Christ died . . . for prosperity?

At or near the top of the New York Times bestseller list for many months, Joel Osteen (Your Best Life Now) has a significant audience. What is his thesis? He reveals his motivation on page 1, telling the story of a man who had some success. While on vacation in Hawaii, this man saw a […]

Just what did Luther say?

Yesterday Elizabeth asked me what Martin Luther said in his 95 theses (declarations) to the church in Wittenberg. You may read the theses here. The statements were his attempt to bring the church to a point of repentance for its corruption of the truth of the gospel — that man is saved by grace alone, […]

Reformation Week Reflection #1

In honor of Tuesday being Reformation Day (the 489th anniversary of the posting of Martin Luther’s 95 theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg), here is the first in a series of quotes from some of the reformers on the importance of the gospel: “Either sin is with you, lying on your shoulders, […]

Desiring Salvation

Why someone wants to be saved is no small question. It penetrates the heart of our motives and offers a clear view of the desire of our heart. (Do we want God or do we want a gift that God gives?) If God is not your ultimate joy and desire, you may not be saved. […]

Sunday Leftovers (10/29/06)

Those who are saved are saved eternally by the work of the eternal Godhead on their behalf. What does each member of the Godhead do for believers in Christ? [This list is nowhere near exhaustive, but it is a good starting point.] The work of the Father to secure you He has sovereign purposes and […]

Thomas Boston on Scripture

“Consider the excellency of the scriptures. There is a transcendent glory in them, which whoso discern cannot miss to hug and embrace them. To commend the bible to you, I shall say these eight things of it. [Here is the first only.] 1. It is the best of books. They may know much, ye think, […]

Living by grace is important

I thought about the grace of God as I read the newspaper this week, because the writers of two essays didn’t. The first essay, “Control Issues” by Daniel Akst rightly evaluates the lack of self-control that is rampant in our culture. He perceptively writes, Most of us who live with children and computers know about […]

Mohler on the NJ Supreme Court

Al Mohler’s synthesis of yesterday’s decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court to grant the rights and privileges of marital status to those in same-sex relationships is particularly worth reading. He offers a clear summary of the decision and then several important paragraphs of analysis.

Sunday Leftovers (10/22/06)

The supreme gift given by the Father to the Son is a redeemed people that will eternally glorify and delight in the Son. That means that we who are saved are God’s great gift to His Son. And those whom the Father has given to the Son not only will not be lost by the […]

Mohler on marriage

Al Mohler comments today on the NY Times story on the Census Bureau data about marriage in his blog, “Marriage Only for a Minority? Not Hardly.”

The married minority

Of the 111+ million households in America, less than 50% are now comprised of married couples (with or without children). So says new analysis done by the New York Times of data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau. There are multiple reasons for this growing cultural transformation — young adults marrying at later and later […]

If We’re Camping, it Must be Raining

I took a few days of vacation this past weekend. The heat of summer has receded to make camping a more reasonable option again, so we made our plans. Raye Jeanne and I would pack up on Friday morning, take out the girls early from school and make a short road trip to a nearby […]

Church is important (imagine that)

From Mark Dever (The Deliberate Church): While our individual walks are crucial, we are impoverished in our personal pursuit of God if we do not avial ourselves of the help that is avaiable through mutually edifying relationships in our covenant church family (Eph. 4:15-16; Heb. 10:24-25). …the corporate life of the congregation should be central […]

Tozer on entertainment

A. W. Tozer summarized the dangers of entertainment for our day (and he wrote this some 45 years ago) in his essay “The Great God Entertainment” (published in The Root of the Righteous): …the ominous thing is that [entertainment’s] power is almost exclusively evil, rotting the inner life, crowding out the long eternal thoughts which […]

Writing and Reading

The Handwriting Is on the Wall, says the Washington Post. On the 2006 SAT, only 15% of the test takers completed the essay portion in long hand. The rest printed their essays. Why? Writing in cursive is an art lost to the presence of keyboard, researchers say. So my question is, if the keyboard has […]