"The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment is a truly important work-one that should be required reading not only for church leaders, but for all sober-minded laypeople as well."

John MacArthur (From the Foreword)

"If you were more discerning you’d probably buy this book. If you do read this book, you will be! This book on discernment is simple, clear, well-written and well-illustrated...

Mark Dever

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July 2006 Archive

A Blockbuster Deal (07/31/06 - 33 Comments)
Today is Trade Deadline day in the Major Leagues. My team, the Bluejays, are expected to be "buyers" this year, indicating a desire to compete with the Red Sox and Yankees to win their division. With less than two hours to go, they have not made a move. As I hunted around, looking for clues as to their inactivity, I began to wonder what the church would look like if it ran on a market...

Little Sins (07/31/06 - 14 Comments)
The Pacific Campaign of the Second World War has always fascinated me. In many ways, it seemed like a nonsensical series of battles between the United States and Japan. As the Americans sought revenge for the devastation of Pearl Harbor, and as they sought to curtail Japanese aggression in the East, they fought their way across the Pacific Ocean, moving slowly and deliberately from island to island. Tiny, seemingly insignificant pieces of rock, jutting from...

Uprooting Anger (07/30/06 - 3 Comments)
There are some sins that torment only some of us, while there are others that are universal. Pride is a universal sin. So is anger. And, unfortunately, I'm good at both of these. I do love to be angry. It feels good to be angry at times, and especially when the anger is righteous, or is perceived to be righteous. But, if anger feels good during the moment, it can sure feel embarrassing and shameful...

Christian Rap (07/29/06 - 53 Comments)
I really dislike rap music, or most rap music at any rate. For some reason, I have only rarely been able to appreciate it as a form of musical expression. I'd like to think that my powers of discernment have decided that this music is somehow inappropriate for Christians, but I think it's more likely simply a matter of preference. And beyond simple preference, I have long been disgusted by the culture of sex, violence...

Rejoice With Those Who Rejoice (07/28/06 - 13 Comments)
Last weekend the house next to us was given an extreme makeover. Our neighbor, who has three sons with varying disabilities, ranging from autism to dietary problems, was sent away for the weekend and returned to find her house completely renovated. The volunteers who gave of their time for this program did an incredible job. They replanted and resodded the gardens, laid new floors, repainted the entire house, themed the bedrooms and added some beautiful...

One Thousand (07/27/06 - 17 Comments)
This is my 1000th consecutive day of blogging. This occasion has given me the opportunity to reflect on what blogging has meant to me over the past years and what I expect to see and do in the future. I hate writing about myself. It seems so prideful. So arrogant. So empty. I've long been inspired by the words of the great British preacher and philanthropist Andrew Reed who, when asked by his sons to...

The Discipline of Grace (07/26/06 - 2 Comments)
Twenty five years after its release, I finally read Jerry Bridges' classic The Pursuit of Holiness (you can read my review here). I am glad to say that it only took me twelve to read The Discipline of Grace which has recently been republished by NavPress. A former ECPA Gold Medallion Book Award winner, this is a title I'm sure I will read again before another twelve years have elapsed. The Discipline of Grace is,...

King For A Week - Pastorway (07/26/06 - 8 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...

Influential Bloggers (07/25/06 - 38 Comments)
Over the past few weeks I have noticed a fair bit of discussion in the blogosphere about the subject of influence. Various bloggers have been attempting to define influence and to understand which bloggers are the most influential. This is a surprisingly difficult topic for influence truly is difficult to measure and define. It is tempting to understand influence in ways that are easily quantifiable. Blogs have long been ranked primarily in two ways: traffic...

The Discipline of Choices (07/24/06 - 8 Comments)
Early this morning I finally finished my slow and thoughtful reading of Jerry Bridges' The Discipline of Grace. I rarely dwell so long on a single book, but because of the sheer quantity and quality of Bible-based teaching within this book, I felt compelled to read it slowly and meditatively. It was well worth the effort and the time spent. Yesterday I read about the importance of disciplining myself to make choices that glorify God....

Hood (07/23/06 - 12 Comments)
Having read fifty or sixty nonfiction books already this year, I began to crave some lighter, easier reading. And, in a case of great timing, an Advance Reader Copy of Stephen Lawhead's Hood arrived in the mail just a few days ago. Lawhead, known for writing fantasy and historical fiction, has set his sights on the greatest of the English heroes, Robin Hood. But rather than simply retelling the oft-told story, he has re imagined...

