Welcome to the online home of Tim Challies, blogger, author, and book reviewer.
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A friend recently asked if I could help him figure out what to do with all the quotes and highlights he has collected over the years. As a pastor and author he reads a lot and as he reads he highlights and underlines passages while sometimes jotting down notes in the margins. Yet he’s not sure what to do with these highlights, how to remember them, and how to make them useful. For his sake I wrote out the system …
If you have been reading this site for a while, you probably remember the Best Commentaries series I prepared a couple of years ago. The basic premise of the series was that, because I am unqualified to determine which commentaries are best, I would turn to experts to find their recommendations. I did that and proceeded through the Bible, suggesting the five best commentaries for each book. All the while I depended on the prior work of theologians such as …
When it comes to writing, my most common struggle is not one of increasing inspiration but of decreasing friction. Sure, on some occasions the problem is one of inspiration, of coming up with the fresh and interesting ideas. But more often the problem is one of friction, of getting those ideas out of my mind and onto the page. For that reason I, like many other writing enthusiasts, value any tool that reduces friction, that makes it easier and smoother …
I have written about Logos Bible Software a number of times over the years, and would like to return to it today. I do so after making the rather momentous decision to commit to it–to stop collecting printed commentaries and theological works and to focus on collecting these in Logos instead. After years of dabbling in Logos, the new version, version 6, finally convinced me to make the leap, and for the past few months I have done all my …
A few months ago I was in Australia, and a friend was driving me to a nearby university so I could speak to a campus group. We were driving the city streets in the stop-and-go rush hour traffic and beside us was a guy driving a bright yellow sports car—a Lotus. Now a Lotus is far too much car for crawling through urban traffic, but this driver was committed to having his fun. He would consistently hang back at the …
As a pastor, I regularly meet with people who are intent on overcoming a serious sin in their lives. Yet, as you well know, those serious sins rarely yield easily. Far more often than not they demand a long and intense battle. To help in this battle I have put together what I call Battle Plan. Battle Plan is a worksheet that is primarily meant to be used with the assistance of a mentor or pastor (though it can be …