Welcome to the online home of Tim Challies, blogger, author, and book reviewer.
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Many years ago a great sailing ship was crossing the Atlantic when it came to the treacherous Grand Banks of Newfoundland. Though this is one of the richest fishing grounds in the world, it can all also be one of the most treacherous. Its waters are shallow and often blanketed by dense fog. Icebergs lurk in the darkness. And sure enough, that ship blundered into a great bank of fog and struck a massive iceberg. Within moments the vessel began …
I have long observed that it is the rare individual who values completing a task as highly as beginning one. We are all good at setting out with great gusto, but so often, whether through poor planning or waning interest or even the vicissitudes of providence, we fail to complete what we’ve begun. If this is true of our minor plans and tasks, how much more the ones we thought might define our legacy on this earth. Thankfully this is …
Do you ever find yourself wondering just how much the Lord loves us? Do you ever find yourself wondering just how good his purposes can be and just how glorious his plans? Do you ever find yourself wondering if God really cares? I found myself pondering these matters the other day after a friend sent me an article about the precipitous rise of euthanasia in Canada. What politicians insisted would be nothing more than a means to hasten death for …
The young man had forsaken his father, claimed an early inheritance, and blown it all in reckless living. Having fallen from riches to poverty, this prodigal son was now in the most desperate of straights—working hard, eating little, spiraling ever downward. But on one brutal day, when he was as low as low could be, a thought suddenly flashed into his mind: “At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and I’m here dying of hunger!” The …
Last week brought the news that Don Lewis has died—Dr. Donald Munro Lewis, professor of church history at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is remembered there with great affection not only as a skilled teacher of church history, but as a spiritual companion to many, a faithful mentor, and a man who was committed to prayer. And though I met Don only a handful of times, and though we were only infrequent correspondents, I owe him pretty much …
Buried deep in an old, mostly-forgotten anthology of poetry, I found this little gem from Newman Hall—a poem that expresses in rhyme and meter the longing of many a Christian heart. May it give you words to pray for “those who do not pray, who waste away salvation’s day.” We pray for those who do not pray!Who waste away salvation’s day;For those we love who love not Thee—Our grief, their danger, pitying see. Those for whom many tears are shedAnd …
An old story tells of a settler who traveled from east to west, from lands that were settled to lands that were still unknown. Having grown weary of city living and having begun to crave wide-open spaces, he spent all he had on a vast but speculative parcel of land in the far-off territories. When springtime arrived, he sold his home, gathered his family, loaded his wagons, and traveled briskly westward, eager to see the property that was now his. …
It is an audacious claim of the Christian faith that there is only one way to heaven. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” we believe. Not most, not some, but all. Since all of us have sinned, all of us are lost and in need of saving. And this saving we so badly need can come from only one Savior since “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under …
Around fourteen years ago, Aileen and I bought our first home. We had been searching all over our town and all over the other towns nearby, looking for just the right place. We couldn’t find it. They were all too big or too expensive or too far from where we wanted to be. Where we wanted to be, we realized, was right where we were. So when a neighbouring home went on the market, we were quick to check it …
Just a couple of blocks from my home is the concrete shell of an unfinished mosque. Several years ago they broke ground and quickly after poured the concrete for the foundation and the four great minarets. And then the project went dormant. For almost three years it has sat ugly and unfinished, a grey concrete husk on the edge of the city. A GoFundMe page shows they have completed phase one of the project, but have collected less than one …