Preparing For Da Vinci (03/31/06 - 15 Comments)
A few months ago I signed up for Bob Ross' email updates. I don't know much about the guy, but I believe it was Phil Johnson who recommended his writings. Phil wrote, "He's a prolific writer of passionate commentary on just about everything, ranging from serious theological aberrations to little things that just get under his skin. He's a kind of fundamentalist Andy Rooney." But rather than complaining about the ingredients in Girl Guide cookies,...
Friday Frivolity (03/31/06 - 15 Comments)
Before we get frivolous, Jeff Fuller has asked that I pass along an April Fool's tract he is promoting called "Don't Be An April Fool." You can download it here. I am now firmly established in my new office, which I grow to enjoy more every day. At one point I had all the books on the shelves, but have since begun to try to put them in some semblance of order. Of course prior...
Blogging and the Wisdom of Solomon (03/30/06 - 21 Comments)
Every March I read Proverbs. I'm not sure how this tradition came about, but I always look forward to it. Over the past few days I have been finishing up the book, reading those meaty chapters near the end. I was struck by the constant, ongoing, application to my own life. I began to think of all the applications I could make towards blogging, both as a person who publishes a blog and as one...
The Bully of Bentonville (03/29/06 - 36 Comments)
Wal-Mart is the largest company in the world. It brings in revenues in excess of $280 billion, employs almost one and half million American workers, and controls a large share of the business done by almost every U.S. consumer-product company. More than 138 million shoppers stroll through its 5,300 stores each week. With a company so powerful and so immense, it is easy to find much to complain about. And really, grumbling about Wal-Mart has...
The Gospel (03/28/06 - 36 Comments)
At the Together for the Gospel blog, C.J. Mahaney has challenged the other contributors (Mark Dever, Al Mohler and Ligon Duncan) with two questions. "What is the gospel? What is the most serious threat to the gospel in the evangelical church today?" I thought it would be a good challenge for me to think about this and attempt answers as well. But before I do so, I'd suggest we back up just a little bit...
Feeling and Understanding (03/27/06 - 12 Comments)
This little devotional, which I wrote partially a couple of years ago and finished this morning, was primarily for my own benefit. It was inspired initially, as I recall, by reading John Piper's book Desiring God. I can almost never bring myself to buy greeting cards. When it is Aileen's birthday, I either tell her how I feel or I buy a blank card and fill it with my own words. For some reason it...
Settling In (03/26/06 - 6 Comments)
Well here it is, my first post from the new house. The move yesterday went very smoothly - it took three trips in a 14' U-Haul with about eleven people helping (most of whom, strangely enough, were pastors). We were amazed with the amount of "stuff" we own, but I suppose there is nothing like seeing all of one's possessions in boxes to understand just how blessed one is! Our friends were most gracious with...
DVD Review - The Story of Amy Carmichael (03/25/06 - 1 Comments)
"Amy Carmichael's life is a model of selfless dedication to the Savior, a life of discipleship and abandonment. She lived for one reason, and that was to make God's love known to those trapped in utter darkness." So begins a short biography of Amy Carmichael, provided by InTouch Ministries. Carmichael is one of those Christian personalities from days past that I have never had opportunity to study, though I have often come across her name...
Personal Notes (And A Request) (03/24/06 - 7 Comments)
First off, I'd like to apologize for the lighter-than-usual blogging over the past few days. As you may know, we are preparing to move this weekend. We signed the final papers yesterday morning, hope to be handed the key to the house early this afternoon, and will be actually moving tomorrow. We'll be heading over this evening to clean, move in some of the more fragile and important boxes, replace the locks, and so on....
DVD Review - Hymns of Praise: Charles Wesley (03/24/06 - 2 Comments)
Charles Wesley was a prolific hymn writer who penned a mind-blogging 6,500 hymns over the course of his life, often writing one hymn per day for extended periods of time. Of course only a tiny percentage of these continue to be sung with regularity in today's churches. Among the enduring favorites are the holiday mainstays "Christ The Lord is Risen Today" and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." We also continue to sing, among others, "And...
