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Five Sentences
five.sentenc.es ➔ This isn’t a rule I force myself to follow, but it is a principle I practice when appropriate.
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The Atonement-Real or Potential
The Atonement: Real or Potential? ➔ In case there was any question about Dr. MacArthur’s (current) position on the extent of the atonement, take a listen to this sermon.
UPDATE [11:53AM March 12]: The transcript is now available.
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Technological Change
Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change ➔ Article by Neil Postman. His own summary:
First, that we always pay a price for technology; the greater the technology, the greater the price.
Second, that there are always winners and losers, and that the winners always try to persuade the losers that they are really winners.
Third, that there is embedded in every great technology an epistemological, political or social prejudice.
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To Be Precious
Jesus came and died and rose again not mainly to be useful, but to be precious.
—John Piper, written here, from his message at Angola Prison
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Don't Flatten the Gospels
Don’t Flatten Out the Gospels! ➔ Matt’s point about Gospel Harmonies also applies to epistle parallels.
If you’re preaching a passage from one of the Gospels and you blend into your sermon all the information found in the parallel passages, oftentimes the end result is a flattening out of all the Gospel accounts so that each of them is made to say exactly the same thing as all the others.
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Commitment Comes First
No one can go into a marriage relationship to find out what it would be like to be married to this person without being married to them already. This means that with the scriptural system of courtship, the commitment comes first, and true intimate knowledge of the spouse comes second.
—Doug Wilson, Her Hand in Marriage, 89
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Like His Teacher
God continues to give me the merciful privilege of speaking with young men who believe that God is calling them to pastoral ministry. I am one of those guys myself, though I started down the shepherd’s road over 19 years ago. The most common and critical question is, Where should I go for training?
Not only is that a ridiculously consequential question, but there are too many ingredients that defy a canned response.
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Out of Tune
Going through proper Christian motions with unconfessed sin is like using the correct fingering on a guitar with all strings out of tune.
—Doug Wilson, status
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Laughter in Adversity
Laughter in the face of adversity is the first step to profound joy in triumph.
—Nathan Wilson, Christian Books, Truth, and Adultish Readers
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Knowledge That Matters
Knowledge That Matters ➔ Scott Adams on the limits and benefits of others assessing our abilities, from his own experience with the cartoon, Dilbert:
The two opinions about your abilities that you should never trust are your own opinions, and the majority’s opinions. But if a handful of people who have a good track record of identifying talent think you have something, you just might.
Justin Taylor’s rewording for Christians:
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Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing Words: Robert Robinson, Methodist pastor, at age 22 in the year 1757. Music: John Wyeth
Background: on Wikipedia
Come Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of God’s unchanging love.
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Blowing Smoke
When unbelievers blow smoke, it is not our task to try to weave something out of that smoke. It is our task to set up a big industrial-sized fan to blow it all away.
—Doug Wilson, Thinks I Have Thunk
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Cold Before Long
You are very hot for mercy, but I will cool you; this frame shall not last always; many have been as hot as you for a spirit, but I have quenched their zeal….What care I, saith he, though I be seven years in chilling your heart if I can do it at last? Continual rocking will lull a crying child asleep. I will ply it close, but I will have my end accomplished.
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An Environment of Grace
A major part of pastoral ministry is preaching the doctrines of grace and managing an environment of grace. The latter is harder to accomplish than the former. It is more intuitive. It requires more humility and self-awareness.
—Ray Ortlund, Centered on one or the other
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Remember the Signs
I read chapter two of The Silver Chair to the kids last night before bed (my first time through, too). Jill meets Aslan, and he explains the reason he called her away from Experiment House and reveals her mission. Before blowing her to Narnia, Aslan urges and warns Jill.
[R]emember, remember, remember the Signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night, and when you wake in the middle of the night.
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Tapering Off in Sin
At the prayer meeting, not many people ask for prayer so that they might taper off in their adulteries, or their thefts, or all the lies they are spreading around town. But [bitterness, envy, anger, and pride] are respectable—we have a delicate way of acknowledging them without really dealing with them. And one of the reasons we get away with touching on them lightly is that the main problem is clearly … the other guy’s.