#gifts

On Hoarding Wealth and Fostering Gifts

I recently read an article about the countless billions of dollars that have been saved and stored up outside the mainstream financial system. The author explained that many people have lost their confidence in banks and other institutions and have responded by finding alternative ways to protect their wealth. Some have kept it in the form of cash and hidden great stacks of bills in the walls of their homes or in the backs of their closets. Others have converted …

Our Understanding of Earth and Our Assumptions of Heaven

I think we are all guilty at times of importing our understanding of earth into our assumptions of heaven. We are all guilty of importing our understanding of how things work here to how they will work there. We look at the world we know and extrapolate to the one we don’t. I sometimes fear, though, that our thoughts of heaven are actually marred by our experiences of earth. I have often heard people speak of those who are in …

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Teaching Others to Sing Sweetly

The story is told of a musician—a particularly skillful musician with a highly-developed ear for pitch, tone, and harmony—who visited a new church for the first time. He arrived a little late and entered the sanctuary just as the congregation was beginning to sing the opening song. To his chagrin, the singing was badly out of tune. It pained him to hear the people attempt to sing one of the great hymns of the Christian faith without the least bit …

The Greatest Christians and the Most Visible Gifts

I’m convinced we’re prone to make entirely too much of the most public gifts and entirely too little of the most private. We laud those who stand at the event podiums to preach the Word. We celebrate those who sit on the conference panels to answer our questions. We honor those who pen the few bestselling books. When given the opportunity, we surge forward to shake their hands, to snap a selfie, to share encouraging words. None of these actions …

How To Discover and Deploy Your Gifts

The area of spiritual gifts is one that seems to come and go, to ebb and flow, in the life of the church. Sometimes we are inundated with talk of discovering and deploying our gifts, and sometimes it seems they get forgotten altogether. Either way, I was blessed to read some of Sinclair Ferguson’s thoughts on the matter (from his book Maturity). Here is what he has to say about the matter. *** The place to start is this: do …

Unique Christmas Gift Ideas

Last year I put together a list of unique Christmas gift ideas. This year I wanted to reprise that post while adding and taking away a couple of items. Here are 9 unique gifts you might offer someone for Christmas this year–things that may not be on your radar but would still make a good and thoughtful gift for a loved one. Here they are, in no particular order: Tabletalk – Ligonier Ministries’ Tabletalk magazine makes a great gift. Every …

10 Unique Christmas Gifts

I probably should have posted this a week ago, but time kind of got away from me. That happens sometimes. Nevertheless, I think this is still a valuable little article. I wanted to draw your attention to 10 unique gifts you might offer someone for Christmas this year–things that may not be on your radar but would still make a good and thoughtful gift for a loved one. Here they are, in no particular order: Tabletalk – Ligonier Ministries’ Tabletalk …

A Soft Spot for Soft Serve

Here’s a topic appropriate to a warm Saturday afternoon during a sunny, spring long weekend (or it’s a long weekend up here in Canada, at any rate. Victoria Day, don’t you know…). You have probably found, as I have, that as people get older it becomes more and more difficult to buy them good birthday presents. After all, when you are a child you have no means of getting the things you so desperately want. But as an adult you …

Tongues! Signs! Wonders! An Interview with Dr. Sam Waldron

There are few subjects more debated and more hotly debated in the church today than whether or not the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit continue to this day. We have recently seen a great deal of discussion about this issue in the blogosphere. It is an issue which leaves many believers confused, unsure as to what they believe and what they should believe. Cessationists, who believe that the miraculous gifts have ceased, often point to the excesses of the …