Book Review - Love Your God With All Your Mind (03/23/06 - 30 Comments)
I have never read beyond the first sentence of Mark Noll's book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. The first sentence was so perfect, so cutting, so convicting, that I felt the rest of the book could only be a let-down. "The scandal of the Evangelical mind," he writes,"is that there is not much of an evangelical mind." It is the perfect opening to a book. I do wonder how the book ends, so at...
Wednesday Miscellania (03/22/06 - 32 Comments)
There are a few topics I have collected over the past week that do not merit an article of their own. So I thought I would compile a few of those into a single article today. Blue Like Jazz: Matt Redmond sent me an email letting me know that he had reviewed Blue Like Jazz. One particular thing caught my eye in his review. He asked, "Since when is autobiography an acceptable genre for Christian...
Book Review - Contending For Our All (03/21/06 - 5 Comments)
Each year at the Bethlehem Conference for Pastors, hosted by Bethlehem Baptist Church of Minneapolis, John Piper delivers a biographical address dealing with a notable Christian figure from the history of the church. Every few years, several of these addresses are compiled into a book as part of "The Swans are Not Silent" series. The most recent of these titles is Contending For Our All, subtitled "Defending Truth and Treasuring Christ in the Lives of...
DVD Review - The League of Grateful Sons (03/21/06 - 3 Comments)
In Prophetic Untimeliness Os Guinness argued, successfully I think, that our culture has an irrational and dangerous fixation on the present and future. Our emphasis on the latest and greatest comes at the expense of all that the past has to offer us. Tragically, this distaste of the past has become prevalent in the past and we, as Christians, risk having to re-learn lessons that we would already know were we to keep one eye...
If Christ Was Not There... (03/20/06 - 37 Comments)
I love, respect and appreciate the ministry of John Piper. I have learned a great deal through his teaching and am convinced that I will continue to do so in the years ahead. Much of what Piper has taught has resounded deeply within my soul and has helped shape and mold my faith. Yet despite all of this, I find his books difficult to read and truthfully, often finding reading them to be something of...
Book Review - The Birth of the Church (03/19/06 - 9 Comments)
The history of the church is so wide, so long, so vast, that it is intimidating to even begin a study of it. Yet the study of church history is exceedingly important, for only in understanding where the church has come from can we truly understand who we are and where we are going. In the past I have tried to read several series and one-volume histories of the church. Some have been wonderful and...
King for a Week - The Rebelution (03/19/06 - 1 Comments)
King for a Week is an honor I bestow on blogs that I feel are making a valuable contribution to my faith and the faith of other believers. Every week (or so) I select a blog, link to it from my site, and add that site's most recent headlines to my left sidebar. While this is really not much, I do feel that it allows me to encourage and support other bloggers while making my...
When Play Becomes Work (03/18/06 - 7 Comments)
A few years ago my wife and I decided that we would invest in sets of toys, rather than buying seemingly random pieces of various sets. We learned this lesson the hard way, actually, as when my son was young, we would buy him toys based on criteria little more advanced than simply purchasing what caught our eyes in the toy story as we shopped a day or two before his birthday. But as he...
Friday Frivolity (03/17/06 - 11 Comments)
It's good to see Amy beginning to get back to posting her humble musings. She's been a bit of a slacker lately! And speaking of Amy, my really-quite pregnant wife made the mistake of reading Amy's birth story in which she describes the rather difficult time she had in giving birth to her latest bundle of joy. Thankfully I was able to console Aileen with the knowledge that her path to childbirth always leads her...
The William Tyndale Story (03/17/06 - 3 Comments)
The Torchlighters video series is a new series of animated DVD's dedicated to "Highlighting the honor, integrity and life-changing experiences of those well-known and little-known Christian men, women and children who in response to God's call, dedicated their lives to a life of whole-hearted commitment and passionate service to Jesus." It is a production of Christian History Institute along with International Films and Voice of the Martyrs. The first in this series was The Jim...
The Study of History (03/16/06 - 14 Comments)
While I currently work as a web designer, and despite receiving training in another area of the computer field (network administration, for those who may be interested), my most significant training was in history. It was history that I studied while in college and it is, in many ways, still my first love. In the eight or ten years since I completed college I have continued to read in history, and in particular, in church...
