In honor of our new semester beginning next week, I thought I would post a story from the autobiography of John G. Paton, which was passed on to me by Patrick Brown. This famous, godly missionary knew how to manage a classroom. “The following week, a young man and a young woman began to attend …
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This 17th century poem, prepared later as a hymn by Wesley, captures well the truth of living all of life under the gaze of God and for his glory. “The Elixir” Teach me, my God and King, In all things Thee to see, And what I do in anything To do it as for Thee. …
Continue reading ‘George Herbert on Life to the Glory of God’ »
The following quote comes T. K. Cheyne’s book, The Christian Use of the Psalms, published in 1900. Cheyne, a critical, Anglican scholar critiques what he sees as a flat, mundane use of the Psalms in Anglican churches. I do not agree with a number of his comments and suggestions. However, I found this section telling …
I just heard that the “world’s most interesting man” is a guy known for recent beer commercials. Must not be a very interesting world. I am blessed to know some very interesting people so I don’t believe the pronouncement. In fact this pronouncement reminds me of a comment from C. S. Lewis in a different …
Brandon O’Brien in his new book Strategically Small Church, The: Intimate, Nimble, Authentic, and Effective writes, “Despite the fact that the Bible compares the spread of the gospel to the mustard seed, which appears insignificant and unproductive, the dominant expectation of most pastors is that success is measured in terms of numerical growth. Fifty years …
Continue reading ‘A Move Towards Intentionally Smaller Churches?’ »
“But there is a danger in our desire to do big things for God, for our pursuit of success dovetails with a powerful American temptation: the appeal of celebrity. These days, obscurity is the worst kind of failure. When we do something significant, we expect to be rewarded with popularity.” (Brandon O’Brien, The Strategically Small …
Relevance is a big topic in the church these days. Of course we ought to be relevant, but the issue is how such relevance is defined. Doug Wilson in his A Primer on Worship and Reformation provides a good distinction between proper and improper irrelevance. “There are at least two kinds of irrelevance. One is …
This analysis by Tozer in his day is no less true in ours. The acceptance of trite entertainment and showmanship in church is surely the result of a shallowness that has resulted from frenetic activity. The idea of cultivation and exercise, so dear to the saints of old, has now no place in our total …
Continue reading ‘Tozer on Slowing Down for Cultivation of the Soul’ »
I have commented here from time to time on the value of proper imagination in interpreting and proclaiming Scripture. I was pleased today to come across a quote along this line from A. T. Robertson. Robertson was certainly not one to minimize close attention to the text. In fact this quote comes from his famous …
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