How To Listen to a Sermon (08/26/07 - 5 Comments)
I thought it would be nice to have a guest blogger for the first time in a long while. Today I'm going to post a wonderful little article excerpted from one of George Whitefield's sermons. In this sermon he exposited Luke 8:18 where Jesus said, "Therefore consider carefully how you listen." These pearls of wisdom will help you listen to sermons in a way that will bring great blessing to your soul. Or as Whitefield...
Books Don't Change People--Sentences Do (08/22/07 - 17 Comments)
Teaming with Bob Kauflin to encourage you to dedicate yourself to reading. Yesterday Bob Kauflin wrote about reading (What - Me Read?) in response to a question sent to him by a reader. This young man asked: One facet of your site that is always of interest is your list of books you are currently reading. In addition to your devotional Scripture reading, how much time in a week do you set aside for reading?...
Facing Down the Hurricane (08/18/07 - 12 Comments)
The sovereignty of God in the storm. Thabiti Anyabwile, his family and his church are facing down a hurricane. A recent post at his blog is titled What Do You Think About God When Calamity Strikes? and in this post he makes reference to another recent tragedy and two different responses to it. When the 35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed a few weeks ago, it raised questions of ultimate meaning. When times of tragedy strike...
The Unbearable Weight of Hell (08/16/07 - 19 Comments)
Just thinking seriously about hell presses on my soul and presses upon my heart. I find it difficult to think about hell. Though I know that hell is real and that God means for us to know at least something about it, I find it hard to read about it and to ponder it. I'm sure I'm not alone here. Randy Alcorn's book Heaven has over 300,000 copies in print and there are another 200,000...
Trusting the Instruments (08/15/07 - 7 Comments)
Trusting our instruments rather than our sight or instincts. A few months ago I was watching a program called "Mayday," which I believe is actually several other shows all rolled into one and branded for a Canadian audience. It is a show about disasters, and most notably, plane crashes. It sounds morbid, I admit, but I find it interesting (though I'll admit that it has made my children inordinately afraid of flying. They are now...
Virtual Cheating in a Virtual World (08/13/07 - 14 Comments)
Second Life and cheating in a virtual world. Friday's edition of the Wall Street Journal featured an article about Second Life, a popular online digital world. It is inhabited by people like you and me, but people who take on a new identity--a second life. It is, by all accounts, an engaging experience. This is borne out by the millions of people who have signed up for an account (almost 9 million according to the...
The Porn Myth (08/03/07 - 14 Comments)
A feminist leader affirms what the Bible has been telling us all along. New York Magazine recently featured an interesting article called "The Porn Myth." Written by feminist Naomi Wolf, it was first printed in a 2003 edition of the magazine but is as timely today as ever. I'll say from the outset that her article is just a little bit graphic at times, but only because Wolf deals with the pervasiveness and power of...
Wrestling with Evolution (08/02/07 - 92 Comments)
Christians are accustomed to treating evolution as an account of the world's origins that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and something that a person could only believe in the absence of God or in the absence of faith. But this is not quite fair. There are now many Christians--Christians who treasure the Bible and who affirm the truths of the historic Christian faith--who do believe that the evidence for evolution is too compelling to ignore....
The Extraordinary Ordinary (07/30/07 - 11 Comments)
Theologians sometimes speak of the ordinary means of grace, a term that refers to the preaching of the Word, the sacraments (or ordinances, if you prefer, as most Baptists do) and prayer. These three means are to be the foundation of the church's activity. They are simple measures and ones that can often be overlooked. We tend to encounter these means on a regular basis and for that reason these ordinary means of grace can...
Debtors, Enemies and Criminals (07/29/07 - 2 Comments)
Yesterday I read R.C. Sproul's new book The Truth of the Cross. It's just a short book, coming in at just 167 small pages, but as we'd expect from Sproul, does not waste a word. It's a great little book and one that gave me a lot to think about. I wanted to share just one of those things today, primarily because after finishing the last chapter this morning I went to church and heard...
