And here we are, at the end of another classic. If you’ve been doing this since the beginning, you’ve now read Holiness by J.C. Ryle, Overcoming Sin and Temptation by John Owen, The Seven Sayings of the Savior on the Cross by A.W. Pink, The Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards, Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, Real Christianity by William Wilberforce, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs, Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray, The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes, Spurgeon by Arnold Dallimore. And, of course, The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul. I’ve spoken to a few people recently (in real-life even) who have kept up and who have enjoyed the book. So I’m glad to know that some of you continue to read along.

This week’s chapter was titled “Holy Space and Holy Time” and in wrapping up the book Sproul turns to a discussion of setting apart certain spaces and certain times as holy. He writes about traditional church architecture and its function in drawing people to the holy, something he has emphasized in several of his other books. He writes about what goes missing in churches that are designed to be functional rather than beautiful. “What is often lost in these functional church designs is the profound sense of threshold. A threshold is a place of transition. It signals a change from one realm to another.” If you have ever visited Dr. Sproul’s home church of St. Andrew’s you will see how he and the members of that church have sought to recapture traditional design including the concept of threshold.

He writes as well about sacred times and in particular the Sabbath and the Lord’s Supper.

The celebration of the Lord’s Supper involves sacred time in three distinct ways. First, it looks to the past, instructing believers to remember and to show forth Christ’s death by this observance. Second, it focuses on the present moment of celebration, in which Christ meets with His people to nurture them and strengthen them in their sanctification. Third, it looks to the future, to the certain hope of their reunion with Christ in heaven, where they will participate in the banquet feast of the Lamb and His bride.

Back in November I encouraged you to Enjoy Messiah This Christmas and I know that quite a lot of you did—you took in a performance of Handel’s Messiah. I’d love to hear about your experience. Where did you go and what was it like? Give me a brief report!

Let me tell you about the performance I saw last night with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.

First off, it was great to bump into several friends there. And it was interesting that for the second year in a row I bumped into a reader of this site in the bathroom at Roy Thompson Hall; that’s two times he and I have crossed paths, and in both cases it’s been in the bathrooms of Roy Thompson. Small world, I guess (and sorry—I didn’t catch your name!).

Messiah is an annual tradition for me, so I’ve seen quite a few performances of it. This year’s was entirely unique and utterly amazing. The conductor ws Andrew Davis—that’s Maestro Sir Andrew Davis to you. But he not only conducted Messiah; he also re-orchestrated it. This was a major 10-month project for him. His aim was “to keep Handel’s notes, harmonies, and style intact, but to make use of all the colours available from the modern symphony orchestra to underline the mood and meaning of the individual movements.”

This led to quite a few unexpected instruments being used: marimba, darabuka, bells and even tambourine (yes, tambourine). While the piece’s words and flow were unchanged, there were significant changes to the orchestration throughout. The performance kicked off with the Overture, as it always does, but it was led not by strings but by the woodwinds. So from the first notes I knew this was going to be very, very different. And, indeed, it was. But Davis made it work. Many of his changes to the orchestration were meant to illuminate the meaning of the different movements and in this he succeeded very well, whether it was in adding to the irony of the lighthearted feel of “All we like sheep have gone astray” (by which Handel meant to show how flippant we can be about our sin) or in coming up with a kind of echo effect for “The trumpet shall sound” which was meant to show that the trumpet is sounding far and wide. I found that I understood Messiah much more this year than I ever have in the past.

His explanatory notes in the program were very, very helpful. Here’s an example from immediately before the “Unto us a Child is born” chorus:

The orchestration for the chorus ‘For unto us a Child is born’ is robust, but when, towards the end, the militaristic tenor drum threatens to take over, the rest of the orchestra, embarrassed, fades away, leaving us with the thought that perhaps the most important of the Messiah’s names is ‘Prince of Peace.’

If there was anything about the performance that disappointed me even a little it would have been the “Hallelujah Chorus” where some of his changes seemed just a little bit heavy-handed (mostly related to bells ringing at otherwise quiet moments). Of course I feel ridiculous even taking issue with something done by Sir Andrew Davis whose knowledge of music is infinitely greater than mine, but I suppose I’m still entitled to my opinion. I also felt that the alto soloist was just a little bit weak compared to the other soloists, though the fact that she was on the far side of the stage from me must have contributed to that. And finally, the seats we had didn’t give us the vantage point I would have liked; we were very close to the stage and couldn’t see back to the percussion, brass or woodwinds. But that’s just because we didn’t want to spend the money to get better seats.

Nevertheless, it was an amazing performance and easily my favorite of all-time. I am hoping that at some point we will be able to enjoy a recording of Davis’ reorchestration of Messiah. It’s that good!

Last year I posted a series of interviews under the banner of Meet the Ministries. It was a means of introducing you to some of the great ministries that serve the church today. You got to meet Grace to You, Desiring God, Acts 29, Peacemaker Ministries, CCEF and Truth for Life. I am continuing that series this fall with another set of interviews. It began with Eternal Perspective Ministries and now turns to Ligonier Ministries. I interviewed Chris Larson who serves as Ligonier’s Executive Vice President.

