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Truth Revealed - The Essence of Authority
Series | Inside the Walls
The last five summers I’ve taught at a Reformation Conference for a church near my hometown in Ohio. Our relationship began at a youth camp in 1998 and developed due to similar theological and ministry convictions. I’ve taught through the Solas and the Reformers as well as through Edwards and The Religious Affections. Then, upon their request, I (enthusiastically) worked through the Five Points of Calvinism and two summers ago five more messages on the implications of Calvinism.
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Adoption Advocates
We met her in Denny’s and she told us to be adoption advocates.
The social worker’s exhortation came at the conclusion of our home study interview in early July. The home study was necessary as we pursued an opportunity to adopt a baby girl who was due near the end of July. On December 3rd, we finished the process and our new daughter got our last name. But our adoption advocacy is far from finished.
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Laughter Is War
I’m a longtime reader of Credenda/Agenda. I admit that I enjoyed it more when hard copy issues arrived in the mail, but we take what we can get in this eAge. Anyway, for a few months I’ve been meaning to share the centerfold from Vol 18 Issue 2, Kicks and Giggles. It’s more than a college ad, it’s a motivational poster.
As they say, remember to “saber-rattle responsibly.”
UPDATED: See War!
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On the Line
I loved last year’s theme for our student ministry. More than that, I lived on it. 2 Corinthians 4 reshaped my view of life and death in clay-pot ministry. The final paragraph of the chapter (verses 16-18) kept me, along with John Bunyan, from losing heart on the pilgrim’s path to the Celestial City.
Living on unseen things is vital. It’s also imperative to live out unseen things as well.
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Libido Dominandi
The intellectual life of our age is characterized by a squishy goulash of subtleties all the way to the bottom of the pot, a farrago of pomothot, and the purveyors of this pomothot are often quite clever – they don’t hate labels because they can’t follow arguments. They hate labels because they can follow them, and those arguments get in the way of their lusts. Remember that the devil is a dialectician.
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Fixing Bounds by Faith
Were it deeply engraven on our minds, that in God alone we have the highest and complete perfection of all good things; we should easily fix bounds to those wicked desires by which we are miserably tormented.
—John Calvin, Genesis
Genesis 15:1, while a special revelation to Abram, stimulates the faith of all Abram’s children. Darby’s Literal Translation stretches out two branches of God’s promise on which belief hangs: “Fear not, Abram; I am thy shield, thy exceeding great reward.
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Faint and Feeble
John Newton on how to be humble when handling the treasures of Scripture:
To be enabled to form a clear, consistent, and comprehensive judgment of the truths revealed in the Scripture, is a great privilege; but they who possess it are exposed to the temptation of thinking too highly of themselves, and too meanly of others, especially of those who not only refuse to adopt their sentiments, but venture to oppose them.
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Peter Pan Syndrome
I love that image by Patrick Mahoney. The Washington Post article itself by Mark Driscoll isn’t bad either, The world is filled with boys who can shave.
(via Shepherd’s Notes)
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Truth Can Handle Structure
To affirm of any human production that it contained many great and instructive truths which it would be impossible to systematize without weakening each separate truth, and frustrating the design of the whole, would be a serious reflection upon the author’s wisdom and skill! How much more to affirm this of the Word of God! Systematic theology is to the Bible what science is to nature. To suppose that all the other works of God are orderly and systematic, and the greater the work the more perfect the system; and that the greatest of all His works, in which all His perfections are transcendently displayed, should have no plan or system, is altogether absurd.
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Making Disciples - The Seminar
I’m passionate about discipleship. Because of that I wrote Making Disciples - The Series which later became Making Disciples - The Booklet. Now I’d like to introduce:
Making Disciples - The Seminar
From the details page on the seminar website:
[T]rue discipleship is absent in many churches. For all our progress, how did Christians get so busy that they forgot their most important work? Though exhausting, the assignment is clear: make disciples.
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Don't Blow It
Don’t Blow It! ➔
Or, The Almost Inevitable Ruin of Every Minister and How to Avoid It, a message by Don Whitney to pastors and church leaders at the 2007 Omaha Bible Church conference.
Sorry, your browser is outdated and does not support the audio element.
I recommended this message earlier in the week, but it’s worth a post as well. Whitney begins:
Almost every minister knows another minister, if not several, you don’t want to be like.
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Possessed
Delivery should be the spontaneous product of the speaker’s peculiar personality, as acted on by the subject which now fills his mind and heart…it implies that one is possessed with the subject, that he is completely in sympathy with it and fully alive to its importance, that he is not repeating remembered words but setting free the thoughts shut up in his mind.
—John Broadus, On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, 264-265, quoted by John MacArthur in Rediscovering Expository Preaching, 330.
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Jesus Is the True and Better
In this video, Tim Keller answers the question, “What is the Bible really about? Is the Bible basically about me and what I must do, or is it basically about Jesus and what He has done?”
(via Justin Taylor who provides more details about the video as well as a transcript of why the Bible is all about Jesus, the true and better)
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Equip the Rider
The goal is not to cripple the horse, but equip the rider.
—Rachel Jankovic, A Spirited Rider, on training girls to control their emotions.
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The Unspoken Option
Children learn far more unspoken theology than we tend to think. Suppose parents have operated with the doctrinal assumption that the kids might or might not turn out, who knows? Why should the children have any confidence about it? Unbelief is the constant, unspoken option. And one day, the option is spoken out loud. But it was always there, hidden away in the hearts of the parents, who always hoped for their childrens’ faith, but never believed for it.
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Changing Seminary
What one thing would you change about seminary? ➔ Read answers from Al Mohler, D.A. Carson, and this one from Richard Pratt:
If I could wave a magic scepter and change seminary today, I’d turn it into a grueling physical and spiritual experience. I’d find ways to reach academic goals more quickly and effectively and then devote most of the curriculum to supervised battle simulation. I’d put students through endless hours of hands-on service to the sick and dying, physically dangerous evangelism, frequent preaching and teaching the Scriptures, and days on end of fasting and prayer.
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A Coward's Castle
Lloyd-Jones protested against the use of the pulpit as what he called “a coward’s castle” into which a man might retreat to vent his spleen on his enemies or simply as a place where he can express his own view.
—Tony Sargent, A Sacred Anointing, 149, via One Form of Pulpit Abuse
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Lit Up
Lightning strikes three of the tallest buildings in Chicago at the same time! from Craig Shimala on Vimeo.
Absolutely spectacular. Here’s even more from after the storm.
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Word Fussers and Whowhomers
Having the eggs doesn’t mean that you know how to make the omelet. But if you don’t have the eggs, it doesn’t matter if you do know how to make the omelet.
—Doug Wilson, Word Fussers and Whowhomers
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Sweet Repentance
A week from today I leave to preach a series of messages about The Religious Affections of Jonathan Edwards for the students of Foothill Bible Church, pastored by my friend Micah Lugg. A week after that, I’ll be preaching a series of messages about Repentance and seeing sin for what it is for the students of Faith Bible Church, pastored by my friend Mike Brown (whose wife is due with their second child the week before camp begins).