university education . . . in the decentralized . . . character of your local governments . . . in your championship of free speech, and in your unlimited regard for freedom of conscience; in all this . . . it is demonstrable that you owe this to Calvinism and to Calvinism alone.
And yet most of us have no idea.
The State of Sudan
My in-laws are missionaries in Sudan. They've passed this article along as a good summary of the situation.
From the Economist:
Under the terms of a peace agreement with the northern government of Mr Bashir signed in 2005, the south is expected to vote for secession in a referendum in 2011. The prospect of gaining a new country, South Sudan, raised hopes of an end to Sudan’s civil war between the predominantly Muslim north and the Christian and animist south, which lasted on and off for the best part of 50 years. At last, the flattened south would rebuild itself.
Now, however, even many southerners, let alone their fiercely partisan foreign backers, worry that the region’s progress towards independence is going awry. Not only is there the increasing rate of intertribal violence and the hostility of the north to contend with. But the south’s woes have been added to by the incompetence and corruption of the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS), mainly composed of former guerrilla fighters in the SPLM, the political movement of the SPLA. They have managed to spend about $5 billion in oil revenues over the past four years with very little to show for it, apart from weapons. At the present rate, South Sudan will fail before it has even been born.
5.29.2009
Slow Down the Texting!
From Al Mohler:
Statistics can be used to inform or to mislead, and sometimes they can shock. See if this statistic isn't shocking: In the fourth quarter of 2008 American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month. That, dear friends, is nothing to LOL about.
That statistic comes from The New York Times. In "Texting May Be Taking a Toll," reporter Katie Hafner offers a view into the lives of American teens. They are fanatical texters. As Hafner reports, "They do it late at night when their parents are asleep. They do it in restaurants and while crossing busy streets. They do it in the classroom with their hands behind their back. They do it so much their thumbs hurt."
Authorities now blame excessive texting for sleep deprivation, distraction in school, poor grades, and even repetitive stress injuries. These teens are texting while they should be sleeping, and they are sleeping with the cell phone set to vibrate so that they can respond to texts from friends without waking parents.
Thirteen Acts of Soul Worship
David Clarkson continues, in his discourse on soul idolatry:
Before we come to confirm and apply this truth, it will be requisite to make a more clear discovery of this secret idolatry, the most that are guilty of it not taking notice of their guilt, because they account nothing idolatry but what is openly and outwardly so.
He then lists and describes thirteen "acts of soul worship."
1. Esteem. That which we most highly value we make our God.
2. Mindfulness. That which we are most mindful of we make our God.
3. Intention. That which we [make our ultimate goal] we make our God.
4. Resolution. That which we resolve [to pursue] we make our God.
5. Love. That which we love [the most] we make our God.
6. Trust. That which we most trust we make our God.
"For confidence and dependence is an act of worship which the Lord calls for as due only to himself."
7. Fear. That which we most fear (respect, revere) we worship as our God.
8. Hope. That which we make our hope we worship as God.
9. Desire. That which we most desire we worship as our God.
10. Delight. That which we most delight and rejoice in, that we worship as God.
11. Zeal. That for which are more zealous we worship as God.
12. Gratitude. That to which we are most grateful, that we worship as God.
13. Care and Industry. That whom we serve we worship as God.
Who is your God? May we be like Thomas who, when seeing Jesus, proclaimed:
"My Lord and my God."
And my Jesus Christ receive our sole soul worship.
5.27.2009
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