Blogging Theologically

Books, Theology, and Gospel-Centered Living

Forgiveness

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Links I like (10/27)

Links I like

Russell Moore’s Erasmus Lecture

This was great:

Cradle Christians: Protestants Keep the Faith Better Than Catholics or Nones

Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra:

American Protestants are keeping their children in the faith at a higher rate than Catholics or the unaffiliated, according to the latest study from the Pew Research Center.

5 Building Blocks of Forgiveness

Darin Smith:

Have you ever forgiven someone who didn’t deserve it?  Have you never forgiven anyone?

Regardless of which category you fall into, this post is for you.

In many respects, our culture has come to reject the idea of forgiveness.  According to the Bible, however, man is in great need of forgiveness.

‘Books and Culture’ and the Importance of the Magazine

Trevin Wax:

I’m a millennial who loves magazines. My generation isn’t known for thoughtful reading of books, much less magazines, and especially in print. Still, I consider my magazine subscriptions to be indispensable for understanding the times.

Not everyone is convinced of the goodness of magazines.

Time to Change Your Church!

Nick Batzig:

Every church will have its deficiencies. Local church members must not allow discontentment to fester in their hearts and minds. Rather, we should seek to be “change agents” for the health and well-being of the body of which we are a part. I am not sure who first coined the (fairly cheesy) phrase, “Be the change you seek,” but I find it to be full of wisdom–provided someone is not seeking to bring about change in a divisive way in the life of the church. In short, all of us are either “problem observers” or “problem solvers.” If the local church lacks fellowship among a particular demographic, we should be seeking to fill the gap–using our gifts to strengthen that particular dynamic of the local church. If the music in the church is wanting, we should be willing to fully use our gifts and talents to help better that aspect of the church’s life–or to encourage those in the body to do so through a use of their gifts in that area. If we find ourselves to be some of the only young adults or couples in the church, we should be active in inviting others in that stage of life to worship and fellowship with us. If the church’s hospitality is lacking, we should be seeking to model what it looks like to be hospitable. All of this should, of course, be done in loving communication with and humble submission to the elders and deacons of the church–but you should not wait for elders and deacons to take the initiative on bringing about change where we believe that we see deficiencies.

10 Reasons You Must Treat Each Person Differently

Eric Geiger:

I spoke alongside Tim Elmore at the ETCH conference and heard him give a great illustration on the difference between life-giving and life-grabbing leaders. According to Tim, life-giving leaders view leadership like chess and life-grabbing leaders view leadership like checkers. As you know, in checkers, all the pieces are the same. In chess, the pieces are different from one another with different strategic strengths. A leader who views leadership as a game of checkers treats all the people the same, while a chess-playing leader understands that people are different and should be treated differently. A wise leader knows it is foolish to treat every person the same. Here are ten reasons you must treat each person you lead differently.

Open Bible, Burning Hearts

John Piper offers a charitable response to Andy Stanley:

What young preachers need to be clear about in deciding how they will preach is how God planned for the glory of Christ to be revealed to more and more people as the centuries pass. When Stanley says, “For the first 300 years the debate centered on an event, not a book,” that’s not quite right. The debate centered very largely on which written witnesses provided a trustworthy interpretation of the event. The church realized immediately that everything hung not just on whether the event happened, but on what it meant: What were its roots, and accomplishments, and implications for life and eternity? Who was this man, Jesus? Whom can we trust to tell us? How then shall we live? Who can tell us this with authority? That was the issue, not just the event.

6 quotes Christians need to let lie fallow

A favorite from the archives:

We Christians do love our quotes—and there are so many brilliant ones to choose from! But by golly, we sure do seem to be a repetitive bunch. Far too often, we’re using the same quotes, over and over.

And over.

So yesterday, inspired by a friend’s lament of the increased use of the Samwise “everything sad is coming untrue” quote from Lord of the Rings, I took to the Interwebs to get your feedback, asking what you believe are the most over-used quotes from Christian authors.

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Links I like

Links I like

The only Kindle deal that’s caught my attention is Onward by Russell Moore for $4.99. This one is totally worth getting.

5 Questions To Ask of a Book Before You Read It

Tim Challies:

They are far and away the most common questions I receive (beyond, perhaps, how to pronounce my name—it rhymes with “valleys”): Can you tell me anything about this author? Have you heard of this book? Is it safe to read? Sometimes people ask to avoid wasting time or money on a book that would not be worth either one, and sometimes they ask to avoid the influence of false doctrine. Since I can’t answer all the questions, and since I can’t know all the books and authors, I’ll offer a few tips on sorting it all out and do so in the form of 5 questions you can ask of any book.

