John Piper: On Responding to Evil

From Justin Taylor's blog.

Edifying Preaching from Sinclair Ferguson

...from his teaching on the Book of James, as part of the Desirng God Conference.

Justin Taylor links to the message...

...and to Ferguson's 20 Resolutions from the Book of James

"The Second Most Important Book You Will Ever Read"

...that's how Carl Trueman describes the J. Gresham Machen classic, "Christianity and Liberalism." (Among other things, reading this book will show you how so many of the errors of the extremes of the emergent movement are the same errors of older liberalism.)

Christ-centered...Cross-centered Christianity

“Focus on Christ will always result in focus on the cross. You cannot be Christ-centered without becoming cross-centered. The crucified Christ is to be the center of everything I know about myself and my world. You cannot have any real hope for flawed people in a fallen world unless there is a Redeemer to rescue us from the evil that resides both inside and outside of us. Real restoration to God’s created design requires the cross. It is the cross of Christ that alone will restore my allegiance to Christ and his rightful place at the center of everything in my life.”

- Paul David Tripp, A Quest for More (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2007), 104.
posted at Of First Importance

Biblical Preaching as a Primary Means of Grace

Craig Brian Larson writes about "The Blind Spot of the Spiritual Formation Movement."

Defining the Gospel

Justin Taylor gives a good introduction to a helpful discussion of the meaning and content of the Gospel (in both a focused and broad sense) from Greg Gilbert.

The Gospel Coalition

In the midst of all the signs of the decline of authentic, Biblical Christianity within "evangelicalism," The Gospel Coalition is just the reverse -- a sign of the possibility of revival, reformation and renewal.

Five Basic Truths of the Christian Religion

1. God has spoken to man, and the Bible is His Word, given to us to make us wise unto salvation.
2. God is Lord and King over His world; He rules all things for His own glory, displaying His perfections in all that He does, in order that men and angels may worship and adore Him.
3. God Saviour, active in sovereign love through the Lord Jesus Christ to rescue believers from the guilt and power of sin, to adopt them as His sons, and to bless them accordingly.
4. God is Triune; there are within the Godhead three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; and the work of salvation is one in which all three act together, the Father purposing redemption, the Son securing it, and the Spirit applying it.
5. Godliness [Christian living] means responding to God's revelation in trust and obedience, faith and worship, prayer and praise, submission and service. Life must be seen and lived in light of God's Word.

This, and nothing else, is true religion.

-- J.I. Packer, "Knowing God" pp.15-16 (IVP 1973)

'God has made us for himself'

"What Augustine knew is that human beings want God…God has made us for himself. Our sense of God runs in us like a stream, even though we divert it toward other objects. We human beings want God even when we think that what we really want is a green valley, or a good time from our past, or a loved one. Of course we do want these things and persons, but we also want what’s behind them. Our inconsolable secret, says C.S. Lewis, is that we are full of yearnings, sometimes shy and sometimes passionate, that point us beyond the things of earth to the ultimate reality of God."

-- an excerpt from a quote from Cornelius Plantinga, posted by Tullian Tchividjian

Our Happiness Belongs to the Heavenly Life

“The happiness promised us in Christ does not consist in outward advantages—such as leading a joyous and peaceful life, having rich possessions, being safe from all harm, and abounding with delights such as the flesh commonly longs after. No, our happiness belongs to the heavenly life.

"Christ enriches his people with all things necessary for the eternal salvation of souls and fortifies them with courage to stand unconquerable against all the assaults of spiritual enemies. From this we infer that he rules—inwardly and outwardly—more for our own sake than his.

"Thus it is that we may patiently pass through this life with its misery, hunger, cold, contempt, reproaches, and other troubles—content with this one thing: that our King will never leave us destitute, but will provide for our needs until, our warfare ended, we are called to triumph.”

—John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.15.4
posted at Of First Importance

The Minister as a "Messenger of Grace"

Wonderful words for preachers to think on:

Would I describe a preacher...I would express him simple, grave, sincere;
In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain,
And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste,
And natural in gesture; much impress'd Himself, as conscious of his awful charge,
And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds may feel it too; affectionate in look,
And tender in address, as well becomes a messenger of grace to guilty men.

--William Cowper, The Task

HT: Martin Downes

"Respect the Silences of God"

Helpful reflections on 'unanswered' prayer from Anne Graham Lotz.


(It was a little odd to me that the caption, 'Billy's Other Woman,' appears during the video. Mrs. Lotz is one of Billy Graham's daughters.)

The English Standard Version Study Bible

Here's a link to videoclips introducing and explaining the soon to be released ESV Study Bible.

The Lord Jesus loves you as you are

Classic pastoral encouragement from a pastor/preacher who has ministered to millions through his sermons and writings for over 150 years:

“There never was one who came to him with a broken heart, but he healed him. He never said to one, 'You are too bad for me to heal;' but he did say, 'Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.' My dear hearer, he will not cast you out. You say, 'You do not know me, Mr. Spurgeon.' No, I do not; and you have come here to-night, and you hardly know why you are here; only you are very low and very sad.

"The Lord Jesus Christ loves such as you are, you poor, desponding, doubting, desolate, disconsolate one. Daughters of sorrow, sons of grief, look ye here! Jesus Christ has gone on healing broken hearts for thousands of years, and he is well up in the business. He understands it by experience, as well as by education. He is “mighty to save.” Consider him; consider him; and the Lord grant you grace to come and trust him even now!”

- Charles Spurgeon, Christ’s Hospital
posted at Of First Importance

When the Consumer Is Sovereign

"...our generation is rapidly growing deaf to the summons of the external God. He has been so internalized, so tamed by the needs of religious commerce, so submerged beneath the traffic of modern psychological need that he has almost completely disappeared.

"All too offten, he now leans weakly on the church, a passive bystander, a co-conspirator in the effort to dismantle two thousand years of Christian thought about God and what he has declared himself to be. That is to say, God has become weightless.

"The church continues its business of satisfying the needs of the self -- needs defined by the individual -- and God, who is himself viewed and marketed as product, becomes powerless to change the definition of that need or to prescribe the means by which it might be satisfied.

"When the consumer is sovereign, the product (in this case God himself) must be subservient."

-- David Wells, "God in the Wasteland" p.101 (Eerdmans 1994)