It was on this day in 1525 that former monk Martin Luther married former nun Katharina von Bora. Luther was 41 and Katharina 26. Their marriage was very significant and made a statement nearly as important as Luther’s famous “Here I stand” at the Diet of Worms. It stood as a bold display of a…
Mark Altrogge had the nerve to mess with “Come Thou Fount.” He lodges a complaint that I’ve heard from many others (including our Aussie intern): “There’s a line in the hymn that bothers me. In our church we sing an updated version that dropped ‘Here I raise mine Ebenezer.’ Basically nobody in our church knows…
The Hymn Sing – To celebrate a successful Kickstarter campaign that has funded a new album, Indelible Grace has released their live album The Hymn Sing on NoiseTrade. It’s there for free or for a donation of any amount. Polygamy in the Bible – The Briefing has an article about polygamy in the Old Testament.…
Let’s file this in the “better late than never” category. A few people have asked if I could put together a list of Father’s Day gifts and I have not been able to do so before today. Still, in a world of Amazon and rush shipping, it is not too late to order any of…
John Piper sparked quite a storm with his biographical message on the “frank and manly” J. C. Ryle. One of his conclusion was that Christianity is meant to have a masculine feel to it. Response to his message ranged from outrage to applause. I found myself perplexed and needed to give it some time to…
Dispatches from the Front – The excellent Dispatches from the Front DVDs are on sale at Westminster Books for just 72 hours. You can get episode 2 for just $5 and the whole series of 5 for $30 (60% off). You ought to buy a set and donate it to your church library. Raising Gospel-Centered…
I am in the unique and enjoyable position of receiving copies of most of the latest and greatest Christian books and I like to provide regular roundups of some of the best and brightest of the bunch. Here are some of the notable books that I’ve received in the past week or two. A Theology…
A couple of weeks ago Carl Trueman posted a review of a new book from G.R. Evans. Trueman had read The Roots of the Reformation: Tradition, Emergence, and Rupture in the hope that he would be able to use it as a text for his Reformation History classes. Very quickly he came to see that…
Not Just a Sinner – “I don’t ever want to hear you say, ‘I’m just a sinner saved by grace!’” I think there’s some wise counsel in this blog post from Trevin Wax. Summer Reading – Al Mohler has shared his annual summer reading list. There are at least a few on there that I’m…
The Puritan writer Matthew Henry must be one of the most quotable of all the Christian authors. He had an amazing ability to grab ahold of a great text or a great doctrine and to reduce it to a few sentences that beautifully sum it all up. Recently I went looking for what he said…
Beautiful Photographs, Beautiful Cause – JT highlights the work of David Sacks. “David has recently produced a beautiful coffee table book of photographs he has taken there. It’s called True Africa. All of the proceeds go to benefit their work of partnering with churches to serve orphans in word and deed.” Job the Film –…
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 his book Overcoming Sin and Temptation and trying to distill each chapter to its essence—to a…
This week’s Free Stuff Fridays is sponsored by Frontline Missions. This is an amazing ministry that produces the Dispatches from the Front DVD series–a series I love. Here is what the ministry is all about: Frontline’s key objective is to advance the Gospel, forming vibrant, Word-centered, disciple-making churches, especially in those regions of the world…
TGC Atlantic – If you’re out on the east coast, or are looking for a good excuse to be, Kevin DeYoung, Mike Bullmore and I will be speaking at The Gospel Coalition Atlantic. It will run from August 7-9 and will be in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Dull Meets Boring – It may sound like…
I don’t often read The Southern Seminary Magazine but recently I came across some notes I had taken on an article from all the way back in 2006. In the “President’s Journal,” Al Mohler wrote a brief commentary on “The State of Preaching Today.” He wrote “On the one hand, there are signs of great…
A Christian cannot have a powerful prayer life unless he takes advantage of the equipment for prayer the Lord offers to him. In The Hidden Life of Prayer David McIntyre says this equipment “is simple, if not always easily secured. It consists particularly of a quiet place, a quiet hour, and a quiet heart.” Let…
Answering Objections – STR: “I was listening to a sermon by Tim Keller that addressed common objections to the Bible as God’s Word, and I thought this was a very clever point. He has a way of turning an objection into a virtue.” They describe how he does that. The Humility to Be an Example…
I love writing book reviews and I love reading them. Since I cannot possibly read and review all of the interesting books out there, I publish occasional round-ups of reviews written by other writers. Here are a few notable links I’ve collected over the past few weeks. The Betrayal by Douglas Bond. Reviewed by Tony…
Is Ben Witherington’s A Week in the Life of Corinth fiction or nonfiction? I suppose it’s a little bit of both. In 150 pages he takes a could-be-true look at ancient Corinth, focusing on a cast of characters that includes Paul, Priscilla, Aquila, and the lesser-known Erastos (known as Erastus in the ESV), who is…
Snake-Handling Believers – This is a fascinating article from The Tennessean: “Since the early 1900s, a handful of true believers in East Tennessee and other parts of Appalachia have practiced the so-called signs of the gospel, found in a little-known passage in the King James Version of the Gospel of Mark.” What Every Husband Needs…