Skip to content ↓

I received an email earlier today reminding me of a dinner engagement I had forgotten about completely. I agreed to it some time ago and didn’t bring my Outlook calendar with me. It turned out to be a great meal with excellent food and pretty good company too. We returned to the convention center to find a couple of new books: Culture Shift by Al Mohler and the newly published In My Place Condemned He Stood by Mark Dever and J.I. Packer. Mark Dever introduced his good friend Al Mohler and after an awkward man-hug between them, Al Mohler took to the pulpit to discuss penal substitution.

This happens only occasionally, but it seems to happen with some regularity when I try to blog a talk by Al Mohler. If he preaches I can typically keep up, but if he does a speech or other kind of session, I often get lost. Such was the case today. Dr. Mohler spoke about penal substitution and did so in a way that was more lecture than sermon. He dealt with the history of this doctrine, the constant attacks upon it and offered a defense of it. I will save you from trying to make sense of my incomprehensible notes and leave it to you to wait for the audio or to purchase the book that I assume will follow this conference. Though it is tough going, it will prove well worth the effort.


  • The Path to Contentment

    The Path to Contentment

    I wonder if you have ever considered that the solution to discontentment almost always seems to be more. If I only had more money I would be content. If I only had more followers, more possessions, more beauty, then at last I would consider myself successful. If only my house was bigger, my influence wider,…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (April 22)

    A La Carte: Why my shepherd carries a rod / When Mandisa forgave Simon Cowell / An open mind is like an open mouth / Marriage: the half-time report / The church should mind its spiritual business / Kindle deals / and more.

  • It Begins and Ends with Speaking

    It Begins and Ends with Speaking

    Part of the joy of reading biography is having the opportunity to learn about a person who lived before us. An exceptional biography makes us feel as if we have actually come to know its subject, so that we rejoice in that person’s triumphs, grieve over his failures, and weep at his death.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    Weekend A La Carte (April 20)

    A La Carte: Living counterculturally during election season / Borrowing a death / The many ministries of godly women / When we lose loved ones and have regrets / Ethnicity and race and the colorblindness question / The case for children’s worship services / and more.

  • The Anxious Generation

    The Great Rewiring of Childhood

    I know I’m getting old and all that, and I’m aware this means that I’ll be tempted to look unfavorably at people who are younger than myself. I know I’ll be tempted to consider what people were like when I was young and to stand in judgment of what people are like today. Yet even…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (April 19)

    A La Carte: The gateway drug to post-Christian paganism / You and I probably would have been nazis / Be doers of my preference / God can work through anyone and everything / the Bible does not say God is trans / Kindle deals / and more.