How and when did Ligonier Ministries begin?
To answer these two questions well requires a little history. Ligonier Ministries began in the fall of 1971 (so in 2011 we turn 40). Dr. Sproul was approached by a group of Christians in the Pittsburgh area about starting a study center for Christian learning and discipleship in the hills of western PA. He consulted with Francis Schaeffer at the time about L'Abri, and Dr. Schaeffer encouraged RC to do it and believed it would be helpful for the church. This new outreach appealed to RC for a number of reasons, but largely because of his interest in communicating theology in practical terms to the layperson. After stints teaching in colleges and seminaries, he found the most joy in seeing the average churchgoer come alive when they grasped the things of God. Remember that the zeitgeist of the 1960s had introduced rampant relativism, in effect accelerating the secularization of culture and liberalism in the church. Thus, Ligonier Valley Study Center was born as a place to equip Christians to be articulate and effective in their defense of classical Christianity. And hundreds of students came to live and learn among the Sprouls and other teachers. It was there that the first talks on The Holiness of God were delivered.

I would call that Ligonier 1.0, because it quickly became apparent that the Lord had more in mind for the teaching fellowship of R.C. Sproul. As he taught, new forms of media and communication were rapidly developing. While the ministry's use of radio was still a few years away, the rise of "radical" new technologies such as audio cassettes and Beta/VHS presented the ministry with a whole new audience beyond the confines of the study center.

Students studied resources delivered by the mail, and the growth was explosive. Adding to the growing national following was the birth of Tabletalk magazine in 1977. The distance learning aspect of Ligonier quickly eclipsed the regional campus, so in the early '80s, Ligonier relocated to Orlando to accommodate the growth. We did this all while Dr. Sproul continued to pour his academic life into students through service at the seminary level. In 1985, The Holiness of God was published, followed by Chosen By God in 1986. Nineteen eighty-eight saw our first national Reformed theology conference. And the pace of growth kept going throughout the '90s into the present. In 1994, we began our international radio broadcast, Renewing Your Mind. In 1995, The Reformation Study Bible was first published, originally as the New Geneva Study Bible. Reformation Trust Publishing began in 2006 to maintain our focus to serve learners with trustworthy Christian books from contemporary authors. Much of our activity today focuses on strengthening the outreach of our core teaching ministries and harnessing new communication technology, while at the same time returning to our study-center roots with the new Ligonier Academy campus.

2010 was a good year for books. For me it was a strange year—a year in which I read less widely than I am accustomed to, but perhaps read more overall. Work on my new book had me reading a whole lot in a single direction and so much of that reading never appeared as reviews on this blog. Nevertheless, I still read many great books and thought it would be beneficial to keep with tradition and put together a list of some of my favorites.

I will offer my usual caveat in saying that these are almost certainly not the 10 best books of 2010 in any objective sense—but they are my favorites. Here they are, in no particular order:

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr - Carr picks up threads from a lot of other books and tells us what the Internet is doing to our brains. This is far more than an expansion on his infamous article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” He doesn’t write as a Luddite or as someone lost in ignorance—he writes as a computer enthusiast who has begun to wonder just what all this technology is doing to him and to us. Very few people are thinking about these things, so his book hit hard.

Son of Hamas by Mosab Hasson Yousef - This is one of two biographies to hit the bestseller lists this year that culminated in the hero of the book becoming a Christian. In this book Mosab Hasson Yousef, a son of one of the founders of Hamas, writes about life on the inside of a terrorist organization. And he writes of becoming a traitor to that cause and eventually a convert to the Christian faith. [my review]

Hero by Michael Korda - Hero is a much-anticipated biography of T.E. Lawrence, known more popularly as Lawrence of Arabia. While I found that the man himself did not interest me all that much, I couldn’t help but be drawn into his life through this superior biography. The first 100 pages were difficult going, but the book then opened wide and I found myself intrigued by this eccentric British hero.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot - This may be the most unusual book to appear on the list of my favorite books. In 1951 Henrietta Lacks, a thirty year-old African American woman, died of cervical cancer, her body ravaged by the disease. Shortly before her death, and apparently unknown to her, researcher George Gey took a biopsy of her tumor and, for the first time in history, managed to culture an immortal line of cells. This line soon became known as HeLa and since the 50s has been sold commercially and used in a remarkable variety of experiments. Rebecca Skloot compellingly tells the tale of this woman: her life, her death and her ongoing legacy.

Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas - This big biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer has become one of the year’s top sellers within the Christian market and for good reason. Metaxas offers “a comprehensive review of one of history’s darkest eras, along with a fascinating exploration of the familial, cultural and religious influences that formed one of the world’s greatest contemporary theologians.” It’s well-written and looks at a fascinating individual who lived in a fascinating time. That’s a recipe for success. [my review]

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand - Of all the books I read in 2010, this is probably the one I enjoyed reading the most. I sat down with it in the morning and pretty much read straight through until bed time. It tells the story of Louis Zamperini, a man who is way larger than life. This is the second of the books on this list that rocketed onto the bestseller list and that tells the tale of a remarkable conversion to Christianity. It’s pretty much a must-read. [my review]

Other books I enjoyed:

• Willie Mays by James Hirsch
• Washed & Waiting by Wesley Hill
• Open by Andre Agassi
• Wrestling with an Angel by Greg Lucas