My life as a writer has taken a strange turn. After struggling with nerve damage for the past few months (which has prevented me from doing a lot of typing) I managed to fracture my arm in Ireland. I guess the next few days will tell whether I can cope with typing while wearing a cast…
(Yesterday on the blog: Six New Books to Consider Reading)
Stop Trying to Draw a Crowd
“Due to our culture’s obsession with being ‘successful,’ many Christian leaders face a temptation to do whatever it takes to draw a crowd. It’s become an acceptable prosperity gospel for church leaders who would never subscribe to any other version of health-and-wealth teaching.”
Enneagram: The Road Back to You, Or to Somewhere Else?
Kevin DeYoung analyzes a new trend. “If you haven’t heard of the Enneagram yet, it won’t be long before you do. After being used for several decades in Catholic retreats and seminars, the nine-type personality tool has seen an explosion of popularity in evangelical circles.”
What Happens When You Have a Stroke (Video)
The animation is perhaps a bit light for the weightiness of the topic, but it’s still a great explanation.
Why Are Younger Evangelicals Fascinated by Roman Catholicism?
“Present-day Evangelicalism has a strange relationship with history. On the one extreme there are those who endorse a ‘gap theory,’ whereby their experience of the Christian life has little if anything to do with a sense of historical continuity. On the other, recent fascinations with romantic and selective appropriations of ‘tradition’ show how easy it is to uncritically embrace beliefs and practices that are idiosyncratic with regards to Scripture. What is at stake is the historical nature of Evangelicalism as such.”
Sexual App-iness
These things get stranger and stranger. “An app for sexual consent. I kid you not. It’s called, not all that creatively, We Consent. It doesn’t really matter who the “we” is, just as long as the consent is there. That is, after all, the primary marker of the new sexular culture. Sexual activity today is parametered only by consent. What could possibly go wrong in that sort of world?”
6 Reality Checks That Hit You in Our Twenties
“The twenties can be an amazing time in your life. You get to taste the liberty of living on your own for the first time. You’re no longer a minor at age twenty-one. You can rent a car at twenty-five. You get to take your first steps in your career path. What’s there not to like? Well, here’s a bit of reality that’s going to hit you in the face like a dodge ball at recess when you’re not paying attention. Maybe that’s a bit strong. Probably not. Life can be rough.”
An African Country Reckons With Its History of Selling Slaves
It is interesting to see other nations grappling with their complicity in the slave trade.
David Brainerd 1718-1747
Nathan Munday writes, “One of Brainerd’s biographers, Vance Christie, states that, ‘On the whole, his radicalism was of a type worthy of emulation.’ Therefore, to mark 300 years since his birth, I thought about how I, as a Christian in my twenties, could imitate or even emulate Brainerd’s so-called ‘radicalism’ (1 Corinthians 1:11). Instead of giving a detailed biography, I have produced three short vignettes which may help us.”
Flashback: How Much Entertainment Is Too Much?
Our entertainment must always be restrained and purposeful, designed to return us to the field of our labor refreshed and renewed.
God’s Word does not merely impart information; it actually creates life. It’s not only descriptive; it’s effective too, God speaking is God acting.
—Michael Horton
