This week I received Heart Cries to Heaven, a new book from DayOne that is a compilation of prayers composed by David Campell, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, PA. One of those prayers stood out to me as I considered the week to come in which Americans will head to the polls and…
Earlier this week I was skimming back through William Farley’s book Gospel-Powered Parenting by (which I reviewed here) and happened across his discussion of “Gospel Fathers.” In this section he discusses the importance of godly, masculine men within a church body. He starts out by quoting a selection of lines from Why Men Hate Going…
Daniel Doriani’s commentary on James is one of the relatively few commentaries I’ve read cover-to-cover. It’s one I enjoyed a lot. In his discussion of the final portion of James 5, I found an interesting story that I thought I’d share with you. As I read it, I though of my continuationist (charismatic) friends. It…
As I was looking through J.D. Payne’s book Discovering Church Planting: An Introduction to the Whats, Whys, and Hows of Global Church Planting I came across a sidebar which lists “some benefits of being a mother church.” Though this is by no means an exhaustive list, it does draw out some important benefits of being…
I came across this bit of writing on Facebook today and quite enjoyed it. It stands as a good challenge at any age, but perhaps particularly in an age of Christian celebrity. It was written by George D. Watson, a Wesleyan minister who did the bulk of his ministry in the early 20th century. If…
I am not a sabbitarian, but sometimes wish I was. At the moment I can’t overcome a few theological issues that prevent me from embracing the view. Thankfully this does not prevent me from honoring Sunday and seeking to set it aside as a special day, one dedicated to the Lord in a unique way.…
Today I have two unrelated quotes for you. Each of these caught my eye this week. The first is a prayer from Augustine of Hippo (a.k.a. St. Augustine). O my God,let me, with thanksgiving,remember, and confess unto youyour mercies on me. Let my bones be soaked with your love,and let them say unto you,Who is…
Yeah, I know that I posted a prayer yesterday. But this is another great one I came across (one drawn from The Valley of Vision but which I stumbled across while reading some other web sites). It is titled “Continual Repentance.” I think these lines are particularly good: “I need to repent of my repentance;…
A prayer to pray after you finish praying–it’s a bit odd, I admit, and yet it makes some sense. At least it makes sense when you read it and pray it on your own. Who hasn’t felt like this when they pray?: “O God of grace, I bewail my cold, listless, heartless prayers; their poverty…
As you know, I have been reading a lot of R.C. Sproul’s books lately, as part of a project I am working on. A few days ago I went through an older title, The Character of God. There I found these words, speaking of the depth of God’s love and the fact that it is…
Last week a friend introduced me to this hymn by John Newton. At least I think it is a hymn. Personally I think it works better as poetry, but I suppose there is a fine line between the two. Read it and I think you’ll see that Newton knew what it was to sin, and…
A few days ago I read through R.C. Sproul’s little book When Worlds Collide. This book was written in early 2002, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Sproul wrote it as a response to those events, as a means of grappling with the difficult questions related to God’s sovereignty and human suffering. As I read…
Last week I shared a prayer by Matthew Henry–one that was drawn from A Method for Prayer. This week I want to share another, this time one that is a paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer. Do you find that you pray the Lord’s Prayer by rote, without thinking about the familiar words? Then try praying…
I have been reading a lot of R.C. Sproul lately, partly for work and partly for pleasure. This week I made my way through Reason to Believe, “a response to common objections to Christianity.” One of the common objections to the faith is that Christians are a bunch of lousy hypocrites, people who call out…
This week I came upon a prayer written by the Puritan Matthew Henry. This prayer comes from his book A Method for Prayer and is meant to be used “At the entrance upon the public worship on the Lord’s day, by the master of the assemblies.” What is most notable to me is how the…
I have been reading Nancy Pearcey’s new book Saving Leonardo, something about which I’ll have a lot more to say next week. But for now I wanted to share with you a quote from one of the early chapters which deals with Sex, Lies and Secularism. Here she writes about liberal and Christian views of…
Andrew Keen is a bit of a curmudgeon. It’s hard to know how much of his own words he actually believes and how much of it he writes simply because it has become his niche, what people expect of him. But he’s still a lot of fun to read. Here’s a brief excerpt from his…
Every now and again I like to post a favorite song that we sing at Grace Fellowship Church. In worship this morning we sang an old Newton hymn that has become a favorite. It’s a hymn you may well know, one titled “Approach, My Soul, the Mercy Seat.” It is one of Newton’s Olney Hymns.…
A couple of days ago I sat down and made my way through R.C. Sproul’s The Holiness of God. This is one of those books that, if I was more organized, I would schedule to read every year or so. Maybe we ought to make it one of the volumes we read in a forthcoming…
Not too long ago I reviewed the book The Trellis and the Vine and said that it is a book to which I give my highest recommendation. Since I wrote that review I’ve turned to the book often and have continued to find it very, very useful. I was glad to learn just recently that…