This powerful warning from John Angell James in his valuable book, An Earnest Ministry, still applies today: “The prevailing disposition, therefore, to do such homage to talent, rather than to moral excellence, is only another species of idolatry, more refined and subtle than the worship of stocks and stones, but scarcely less guilty…” But when …
Reading The Return of the King (third volume of The Lord of the Rings) to my boys a comment from Halbarad, a Ranger and kin of Aragorn, struck me as paralleling pastoral ministry. Speaking of the Shire, the peaceful land of the Hobbits, he said: “Little do they know of our long labour for the …
Psalm singing continues to be a great joy in my family having a standard place at our evening meal. We began a little over a year ago with Psalm 128, and have added a few more along the way. As we began 2010 we introduced Psalm 127 the other really strong family Psalm. The version …
“[John Chrysostom’s] excellence we appreciate today from an exegetical point of view, from an ethical point of view, and from a literary point of view. The preaching of this master centers in his series of exegetical sermons on individual books of the Bible. . . . . his great authority as a preacher rested in …
On Thursday, April 29, Greg Thornbury and I will be the speakers for a one day Bible conference with the theme, “Communicating Familiar Bible Stories in Unfamiliar Ways,” hosted by Union University, Hendersonville. We will be considering the familiar pastoral struggle of preaching texts which you feel like the people already know very well. Pastors …
I have previously mentioned the blog tour for this book and made some preliminary comments about it. My appreciation of the book only grew as I finished it. It has often been said- correctly I think- that we need more very well done short books on important topics. This is one of those books. In …
Continue reading ‘The Making of an Atheist, by Jim Spiegel’ »
These themes I found valuable: – communion is a gift from God given because we need it – frequency – the tone of thankfulness and joyful triumph “The Lord, therefore, out of his great and ineffable love, has ordained and appointed for us a sacred supper in which he gives us his body and blood, …
Don Whitney will be on campus at Union University this week, Thursday, April 8, leading a seminar titled “Learning to Pray Scripture.” The public is invited. The seminar will meet from 1:00-3:00 pm in Luther Hall. It is free and refreshments will be provided. Dr. Whitney lead a similar seminar last Spring focusing on praying …
Brad Green’s new book, The Gospel and the Mind: Recovering and Shaping the Intellectual Life (Crossway) is now available. Since Brad is a good friend and colleague, I have had the privilege of hearing him discuss portions of this book along the way, and can testify that this will be a very helpful book. I …
Another striking thing from Ben Merkle’s book, The White Horse King: The Life of Alfred the Great, was the value he saw in the Psalms. Well before Wycliffe, Alfred, King of Wessex, was translating the Psalms for his people as part of his “essential books everyone should read” project. “The translation of the Psalms was …