What real love looks like

Ray Ortlund:

William Bradford, leader of the Pilgrims, describes the remarkable love with which they cared for one another during that horrible first winter.

Three Lies About Forgiveness

JD Greear:

A few years ago I read a fascinating book called TheBishop of Rwanda, by John Rucyahana. He talked about the horrible genocides in Rwanda, and the aftermath of the civil wars there. He said that the genocides were, obviously, horrendous, but it was the lingering bitterness and hatred afterwards that was the most difficult. Most people couldn’t even consider the idea of forgiveness.

Rucyahana pointed out that the obstacles to forgiveness really came from lies people believed about forgiveness. These three lies are as applicable in big cases (like his) as they are in our more everyday cases of forgiveness.

The Hardest Part of Ministry

Darryl Dash:

The hardest part of pastoral ministry is not the work. It’s not that things take longer than you’d think, or that success is hard to measure. The hardest part of ministry is relational pain.

The Church, A Battering Ram

Zach Barnhart:

Every time I read or heard that verse before, defense would come to mind. As Christians, we often treat our gospel message like a gate. We have to build the walls up against the charging of the Enemy. We bar the doors, huddle down in our forts, and hope the gospel is able to withstand the attack of its opposition. Don’t misunderstand me – it absolutely can withstand such attacks. But we tend to think, for example, that doing apologetics is all about being able to keep the atheists out of the red zone and scoring touchdowns. We think living for Christ in our culture means living in a strong bomb shelter that can survive the attacks.

12 Principles for Disagreeing with Other Christians

Good stuff adapted from Conscience: What It Is, How to Train It, and Loving Those Who Differ by Andy Naselli and J. D. Crowley.

Three Ways a Disorganized Leader Holds Back a Team

Eric Geiger:

Some great leaders are simultaneously good managers and gifted in administration. But not all leaders are. At the same time, leaders must reach a threshold of organizational skill or their disorganization becomes a debilitating weakness and holds back the team they are leading. It is bad leadership for leaders to shrug their shoulders and laugh about their disorganized leadership. Here are three ways a disorganized leader holds back a team.

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Links I like

Links I like

Free eBook: What Is Biblical Theology?

You can get a free digital copy of What is Biblical Theology? by James Hamilton from Crossway in exchange for filling out a short survey.

A response to Stott Bowdlerized

James Ernest, EIC of Eerdmans, wrote a response to the article that appeared in First Things last week.

Listen to the Little Guy Too

Jared Wilson:

He’s right. We are obsessed. We are obsessed with bigger, better, faster. We define success according to quantity and presentation. We reckon churches increasing in size as effective. And so our heroes are the big church guys. They speak at the conferences, they publish the books, they exert the influence.

But the guys at the “little churches” have just as much, if not more, to teach us about how to shepherd and how to disciple.

Should You Try to Be the “Fun” Parent?

Russell Moore:

A young teenage boy died recently, in a hotel room after an overdose of drugs. The partiers around him didn’t even know he was in trouble until it was too late. Sadly, that story is all too common. This story is different, though, because the partiers weren’t peers or friends. They were his mother and grandmother. This man’s mother, who didn’t have full custody, told police she had provided them with drugs because she wanted to be the “fun weekend mom.”

I have to admit that my first instinct is to judge this woman. After all, what kind of person would be this selfish to give her child what would destroy him, just so that he would view her the way he would his buddies? At the root here, though, is a temptation that every parent faces, though usually not to the extreme of dealing illicit drugs. We want our children to love us, and to like us, and many of us do this by asking what our children want and seeking to conform to that.

Toronto Workshop on Biblical Exposition

This looks like a great event.

We Are Made in the Image of God

Ravi Zacharias:

Three Questions: Forgiveness

Melissa Kruger:

I like to be asked thought-provoking questions. However, in our busy lives it is difficult to take time to still our minds and follow Paul’s simple instruction to Timothy, “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching” (1 Tim. 4:16). Jesus also instructed his disciples, “But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down” (Luke 21:34). Three Questions is a series designed to put forth a few questions once a month. They can be used for personal reflection or perhaps as a way to spur on meaningful conversation in an accountability or small group.

3 Things the Christian is Always… and Never… Giving Up

Michael Kelley:

The Christian life is about loss. It can seem like everywhere you turn in Scripture, there is a command involving putting away, or taking off, or giving up. Jesus Himself made no bones about it, urging His followers to not have some kind of easy-belieivism, a following without sacrifice, but instead to know what they were getting into. To count the cost. To understand the implications before they jumped in. When the huge crowds were following Jesus, He didn’t try to win them over with clever rhetoric or veiled campaign promises; instead, Jesus would thin the crowds with difficult teachings and counter-intuitive commands.

No one ever accused the Messiah of being a great PR guy.