tohuvabohu

If you’re undecided about how to read the Bible this year take a look at these eight Bible reading plans for the ESV. Each plan can be read on the web, received through RSS or email, or printed out for to carry in your own copy of God’s Word.

The last couple years I’ve made resolutions, posted them publicly, then reviewed my progress publicly as well. This is good accountability especially since there are some significant consequences of breaking resolutions even though it’s so easy to do. We are always to be progressing in our devotion to Christ and good resolutions are made with that in mind. Spiritual transformation and progress is essential–not optional–for Christ followers. Therefore it is not only beneficial to consider our failures, weaknesses, and sin and address them, it is needful!

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Series | Prayer: A Man’s Most Difficult Struggle Prayer is a struggle for most men, and yet manliness and prayerfulness go together. So why is it so important for men to pray? Obviously it is necessary for both men and women to pray. But even though prayer is not exclusively manly, I think it is especially manly. This past summer I taught a message titled Men at Work where I identified three things that distinguish a godly, manly servant.

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Series | Prayer: A Man’s Most Difficult Struggle Yesterday I wrote that a man’s most difficult struggle is prayer. While prayer is a weakness for Christian men and women, at least three New Testament passage reveal a gender specific relationship between men and prayer. Titus 2:6 (connected with 1 Peter 4:7) When I addressed the ladies at the beginning of our Biblical Manhood/Womanhood series I went immediately to Titus 2.

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Series | Prayer: A Man’s Most Difficult Struggle A man’s most difficult struggle is not dealing with a specific sin (like anger or lust or pride), though sin is a large part of what makes this struggle so hard. Each and every godly man has this “struggle” in common. We read in Scripture that men like Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, David, Solomon, Ezra, Nehemiah, Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Jonah, the apostles, as well as Jesus Himself all worked through it, and most of them did it regularly.

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Last Thursday night I was in a somewhat significant car accident. I was not injured and as far as I know neither was the other driver. But there were major consequences to the Fahrvergnügen. God uses many things to make sure that He has our attention; traumatic crashes certainly count. Even though I avoided life-altering injury, death, or even a visit to the Emergency Room, when I replay it in my head I realize I did nothing to protect myself.

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Or, Why Being a Youth Pastor is No Paradise. Phil Johnson recently wrote a pungent post that smells like teen spirit on the dangers of dumbing down teaching to young people. He pointed out at least two problems with this minimalist approach to youth ministry. First, most strategies intended to attract young people to the church are counterproductive. This is because you can’t win someone to spiritual, eternal realities when you focus on earthly, temporal activities.

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Pride is bad. What’s more, pride is sickeningly ugly. It is a frightful thing to find in the mirror and a hideous thing to see in someone else. It introduces itself in inopportune situations. It is no respecter of persons. It is enough to damn a man to everlasting wrath. Pride also takes assorted shapes and sizes though some displays of pride are more familiar and others are often unexplored. The following quotes are from What Jesus Demands from the World and they expose two standard sorts of self-admiration with surgical accuracy.

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Series | ComMission A loud voice continues to emerge in some parts of Christianity, with a heart for the spiritually lost, concerned that Christians are failing to fulfill our commission, afraid that our friends, family, and communities are going to hell, and confident that the church is to blame (at least in large part). In classic American entrepreneurial spirit, many pastors and other church leaders have recognized the problem (namely, people don’t seem to be coming to Christ or to church), concluded that our formula for evangelism must be flawed or faulty, and then created new approaches, strategies, and programs.

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Series | ComMission A few nights ago a friend forwarded an email from another friend with some quotes on the importance of being missional in our churches and in our lives. I read it on my way to bed which turned out to be a mistake since I was awake for another three hours or so thinking about it. More than anything I was filled with disappointment, and though I should have just gotten back out of bed and written my response, letting a little time pass has been profitable.

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High school senior Claire Markwardt was running the Ohio state high school cross country championship when her left tibia and then her fibula snapped in half. She crawled the final 45 feet and still finished only 18 seconds slower than her personal best time. Click here for more of the story and video.

