John Flavel was one of the great Puritan preachers and authors. Much of Flavel’s ministry was toward sailors, so he often relied on nautical metaphors and terminology. In An Honest, Well Experienced Heart, Adam Embry shares a poem titled “My Naughty Heart.” “Naughty” rhymes with “knotty,” a play on words that falls in the middle…
I have been reading (or, more accurately, listening to) the book Columbine by Dave Cullen. Written ten years after the 1999 school shootings in Littleton, Colorado, it seeks to be the definitive account of an event that left an indelible mark on America and the world. As I listened yesterday on my way home from…
John and Betty Stam served with China Inland Missions in the 1930’s. In December of 1934 they fell into the hands of Communist insurgents and were soon executed, dying as missionary martyrs. Both had been raised in Christian homes and both had parents who supported their desire to be missionaries. A short time after they…
Here is some wisdom from Mark Dever, drawn from What Is a Healthy Church?. He offers up six considerations for before you decide to leave a church and four to apply if you decide that you must leave. Before You Decide to Leave If You Go
I have been reading a lot of history and biography in recent weeks, from books on the history of Mormonism to books portraying characters as diverse as Abraham Lincoln and Queen Elizabeth II. One thing that has stood out to me in my reading is how seldom unbelieving authors accurately portray the beliefs of Christians.…
I have been reading Jeremy Walker’s The Brokenhearted Evangelist and in that book he includes a powerful section dealing with the importance of prayer in the practice of evangelism. After quoting John Sutcliff, who cries out against lukewarmness, Walker asks and answers this question: How do we keep our prayers fiery? How do we keep…
In his much-praised book Killing Calvinism, Greg Dutcher writes about the tendency many Calvinists may have to be more enamored by their theology than by God himself. I suppose this may be a temptation for those who adhere to any faith or any system of theology, but it does seem particularly prevalent among Calvinists. At…
In her book A Place of Quiet Rest, Nancy Leigh DeMoss includes several chapters on prayer. In a chapter titled “The Privilege of Prayer” she discusses a period of prayerlessness in her life and her growing conviction that she had to get to the root of it. “As God opened my eyes to this matter…
The Lord calls us to work hard to rest well. Scotty Smith recently shared a prayer on this very subject that looks to what he calls “a glorious paradox and beautiful irony.” He bases it on words from Hebrews 4 (which I’ve included at the end). Here is what he prays: Heavenly Father, what a…
While John Newton will always be known as the man who wrote “Amazing Grace,” that is just one of hundreds of hymns he penned. Another beautiful and powerful hymn of comfort and assurance is “Pensive, Doubting, Fearful Heart.” I have it on good authority that it will be on the next album by Indelible Grace;…
Here is something to ponder as you close your eyes at the end of this day and prepare to open them to a new day tomorrow. Consider the marvelous privilege that is yours for the taking tomorrow morning. Think of it: The Lord Jesus Christ is willing to meet with you privately for as long…
There are a few hymns–just a few–that have been written to be sung as a petition to God immediately before the minister opens God’s Word. A favorite of mine is John Newton’s “Prayer for the Ministry of the Word.” It can be sung to any number of tunes including “Amazing Grace.” The best lines come…
Alex Montoya’s Preaching With Passion is a defense of preaching and a practical how-to. One of Montoya’s concerns is that the preacher preach with authority. Here is a short quote in which he writes about the importance of serving as an ambassador of the Lord. Listen to what Lloyd-Jones says, and dare never to be…
I caught this over at the Desiring God blog, and it was too good not to share. This is D.A. Carson’s summary of the Bible in 221 words. It has been excerpted from For Such a Time as This: Perspectives on Evangelicalism, Past, Present and Future. God is the sovereign, transcendent and personal God who…
In The Big Fight, a new book from The Christian Book Company (edited by Richard Perkins and Tim Thornborough), Richard Coekin has a helpful section on guilt. Writing specifically to men, he highlights four different kinds of guilt men (or women) may experience. 1. Many men don’t feel guilty before God when they should! The…
It has been a couple of months since I’ve had the privilege of preaching, and I am looking forward to stepping into the pulpit again a couple of weeks from now. It is always a joy and always a weighty responsibility. In reading Kent Hughes’ commentary on Isaiah I was challenged by his “Word to…
I quite enjoy The Valley of Vision, that book of Puritan prayers. This one is a favorite, a perfect prayer for the Lord’s day–one that looks to the Lord of that day. O Lord, My Lord, This is thy day,the heavenly ordinance of rest,the open door of worship,the record of Jesus’ resurrection,the seal of the…
There is a lot of talk about what complementarianism actually looks like as it works itself out in marriage. There are endless caricatures that make it little better than slavery, but Wayne Grudem shows something very different as he offers a very helpful glimpse into the inner workings of his own marriage. He leads in…
The Puritan writer Matthew Henry must be one of the most quotable of all the Christian authors. He had an amazing ability to grab ahold of a great text or a great doctrine and to reduce it to a few sentences that beautifully sum it all up. Recently I went looking for what he said…
I don’t often read The Southern Seminary Magazine but recently I came across some notes I had taken on an article from all the way back in 2006. In the “President’s Journal,” Al Mohler wrote a brief commentary on “The State of Preaching Today.” He wrote “On the one hand, there are signs of great…