I made a mistake this morning. I picked up Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and read the first sentence, then I read the first paragraph and before I knew it, I was two chapters in and now I am hopelessly committed to reading the book again, for the fifth time. Don’t be too impressed. The chapters are … More Confession: I’m Addicted
“You’ve heard it said that to be victorious in a military battle you must have the ‘most boots on the ground.’ Conversely, to be victorious in a spiritual battle, you must have the most ‘knees on the ground.’” …The character Eli to his young pastor friend Elmo in the novel The Old Man and the … More First Post after an Assassination Attempt on a Former President
A trio of short articles on the coming election: 9 Biblical Reasons President Trump is a Poor Candidate for President 9 Biblical Reasons President Biden is a Poor Candidate for President How I Hope All Christians Go to the Polls in November And to all my readers, I love you, appreciate you and will delight … More I Will Probably Repost this Closer to the Election
I have been an admirer of Peter Williams scholarship and communication ability for some time. (There is at least one video of his up on the ChosenRebel Blog that gives testimony to both.) Recently, I started reading his 2018 book on the reliability of the gospels. It does not disappoint. Here’s a brief quote from … More History and Christ: Can We Trust the Gospels?
This post started when someone commented on an old blog post about a bibliography about church planting that I posted in 2010! (That is ancient in the blogosphere.) Anyway, when that bibliography was updated in 2021, I included some of the comments below. But in reading that 2021 post, I thought there was room for … More A Short Apologetic for Broader Reading Patterns
The paragraphs below are the opening lines of John Piper’s mini-biography on Charles H. Spurgeon. From nearly 40 years of pastoral ministry, from the work I do with pastors since I left full-time pastoral ministry, I am convinced that these descriptions and observations are spot on. At the end of this post I want to … More Haunting Words for Pastors and the Rest of Us
I have two objectives with this post. To be biblical To not be overly complicated. What are the best descriptors of someone who walks with God? It would be hard to do better than the description of Job given three times in the early chapters of the book of Job. Let’s try them on. “There … More Four Descriptors of the Man or Woman of God
Long overdue, it is finally available for free download. These indexes feed my “inner book geekiness”. I hate books that do not have indexes, especially when the book is wonderful, or thought provoking. Included in these indexes for the 1980 MacMillian edition (One of the covers for which is pictured to the right) are: Authors and … More Indexes to The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses is Finally Done
I have been powerfully exercised this evening by the preaching of Martyn Lloyd-Jones mediated to me through the short bio on Lloyd-Jones life by John Piper. I think I will be meditating (and praying on) these quotations for months. Those people who say that [baptism with the Holy Spirit] happens to everybody at regeneration seem … More What We Need to Understand About Revival
It’s been about 25 years since an eye problem I suffered through in my early thirties began to produce what was eventually diagnosed as “night blindness”. I first began to notice that I couldn’t see stars at night. Today, if my wife and I are out, she normally drives on the way home if the … More Night Blindness Parallell
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