Archive of entries posted by Ray
Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth
As we labor for the renewal of the Church, for a return to Biblical thinking and practice, it is easy to get discouraged. The progress is often slow, people sometimes oppose, we see our own weakness and failures, and we can begin to wonder if we are doing anything worthwhile. We can be tempted to …
A. T. Robertson on the Value of Greek for Preachers
Robertson is probably the most prominent New Testament scholar to emerge from Southern Baptist ranks. He was not an ivory tower academician, however. His concern that study be translated into good preaching for the building up of the church is evident throughout his work. In fact on my count, his published works fall primarily into …
Continue reading ‘A. T. Robertson on the Value of Greek for Preachers’ »
C. S. Lewis on the Emptiness of External Religion
To follow the previous post, here is a quote from C. S. Lewis where he is making the point that the worst sins are often not the obvious ones, but can often be masked in religiosity. Lewis specifically mentions the pleasure of power, which is a good warning to anyone in leadership. This quote is …
Continue reading ‘C. S. Lewis on the Emptiness of External Religion’ »
Geerhardus Vos on Gospel Preaching
On our recent vacation I read Letters of Geerhardus Vos . I will be posting a full review soon, but I wanted to go ahead and make one observation from the book. The biographical sketch and letters show Vos concerned about churches who retained a conservative profession but whose preaching consisted merely of moralisms. Liberalism …
One’s Reading, a Mirror of the Soul
Recently I was sent the following quote from Oswald Sander’s Spiritual Leadership. “If a man is known by the company he keeps, so also his character is reflected in the books he reads. A leader’s reading is the outward expression of his inner hungers and aspirations.” (104) How true it is! It is for this …
Luther on True Faith
Here is a great quote from Luther’s preface to his commentary on Romans on the nature of true faith. This is such a needed truth in our day, when people think they have saving faith because they have walked an aisle, prayed a prayer or even been baptized but there are no active results to …
When the Morning Came
When the Morning Came, by Piet Prins Struggle For Freedom Series 1 (Neerlandia, Canada: Inheritance Publications, 1989), pb. 158 pp. Trans from original Dutch I was greatly and pleasantly surprised by this book. The combination of our previous experience with translations from Dutch, little experience with this publisher and being a bit behind schedule, I …
Perelandra
On the first day of our vacation I finished reading Perelandra, the second book in C. S. Lewis’ space trilogy. Since I commented on the first book (Out of the Silent Planet), I thought I’d comment briefly on this one as well. I thought Perelandra was a significantly different type of story from Out of …
Hating Sin
This past Sunday my fellow pastor, Lee Tankersley, preached on Psalm 78 emphasizing the terribleness of sin and then the greatness of God’s mercy. As the Psalm seeks to remind us of just how bad sin is, I was reminded of an exhortation I wrote several years ago for myself on this topic. It has …