R.C.'s Bookstore Challenge (07/28/07 - 35 Comments)
I've been reading R.C. Sproul's latest book, The Truth of the Cross. It's just a small book but you know that if Sproul is writing about the atonement that it will be well worth reading. Just seven pages in he discusses visiting a bookstore in a local mall. He found shelves and counters full of books with the categories prominently marked: fiction, nonfiction, business, sports, children's stories, and on and on. In the very back...
Dear Bobbie (Do You Remember?) (07/26/07 - 6 Comments)
Aileen and I were blessed, when we first began dating, to be members of a church where there were many elderly couples. They were couples who exemplified so many beautiful qualities. Christians for decades, they shone with the light of Christ and were living proof that, though physical beauty fades with the years, true inner beauty grows with every year spent in and through Christ. They had a life, a glow, a presence that drew...
Captivity (07/25/07 - 25 Comments)
Barb needed help. In fact, she had asked our friends, her next door neighbors, to help her clean up her house a bit. She was having trouble with her finances and wanted to sell off some valuable items in her house, but first needed to tidy up a bit. I decided to pitch in. Our friends regarded Barb as more of a charity case than a friend. They did not truly enjoy her company but...
The Tyranny of Technology (07/23/07 - 16 Comments)
I'm on vacation this week. Aileen and I are perched in a nice little cottage just over a dune from a beautiful beach. The cottage is great. It has electricity and all kinds of good amenities, but no phone and no access to the internet. There is a television but it is useful only as a means of playing DVDs and receives no channels. My cell phone only picks up a roaming signal out of...
Heartbeat of Miami (07/21/07 - 12 Comments)
Around here we know John Ensor as the author of a couple of books I've reviewed: The Great Work of the Gospel and Doing Things Right in Matters of the Heart. But there's more to him than his books. Last year he took the position of Executive Director of the Urban Initiative Program of Heartbeat International. He is now leading an initiative in Miami, Florida called Heartbeat of Miami, working in an area that has...
Glorying in Humiliation (07/19/07 - 17 Comments)
Over the past few days I've been reading Girls Gone Mild, the new book by Wendy Shalit. Shalit's first book, A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue was published seven years ago and caused quite a stir. Shalit, an orthodox Jew, made the audacious claim that the sexual revolution may not have been entirely beneficial for women. She decried the lack of modesty this revolution has brought about and, according to TIME defended "compellingly,...
Blessed are the Underappreciated (07/16/07 - 12 Comments)
Our culture has an obsession with underappreciation. Everywhere you look there are discussions about this topic. I cannot think of many subjects that are discussed more in the sports world; there are always and forever discussions about which player is the most underappreciated or which position generates the lowest amount of recognition. Look around and you'll soon find discussions of songs, films, actors, blogs and books that are underappreciated--that are not getting the attention they...
Environmentalism and Christianity (07/13/07 - 35 Comments)
There have been several occasions on this site when I've taken the opportunity to express a bit of disgust or alarm with environmentalism. When I do that, I typically get an email or comment asking why I am opposed to protecting the environment. Because I usually only mention these things in the A La Carte section I have never taken the opportunity to explain myself. I want to do that today, even if only briefly....
Encouraging a Blogger (07/12/07 - 30 Comments)
This article is probably going to seem far too self-serving. Yet I'm willing to recklessly plow ahead regardless. Yesterday, while I was talking to Kevin Boling on "Calling for Truth" we received a call from a reader of this site who asked an interesting question. He wanted to know how he, as someone who reads the blog, can serve as an encouragement to me. I thought it was a timely question because I'd been thinking...
The So Much More (07/09/07 - 14 Comments)
Yesterday evening, Boeing rolled out their next generation airliner, the 787 "Dreamliner." A high-tech, mid-sized, wide-body, twin engine jet airliner, the Dreamliner is being hailed as a great technological innovation, primarily for its use of composite materials. These materials make for a much lighter aircraft which in turn leads to significant fuel savings and allows the aircraft to land on shorter runways. It should even allow the aircraft to support higher internal humidity which will...
