Sunday Leftovers (9/20/09)

As we think about the early church, even though reading the epistles, it is still sometimes tempting to be idealistic about the world in which those believers lived and the manner in which those churches functioned. “If only our church could be like those early New Testament churches…,” we suggest. Yet in such longings we […]

Today’s Quote – One Another (Harris)

Josh Harris, Stop Dating the Church: The longer I’m a Christian, the more aware I become that I cannot live the Christian life on my own. My individual and direct relationship with God through Jesus is the greatest privilege and He is truly all I need — and yet God in His wisdom has created […]

Today’s Quote – Faithfulness (DeYoung)

Kevin DeYoung, Why We Love the Church: Our part is to do our part.…God will not reward churchgoers, or His churches for that matter, for being big and influential, or hip and culturally with-it, but for being good and faithful (Mt. 25:23). That’s all God asks of us — be good and faithful, which is […]

Consider God’s servant Job

For the past couple of weeks, we’ve been making our way through Job in our daily Bible reading. Just reading the first couple of chapters makes one think of people who have suffered or reminds one of his own suffering. I’ve thought of numerous hospital visits and bedside prayers for people dying — children and […]

Today’s Quote – Family (Edwards)

Jonathan Edwards, “A Farewell Sermon:” Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little church, consecrated to Christ, and wholly influenced and governed by his rules.

A blog worth reading: Pulpit Magazine

I subscribe to a number of different blogs in order to help me stay informed of current issues of discussion and debate in the Christian world. Some are obviously better than others. One that I read has been on a kind of sabbatical for a while, and has just this week started posting daily comments […]

Today’s Quote – Christianity (Guinness)

Os Guinness, The Dust of Death: Modern Christianity is crucially weak at three vital points. The first is its compromised, deficient understanding of revelation. Without Biblical historicity and veracity behind the Word of God, theology can only grow closer to Hinduism. Second, the modern Christian is drastically weak in an unmediated, personal, experiential knowledge of […]

They believe in the church

As I said recently, I love the church. In my journey of increasing passion for Christ’s bride, I have been helped by numerous writers who have stimulated my thinking towards godly and biblical thoughts about the church. We need preeminently the Word of God to shape our think on all things; but we are wise […]

Today’s Quote – Ministry (Petersen)

Jim Petersen, Church Without Walls: The history of the church, from God’s perspective, is a history of the Holy Spirit using little people. It consists of a mustard seed here and there, some yeast hidden in dough or a seed in the ground. Not many wise or influential people are included. Rather, it has been […]

Leadership questions

What makes a good leader? What makes a good leader in a home? In his outstanding and classic book, Spiritual Leadership (purchase the original edition, if you can find it), Oswald Sanders asks a series of questions that reveal the character of a natural leader. They are good questions for all leaders — whether they […]

Today’s Quote – Church (Guinness)

Os Guinness, No God But God: The overwhelming majority of Americans, more than 85%, identify themselves as Christians. But if the statistical indicators of faith are up, the social influence is down, and the reasons are becoming plain. There has been a carelessness about Christian orthodoxy, a corruption of Christian obedience, a vacuum of Christian […]

Today’s Quote – Family (Younts)

John Younts, Everyday Talk: The purpose of the family is 1) to maintain and nourish the one-flesh relationship between husband and wife, and 2) to prepare children to leave the home of their parents and establish their own homes.

The kind of Father God is

I didn’t have time to develop this thought fully in my sermon yesterday morning, but here are some Scriptures to stimulate your thinking about the kind of Father God is to His children: He is compassionate toward our needs (whether it is sin or difficulty; 2 Thess. 2:16-17) We are recipients of His mercy — […]

Sunday Leftovers (9/13/09)

I fell in love while I was in seminary. Twice. It was while I was matriculating in preparation for ministry that I met Raye Jeanne, fell in love and we married. And during those same years of study, I fell in love with another woman — the bride of Christ — the church. I hadn’t […]

Today’s Quote – Church (Wells)

David Wells, The Bleeding of the Evangelical Church: [In today’s church,] The importance of theology is eclipsed by the clamor for management skills, biblical preaching by entertaining story-telling, godly character by engaging personality, and the work of the ministry by the art of sustaining a career. I believe that these are all unhappy exchanges.