Tis the season to think about next season. As 2014 draws to a close, our thoughts begin to turn to the new year. Whenever I consider a new year, I think of how I will approach another 365 daily devotions. At this point I am still undecided. There are so many good ways to read…
Whatever else we know about Charles Spurgeon, and whatever else we honor and respect in him, what always stands out to me is his unshakable confidence in the Bible. I recently came across two short quotes, both of which stand as eloquent proof of his love of God’s Word, and both of which stand as…
The Christian faith is comprised of both nouns and verbs. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that the content of the Christian faith is comprised of both nouns and verbs. Michael Horton says it well: All of our faith and practice arise out of the drama of Scripture, the ‘big story’ that traces…
Today I am kicking off a brand new series of articles I am titling The Defenders. Through brief sketches of Christian leaders, I hope to draw attention to believers known for defending the church against specific theological challenges or false teachings. I will be focusing on modern times and have chosen to begin with James…
If you ask my wife, she’ll tell you that I’ve always got five or ten different projects on the go. I’ve got a short attention span, so I do best and get more done when I can work on something for a couple of hours and then switch my mind to a completely different task.…
So what do you do, as a book reviewer, when a good friend writes a book? What would you do if a good friend wrote a not-so-good book? I think about these things sometimes. Thankfully it is not a concern with my friend David Murray and his new book Jesus On Every Page. This is…
Gospel-centeredness is all the rage today. We are told to live gospel-centered lives, to pray toward a gospel-centered faith, to have gospel-centered humility, to be gospel-centered parents, to form gospel-centered churches, to have gospel-centered marriages, to say goodbye at gospel-centered funerals. The gospel, we are told, must be central to all we are and all…
Galatians is all about the gospel. It’s obvious, I guess, and yet many people seem to miss the sheer gospel-centeredness of the book with all the joy and freedom it holds out. Perhaps more than any other book of the Bible it shows with utter clarity that the gospel is not only the message that…
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. It’s the day when every seat in every fancy restaurant will be full and when couples who don’t care for restaurants will be preparing nice meals for one another. Flowers will be delivered to offices, gifts will show up in mailboxes, cards will be exchanged. I am something of a skeptic…
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 new books that I’ve received: Galatians for You by Tim Keller. This…
I have never been the kind to enjoy an afternoon at the art gallery. It’s not that I don’t like art–I really do–but more that I don’t understand it very well. Of course the fact that I am red-green color blind probably doesn’t help my cause too much, but it seems that what excites artists,…
A couple of weeks ago I invested an hour and a half in watching Lakeland: The Movie, a documentary about Todd Bentley and the Lakeland “Revival.” You may remember that in April of 2008, a preacher and revivalist named Todd Bentley was invited to Ignited Church in Lakeland, Florida. The plan was to have Bentley…
There are a few hymns–just a few–that have been written to be sung as a petition to God immediately before the minister opens God’s Word. A favorite of mine is John Newton’s “Prayer for the Ministry of the Word.” It can be sung to any number of tunes including “Amazing Grace.” The best lines come…
There are many, many resources available to us if we wish to teach our children their Bible stories so they can live moral and upright lives. We can teach them to be like Noah, that man of great faith who endured years of scorn before finally receiving vindication; we can teach them that David trusted…
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…
You might have noticed when reading through the Gospels that, when it comes to Jesus predicting Peter’s denial, Mark records Jesus telling Peter that he will deny him three times “before the rooster crows twice” (Mark 14:30). Matthew, Luke and John, on the other hand, don’t mention a specific number of crows. They just record…
Here is a list of books I have received over the past few weeks, but have been unable to read in full. Instead, I have given each of them at least 30 minutes and tried to get as much of a feel for the book as possible in that time. Note to Self by Joe…
Another book about the gospel. We have seen the release of all kinds of books about the gospel lately–books defining the gospel, books preaching the gospel, books sharing how to live with the gospel at the center of life. Is there any room for another one? Absolutely there is, and Trevin Wax has delivered it…
I didn’t mean to read A Meal with Jesus. I receive enough books to review that I cannot possibly read them all. Last week I decided I would grab a selection of them and spend half an hour with each–not enough to read them through, but enough to get a bit of a feel for…
I know that it is bad form to turn a sermon into a blog post, but I’m going to do it anyway (hey, it’s my blog!). Yesterday I preached from Genesis 3 and found great joy in going from the garden to the cross. There are lots of ways we can do this, but I…