He Who Frames The Terms Of The Debate... (03/15/06 - 18 Comments)
I recently read David Kupelian's The Marketing of Evil, a book which disusses how so many of the social ills we see in our society have not merely happened, but have been actively marketed and promoted by men and women with specific, unbiblical agendas (you can read my review of this book here). One pearl of wisdom which Kupelian repeats throughout the book is that the person who frames the terms of a debate almost...
It's Not A Compliment (03/14/06 - 21 Comments)
It was a good couple of months ago that a little article on an obscure web site caught my eye. For some reason, that now escapes my mind, I found myself at the web site of The Peninsula, which describes itself as "Qatar's Leading English Daily." I hadn't been there before and I haven't been there since, except to read this particular article. The title of the article is, "400 sheep fall off cliff in...
Getting Serious About Getting Married (03/13/06 - 39 Comments)
Celibacy is for the celibate. That is a succinct summary of Debbie Maken's argument in Getting Serious About Getting Married. This book represents a new movement but old movement within the Christian world to re-examine what the church believes on the issues of marriage and singleness. Singleness, we are told, is a gift of God. But, Maken asks, "if singleness is a gift, then why does it make us feel so miserable so often? Does...
Book Review - Decisions, Decisions (03/12/06 - 4 Comments)
Life is made up of seemingly endless decisions. We face decisions every day of our lives – some are as minor as what to wear or what to eat, while others may be huge, impacting our lives or the lives of hundreds or even millions of others. As Christians it is crucial that we understand Biblical principles on how to make decisions that will honor and glorify God. It is to this subject that the...
The Spirit's Role In Helping Us Understand Scripture (03/11/06 - 26 Comments)
Over the past few days, I have been reading J.P. Moreland's book, Love Your God With All Your Mind. It is a good book; deeply challenging. Moreland says many of the same things Nancy Pearecy did several years later in the much-lauded Total Truth. Like Pearcey, Moreland is concerned with the intellectual environment within Evangelicalism, and increasingly worried about the presence of the sacred/secular dichotomy that exists within the church as much as without. While...
Friday Frivolity (Pastor Rushes, Christian Atheists, And More) (03/10/06 - 21 Comments)
My friend Matthew sent me an interesting article today. It is the story of a Christian athiest. Yes, you read that correct: a Christian atheist. Isn't postmodernism wonderful? The article begins like this: I don't believe in God. I don't believe Jesus Christ was the son of a God that I don't believe in, nor do I believe Jesus rose from the dead to ascend to a heaven that I don't believe exists. Given these...
Ligonier Ministries National Conference (03/09/06 - 56 Comments)
Today marks the opening day of the Ligonier Ministries National Conference. It kicks off this morning with several pre-conference sessions dealing with "The Intimate Marriage." This morning's epeakers are Dr. R.C. Sproul Jr. and Dr. Kenneth Jones. Joni Eareckson Tada was expected to speak but apparently was advised by her doctor to cancel her committment due to health concerns. The conference proper begins this evening with sessions by Dr. John MacArthur (speaking on "Jesus, the...
Book Review - Wasted Faith (03/09/06 - 7 Comments)
Pursuing God-A Seeker's Guide is Jim Elliff's short book for those who are drawn toward God, but want more understanding. It is an excellent guide to help those whom God is drawing to Himself and gives a solid, biblical explanation of the basics of the Christian faith. Wasted Faith is a natural follow-up, a book that challenges those who have made a profession of faith to ensure that their salvation is sure. "What is most...
Revolutionary Studies? (03/08/06 - 10 Comments)
It is always enjoyable to me when I see secular experts stumble across something they think is revolutionary, yet it is merely something that Christians have known and believed for years. Associated Press writer Samantha Critchell recently reported on a pair of recent studies which conclude that children, and girls in particular, are greatly influenced by their parents, and especially their fathers, in their attitudes towards sexuality. The first study seems to indicate that sexuality...
Book Review - The Tipping Point (03/07/06 - 37 Comments)
Malcolm Gladwell needs a haircut. This was one of the first things I noticed about The Tipping Point: the photo of Gladwell and his Yancey-like hair. It's hard to take a guy with hair like that too seriously, but I'm glad that I did, as The Tipping Point is a fascinating book. The Tipping Point is a phrase used to describe that "magic moment when an idea, trend or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips,...