Sports and Sportsmanship (07/22/06 - 13 Comments)
Yesterday my son and I made our annual or semi-annual trip to the Rogers Center to take in a Bluejays game. We chose a good night. The Jays were playing against their arch-rivals the Yankees, and were playing before one of the biggest crowds in recent memory. The last time I was part of a crowd of over 40,000 people must have been during the Bluejays' glory days of 1992 to 1993. It was the...

Friday Frivolity (07/21/06 - 3 Comments)
Series - I had considered posting the third part of my series on children who die in infancy, but I've decided to hold off until next week. The discussion on the previous two entries continues to go strong, so I thought I would let that carry on before posting the third part. So stay tuned for that next week. At the very least it is bound to be controversial. Extreme Makeover - A few days...

Original Sin & The Death of Infants (2) (07/20/06 - 75 Comments)
In the article I wrote yesterday I began discussing the issue of what happens to children who die in infancy. I looked at the view which states that all children who die are immediately ushered into heaven and I pointed out what I feel to be a serious flaw with that argument. Today I'll continue this discussion by commenting on the other two positions popular among Christians and end with a statement of my beliefs....

Original Sin & the Death of Infants (07/19/06 - 79 Comments)
It seems that people were surprised to learn, in an article I wrote last week, that I presume my children to be unsaved. The article, What's Dead Looks Dead, expressed my belief that my children (ages 6, 3, and 3 months) are, at this time, likely unsaved and are thus spiritually dead. The subsequent discussion was very interesting and the commenters ranged from Reformed Baptists to Roman Catholics and just about everyone between. I was...

Confirmation Bias (07/18/06 - 15 Comments)
"The moment a person forms a theory his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory." (Thomas Jefferson) Last night a reader of this site took the time to send me a link to an article I had somehow missed reading last week. It was written by Dr. Albert Mohler and discussed the subject of "confirmation bias." Dr. Mohler traces an article written by Michael Shermer of Scientific American as he...

Onward Christian...Soldiers? (07/17/06 - 15 Comments)
There was a time when Christians used militaristic language without shame. In fact, only one or two generations ago, Christians often spoke of being part of an army fighting against the forces of darkness. Hymns like "Onward Christian Soldiers" were sung often and were sung proudly. But in recent years, this type of language has fallen out of favor in the church. Many feel that this language serves to deter the unchurched from responding to...

Praying Backwards (07/16/06 - 6 Comments)
Not too long ago I began to pray that God would teach me to pray. A bit of an odd request, is it not? Obviously I already knew something about prayer if I was praying about it in the first place, but my concern was that despite my prayer habits, which are sometimes good and sometimes bad, I have often felt that I just don't really understand what prayer is all about. When I pray...

A Whole New Look (07/15/06 - 56 Comments)
It has been one of those long days. But it's been a good day. We are still in the midst of a heat-wave here in Toronto. While the temperatures are not all that high, the humidity is through the roof leaving us with some hot, sticky, nasty weather. But it gave us an opportunity to take the children to the local splash pad and to let them have fun there. And we've spent much of...

What's Dead Looks Dead (07/14/06 - 65 Comments)
A couple of months ago I wrote about Tiazzi's last day. Tiazzi was our dog and, unfortunately, she began to lose her mind. Because her behavior was becoming increasingly erratic, we conferred with her veterinarian and decided that it would be best to put her down. It was a very difficult decision, but we are confident that we made the right choice. In order to help the children deal with the loss of the dog...

King For A Week - Married Life (07/13/06 - 17 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...

I Am The Lord (07/13/06 - 2 Comments)
A few nights ago, in our time of family worship, we read Exodus 6, a chapter that serves as a prelude of sorts to the plagues which are about to befall Egypt. The chapter begins with God telling Moses that He will soon deliver the Israelites from their centuries of slavery. "Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong...

Reinventing Jesus (07/12/06 - 8 Comments)
The Da Vinci Code, until recently the talk of the Christian world, seems to have rapidly become yesterday's news. Though the book continues to sell and the film continues to draw, Christians seem to have lost interest. That is often the way things are in the church these days. Christians seems to react quickly and enthusiastically to a perceived threat, but these threats soon fade and Christians move on to other things. While many of...

Ambivalence (07/11/06 - 42 Comments)
I continued in my reading of Jerry Bridge's The Discipline of Grace this morning. I am only a few chapters into the book and have already learned a great deal from it. Though it was written in 1994, it seems that I missed its first publishing and am glad to have discovered it after the second. The book flows logically from the groundwork laid in Bridge's classic The Pursuit of Holiness. In this book he...

