Here is another quote from Conan Doyle’s, The White Company. The English knights and company while staying with some French nobility hear from the French nobleman how low he thinks of the common people under his rule. Doyle, as a good Englishman contrasts this with the free heartiness of Englishmen, but then moves on to …
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Here is another good section from Doyle’s The White Company. In this section a young lady criticizes a young man who grew up in an abbey, calling for monks to do the world good by entering everyday life rather than remaining cloistered away. Doyle was no orthodox believer but this is a good presentation of …
The American church’s fascination with gimmicks and shows is well documented as well as deeply distressing. Too much effort is given to having the biggest/greatest/neatest show and too little is given to actually living out the gospel in healthy relationships where people know one another and hold one another accountable under the word of God. …
The Trinity Psalter suggests Psalm 46 be sung to the tune of “America, the Beautiful.” I have no idea what led the editors to suggest this tune (other than that it fits!), but I find it very fitting. Our church is planning to sing Psalm 46 to this tune on Sunday (July 4). On a …
In his book, (which I mentioned previously), Christopher Hall has as useful section on how the church fathers used the Psalms as models for prayer (Craig Blaising spoke on this at the Psalms Project previously). In this excerpt you see the point of the Psalms shaping our affections and guiding us in what we ought …
I have often commented here on the value of broad reading in literature. One value is that good stories tend to include keen insight into human nature. Currently I am listening to the audio of one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s lesser known novels, The White Company. The story is set in 14th century Europe …
I have appreciated so far looking through Christopher Hall’s book, Worshiping With the Church Fathers. In his introduction he provides a good word about engagement with our Christian heritage. Having been nurtured in the Jesus movement, Hall mentions how he realized the movement had no ecclesiology (still like much of evangelicalism today). In that …
I have been perusing Anthony Thiselton’s new book, The Living Paul: An Introduction to the Apostle’s Life and Thought. I differ with him in various places (he is skeptical of Pauline authorship of Ephesians and the Pastorals for example), but I appreciate much of what he has to say. His brief chapter on communion was …
In sermon prep for last Sunday I walked through all the biblical references to the fear of the Lord. One thing that struck me this time was all the blessings that are promised to attend the fear of the Lord. I tried to pull these references together to summarize what the Bible promises to us …
My purpose in this post is simply to give my own opinion on what resources I found most helpful in preparing to preach Psalm 128. I am not addressing which resources are the best on the Psalms in general. On Psalm 128, the overall most helpful source I found was Spurgeon’s Treasury of David. I …