#justification

If Only I Had Been Saved By Merit!

One of the hardest tasks for every Christian is to deeply believe and forever remember that we’ve been saved by grace. This is a lifelong challenge because our natural tendency is always to veer back to merit, to assume that we’ve been saved by something we are, something we’ve got, or something we’ve accomplished. Grace—unmerited favor—is too much for our sinful minds to accept and for our sinful hearts to embrace. The reason we need to hear the gospel again …

My 2011 Blogging Heroes

Reports of the blogosphere’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Another year has come and (just about) gone and the blogosphere continues to be an integral means of communication, and this despite many predictions that blogs will soon go the way of the dinosaur (or the newspaper, as the case may be). 2011 was a great year for blogs, at least here in the Christian blogosphere. Before the year comes to an end, I want to point to a few of …

Become a Patron

8 Years

One of the unique features of this blog is the little counter down in the bottom right of the site. It’s a little feature that simply increments by 1 number each day. Today it stands at 2,920. What this means is that it was 2,920 days ago that I decided to make this blog an every day affair. Divide 2,920 by 365 and you get 8, which means that it has now been 8 years since I made that decision …

‘The Code’ in the Christian Blogosphere

I’ve got something a little bit different today. This is a kind of discussion or interview I had with my friend Julian, who was asking me about some of the questions and some of the complications related to having a popular blog. I thought it would be worth sharing since it addresses some of the criticisms people have lodged against me recently. And I hope it gives a little bit of perspective to the Christian blogosphere. Here is Julian’s introduction …

A Jealous Love

The sentiment that Jesus has unconditional love for all of us has become standard fare in many evangelical churches. The speaker assures the congregation that Jesus loves them to such an extent that he died for them. He assures the audience that Jesus is just waiting for them to turn to him and to reciprocate the love he already has for them. Some people go even further in their claims to unbelievers. I remember once reading an article by Rick …

Death Is No Escape

Earlier this morning I finished up Richard J. Evans’ The Third Reich at War, a very long, very thorough, very interesting tracing of the rise and fall of German military might from 1939 to 1945. More than just another account of the Second World War, this book looks to battles, but also to atrocities and to the German home front. It provides an overall perspective on the German experience of war, from the men on the front lines, to the …

Interviewing the ProBlogger

An Interview with Darren Rowse. Darren Rowse is the original ProBlogger, presiding over ProBlogger, a site that draws tens of thousands of visitors every day. After stumbling across blogs in 2002, Darren began a site of his own that explored “issues of Pop Culture, Spirituality and Blogging.” The pastor of a small, emerging type of church, Darren has become a full-time blogger and the coordinator of a large blog network. Because I’ve attempted to make a point of giving a …

Blogging – Wrapping It Up

This is the fourth and final entry in a series dealing with blogging and the wider societal trends that have contributed to the rise of blogs. This first article is here, the second here and the third here. I am sure that some people reading this series are interested in beginning a blog of their own. I am not going to get into the nuts and bolts of how to sign up for a blog, but rather want to give …

Blogging – State of the Blogosphere

This is the third article in a series dealing with blogging. The first article is available here and the second here. In this series I am discussing not only blogging but also some of the wider societal trends that have led to the blog’s popularity. This is a bit of a long article and I do apologize for its length (which is a tad ironic since in this article I comment on the fact that most people won’t read long …

Blogging – History and Societal Trends

This is the second article in a series dealing with blogging. The first article is available here. Don’t run away if you are not a blogger and do not have any interest in blogs. I think you’ll find this article helpful in understanding some of the wider societal trends that have led to the rise of the blog. Let’s back up for a moment and discuss the history of the blog. While the term “blog” (which is short for “weblog”) …