A Piece of Internet History (03/07/06 - 16 Comments)
You can own a piece of Internet history by bidding on this bona fide, genuine, Phil Johnson (a.k.a. PyroManiac) bumper sticker, autographed by Phil himself! These bumper stickers were part of a very limited run and are no longer available. Phil was gracious enough to give me one of the very last of these stickers and was kind enough to autograph it. I'm heartless enough to now sell it. Phil thinks it will sell for...
Book Review - Marley and Me (03/06/06 - 5 Comments)
I recently decided that I would attempt to read not only books that are published and widely read within the Christian community, but also in the mainstream. To that end I walked into a Los Angeles Barnes & Nobles on Saturday and decided I would buy whatever was listed as being the current top seller among non-fiction. It just so happened that this dubious honor went to Marley & Me: Life and Love with the...
The Shepherd's Conference - Initial Reflections (03/06/06 - 23 Comments)
There is always something a little bit strange about returning from a conference. When at such a gathering one's mind is set on a particular topic for a day, two days, five days. And what's more, there are hundreds or thousands of other people in attendance, all of whom are focused on this same subject. For the duration of the conference a whole group of people are living in a little world nearly all their...
The Marketing of Evil (03/05/06 - 9 Comments)
"As Americans we've come to tolerate, embrace, and even champion many things that would have horrified our parent's generation. Things like abortion-on-demand virtually up to the moment of birth, judges banning the Ten Commandments from public places, a national explosion of middle-school sex, the slow starvation of the disabled, thousands of homosexuals openly flouting the law and getting "married," and online porn creating late-night sex addicts in millions of middle-class homes." What has happened to...
Session 9 - Ligon Duncan (03/04/06 - 20 Comments)
This is the final session of the 2006 Shepherd’s Conference. J. Ligon Duncan, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Jackson, Mississippi and chairman of The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, will bring us the final address. It is interesting to see that this place has cleared out quite a bit already as clearly many of the pastors have needed to leave early to return for Sunday worship services in their home churches. Chris Taylor,...
Session 8 - Al Mohler (03/04/06 - 3 Comments)
This is my final day at the conference. The conference proper will end at lunchtime today, though attendees are encouraged to remain until after a communion service tomorrow afternoon. However, I will be spending the day in and around Los Angeles before heading to the airport to catch the redeye flight home so that I can celebrate my son’s sixth birthday with him tomorrow. I made my way into the worship center a little bit...
Session 7 - R.C. Sproul (03/03/06 - 40 Comments)
This has been an encouraging week. It has been a powerful week. I have learned a lot this week, but perhaps more about service than anything else. I have seen young men, so often the type of people who are proud, joyfully traveling with older men in order to serve them. I have seen a whole church commit itself to the service of thousands of people who are strangers to them. I have met leaders...
Session 6 - Question and Answer (03/03/06 - 7 Comments)
Over the lunch break this afternoon I elected not to go anywhere off-campus, but to just sit and relax. This was much needed and was very rewarding. Near the end of this time I was privileged to be given a tour of the seminary library by the librarian, Dennis Swanson. Of particular interest was a room containing a multitude of old, valuable Bibles and other books. The library even has a first edition of John...
Seminar 5 - Carey Hardy - How To Raise a Pharisee (03/03/06 - 7 Comments)
This morning finds us at the fifth and final seminar. I have chosen to attend one led by Carey Hardy, which he has entitled How to Raise a Pharisee: Avoiding legalism in the home.� Carey is senior executive pastor at Grace Church and an adjunct professor at The Master�s College and Seminary. The pharisees were the original legalists. �Pharisees� means �separated ones� and this is something in which they took great pride. They separated themselves...
Session 5 - Steve Lawson (03/03/06 - 9 Comments)
There is a little newsletter given out here at the conference called (not too originally) The Conference Chronicle. This morning it listed some “food facts.” Apparently thus far the conference attendees have gone through 835 gallons of coffee (0 of which can be attributed to me), 6,580 donuts (1 2 of which were consumed by yours truly), 10,000 hard boiled eggs and 750 pounds of potatoes, which were used in a potato salad they will...
