Earlier today I posted an article dealing with one of the popular misconceptions people have with knowing the will of God or hearing the voice of God as it pertains to guidance. This is an area in which there is a lot of misunderstanding among Christians. Thankfully there are all kinds of great books written…
A couple of days ago I was sorting through the bag of Halloween candy, teaching my children a little lesson about taxation. As I did so, it dawned on me how much of the candy they received is distinctly Canadian; there is a surprising amount that simply is not available south of the border. And…
This morning I let you know about a new book that provides background and commentary for Handel’s Messiah. And now I want to encourage you to take in a performance of Messiah this Christmas season. And just to get you started, I’ve done some of the work, at least for those of you who live…
The Christian world certainly suffers from no shortage of conferences. In fact, there are so many that it can be difficult to determine which, if any, to attend. I took a look ahead to 2011 to find a few that look particularly compelling. And here they are: 4 great conferences coming our way in 2011.…
I don’t know how I got thinking about this, but the other day I found myself clicking through the blog looking for some of the weirder things I’ve written over the years. I don’t often indulge my strange sense of humor, but every now and again I just can’t resist. From vampires to theo-doping, from…
I receive a lot of books in the mail. If I were to go through them and categorize them, I suspect I’d find that one topic stands apart from the rest–prayer. I’d be surprised if any topic receives as much attention as this one. I suppose this shows that we Christians struggle with prayer–that we…
Last week I spent a day in Grand Rapids and most of that day was taken up with meetings at the head office for Zondervan. As you probably know, Zondervan will be publishing my next couple of books, so we had a series of meetings to discuss, among other things, marketing plans (that’s right–we met…
I love Bible commentaries and must own a couple hundred of them by now. This may be a bit of an irrational love since I am not a preacher and am only rarely asked to preach. Still, while growing a collection has involved some effort and some expense, there have been many occasions when I’ve…
One of the happier musical developments in the Christian world over the past few years has been the resurgence of hymns. Though there are many contemporary worship songs that have excellent content and are ideal for congregational worship, we just can’t afford to lose the hymn. There are two different kinds of contemporary hymn. In…
I have a soft spot for series of short books that address issues in a straightforward, condensed way (see Little Black Books and Living in a Fallen World for others). There are times to read a 500-page tome on a subject and there are times when it is great to read something much shorter and…
Moms in Touch is a ministry I’m very, very excited about. And I want you to be excited about it too. In fact, I want to encourage you to read to the end of this post and then to take action. I first encountered Moms in Touch at the 2008 True Woman conference. I did…
Little Black Books is a new series of short volumes written by Scott Petty and published by Matthias Media. This is “a new series of books that get straight to the point on the topics that Christians always have questions about. Not too big, not too fancy, and not at all boring. LBBs are ideal…
Ministering the Master’s Way is a unique little series published by DayOne. It is a series that knows exactly the audience it is trying to reach–the pastor or elder of the local church. Each of the books looks to a different practical aspect of the Christian ministry. Many of the titles deal with very niche…
In the past couple of weeks we’ve seen two new festschrifts (books honoring a respected individual) presented to well-known Reformed leaders–one of them a new Calvinist (perhaps even the new Calvinist) and the other part of the old guard. For the Fame of God’s Name For the Fame of God’s Name is a collection of…
Over the past few weeks (since I submitted the first draft of my book and got that elephant off my back!) I have been trying to spend a little bit more time with the blog. One of the ways this has manifested itself is with articles that draw attention to outside resources–book series, resources dealing…
What happens when you smash a Bible together with a journal? You get a Journible (get it?). What’s a Journible? Well, essentially it’s a Bible study tool. It’s a book, rather like a journal, with a place to write a Scripture text on the right leaf and a place to write notes and observations on…
As Christians we sit through a lot of sermons. The preaching ministry is one of God’s greatest means of grace to us, the means by which he teaches us truth, by which he calls us to pursue truth and to live out of it. And yet many of us are passive listeners, people who expect…
Living in a Fallen World is a new series of booklets published by Day One Publications. I have been looking forward to seeing this series and was glad to have the first 8 show up in the mail today. The publisher says they are “small booklets that provide biblical help and practical guidance to people…
C.S. Lewis crafted many masterpieces, books that have stood the test of time. Mere Christianity and the Narnia series are probably the best-known, but The Screwtape Letters follows close behind. It is a unique book (at least it was unique in its time) in that it was built around a series of letters from one…
Summer is over and publishers are now preparing to roll out a whole new season of books. Many publishers wait until the fall to release their best books, hoping that the coming Christmas season will lead to increased sales. In the general publishing world this means that we will see new titles by Tom Clancy,…