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Beyond Bad Religion

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I enjoyed this post by Jud Wilhite over at Catalyst on the difference between Jesus and religion. Way back in college I first heard someone say “Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship with God,” and I loved it. I’m not interested in getting people involved in ritual and ceremony, and frankly, I stink […]

One-Way Love, and Are Christians Still Totally Depraved?

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I’ve dipped into Tullian Tchividjian’s new book One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World a bit, and have really enjoyed it. It is so clear and understandable. For example, in the last chapter he has a great discussion of the question “Are Christians totally depraved?” The answer is that we need to make some […]

Have We Missed the Meaning of the Incarnation?

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Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8:9: For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. Here’s the point: Sometimes, helping the poor requires taking part of their burden on ourselves, and suffering deprivation […]

The Meaning of Justice

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In his excellent book Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City, Tim Keller quotes Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke’s very shocking, but absolutely correct, definition of justice: The righteous are willing to disadvantage themselves to advantage the community; the wicked are willing to disadvantage the community to advantage themselves. Keller expands: Most people think of […]

The Difference Between a Christian and Non-Christian

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Very well said by Mark Dever in The Deliberate Church: Building Your Ministry on the Gospel (note: this might be slightly paraphrased, because it’s from my notes and I don’t have the actual copy of the book with me right now): The difference between Christians and non-Christians is not that non-Christians sins whereas Christians don’t. The […]

The Necessity of Distinguishing Relief and Development

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In both cases, the goal is to help the person back to self-sufficiency. But the strategies in each case are different — often profoundly so. Relief The goal of relief is to meet pressing, urgent needs that are causing great hardship to a person or group. You don’t worry about things like “dependency” here; you […]

A Simple Way to Pray

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Just came across this book at Ligonier Ministries called A Simple Way to Pray. It contains a short booklet Martin Luther wrote for his barber on how to pray. RC Sproul had this to say about Luther’s pamphlet: “No book has done more to revolutionize my personal prayer life than this little book by Martin Luther.” That’s quite […]

Pastoral Bullies

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An excellent post by Sam Storms, giving concrete examples to help us understand exactly what Peter is commanding against when he tells pastors not to be domineering. Here are a few especially important examples of domineering: A pastor domineers by widening the alleged gap between “clergy” and “laity.” In other words, he reinforces in them […]