Going to the Shepherds’ Conference…

This morning I leave for the Shepherds’ Conference. There are a variety of resources that will be available on the Shepherds’ Conference website throughout the week, including Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and pictures. Audio of the conference will also be posted on the website following the conference. I have been to the Shepherds’ Conference numerous times. […]

Two free audio books

Every month Christian Audio offers a free book download. And this month they have two — the classic The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a more recent book by John Piper: Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die. Just go to the website and follow the directions provided. These books really are free!

Reading Psalms

Today we resumed our reading of the book of Psalms. This is the longest book in the Scripture (at least by chapters — 150) and one of the most popular books in Scripture. But the Psalms are written by a variety of authors over hundreds of years, so how are they to be interpreted and […]

Study the Bible

Just as we are sometimes reticent to read the Bible, so we are at times also slow to spend labor in the hard discipline of Bible study. To that end, the encouragement of the riches that are derived from that study are worth remembering: There is divinity in Scripture. It contains the marrow and quintessence […]

Unclean! Unclean!

A whole generation (or more) of people has grown up hearing the adage, “cleanliness is next to godliness.” And I — like many others — heard many encouragements in my early years to make things “spic and span.” Importing those notions into the text of Leviticus is not helpful to understanding what God is saying […]

Sola Gratia conference audio available

The audio from the messages of the Sola Gratia conference hosted by Countryside Bible Church last weekend is now available. The three speakers for this event were Richard Phillips, Russell Moore, and John Hannah. I missed hearing John Hannah, who spoke only on Sunday, but was introduced to Phillips and Moore, hearing them both for […]

Read the Bible

Many years ago, one pastor ventured into a land of discovery — his quest was to find how much his people read their Bibles each day. He pastored a godly and effective church, so his expectation was that they read their copies of Scripture more than most believers in most churches. It was a reasonable […]

Book Review: Spiritual Disciplines

Title: Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life Author: Donald S. Whitney Publisher: NavPress, 1991; 254 pp. $15.99 Recommendation (4-star scale): “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting,” wrote G. K. Chesterton. Rather, “It has been found difficult and left untried.” This could not only be said of the Christian life in […]

Giving counsel and receiving correction

Meditating on the story of Moses and Jethro (Exodus 18), Jon Bloom meditates on how a godly man receives counsel and correction. “Moses: When God’s Direction Comes Through Correction” provides more insight than just how to receive correction, however. The article also serves to encourage those who give counsel about how to offer it in […]

Whom have I in Heaven?

When offering the gospel, John Piper asks the question, “If you can have all the good things and blessings of Heaven, and God is not there, do you still want Heaven?” The point of the question is to elicit what the desire of the individual is — does he want God, or merely the good […]

Reading Leviticus

This week we began reading the book of Leviticus in our Bible-reading plan. It is for most people a somewhat confusing book to read — and certainly disconnected from what NT believers understand about faith in Christ. After all, the system of sacrifices is long-departed. So how are we to understand these things? In short, […]

Sunday Leftovers (2/21/10)

A short Q & A about spiritual gifts — 1. What do we mean with the term “spiritual gifts?” Spiritual gifts can be defined this way: “Spiritual gifts are received from God and His unmerited grace — and they are diversely and sovereignly given to believers at the moment of salvation by the Holy Spirit […]

Did Jesus descend to Hell?

Interpreters of Ephesians 4:9 have long wrestled with the meaning of the phrase “the lower parts of the earth.” Many have conjectured that phrase means that after the crucifixion Christ went to Hell to proclaim the truth of His death and resurrection to those who resided there. Interpreters base this understanding not only on Ephesians […]

Think on these things

It has been said of this generation of Christian believers (in America and the West particularly) that our weakness is that we do not think often enough or deeply enough about God. It’s not that we hate God or are angry with God or confused about God — our problem is that we are too […]

A really good word about killing sin

This may be the best sermon I’ve heard in weeks or even months. In his final message at the Bethlehem Conference for Pastors, Sam Storms proposes that the best way to fight sin is to have a different affection. Instead of telling people seek God instead of pleasure, Storms says that we must seek our […]