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  • Bible in a Pew

    God, Don’t Take the Bible From Us!

    They say you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, that you can’t appreciate what you have until it’s taken away. Isn’t this why we sometimes imagine ourselves without the people we love? As we imagine their absence we grow in our affection. Perhaps we would grow in our affection for the Bible if…

  • 5 Tips for Engaging with Scripture

    This week the blog is sponsored by Crossway, who would like to introduce you to the ESV Scripture Journal. Reading and studying Scripture are pursuits that require the attention of both heart and mind. To love the Lord with all our strength, we must actively engage with Scripture—asking questions, learning contexts, making connections, and reflecting…

  • My Favorite Bible-Reading Plan for 2017

    How To Begin A Bible-Reading Habit in 2018

    With my arms still in quite a lot of pain through nerve damage, I’ve asked a few friends to step in from time to time. Today Paul Carter provides an excellent article on beginning a Bible-reading habit in 2018. If you intend to read through the Bible in 2018 now is the time to get…

  • 3 Minute Thursdays

    Bible Reading Programs – Three-Minute Thursdays #8

    A new year is fast approaching and with it a new opportunity to dive into God’s Word. Here are some tips on getting started with a new Bible-reading program. Here’s the link to the program I recommend: Five Day Bible Reading Program. Transcript Welcome to another edition of 3 Minute Thursdays, where, in three minutes…

  • ESV Readers Bible

    Vlog: What’s a Reader’s Bible All About?

    I wonder if you’ve noticed that over the past few years, our Bibles have gotten a little bit cluttered. Open your Bible and may notice it’s full of notes and footnotes and cross-references and other features. Each of these features is great, yet each one can also detract from the reading experience. Not surprisingly, we…

  • God Did Not Write a Book

    God Didn’t Write a Book

    The Bible is a book—God’s book. Even a child knows this, right? Except that the Bible isn’t a book. Not really. The Bible was at first oral transmission passed from person to person, events and conversations observed, remembered, and shared. But it was still the Bible. Then the Bible was a collection of scrolls, each…

  • Leadership

    One Way To Make Sure You’re Preaching a Sermon, Not Leading a Bible Study

    I love Bible studies. I love sermons. Both have their place and both can be tremendously beneficial in the life of the church and the spiritual diet of the believer. But I’ve observed that some sermons are actually Bible studies and some Bible studies are actually sermons. Though I will grant there can be a…

  • Love of the Bible

    8 Ways to Measure Your Love for the Bible

    Christians are people of the Word, men and women who live their lives according to its every precept. The Bible is the revelation of God to display his character and to show what it means to live in conformity to him. It is an inestimable privilege to have access to the mind and will of…

  • How To Understand and Apply the New Testament

    How To Understand and Apply the New Testament

    Whenever I begin to read a new book, I immediately look to the opening pages for a clear statement of purpose. Why did the author write this work? What sets it apart from others? When it comes to Andy Naselli’s How to Understand and Apply the New Testament, he wastes no time. Here are his…

  • My Favorite Bible-Reading Plan for 2017

    My Favorite Bible-Reading Plan for 2017

    In general, there are two approaches to daily Bible-reading: intimacy and familiarity. Intimacy with the Bible comes through slow, meditative reading that focuses on small portions—deep study of key books, chapters, and verses. Familiarity with the Bible comes through faster reading of much larger portions—the entire sweep of the biblical narrative. Both are wonderful approaches…

  • Time To Take Your Medicine

    It’s Time To Take Your Medicine

    The gospel has a kind of logic to it. According to Sinclair Ferguson, it always holds to one important rule: Divine indicatives (statements about what God has done, is doing, or will do) logically precede and ground divine imperatives (statements about what we are to do in response). Any actions God requires us to take…

  • You, Me, and the ESV

    You probably heard what happened recently with the ESV, the English Standard Version of the Bible. In August, Crossway, the ministry that publishes the ESV, announced that “the text of the ESV Bible will remain unchanged in all future editions printed and published by Crossway.” In other words, the text had become permanent and would…

  • Whatever Is False, Whatever Is Dishonorable, Whatever Is Unjust…

    What makes holy people holy? What makes unholy people unholy? To a large degree it is what fills their minds and their hearts. This is why the battle for holiness is first a battle to flood your mind and heart with the right things, the best things, and why it’s equally a battle to avoid…

  • Simple Ways to Spark a Lukewarm Devotional Life

    It happens to all of us at one time or another. There are times when we wake up eager to get into God’s Word, when our times in the Bible are an absolute joy and thrill. We hope, we wish, we pray that these times will never end. But they do. At times we wake…

  • War, Women, and Wealth

    Have you ever noticed that some of our sorest temptations arise around God’s greatest gifts? Food, money, sex, ministry, authority—all of these can be used for such good, yet we consistently find they are attended by such difficulties. That is life in this sinful world, a world in which we turn blessings into curses, gifts…

  • One Very Good Reason to Read Your Bible

    There are some proverbs that practically beg for personal application. Proverbs 3:27 is one of them: “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.” That little maxim resonates in a hundred other passages including, of course, the Golden Rule and the second Great…

  • The Temple and the Tabernacle

    If you are a committed reader, you know what it’s like when you get swept away by a book—where hours pass in what feels like minutes. You know the sheer pleasure of being drawn into a book that is unexpectedly interesting and intriguing. This was the case for me this weekend when I began to…

  • no bible no breakfast

    No Bible, No Breakfast

    No Bible, no breakfast. Have you ever heard this little phrase? Has anyone ever told you to obey it? It’s a mantra that I have bumped into a number of times in the past few weeks. In one recent case a popular Christian leader held it up as a necessary motto for the believer, a…

  • Have You Looked Into the Mirror Today?

    There is something comforting about peering into a mirror every now and then. It’s not so much a matter of gazing into your own reflection as it is looking for those things that are out of place, those things that don’t belong, those things you don’t want to see reflected back—the parsley between your teeth,…

  • Why I Am Not Roman Catholic

    Last week I began a new series titled “Why I Am Not…” and in this series I am exploring some of the things I do not believe as a means to explaining what I do believe. In the last article I explained why I am not atheist and now want to explain why I am…