Tim Meets Phil, C.J. and Tommy (03/02/06 - 19 Comments)
Tim meets Phil: Tim meets C.J.: Tim meets Tommy: Tim also met Mark Dever today but forgot to ask for a photograph. Maybe next time....
General Session 5 - Albert Mohler (03/02/06 - 14 Comments)
That’s it! From now on I’m deciding where we eat for dinner. We ended up going to a great little deli that was supposed to be nearby. It was not exactly nearby and after eating what was admittedly a nice meal, we raced back across town, or attempted to race, through L.A. traffic. We made it with about a minute to spare. I’m sure Dr. Mohler would not have begun his speech tonight without me...
Seminar 4 - Phil Johnson - Dead Right Part II (03/02/06 - 4 Comments)
Phil, evidently enjoying a conversation, showed up late for this seminar. It took a tap on the shoulder from his wife to get him down to this basement room. Phil, it turns out, likes to talk. Who knew? This session is called “Dead Right Part 2.” Part 1 was a seminar from last year’s conference and Phil gave what he felt was a good critique of the fundamentalist movement. It turned out that it was...
Seminar 3 - Phil Johnson - The Fad Driven Church (03/02/06 - 15 Comments)
This seminar deals with the tendency of so many churches today to be driven by fads and pre-packaged programs to influence the agenda of the church. Phil will attempt to show why this is a really bad strategy. There are many pastors and leaders who feel that, to be convincing to their audience, they need to keep abreast of what happens to be the latest craze. There are many web sites that package sermons around...
General Session 4 - John MacArthur (Q & A) (03/02/06 - 14 Comments)
The sense of anticipation in and around this building has built to a crescendo. No, it has nothing to do with the speaker who will next take the pulpit, nor with the topic he will address. It has to do with books. The patio outside the worship center is filled with tens of thousands of books and everyone knows that in just another hour, the doors will fling open and all of the pastors will...
General Session 3 - Mark Dever (03/02/06 - 15 Comments)
Perhaps one of the most amusing aspect of this conference is the regular “pastor rushes.” Every time a session begins, a crowd gathers around each of the ten or twelve doors to the worship center. At the moment the doors open, a crowd of pastors rush to the front, seeking to nab the premier spots. They will, quite literally, sprint to the front, sometimes even pushing and shoving a little bit to get there. It...
Second General Session - John MacArthur (03/01/06 - 25 Comments)
I have not visited very many churches that are as large and important as Grace Community Church, but I have been inside a few. I was not prepared for the “plainness” of Grace. The church is, to be honest, quite unremarkable but for its size. The inside is not at all exciting - the walls and ceilings are plain. The walls are unadorned and the entire focus of the church is a rather simple pulpit...
Seminar 2 - Nathan Busenitz - Evangelical Charismatics (03/01/06 - 40 Comments)
It is interesting to look around and see how many people travel alone, and how many travel in groups. There are a great number of people, it seems, who travel to this conference on their own. These people tend to sit quietly on their own, sneaking into the auditoriums before they are supposed to be open to the public and sitting quietly with their books or laptops. There are also plenty who have come with...
Seminar 1 - Phil Johnson - Is The Reformation Over? (03/01/06 - 16 Comments)
It has become quickly apparent that this conference exists not merely to equip pastors, but also to serve and honor them (and perhaps even spoil them a little). At the close of the earlier session one of the organizers announced that there was an area for “shoe-shining and everything else a pastor needs.” I don’t know too many pastors that need to have their shoes shined (or who need to travel to Los Angeles to...
First General Session - John MacArthur (03/01/06 - 20 Comments)
I would not have expected John MacArthur to begin the conference with a comedic monologue, yet that is what he did. He made jokes about the length of his tenure at Grace and even his age. He asked for how many people this was their first Shepherd’s Conference. When at least half the men in attendance stood up, he asked, “So whose conference have you been at?” He remarked, though, that looking at the number...
Conference Kickoff (03/01/06 - 14 Comments)
So here I am. I'm sitting in the worship center of Grace Community Church. Apart from the orchestra, which is doing some last minute practicing, and a few scattered conference staff, talking in small clusters, the auditorium is empty. The Master's Seminary choir, which must number at least 100, just finished practicing a few of the songs they will lead us in later today. I arrived in Los Angeles yesterday afternoon and immediately met up...
