As you well know if you are a regular reader of this site, I’ve written a book called The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment and that book was the result of spending almost a year studying the topic of spiritual discernment. As I hunted down all the references I could to discernment and as I studied…
I thought it would be nice to have a guest blogger for the first time in a long while. Today I’m going to post a wonderful little article excerpted from one of George Whitefield’s sermons. In this sermon he exposited Luke 8:18 where Jesus said, “Therefore consider carefully how you listen.” These pearls of wisdom…
Every book needs a cover and, as luck would have it, my book now has one. Choosing a cover was far more difficult than I would have imagined. Some readers may have noticed a white cover on the Crossway site. It was there for a short time before being replaced. Though I didn’t mind the…
An interview with the editors of the Reformed Expository Commentary series. There have been a few times in the past few months that I’ve mentioned the Reformed Expository Commentary Series. This is a growing series of commentaries written from a distinctly Reformed perspective and targeted at both pastors and laypersons. Having used these commentaries for…
Teaming with Bob Kauflin to encourage you to dedicate yourself to reading. Yesterday Bob Kauflin wrote about reading (What – Me Read?) in response to a question sent to him by a reader. This young man asked: One facet of your site that is always of interest is your list of books you are currently…
Just helping a brother figure out Facebook. Josh Harris needs help with Facebook. In fact, he has resorted to begging for friends. It’s kind of sad, really. So I thought I would try to help a friend out with this Facebook Survey. Now Facebook is kind of a neat phenomenon. I’m not convinced it has…
The sovereignty of God in the storm. Thabiti Anyabwile, his family and his church are facing down a hurricane. A recent post at his blog is titled What Do You Think About God When Calamity Strikes? and in this post he makes reference to another recent tragedy and two different responses to it. When the…
Just thinking seriously about hell presses on my soul and presses upon my heart. I find it difficult to think about hell. Though I know that hell is real and that God means for us to know at least something about it, I find it hard to read about it and to ponder it. I’m…
Trusting our instruments rather than our sight or instincts. A few months ago I was watching a program called “Mayday,” which I believe is actually several other shows all rolled into one and branded for a Canadian audience. It is a show about disasters, and most notably, plane crashes. It sounds morbid, I admit, but…
Excerpted from Jim Andrew’s Polishing God’s Monuments. When the Lord’s ways do not neatly conform to our pat little paradigms of what seems (to our fallible minds) right and just, and good and faithful, it says something about human nature that usually the first thought that comes to mind is that something is wrong with…
Second Life and cheating in a virtual world. Friday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal featured an article about Second Life, a popular online digital world. It is inhabited by people like you and me, but people who take on a new identity–a second life. It is, by all accounts, an engaging experience. This is…
A couple of nights ago I received a new endorsement for The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment. As I mentioned the first time an endorsement came in, I will continue to share these because, in many ways, I feel that this book was a community effort as readers of the site prayed for me, encouraged me,…
A feminist leader affirms what the Bible has been telling us all along. New York Magazine recently featured an interesting article called “The Porn Myth.” Written by feminist Naomi Wolf, it was first printed in a 2003 edition of the magazine but is as timely today as ever. I’ll say from the outset that her…
Christians are accustomed to treating evolution as an account of the world’s origins that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and something that a person could only believe in the absence of God or in the absence of faith. But this is not quite fair. There are now many Christians–Christians who treasure the Bible and who…
Theologians sometimes speak of the ordinary means of grace, a term that refers to the preaching of the Word, the sacraments (or ordinances, if you prefer, as most Baptists do) and prayer. These three means are to be the foundation of the church’s activity. They are simple measures and ones that can often be overlooked.…
Yesterday I read R.C. Sproul’s new book The Truth of the Cross. It’s just a short book, coming in at just 167 small pages, but as we’d expect from Sproul, does not waste a word. It’s a great little book and one that gave me a lot to think about. I wanted to share just…
I’ve been reading R.C. Sproul’s latest book, The Truth of the Cross. It’s just a small book but you know that if Sproul is writing about the atonement that it will be well worth reading. Just seven pages in he discusses visiting a bookstore in a local mall. He found shelves and counters full of…
Aileen and I were blessed, when we first began dating, to be members of a church where there were many elderly couples. They were couples who exemplified so many beautiful qualities. Christians for decades, they shone with the light of Christ and were living proof that, though physical beauty fades with the years, true inner…
Barb needed help. In fact, she had asked our friends, her next door neighbors, to help her clean up her house a bit. She was having trouble with her finances and wanted to sell off some valuable items in her house, but first needed to tidy up a bit. I decided to pitch in. Our…
I’m on vacation this week. Aileen and I are perched in a nice little cottage just over a dune from a beautiful beach. The cottage is great. It has electricity and all kinds of good amenities, but no phone and no access to the internet. There is a television but it is useful only as…