Today’s Quote – Reconciliation (Luther)

Martin Luther, quoted in John Stott’s The Cross of Christ: Learn to know Christ and him crucified. Learn to sing to him and say, “Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness and I am your sin. You took on you what was mine; yet set on me what was yours. You became what you were not, […]

The grace of giving

This morning as part of our Bible reading, we read 2 Corinthians 8-9 — the account of the sacrificial and gracious giving of the Philippians and the corresponding exhortations by Paul to the Corinthians to cultivate similar habits of grace giving. One writer has counted at least 16 principles of giving in these chapters. Let […]

The church in community

After writing yesterday’s book review, I remembered a seminar entitled “The Pastor and His Community: How the Gospel Informs Our Mission beyond the Church” that Mark Dever did at a pastor’s conference earlier this year. Both the audio and his notes are available. While he may not have been as definitive about how these principles […]

Today’s Quote – Good Works (Piper)

John Piper, What Jesus Demands from the World: When Jesus calls us to let our light shine that others may see our good deeds and glorify God, he is calling us to join him in the work he came to do. And just as he pursued the glory of his Father through his final act […]

Book Review: Unfashionable

Title: Unfashionable: Making a difference in the world by being different Author: Tullian Tchividjian Publisher: Multnomah Books, 2009; 204 pp. $17.99 Recommendation (4-star scale): This morning I was in a meeting at the church when an unknown man came to my office door, introduced himself and said that he had a financial need — could […]

Today’s Quote – Good Works (Charnock)

Stephen Charnock, A Puritan Golden Treasury: All our works before repentance are dead works (Hebrews 6:1). And these works have no true beauty in them, with whatsoever gloss they may appear to a natural eye. A dead body may have something of the features and beauty of a living, but it is but the beauty […]

No merit of our own

While putting together my thoughts for yesterday’s leftovers, I received an email blog post from Desiring God where John Piper revealed, “My happy confession of having no merit.” A short piece, it reinforces what we’ve been saying all the way through these first chapters of Ephesians — the merit of our salvation is only Christ. […]

Sunday Leftovers (8/16/09)

The truth of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone has been a part of the church now for almost 500 years. You would think we would understand it with clarity. It’s been repeated and explained over and over in church after church. Countless sermons have been preached about it. Innumerable books […]

Today’s Quote – Good Works (Cawdray)

Daniel Cawdray, in A Puritan Golden Treasury: As the apple is not the cause of the apple tree, but a fruit of it: even so good works are not the cause of our salvation, but a sign and a fruit of the same.

Today’s Quote – Grace (Edwards)

Dwight Edwards, Revolution Within: When He’s viewed almost exclusively as a God of love, we see forgiveness as just part of His job. That leaves His love with no punch for us, no fizz, no sprakle. Assumed grace can never be transforming grace. We must be primed by the blazing holiness of God before His […]

Grab Bag

A few links of interest that I’ve come across in the past couple weeks: “Great Cloud of Witnesses” — missionary stories compiled by Urbana. I’ve not read much on this site, but what led me to it was an interest in a pair of articles about Jim Elliott, written by his brother-in-law, David Howard (Pt […]

Today’s Quote – Sin and Grace (Lundgaard)

Kris Lundgaard, The Enemy Within: …[the] first and most wretched attack [of the flesh] is to abuse God’s grace to make sin seem less sinful, less dangerous, less threatening. You must understand this: the flesh weakens conviction against sin by separating the remedy of grace for the design of grace.… The flesh works to make […]

How well do you know your spouse?

In a recent blog post, John Piper provides a list of “Questions to Ask When Preparing for Marriage.” His list includes the areas of theology, worship, roles of husband and wife, children, entertainment, conflict, work, friends, and health and sickness. These excellent questions are designed to help couples move past superficiality and infatuation and help […]

Who is John Calvin?

Okay. It’s the 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth, so that question may be somewhat irrelevant. Most will know that John Calvin was a theologian, pastor, and essential participant in the Reformation. But what about the details of his life? Without reading (or reciting) a biography, do you know who John Calvin is? I’ve been […]

Today’s Quote – Success (Lutzer)

Erwin Lutzer, Failure: the Backdoor to Success: What is failure? It is living with perverted values. It is being hooked on one or more of the three worldly motivations [the pride of life, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes]. What is success? It is learning to apply the grace of […]