Yesterday I began a short series of articles on the always-tricky subject of modesty. I’m sure this will not be the final word on the subject, and I cannot cover every aspect of it, but I do want to get us thinking and talking about modesty. At the very least I will give you something…
Modesty. It is one of those topics we have all discussed at one time or another. We have all heard a preacher or youth pastor talk about it. And somehow we rarely seem to be satisfied at the end of it all. Modesty, it turns out, is a difficult subject. I find modesty a fascinating…
Aileen (Tim’s wife) here! After Tim wrote 18 Things I Will Not Regret Doing With My Kids and 18 Things I Will Not Regret Doing With My Wife quite a few people got in touch to ask if he would round it out with an article by a wife for her husband. He hadn’t intended…
Last week I shared 18 Things I Will Not Regret Doing With My Kids, and the time I spent writing that article got me thinking about the fifteen years I’ve been married to Aileen (and the three years before that when we dated). I felt it was only right to think of another eighteen things,…
Apart from getting my teeth bashed in by a hockey stick and that wet-to-the-skin oh-why-did-I-wear-jeans hiking trip through Gatineau Park, it is one of my few vivid memories from eighth grade: Jeremy was, like me, a new student at the school that year. Jeremy, like all boys our age, was curious about female anatomy. So…
Like most parents, I have those moments where guilt and regret comes over me like a wave. I consider then how much of my parenting time has already passed by and how little remains. My oldest child, my son, is thirteen. He is already a teenager, just one year away from high school, just eight…
Of all the words coined in response to the realities of this digital world, of all the words recently added to the dictionary, humblebrag must be among the best. According to the Macmillan dictionary, a humblebrag is “a statement in which you pretend to be modest but which you are really using as a way…
When I began blogging through last week’s Strange Fire conference, I had no idea how big an impact the event would have. Even while attempting to transcribe John MacArthur’s opening address, I was not convinced I wanted to dedicate three days and eight or ten articles to it. But once I began to see and…
I never met my father’s father. He died several years before I was born and I knew him only as the mysterious “grandpa,” a tall and powerful figure in black and white photos and old newspaper clippings. But my mother’s father I knew well. He was “Bapa” to his grandchildren, a name bestowed upon him…
I spent a couple of days this week speaking at a conference at the Creation Museum—my first time visiting it. (Note: this article is dated October 2013.) Before I arrived I decided to put a little bit of thought into why I am a six-day creationist. I wanted to affirm in my own mind that…
Sometimes I wish we were all just a little simpler, a little bit closer to the extremes of black and white. It would be a lot easier if there were only good guys and bad guys, the fully orthodox and the outright heretic, with no overlap, no shades of gray, nothing in between. But we…
Last week I had the opportunity to participate with a group of pastors in a round-table discussion. The topic was corporate prayer (i.e. prayer meetings), and each of the pastors spoke of his church’s practice of prayer. It was a fascinating discussion and I thought it might be helpful to share a few of my…
We all know, we all love, we all quote, and at some point we all rely on Romans 8:28. “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” It is a powerfully encouraging verse, a powerfully encouraging promise from God.…
It’s the elephant in the room, isn’t it? We can’t all be right and we can’t both be right. Sooner or later we have to have a discussion about charismatic (continuationist) theology and whether or not the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit remain in operation in the church today (or, if you prefer, about…
We have just witnessed the greatest entertainment launch in human history, though I suspect few of us noticed. We remember the buzz around James Cameron’s Avatar which quickly became the highest-grossing film of all time, raking in over $2 billion since its 2009 debut. Well, last week Grand Theft Auto V, a video game, put…
We are not yet at the point of demise for the printed book. Not yet. Not imminently. However, we do now have a viable and attractive challenger in the electronic book. While we think little of dropping the occasional $2.99 on a discounted Kindle edition of a Christian living title, more serious libraries merit more…
It is not quite time to return home from Scotland; Aileen and I are first spending a couple of days together in the Highlands. We spent much of yesterday exploring the area, driving the narrow country lanes, visiting churches, graveyards, memorial markers and artifacts, each one somehow significant to the history of the church. At…
I think I saw about half of Scotland yesterday. I am here to see the work of 20schemes, an organization dedicated to providing gospel churches for Scotland’s poorest. Scotland’s poorest tend to live in schemes, government housing that is free for the destitute or subsidized for the poor. Hundreds of thousands of Scots live in…
I have not traveled often beyond the North American continent, but when I do, the truest joy is not in seeing the sites or getting a glimpse of the culture. The truest joy is in worshipping with fellow believers. Last fall I was able to worship with Christians in Dubai and India and was deeply…
I mentioned on Friday that I had arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland and am here to look into the work of a ministry called 20schemes. 20schemes is dedicated to providing gospel churches for Scotland’s poorest people and these are, almost by definition, people who live in schemes. “What is a scheme?” you may ask. It is…