The more I learn of God, the more I marvel at the complexity of his being and purpose—the sheer eternality of it, the otherness of it. He is knowable, but knowable only in the smallest part, he reveals himself to us, but does not reveal all of himself to us; not even close. He truly…
Today we continue with reading John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and we have come to the third stage of Christian’s journey. Just to do something a little bit different, I decided to listen to it while reading it, and quite enjoyed doing it that way. It seemed to help with my overall comprehension. Plus, the…
7 Motives in Our Work – Matt Perman asks what our primary motives ought to be as we consider work. He comes up with a list of seven good motives. Child Labor – “Child labor has never been a particularly pretty part of society, but during the industrial revolution, the practice became even uglier than…
Reading Michael Wittmer’s excellent new book The Last Enemy, I came across a powerful little story that I wanted to share with you. I trust you will enjoy it as I did. My friend Jeff stopped by the hospital to visit one of his dearest senior saints. Charlotte was in her eighties, but she had…
I think I knew more about preaching before I began to preach. At least I was more sure of the things I was sure of. Now that I preach on a regular basis I have a better assessment of how little I really know about the art or science or whatever it is of preaching…
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made – “The perfection of this little creature shocked each one of us in the operating theatre. In a mere 10 weeks, God weaved together a tiny person with fingers, toes, eyes, ears, mouth and nose. This little one looks peacefully asleep in the nourishing tissue of its mother’s womb. The sacred…
The current issue of Preaching magazine has Albert Mohler’s annual list of recommended books for pastors. There is a good mix of books here, though I suspect most pastors would take just about the whole year to get through the entire list!
Can Britain Tolerate Christians? – “In this morass of rights claims and counterclaims, British Christians may be forgiven for seeing a larger assault on their values and traditions. Yet lost in the country’s increasingly awkward debates over religious versus sexual freedoms, and the competing sensibilities of this or that protected group, is an even more…
I find it tremendously valuable to have my prayers guided by Scripture. As I pray about sharing the gospel with others, or as I pray for those who do not yet know the Lord, there are many passages from the Bible that can give focus and direction. Here are just a few of them. 1.…
Sin is inherently anti-God, inherently pro-self. Each time I sin I make a statement about myself and a statement about (and against) God. Each time I sin, I declare my own independence, my own desire to be rid of God; I declare that I can do better than God, that I can be a better…
Crystal Cathedral – “On Sunday, Pastor Sheila Schuller Coleman appeared for apparently the last time before some 800 people at the morning service of the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif.” USA Today says there is a cautionary tale in there. The Lorax – WORLD goes to the movies and says “The Lorax proves to…
Jonathan Edwards says that a truly Christian love is a humble, broken-hearted kind of love. You will want to read and ponder this short quote from The Religious Affections. Christian affections are like Mary’s precious ointment that she poured on Christ’s head, that filled the whole house with a sweet odor. That was poured out…
Christians and Mixed Martial Arts – Owen Strachan: “I have spoken out fairly strongly MMA in the past, and my basic convictions about the sport haven’t changed. Christians should encourage the development of physical courage and ability in young men, yes. They should reject pacificism, and they should encourage boys to be adventurous and tough.…
Paul was a humble man. To read of his life and to read his letters is to encounter the testimony of a man who had been utterly captured by pride until the Lord set him free. Free from the captivity of pride he could now say, “Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners,…
This week’s Free Stuff Friday is sponsored by Ligonier Ministries and it just happens to coincide with their National Conference which you can watch live online. Ligonier is offering 5 prize packages (which means that there will be 5 winners). Here are the packages: Needless to say, this is an amazing giveaway, so don’t dawdle!…
Providence Is Sweet – Sometimes we can all use a reminder of just what a treasure the Bible is. This post will help you with that. My Response to Kony – I really appreciated Matt Papa’s response to the Kony 2012 campaign. He recorded a great little video that gives some important context and asks…
This is my once-monthly post on the Puritan John Owen. In this series of posts I am sharing some of what John Owen says about putting sin to death, or what he calls mortification. I have been going through John Owen’s book Overcoming Sin and Temptation and trying to distill each chapter to its essence—to…
This morning we come to our second reading in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Those of you who are reading along with me should now have read “The Second Stage” of the journey. If you haven’t been reading along but would like to, it’s easy to do; just find a copy of the book and get…
Ligonier National Conference – The 2012 Ligonier National Conference, “The Christian Mind,” starts today at 1pm EST. During the conference R.C. Sproul will be joined by Sinclair Ferguson, Michael Horton, Steven Lawson, Albert Mohler, and others. Together they’ll consider the importance of building a Christian worldview, the role of education in the Christian life, science…
Today I’ve got another batch of books that I didn’t review. Life is such that there are lots of great books that I just cannot find the time to read and many other books I’m simply not qualified to review. These books tend to find their way into these round-ups of the ones I received…