It’s a beautiful day in London and Emily has graciously let me go out for some alone time this afternoon. And what better way to use the time than to be reading a book (and blogging about it).

Today, I’m wrapping up a very interesting book that Emily encouraged me to read called Illegitimate by Brian Mackert. Brian is the 27th of 31 children born to his polygamous Mormon father.

I’ve got about 100 pages to go at this point, and it’s an extremely difficult book to read emotionally; I cannot imagine what it was like to grow up in the circumstances that Brian did, with a father that not only was emotionally distant and abusive, but never wanted him in the first place.

Despite this, the book is full of hope. Today, Brian is a Christian, transformed and enabled to live a new life by the power of the Holy Spirit, and through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Brian’s story offers hope for all who despair—there is a God who loves them. His name is Jesus.

Y’know, thinking about that makes Saturday no much nicer.

Tonight, Nightline is airing between Deepak Chopra, Carlton Pearson, Mark Driscoll and Annie Lobert on the existence of Satan. Chopra and Pearson contend against the existence of Satan, while Driscoll (obviously) and Lobert will be arguing the position that he does exist. Mars Hill Church in Seattle will host the event in front of a live audience tonight at their Ballard Campus.

This will undoubtedly be an interesting debate, particularly given the line-up—A “New Spirituality” guru, an ex-Pentecostal pastor-turned vague spiritualist, a former Las Vegas escort who now works to rescue women from the sex trade, and the “controversial” pastor one of the fastest growing churches in America.

Should be fun.

Here’s hoping that Driscoll doesn’t (in his words) “Charlie Brown it but actually get his foot on the ball” (via Facebook).

Nightline airs at 11:35 (Eastern). More details at ABC.com

EDIT: Correction, Nightline was filming the debate on March 20th. The debate will air on March 26th.

UPDATE: Commentary can be found here

This week’s Friday Saints comes courtesy of John Piper and Desiring God Ministries. Please visit DesiringGod.org to read the full article.

“Athanasius was born in AD 298 in Egypt and became the bishop of Alexandria on June 8, 328 at the age of 30. The people of Egypt viewed him as their bishop until he died on May 2, 373 at the age of 75. I say he was “viewed” by the people as their bishop during these years because Athanasius was driven out of his church and office five times by the powers of the Roman empire. Seventeen of his 45 years as bishop were spent in exile. But the people never acknowledged the validity of the other bishops sent to take his place. He was always bishop in exile as far as his flock was concerned.”

Read the rest at DesiringGod.org.

In your own words, what is the gospel? What would you say if you were sharing the gospel with someone?

Please drop a note in the comments for this thread.

Recommended: A much-needed call to exercise discernment

Tim Challies is a well-known name among the Christian blogosphere.  Challies provides readers with insightful and sometimes provocative articles daily at Challies.com, as well as snippits of interesting stories around the internet. But he is perhaps best known for his controversial review of the equally controversial book, The Shack (his review can be read here), a review that shows us why he is more than qualified to write on the topic of discernment.

In part one of this review, I provided a somewhat brief overview of the content of the book. Now, let’s dig into what we can learn from its pages.

As one should expect from a book on this subject, The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment is packed with Scripture. Challies not only uses a lot of Scripture to support his arguments, he uses it well and with humility. In doing so, he shows himself to be someone worth listening to, as he practices what he preaches.

Continue Reading…

Recommended: A much-needed call to exercise discernment

Tim Challies is a well-known name among the Christian blogosphere.  Challies provides readers with insightful and sometimes provocative articles daily at Challies.com, as well as snippits of interesting stories around the internet. But he is perhaps best known for his controversial review of the equally controversial book, The Shack (his review can be read here), a review that shows us why he is more than qualified to write on the topic of discernment.

In this two-part review, I will first give a (somewhat) brief overview of the contents of the book, and then delve into the insights I found in its pages.

So why write a book on discernment? Do we really need a book on this subject?

Challies answers that question right away: Yes!

We live in a culture where “anything goes” is the epitomé of all wisdom, even in the church. This book is written for those who look at all that is said and done and ask the hard question, “how can this be right?”; for all who (rightly) “believe it is the duty of every Christian to think bibically about all areas of life so that they might act biblically in all areas of life” (p. 16).

Continue Reading…

“It is a remarkable fact that all the heresies which have arisen in the Christian Church have had a decided tendency to ‘dishonor God and to flatter man.’”

Something to think about on a Wednesday afternoon.

“Beware of Antinomian [that is, being under no obligation to obey the moral and ethical requirements of the Bible—license] books; particularly the works of Dr. Crisp and Mr. Saltmarsh. They contain many excellent things; and this makes them the more dangerous. O be warned in time! Do not play with fire.”

John Wesley, from A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (emphasis added)

I stumbled upon this quote this evening from John Wesley, and was struck by its profundity.

The real danger of false teachers is not always what they get wrong, but what they get right. This is why discernment is more crucial than ever.

Emily and I went for a terrific walk this evening with Abigail after celebrating her second birthday; and while we were walking, we were discussing (as always) church matters. In our conversation, we were discussing denominational divides, and how for many, it is unthinkable for, say, a Pentecostal to go to a Baptist church, or a Baptist to go to a Methodist church, and so on. Some background on this: we’d had a conversation with a person at our church about feeling some specific convictions about our role in our immediate community, and had visited a church near our home. The first question he asked in response was, “Is this a  [name of our church's denomination] church?”

Now, I understand the very real need to be guarding the gates against bad doctrine; but I have to wonder, if that is what motivates denominational division like in the above example?

What do you think motivates these questions?

If you have some time, post your thoughts in the comments section. I’m interested to see what you think.

The New Calvinism – The third biggest idea changing the world right now

From the article:

Calvinism…was overtaken in the U.S. by movements like Methodism that were more impressed with human will. Calvinist-descended liberal bodies like the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) discovered other emphases, while Evangelicalism’s loss of appetite for rigid doctrine — and the triumph of that friendly, fuzzy Jesus — seemed to relegate hard-core Reformed preaching (Reformed operates as a loose synonym for Calvinist) to a few crotchety Southern churches.

No more. Neo-Calvinist ministers and authors don’t operate quite on a Rick Warren scale. But, notes Ted Olsen, a managing editor at Christianity Today, “everyone knows where the energy and the passion are in the Evangelical world” — with the pioneering new-Calvinist John Piper of Minneapolis, Seattle’s pugnacious Mark Driscoll and Albert Mohler, head of the Southern Seminary of the huge Southern Baptist Convention. The Calvinist-flavored ESV Study Bible sold out its first printing, and Reformed blogs like Between Two Worlds are among cyber-Christendom’s hottest links.

Mark Driscoll offers his thoughts in two posts at The Resurgence.com: New vs Old Calvinism | More Thoughts on Time Magazine & New Calvinism

Justin Taylor provides us with another Time Article on the resurgence of Calvinism… from 1947

This news has been spreading around the blogosphere like wildfire, and almost universally, the reaction has been, “What the–?!”

Maybe Christians aren’t so fond of a lack of theological certainty as many would think?

Sola Scriptura Conference March 27-28

Dr. Bruce Ware and Michael Haykin are teaching at the Sola Scriptura Conference, The Risen and Ascended King, March 27-28, at Sovereign Grace Community Church in Sarnia, Ontario. There’s still time to register if you are in the area.

John Piper: What is the Recession For?

Read the transcript or watch the full sermon at DesiringGod.org