It’s election season and millions of Americans are weighing and evaluating the character of the candidates. Why would they examine a person’s character when deciding how to cast a vote? Because a leopard doesn’t change its spots. What those candidates have been in the past is a predictor of what they will be in the…
Testimony—that’s a good Christian word, isn’t it? Each of us has a testimony, an account of how God extended his grace to us. And these testimonies are beautiful things, each one recounting the sovereign work of our great God. Now, much has been said about how we tend to prefer the testimonies that feature the…
Gestures are funny things. Gestures have no intrinsic meaning, but they do have very important assigned meanings. Here in North America the simple thumbs-up gesture means “well done,” but in some other cultures it carries a meaning that is vulgar and offensive. Or just think of George W. Bush at his 2005 inauguration flashing the…
To be human is to feel guilt. At least, to be a sinful human is to feel guilt. And most often we feel guilt precisely because we are actually guilty–guilty of offenses against man and God. R.C. Sproul addresses guilt, and the right and wrong ways to approach it, in this little quote from Pleasing…
Never mind all that stuff about “words will never hurt me.” Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words…words hurt worse. Somehow a full-out beating hurts less than a tongue-lashing. After the bruises have faded, the words remain dug in like daggers. I know people who are still deeply wounded by brutal words launched…
Some Christians see God as a kindly but passive observer of our choices. After all, God wouldn’t ever interfere with our free will, would He? Ask Jonah and a wry smile would come over his face.” This is how Colin Smith introduces a fictional anecdote from the life of the prophet Jonah: Would God ever…
It is the theme of so many movies, so many novels, so many classroom presentations and political discourses: Freedom comes in pursuing your deepest desires, whatever those desires may be. Be true to yourself, be unashamed in who you are, and you will find joy and fulfillment. Not too long ago I read the bestselling…
Blind Spots and Lane Changes – Thabiti reflects on leadership: “The problem with blind spots is you don’t see them. Blind spots make lane changes surprisingly dangerous. It happens in leadership, too. Leaders have blind spots. I know I do. We don’t often discover them until we’re making a change, adjusting course. You’re cruising along,…
Francis Schaeffer coined some interesting terms–things like true truth and nothing nothing. He wasn’t just being silly; he was making important statements about the world. Here, from He Is There And He Is Not Silent is his description of nothing nothing. We are considering existence, the fact that something is there. Remember Jean-Paul Sartre’s statement…
There is a lot of debate over how to take the command in Ephesians 5:18-21 to “Be filled with the Spirit … submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” How you interpret this text is, for many, the dividing line between being egalitarian or complementarian in their view of the roles of men…
In his answer last week as to whether all jobs have the same intrinsic value, Matt Perman made the distinction between economic value and moral value: Not all jobs have the same economic value because, clearly, some jobs pay more than others. But this doesn’t make some jobs more important than others, because all jobs…
I came across a trio of Edwards quotes this week and each was powerful in its own right. So give these a read, not as quotes that follow one another in any sort of order, but simply as 3 quotes that represent what Edwards taught so well. You all have by you a large treasure…
Today I am continuing this short series on knowing and doing the will of God. In the first part of the series I laid a foundation of God’s complete sovereignty over the universe and in the second part I sought to show that God is speaking to us today and how God is speaking to…
Here is a wise word from Martyn Lloyd-Jones, from his work Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure. It will help to know that the biblical context for what he is writing here is Psalm 42. The main trouble in this whole matter of spiritual depression in a sense is this, that we allow our self…
Rest – A Four-Letter Word? – This is worth reflecting on. “Eleven years ago, I wrote about an observed hurry, in which we have lost our bearings, our sense of proportion. ‘Unavailable’ seems a word from the past, going the way of cursive writing. But of course, with the aid of technology, it is more…
I woke up this morning and realized that the house seemed a little bit cold. I checked the weather and saw that it’s currently 19 degrees below freezing and, with wind chill, 26 degrees below. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be 3 degrees above with a bit of rain. Canada has weird weather. Facebook Hype Will…
Last week I began writing The Truth About Wikipedia. In that article I shared a few of the things that the Wikipedia model does well. Today I want to share some of the things I think it does poorly. Remember, I’m using Wikipedia is a microcosm of the wiki model which says that truth can…
God is true. God is truth. God is entirely without error, entirely true in all he is, in all he knows, in all he commands. He is the source of all that is true and right. As beings made in his image, we are to reflect his truth, to value what is true and turn…
Prepared for Evangelism – Randy Alcorn excerpts one of his books to provide some wisdom on evangelism. How Do We Define Biblical Words? – Bill Mounce looks at that question. It may well be a question you’ve never really thought about before. John 10:16 Conference – New Yorkers may want to take a look at…
We are nearing the end of our project to read through John Owen’s classic book Overcoming Sin and Temptation. After this morning we will have just one chapter remaining. If you’d like to know more about this reading project, you can read about it right here: Reading Classics Together. If you are interested in participating…