Thinking about the putting off of sin and the world and the putting on of Christ and grace, I’ve been thinking on the following statement from J. C. Ryle: Would you be holy? Would you become a new creature? Then you must begin with Christ. You will do just nothing at all and make no […]
Read More Would you be holy?Title: What is the Gospel? Author: Greg Gilbert Publisher: Crossway, 2010; 128 pp. $12.95 Recommendation (4-star scale): Not all commendable books are long. Not all worthwhile books are complex. Not all valuable books are ground-breaking. Such is the case with Greg Gilbert’s first published work. It is not long (only 128 pages; it can be […]
Read More Book Review: What is the Gospel?Sometimes it is difficult to discern worldliness (either because of the complexity of the issues involved, or because of the deceitfulness of our own hearts). Are we expressing appropriate freedom and liberty that God has granted us to enjoy — or are we engaging in activity that is in fact worldly? Or perhaps the better […]
Read More Wordly or godly?This morning, we begin reading the book of 1 Kings in our Bible reading. This book was actually written with 2 Kings as one book by the Biblical author (we don’t know with certainty who that was, but Jeremiah is one possibility). Together, these two books are a sad documentary of the sins of the […]
Read More Reading KingsThe past few Sundays we’ve been considering what the life of the unbeliever is like. In many ways, this has been an incomplete consideration, for it has only contemplated what the life of the unbeliever is like now; we have not dwelt on what the life of the unbeliever will be like, because of what […]
Read More The future punishment of the unbelievingAll written from during his first Roman imprisonment, Paul’s four letters of Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon all carry similar themes and messages. Each of them stresses in some manner the work of Christ and the unity of the church. Yet perhaps no two letters are more similar than Ephesians and Colossians; so reading Colossians […]
Read More Reading ColossiansWorldliness is not a battle that is unique only to the contemporary church. Every church in every age has faced the temptation to accommodate the world. As one example, take a letter written by John Newton to another pastor — …the progress of wickedness amongst the unconverted here is awful. Convictions repeatedly stifled in many, […]
Read More Sunday Leftovers (6/6/10)A believer in Christ is to be pure. In one sense, he already is. The blood of Christ has been applied to his life, and all the impurity of his life — past, present, and future — has been removed. He stands guiltless before God. (That’s an amazing sentence!) But in another sense, he is […]
Read More Are you pure in heart?Among several other titles, I am currently reading Paul Tripp’s new book What Did You Expect? The subtitle is helpful to understanding what God is doing in our lives to conform us to the image of His beloved Son through both our own sins and inadequacies, as well as those of our mates — Redeeming […]
Read More We live in one of two kingdomsTitle: The Last Lecture Author: Randy Pausch Publisher: Hyperion, 2008; 206 pp. $21.95 (paperback and digital versions also available) Recommendation (4-star scale): Imagine you are leaving your job for a new one in another state. You have been with this organization for many years and have mentored many diverse people in the process. What do […]
Read More Book Review: The Last LectureThe Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood has long been a very helpful resource and clear-sounding voice on the Biblical position of complementarianism in marriage. And a subscription to the bi-annual journal was always very affordable (I think about $10, if I remember correctly). And now the price is even better — it’s free! Like […]
Read More FREE — Journal of Biblical Manhood and WomanhoodToday at lunch I was reading William Carson’s Letters of John Newton. You can tell by his letter to this woman that she had asked something about how to resist the temptations of the world. His counsel is wise even for our own day: You would have me tell you what are the best means […]
Read More Newton’s counsel on worldliness“The faithful,” writes Tullian Tchividjian, “according to Jesus, are not intended to be fashionable. They’re not supposed to fit in. They’re called out from the world to be ‘odd.’ Our oddness, in fact, is essential to our faithfulness. To put it another way, faithfulness to Christ requires foreignness to the world’s trendy diversions.” What is […]
Read More More resources about worldviewWe wrestle often with the question of “What is the meaning of life?” As Packer has noted, it is not such a difficult question: We also need to recover a true understanding of human life, a sense of the greatness of the soul. We need to recover the awareness that God is more important than […]
Read More What’s important?Today is a day to remember. It was a day to remember the cost of freedom. It was a day to remember those who fought and gave their lives for the freedoms we enjoy today. Fathers, sons, brothers, uncles, cousins, friends and unknown soldiers purchased with their lives our liberty. It’s good to remember. It […]
Read More Memorial Day
Words of Grace 