Identifying idols

Kenny Stokes (who is filling in as the preaching pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church while John Piper is taking his leave of absence) preached on 1 Jn. 5:20-21 last Sunday and asked these “13 Questions to Diagnose Your Idolatries:” What do you most highly value? What do you think about by default? What is your […]

What is sin?

Were we able to daily understand the reality of sin and its consequences, it would have far less attraction to us. Two statements from two different writers have helped me in comprehending what sin really is. I have heard John MacArthur say on numerous occasions, “Sin is what we do when we are disappointed with […]

Book Review: Counterfeit Gods

Title: Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters Author: Timothy Keller Publisher: Dutton, 2009; 210 pp. $19.95 Recommendation (4-star scale): I first started thinking of idolatry as something more than a metal or wood structure made with hands ten or twelve years ago when reading […]

Today’s Quote – Idolatry (Keller)

Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods: Many, if not most, of these counterfeit gods can remain in our lives once we have “demoted” them below God. Then they won’t control us and bedevil us with anxiety, pride, anger, and drivenness. Nevertheless, we must not make the mistake of thinking that this story means all we have to […]

Today’s Quote – Idolatry (Keller)

Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods: What many people call “psychological problems” are simple issues of idolatry. Perfectionism, chronic indecisiveness, the need to control the lives of others — all of these stem from making good things into idols that then drive us into the ground as we try to appease them. Idols dominate our lives.… The […]

Grab bag

Some random posts and articles that I’ve accumulated recently from around the ‘net: Charles Spurgeon meditates on walking with like Christ (this classic book, Morning and Evening can be downloaded in its entirety for reading at your leisure). Luther posts the 95 theses (if you’ve never really understood what the theses were all about…) Tim […]

Today’s Quote – Heaven (Baxter)

Richard Baxter, The Saints Everlasting Rest: He that makes not God his chief good and ultimate end, is in heart a pagan and a vile idolater. Let me ask, then, dost thou truly account it thy chief happiness to enjoy the Lord in glory, or dost thou not? Canst thou say, “The Lord is my […]

Today’s Quote – Marriage (Harvey)

Dave Harvey, When Sinners Say “I Do”: Marriage is joined upon a field of great spiritual battles. But it rests within a war that is already won. Our real oppontent is not on the opposite side of the bed, but within our hearts. Our enemy is the desires of our flesh that oppose the desires […]

Today’s Quote – Idolatry (Guinness & Seel)

Os Guinness and John Seel, No God But God: …idols will inevitably involve self-centeredness, self-inflation, and self-deception. Idolatry begins with the counterfeiting of God, because only with a counterfeit of God can people remain the center of their lives and loyalties, autonomous architects of their futures. Something within creation will then be idolatrously inflated to […]

Today’s Quote – Idolatry (Calvin)

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1.11.8): …man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.…Man’s mind, full as it is of pride and boldness, dares to imagine a god according to its own capacity; as it sluggishly plods, indeed is overwhelmed with the crassest ignorance, it conceives an unreality and an […]

Today’s Quote – Idols (Lewis)

C. S. Lewis, quoted in Christian History: There are three images in my mind which I must continually forsake and replace by better ones: the false image of God, the false image of my neighbors, and the false image of myself.

Is prosperity a gift?

Yesterday morning I read the following statement from John Piper in a recent sermon: …contrary to what the Prosperity Gospel teaches, wealth is not usually a blessing. It is usually a curse. Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter […]

Today’s Quote (10/1/08)

C. J. Mahaney, “The Idol Factory,” Pt. 2 Husband and wife — you desire to have a spouse that relates to you with respect, etc. Is that a wrong desire? No. But it’s not a need. And it can become a lust, if when your spouse doesn’t respond as you desire, you in craving and […]

What to do when happily married

“What do you do when you are happily married?” The question isn’t “how do you become happily married?” but “since you are happily married, what should you do?” Why, prepare for a divorce, of course. At least that is the logic of Ellen Tien, in her essay “She’s happily married, dreaming of divorce.” [The original […]

Idolatry and minimizing God

I came across this statement about idolatry in preparing for my sermon Sunday. I will not have the time to develop this idea, but thought it worthwhile, in assessing what happens when we construct and worship idols in our hearts instead of God. Read carefully: All idolatry, whether ancient or modern, primitive or sophisticated, is […]