The Gospel in Seven Words – Michael Horton asks, “So how would you summarize the gospel—the very heart of the Christian message—in seven words?” He then looks at a long variety of answers recently submitted to The Christian Century magazine. The Great Worldview Exercise – Dr. Mohler: on how the upcoming election is an exercise…
So many Christians live their lives racked with guilt and shame. They think back to the things they did, the sins they committed, whether two days ago or two decades, and they live under a cloud of shame. This shame hurts, it burns, it incapacitates. It raises this question: What is the place of guilt,…
Grace Looking Back – My mother has written a few guests posts for me over the years, but has now (finally!) begun her own blog. I can’t deny some bias, but I’ve really been enjoying it. Discipling in the Church – The new edition of the 9Marks Journal deals with discipling in the church. There…
Today marks the release of Gravity, the newest project from Lecrae, the most prominent of the Christian rappers. I received an advance copy of the album and, being entirely underqualified to judge or review it, sat down with my friend Sope (a.k.a. Spoken whom you may remember as my co-conspirator in The Middle-Aged White Guy’s…
It’s a feeling every reader knows and loves, and perhaps especially the reader of theology. It is the feeling that comes as you read a book and find yourself thinking “This could change everything.” There are some books that go straight to what you think you know, what you are so sure of, what you’ve…
Christian Tribalism – Thabiti: “Dare anyone deny that Christians are among the most tribal of peoples in the world? I’m not thinking of the way Christians may legitimately distinguish the church from the world, the saved from the lost, or the way lines must necessarily be drawn between orthodox and heretical views, or even about…
It is Labor Day today, and we anticipate spending the day with friends. We will be spending the day with these particular friends because a few weeks ago they emailed and said, “We want to do something on Labor Day. With you. At your house.” They just went ahead and invited themselves over and invited…
Understanding the Times – The current edition of Tabletalk magazine has an interesting interview with Carl Trueman. I especially appreciated his take on the importance of church history and the real scandal of the Evangelical mind. Discovery – Here’s a high-resolution 360 degree view of the flight deck of Space Shuttle Discovery. It’s amazingly rudimentary…
John Flavel was one of the great Puritan preachers and authors. Much of Flavel’s ministry was toward sailors, so he often relied on nautical metaphors and terminology. In An Honest, Well Experienced Heart, Adam Embry shares a poem titled “My Naughty Heart.” “Naughty” rhymes with “knotty,” a play on words that falls in the middle…
September is here (Where did summer go?)! To ring in the new month I’ve got great new desktop wallpaper for you to download. This month’s wallpaper was created by Zack Smith of Uplyft Creative. A few notes: Your desktop or laptop may take any of the sizes, depending on your monitor size and a host…
This week’s Free Stuff Friday is a little bit different than the standard Friday fare. This week’s sponsor is Edgar’s, a shop at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. “Edgar’s, Southern Seminary’s retailer of all things class, is located in the Honeycutt Campus Center, across from Founders’ Café. Edgar’s, the namesake of Southern Seminary founder E.Y.…
I have been reading (or, more accurately, listening to) the book Columbine by Dave Cullen. Written ten years after the 1999 school shootings in Littleton, Colorado, it seeks to be the definitive account of an event that left an indelible mark on America and the world. As I listened yesterday on my way home from…
When To Be Suspicious – There is some wise counsel in this article. “Once in a while you will stumble across a sentence that goes something like ‘theology says…’, ‘philosophy says..’, or ‘economics says..’. That is, I would argue, is the time to be suspicious.” Public Worship Is Better than Private Worship – David Murray…
I have read Jerry Bridges’ books all out of order, undoubtedly not the best way to read an author’s works. However, doing this has shown me something I find interesting: Throughout his writing career, he has remained on a single trajectory and has emphasized and re-emphasized only a few themes. In reading The Discipline of…
The Porn Gateways – Here’s a helpful word for those who struggle with pornography: “While taking a deeper look into the heart of the sin, I noticed that people were battling their sins (of pornography and lust) at a shallow surface level, and deep at the root of the problem were ‘innocent’ gateways sins that…
Has anyone ever seen God? This is a question that arises naturally when reading through Scripture. You’re making your way through Exodus and then you read in 24:9-10, Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, 10 and they saw the God of Israel. There was under…
Justin Taylor recently revived Mark Dever’s 2007 series of articles titled “Where’d All These New Calvinists Come From?” This was a ten-part series that looked to the rise of New Calvinism and sought to discover the sources of a theological resurgence. Dever said, Of course, theologically, the answer is “because of the sovereignty of God.”…
Solid Joys – Solid Joys is a new, free application available from Desiring God for iPhone and iPad which provides a short daily devotional excerpt from the ministry of John Piper. A Stark Contrast – I enjoyed reading this blogger’s experience of inadvertently witnessing an adoption. Angry Christians – Here is D.A. Carson talking about…
I remember once watching a television show, a sitcom, where a man walked into a restaurant and sat at a table. When the waiter came over, this man put a stack of one dollar bills on the table and explained to the waiter, “This stack of bills represents your possible tip. Every time you do…
I have been on yet another biography kick in the past few months. Just in the last couple of weeks I’ve digested two fantastic biographies of characters who are at once very different and yet in at least one way not entirely dissimilar–Queen Elizabeth II and Abraham Lincoln. As I read these two books I…