The Tyranny of Quiet Time (07/10/06 - 40 Comments)
Like all Christians, I love my quiet time. I am always thrilled at the prospect of sitting down during the few quiet moments before a busy day to spend some time alone with God--a few moments one-on-one with my Creator. I love to open the Bible and to carefully and systematically read the Word of God, allowing it to penetrate my heart. I love to sit and think deeply and meditatively about the Scriptures and...

Father, Son and Holy Spirit (07/09/06 - 5 Comments)
For the past couple of months I have been using Sunday postings on this site to feature reviews of books I wrote a while ago, probably before most of you began reading the site. I reviewed some awfully good books while I was the only person who bothered reading this site and thought it might be a valuable exercise to share some of those reviews. I believe I have just about reache the end of...

A Thousand Resurrections (07/08/06 - 7 Comments)
Twenty five years ago, when she was just twenty two, Maria Garriott and her husband moved to the inner city. Settling in a poverty-stricken area of Baltimore, the Garriotts set about beginning a church that would reach out to the multiracial neighborhoods around them. A Thousand Resurrections tells this story. The book's subtitle, "An Urban Spiritual Journey," is instructive. While it would be easy to see this book as the story of the building of...

Lactivism and Public Breastfeeding (07/07/06 - 73 Comments)
Earlier this week I encountered an amusing but startling article in the blog section of the Palm Beach Post. The author discussed a recent situation involving Victoria's Secret. "Victoria's Secret became the target of breast-feeding activists this week after women in Racine, Wis., and Quincy, Mass., went into the popular women's lingerie store and were told they couldn't breastfeed their children on the sales floor. It's hard to imagine that Victoria's Secret, of all places,...

WorshipGod06 (07/06/06 - 6 Comments)
Just about a month from now, I will, Lord willing, have the privilege of live-blogging the Sovereign Grace Ministries WorshipGod06 Conference. This is the fifth occurence of this biannual event devoted to the theology, practice, and joy of God-honoring worship. It will be my first time attending. The main sessions of this year's conference will explore the theme of "the glory of His presence." "Throughout Scripture a distinguishing mark of God's people has been His...

Evidence and Paul's Journeys (07/06/06 - 4 Comments)
The Bible teaches that it is not historical or archaeological evidence lies at the heart of Christianity, but a childlike faith. Neither is it signs, wonders or miracles. The Scripture tells us that "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign." A generation that serves the Lord will be content with a faith that God is who He says He is and that He has done what He says He has done. Nevertheless, because...

Feedback Files - Bibliolatry (07/05/06 - 27 Comments)
It has been quite a while since I posted a "Feedback Files" article. I guess I have taken to answering more correspondence privately than publicly. For those not familiar with the term, "Feedback Files" refers to the times that I use this site to answer questions sent to me by readers. I'm often willing to research and address questions or theological conundrums. Of course I am really quite unqualified to answer many of these questions...

While Europe Slept (07/04/06 - 37 Comments)
In 1998 Bruce Bawer moved from America, his homeland, to Europe. Stunned by the accepting attitudes of Europeans, and dismayed by much of what he had experienced in the United States, he moved first to Holland and then to Norway. But all was not as it had seemed. "The main reason I'd been glad to leave America was Protestant fundamentalism. But Europe, I eventually saw, was falling prey to an even more alarming fundamentalism whose...

Behold The King! (07/03/06 - 26 Comments)
I was thrilled several years ago to hear that the book The Lord of the Rings was going to be made into a series of epic films. With production budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars and the bulk of the work being done outside of Hollywood, I knew this series was going to be good! But more than being able to watch a great series of films, I was thrilled to know that...

Book Review - On Being Presbyterian (07/02/06 - 13 Comments)
Despite being Baptist, I love and admire Presbyterianism. My parents are Presbyterians and raised me in that environment. Though I may not necessarily believe in them, I am at least sympathetic to many of the tenets of Presbyterianism, such as covenant theology, infant baptism and the Presbyterian system of church government. It was with some interest, then, that I began to read On Being Presbyterian by Sean Michael Lucas. This book, recently published by P&R...

Canada Day Reflections (07/01/06 - 8 Comments)
It has become customary that on July 1, Canada, I reflect, if only briefly, on my nation. Two years ago I wrote "On Canada Day and Kissing The Mailman." It was something of a mournful article in which I reflected on Canada's decision to elect the still-corrupt Liberal Party, despite years of waste, corruption and mismanagement. "This year, as I reflect on my country, I feel a bit like a man who has caught his...