Here is a quote from Mortimer Adler, author of the classic How to Read a Book. In this piece he explains the importance of making a book your own. There are two ways in which one can own a book. The first is the property right you establish by paying for it, just as you…
I guess it is about time the semicolon got its due. Here’s a little excerpt of a book I ran across recently. It is written by Lewis Thomas (whoever that is or was…): I have grown fond of semicolons in recent years. The semicolon tells you that there is still some question about the preceding…
Over the weekend I read an advanced reading copy of Crazy Love by Francis Chan (a book that is due for publication in May). You may not know the name, but you may well have seen his “Just Stop and Think” movie where he walks along a beach with a surfboard while sharing the gospel.…
Lydia Brownback, author and editor extraordinaire, has recently released a couple of books in a new “On-the-Go Devotional” series. Written for women, “On-the-Go Devotionals easily tuck into a purse or gym bag and make great gifts. Each lesson is self-contained, with Scripture and a paragraph or two of teaching that will steer women away from…
Here is another excerpt from James Spiegel’s Gum, Geckos and God. This brief passage deals with how and why we trust God (or fail to trust God). The other day I was sitting in a faculty meeting, trying not to doze off during some committee reports. As I looked around, I mused over how much…
I recently read Rapture Ready, a new book by Daniel Radosh. The book is subtitled “Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture” which probably tells you most of what you need to know about it. The author, a secular liberal, immerses himself in Christian pop culture and uses this book to write about…
The correlation between this post and the interview I posted earlier is entirely coincidental. This is another brief excerpt from Why We’re Not Emergent and one that I’m posting primarily because it made me laugh. My father, a hard-working landscaper, has often wondered aloud why Christians are so apologetic when it comes to artists. Why…
Have you ever wondered if you are emergent? I know I have! Here is Kevin DeYoung, co-author of Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be) on how you might know if you are emergent… After reading nearly five thousand pages of emerging-church literature, I have no doubt that the emerging church, while…
In his new book Respectable Sins, Jerry Bridges writes about the important discipline of preaching the gospel to yourself every day. Realizing that many people have heard of this discipline but do not know how to practice it, he provides an overview of how he does so. I found it helpful and trust you will…
Christopher Hitchens weighs in on the atonement and John Calvin. I just finished reading Christopher Hitchens’ atheistic screed God is not Great. Demanding the end of all religion and proclaiming that belief in God is harmful to individuals and to society, Hitchens attempts, at least in portions of the book, to mock and even to…
I am currently reading Dave Harvey’s new book, When Sinners Say “I Do”. The book is just excellent. I’ll provide a review of it shortly, but for now wanted to post a humorous little excerpt I enjoyed: I’m way too masculine to enjoy Jane Austen. Now, I realize that women usually read that as, “I’m…
Some time ago I was doing some research on the Bible and came across some interesting quotes. I jotted these down and added a few others as I came across them. Each of these really is worth thinking about: “One of the many divine qualities of the Bible is that it does not yield its…
I continue to make my way, rather slowly, really, through the 20th anniversary edition of Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. Though written some 22 years ago, it continues to stretch my mind and to help me think about this visual culture we live in. In a chapter dealing with “the peek-a-boo world” he discusses…
This quote is drawn from John Newton’s A Review of Ecclesiastical History which was published in 1769. His words are as applicable today as they were 238 years ago when they were first penned. Whenever and wherever the doctrines of free grace and justification by faith have prevailed in the Christian Church, and according to…
This morning I finished reading Daniel Doriani’s commentary on James and, in his discussion of the final portion of James 5, found an interesting quote. As I read it, I thought of my continuationist (charismatic) friends. It is my experience that these people often typify cessationists like myself as those who do not believe in…
Since the subject of this morning’s article was my home and native land, I thought I’d post a quote on that theme. In How To Be A Canadian by Will and Ian Ferguson, the brothers suggest the ultimate test of a person’s status as a Canadian, as only a Canadian would be able to decipher…
The following quote comes from Iain Murray’s book Evangelicalism Divided (on page 291 if you must know): The ecumenical call [in the mid-20th century] was not for truth and salt; it was supremely for oneness: the greater the unity of ‘the Church’, it was confidently asserted, the stronger would be the impression made upon the…
I recently encountered an interesting quote. It is from William Wordsworth’s The Prelude, considered to be the masterpiece of this English Poet who lived from April 7, 1770 to April 23, 1850. Though the poem is autobiographical, this portion is largely based on the experience of a well-known Christian. And I have read of one…
As George Whitefield sailed from his native England to Georgia where he was to be a missionary, he ministered to those on board the ship. Here is an excerpt from his journal where he discusses a ministry encounter with a particularly willful child: Had a good instance of the benefit of breaking children’s wills betimes.…
Robert Moffat was a Scottish missionary to South Africa and this quote is drawn from a letter he wrote to his wife Mary. In the mid 1850’s he completed the great work of translating the entire Bible into Sechuana and subsequently revised the translation several times. Despite this work he provides an assessment of the…