Grab bag

“When Your World Caves In” (Paul Levy) — a sober reminder of the cost of sin in general and the cost (and protection against) sexual sin in particular: “Recently I’ve spent some time with two friends who were in ministry but have fallen morally and so now find themselves out of a job that they loved, […]

Grab bag

Some helpful articles from the last week: David Murray has “20 Helps to Sermon Listening.” Number 1? “Read and mediate on God’s Word every day: Daily Bible reading whets our appetite for the main course on the Lord’s Day. We can’t expect to be ready to digest spiritual food if we’ve not been eating through […]

The greatest privilege

William Perkins, The Art of Prophesying: If the greatest privileges that can be bestowed on an individual in this world are the forgiveness of sins, justification and reconciliation with God, adoption into his family and the assurance of eternal glory — then there is no more highly privileged duty, no more dignified position in the […]

Consider your own death

What would you do and how would you act if you considered your imminent death? Specifically, what kind of evangelist would you be if you were convinced of your soon physical demise? Such a consideration would likely stimulate you and me to greater boldness in evangelism, which was the point of Joseph Alleine, a Puritan […]

Free audio and ebook tracts

Christian audio is making a collection of 27 tracts from Crossway Good News Tracts available for free. These tracts come as both audio files (about 5 minutes each) and PDF files. I have not read them, but a glance through the titles and authors (and the publisher) makes me think these will largely be trustworthy […]

Essentials Conference Registration

From Countryside Bible Church: No Biblical command is more widely accepted and yet more routinely disobeyed than Christ’s command to make disciples! Evangelism – communicating the gospel to the lost people around us – is not optional. It’s not a special gift Christ gives only to a select few. Although some are more gifted and […]

Contending with Christianity’s Critics

Several weeks ago, our church went to a conference hosted by Watermark Community Church, “Contending with Christianity’s Critics: Answering New Atheists and Other Objectors.” The audio and video from that conference is now available on Watermark’s website. You can download or view/listen online to all seven of the messages: “The Importance of Apologetics for Every […]

When others leave the faith

I heard it again Sunday morning. While visiting another church (a “kindred spirit” church that I frequent as often as I can when I am on vacation on a Sunday), I heard of two more men who are in the process of leaving the faith. They are turning their backs on what they know is […]

The election is over. Now what?

Yesterday was election day. Today the election is over. And the results are (mostly) in. If your candidate or referendum won, then you likely are happy. If your candidate or referendum lost, then you likely will be tempted with sadness or discouragement or even despair. But for the believer in Christ, nothing has changed. Not […]

Grab bag

Some helpful articles spotted recently: The timeline for the transition between John Piper and Jason Meyer as pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church has changed again. Read the plan and rationale from John’s pen. Addressing the same theme that I did in the post, “Satan and sin — two defeated foes,” Mike Riccardi writes about “Freed from […]

Declaring the Gospel

We know that we are to communicate the gospel — to speak it, declare it, articulate it, and defend it. Yet many of us miss opportunities to speak the gospel, as this chart demonstrates: Part of the reason we don’t tell the gospel is because we don’t know the gospel well enough to say it […]

Grab bag

Some helpful articles from the last week: Here are two helpful resources on Mormonism: Russell Moore writes how “How Christians Should Engage Latter-day Saints.” The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary hosted a panel discussion on the topic, “The Mormon Moment? Religious Conviction and the 2012 Election” (audio | video) George Lawson writes that, “Reliable Source Reveals […]

Keep the gospel complicated

Randy Newman argues that perhaps we have minimized and diminished the gospel in our attempts to simplify it. Perhaps we have distorted the richness and wonder of its complexities and transcendence and in doing so have kept unbelievers from seeing their need to fall in worship of God who is greater than their comprehension. Maybe […]

The nature of unbelief

A believer in Christ might assume that anyone who truly understands the nature of the gospel would want the gospel. “Why wouldn’t they believe?” we might wonder. Yet they don’t all believe. Even when we assume that they will and should, they do not believe. A clear, but often overlooked illustration of this is in […]

What’s your message?

A message. Every commercial has one. So does every television show, movie, book, and website. All sermons have them, and so does every conversation. Some messages are obviously better and more clear than others, but every form of communication is given to convey a message. This is true of gospel conversations as well. When we […]