Table, Pulpit, and Square

A few of the blogs I read and enjoy regularly have recently all started talking about a similar topic – namely, what the local church is supposed to look like. The thoughts these guys are tossing around has consumed me as of late. It seems beautifully simple, yet all-encompassingly complex.
Joe Thorn started it [...]

OT History – Part 15

Tonight in the Old Testament Historical Books class, we’ll begin our look at the book of 1 Kings and looking primarily at the life of Solomon. In doing so, we’ll be covering 1 Kings 1-12. I will be providing multiple resources tonight: notes, 1 Kings synthetic outline, 2 Kings synthetic outline, and an [...]

Piper on the Gospel

Piper can fire me up basically at any point in the week. This is about a 6 minute clip. Nothing fancy. Just the straight truth about our need for the gospel.

HT: purgatorio

How To Use Google Reader

Google Reader is my friend. I want him to be yours too.  Abraham Piper has written a great little post on his wife’s blog regarding Google Reader – why it is useful, and how to set it all up and use it.
I highly commend it to you if you read more than a few [...]

My Little Environmentalist

My two (almost three) year old is an environmentalist. She truly cares about keeping the world clean.
Last year around this time we went out to Boston to visit some friends. My wife and I still joke about Iris shouting “OOPSIE!” in the car rental parking lot after the guy in front of us missed the [...]

Big Problem: Big Solution

The New Testament affirms that the Gospel of the cross and resurrection of Christ is God’s complete answer to the totality of evil and all its effects within his creation.  But it is the Old Testament which shows us the nature and extent of sin and evil – primarily in the narratives of Genesis 4-11, [...]

Privatized Faith?

Pope-on-a-rope joking aside, there is a valuable discussion occurring over at the On Faith blog regarding an important comment that he made last week with respect to the danger of privatized faith. The following post was made by Leith Anderson. I agree with his response to the question posed.

The Question: In his [...]

Piper on Parenting

John Piper gives a sneak peak at a new book he’s working on regarding marriage and parenting:
The most fundamental task of a mother and father is to show God to the children. Children know their parents before they know God. This is a huge responsibility and should cause every parent to be desperate for [...]

The Chaos of 2 Samuel

I can still remember the first time I read through the book of 2 Samuel as a new believer. I remember being blown away that this stuff was in the bible. Just taking a high-level look at the craziness across the chapters reveals:

Ch1 – execution
Ch 3 – murder
Ch 4 – murder, then retribution
Ch 6 – [...]

Oprah’s Jesus

Grant Swank of the Canadian Free Press writes that:
Oprah Winfrey has solidified her spirit of antiChrist by disclaiming the unique incarnation of God in Christ by blurring Christ as “energy”.

Read his article, Oprah’s Jesus = ‘Energy’ for a look at how dangerous her views really are.

New Research on Evangelism

Mark Kelly pens an excellent article on LifeWay’s website titled, “Evangelism Must Begin Beyond the Sanctuary“ The article contains some research from Ed Stetzer and has implications with respect to how we view the unchurched.
Some of the factoids that stood out to me were:

More than half the 1,402 respondents in a 2007 study of unchurched [...]

OT History – Part 14

This week we’ll be focusing on 2 Samuel 13-24 and continuing our look at the reign of David. We’ll give special attention to Absalom and also David’s census in Chapter 24.
Below are the class notes for tomorrow night and also the prep questions:
2 Samuel 13-24

Why doesn’t David take action against Amnon?
What is a result of [...]

Rob Bell: Universal Atonement?

Again, I state that Rob Bell (pastor at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI) has been the target of much criticism in the blogosphere. I’ve written some about it here – linking in some audio comments by D.A. Carson.
As I’ve stated before, I typically have not quite understood all the flurry of [...]

Challies on Parenting, Authority, and Sin

Tim Challies has an excellent piece on his blog right now on parenting, authority, and sin titled Hearing and Heeding God’s Word.

Blogs to Read

One of the blogs that I always read (Steve McCoy) posts on 5 blogs he always reads:

Drew Goodmanson
Jonathan Dodson
Tim Chester
Jeremy Pryor
Joe Thorn

Reason for God – Part 11

Some excerpts from chapter 9 (pp. 143-158)  Tim Keller’s, The Reason for God. The title of the chapter is “The Knowledge of God.”

I think people in our culture know unavoidably that there is a God, but they are repressing what they know.
It is common to hear people say, “No one should impose their moral [...]

XP vs. Vista

I never thought I’d see this headline: Users Petition to Keep Windows XP.
Martin Rowe blogs on this topic from a test engineering stand point here.

OT History – Part 13

This week we’ll be focusing on 2 Samuel 1-12 and looking at the reign of David. We’ll give special attention to the Davidic Promise in 2 Samuel 7 and also on David’s sin with Bathsheba in Chapter 11.
Here are the class notes for tomorrow night.

2 Samuel 1-12

Below are the questions I posed last week [...]

Is the Pope Here Yet?

I hear the the Pope is making a visit to the U.S.  In celebration of that, Joanna Sugden has created a post with nice pictures of all of the worst Pope paraphernalia (jimmy-crack, if that’s your lingo).
Here’s my favorite (yes, it is a pope-on-a-rope), but check out the rest for yourself:

More on the Forthcoming ESV Study Bible

The ESV Study Bible website has launched complete with sample pages, an array of endorsements, and a whole lotta other info.
Here are some of the features that I’m pumped about:

The ESV Study Bible is the first study Bible ever to be published simultaneously in print form and online—and the online edition will be available free [...]

Reason for God – Part 10

In Chapter 8 of Tim Keller’s, The Reason for God, he takes up the title, The Clues for God.  He starts with a powerful quote from Somerset Maugham (author of The Painted Veil which has also become a popular movie):
If one puts aside the existence of God and the survival after life as too doubtful…one has [...]

My Wife is Officially a Blogging Addict

My wife is officially a blogging addict.  She’s been vamping up our family blog and doing a really good job.  Her latest inclusion is slide shows of the girls which I love.
I knew she was past the point of return when she started asking me yesterday about how she can hack the HTML code.
Check out [...]

Stetzer on Evangelism

Most of our evangelism methods have been geared toward talking, when what’s most often needed most is the fine art of asking good, deep, compelling questions and then truly listening to the answers.
-Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches (p148).

Brister: Thoughts On Work

I’ve been doing quite a bit of thinking lately about what it means to be a (relevant, missional, non-cheesy, non-offensive, effective ) Christ-follower in the workplace.
I came across a blog post by Timmy Brister tonight that was helpful.  The post is called A Working Paradigm for Missional Work and you can read it here.

Driscoll on the Forthcoming ESV Study Bible

I’m really looking forward to the release of the ESV Study Bible later this year.  Read here as Mark Driscoll provides a brief review of it.