The church is responsible to serve the next generation. For example, we must “relentlessly extol the maturing and strengthening effects of the only infallible life charter for young adults, the Bible.” Here’s even more about A Church-Based Hope for “Adultolescents.”

Tim Pickard saw my post from Piper on pride and raised me Stott and Spurgeon.

Series | For the Love of God I am (almost) ashamed. I have been one post away from finishing Known By Fruit for two months. But today I fix that and complete the final distinguishing mark of religious affections. To catch us up to speed, you may remember that genuine affections are spiritual, Godward, truth-driven, nature-changing and relentless. In addition, Genuine religious affections are fruitful. Not only is this the last and longest section in The Religious Affections it is also the most important.

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I know I have not posted anything substantial for over two weeks. This post won’t change that. But a number of things around the internet stood out to me here on Reformation Day/Halloween that are worth posting to the Void if for no other reason than so I can find them later myself. Paul Lamey shares the must-see Reformation Polka as well providing some links and ideas to get your Reformation day party started.

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Mark Driscoll posted about our beeping, ringing, and vibrating merciless sovereign gods [link no longer good]. Key quote: [T]here is a new spiritual discipline of fasting from technology to be mastered [so that] we can enjoy the life and people that God puts in front of us rather than ignoring them while we peck away with our thumbs and chat about nothing, which in the end is rarely as important as the people we are ignoring all around us.

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Paul Lamey shares some sage, 500 year old advice on when to buy books.

Thanks to Justin Taylor I’ve enjoyed the ads for the 2008 T4G conference. These three are my favorites by far.

In July I made one purchase at our World’s for Sale. I affectionately call it my miracle mug. The glory: The guts: In case you’re uncertain, the caption reads: “Enjoy the miracle of each new day” to which I would add an exclamation point! Consider how many Bible stories this 10¢ cup communicates: the rainbow references the flood the through-way illustrates crossing of the Red Sea on dry ground the clean outside and dirty inside pictures the Pharisees the “each new day” line reminds one of the morning mercies of coffee If you think about it, it’s like a wordless cup…with words.

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Colin Adams at Unashamed Workman collected some apropos quotes concerning pastors praying their way into the pulpit.

Series | The Lord’s Day Charles Spurgeon once wrote, Ah, sirs! there may have been a time when Christians were too precise, but it has not been in my day. There may have been such a dreadful thing as Puritanic rigidity, but I have never seen it. We are quite free from that evil now, if it ever existed. We have gone from liberty to libertinism. We have passed beyond the dubious into the dangerous, and none can prophesy where we shall stop.

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A cold “blog booger” on a paper plate collected some sentences from Calvin about God’s being due our adoration, trust, invocation, thanksgiving. I was laid low especially by my need for invocation, “the habit of the mind, whenever necessity presses us, of resorting to His faithfulness and help as our only support.”

Series | The Lord’s Day Obviously our whole lives are to be worship; worship is more than just a Sunday activity even though I’ve tried to make the case that there is something special about the Lord’s day. Not only that, there may be times when the best way for us to worship on a given Sunday means we might miss the meeting of the church. Yet I do believe our customary course toward the corporate meeting of the church on the first day of the week should be like water in a steep, downhill pipe.

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Series | The Lord’s Day This is the fourth piece of practical advice for how to regard the Lord’s day as the best day. 4. Celebrate Isn’t this the whole point? Anticipation and participation and concentration culminate in worship. Sunday service is not a funeral, it is a solemn party of praise for our risen Savior! Surely there is a place for repentance, for mourning and sorrow over sin, but didn’t Jesus say those were the truly happy (blessed) people (Matthew 5:3-4)?

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Series | The Lord’s Day Here is the third piece of practical advice for how to regard the Lord’s day as the best day. 3. Concentrate Each piece of advice flows naturally into the next. If the Lord’s day is worth our anticipation and participation, certainly it deserves our concentration. Free from Distraction It’s not just the leader’s responsibility to create an atmosphere that is as free from distraction as possible.

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