Forgotten God

I am reading Francis Chan’s book, Forgotten God. It is very similar to the writing style and approach that Francis took when he wrote Crazy Love (which is on my “read every January list”). In other words, it is easy to read, challenges assumptions, and dares us to move out of our routines into a [...]

book recommendation

John Piper is making a book recommendation other than the Bible.  Same Kind of Different As Me. My lovely wife read Same Kind of Different As Me last year and also recommends it highly. here are some lines that Piper mentioned: “Denver and I are not preachers or teachers but sinners with a story to [...]

current bookshelf

my current bookshelf of books that I am reading looks like this Amazon.com Widgets quite a stack on my nightstand

effect of literature

Kevin DeYoung wonders what hath literature wrought? I agree strongly with his conclusion: I’ll take passionate and logical romantic rationalism over the tired tirades of false dichotomies any day. plus, I enjoy his perfect parallel prose. anyone who reads here long knows that I adore appropriate alliteration.

more reviews of The Shack

some big guns have turned their attention to Wm P. Young’s book, The Shack. Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian has read it and Dr. Al Mohler is concerned about the discernment ability of modern evangelicals in light of the fact that this book is so popular among them. If you remember my main concern with [...]

Logos 4 is out

Libronix has come out with Logos 4. Here is a video introduction of the new product. It looks really great, but I will wait till they get the Mac kinks worked out before I make the leap. Can’t wait to keep everything in Logos synced on my iPhone. I am still using the old Logos [...]

Deep Church?

Kevin DeYoung takes a good long look at Deep Church by Jim Belcher. As you know, Kevin wrote his own book about the emerging church movement, so he knows whereof he speaks. he approached this new book with trepidation: I am always skeptical of “third way” books anyways. Usually, the “third way” is basically the [...]

emerging church conversation

Here is an interesting interview by Trevin Wax of Robbie Sagers about the emerging church. Trevin is a blogger and Robbie is a PhD student and special assistant to Dr. Russell Moore. Robbie has contributed a chapter to Evangelicals Engaging Emergent: A Discussion of the Emergent Church Movement (B&H, 2009). here is a bit of [...]

Logos Bible software

I mentioned Logos in passing the other day as my preferred Bible software to use on my laptop. I have been using it for at least 10 years and I love it. When I originally moved to Mac OS back in 2007, Logos didn’t have a Mac version so I had to buy Parallels and [...]

4 G’s

from Jonathan Dodson, Tim Chester’s 4 G’s: In You Can Change, Tim Chester helpfully points us to four basic promises. The 4 Gs: 1. God is great – so we don’t have to be in control 2. God is glorious – so we don’t have to fear others 3. God is good – so we don’t have [...]

another review of The Shack

Trevin Wax has the same problem with The Shack that I do. I really like his approach to the “it’s just fiction” argument. Check this out: Let’s say you meet an author who wants to use your grandparents as the main characters in a novel. The author tells you that the narrative will be fictional, [...]

no direct fellowship?

going back to pages 35-36 of Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he makes a curious argument. He says that Christians should not desire to be directly involved in the lives of other believers. Check this out: Because Christ stands between me and others, I dare not desire direct fellowship with them. As only Christ can [...]

the Death Penalty

Challies has reviewed The Death Penalty on Trial by Ron Gleason. It sounds like a interesting and useful book for Christians who have trouble with the Death Penalty as a possible punishment by the State. Go read the whole review and see what you think. I thought this part was a particularly interesting bit of [...]

general principles

Kevin DeYoung gleans some general principles from Risking the Truth: Handling Error in the Church, the collection of interviews by Martin Downes. You won’t agree with every line, just like those being interviewed don’t always agree with each other, but there is a remarkable similarity in the general approach to truth and error given by [...]

practical prayer helps

here is John Piper talking about how practically to develop a passion for prayer. what he says about the stories is just so true. I read a book about George Mueller in high school and it has had to biggest impact on my prayer life of anything. The other part about praying scripture, Julie and [...]

a conception of self

I read the C.S. Lewis space trilogy the first time almost thirty years ago. I read them again 3 or 4 years ago. Powerful stuff. I especially find the story in Perelandra to be a wonderful glimpse into the Garden of Eden through the mind and imagination of C.S. Lewis. In the book, Satan constantly [...]

New Piper book, free pdf

zach points out that the new John Piper book with missionary stories is available free for download. DG Blog: John Piper’s new book Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ is now available for download. Get it for free. Read an interview by JT with John Piper concerning this book. here is the direct link to 128 pages [...]

what do we want?

Todd Bumgarner has a quote from Os Guinness that we all need to ponder long and hard. [E]ven if we can do what we want, the question remains: What do we want? The near-omnipotence of our means of freedom doubles back to join hands with the near-emptiness of our ends.  We do not have a [...]

something about which I had never even thought

here is something that never entered my mind even as a possible remote concept.

marriage links

Jonathan Dodson has a great roundup of links to marriage resources. Go check them out.

New Page

I added a new page over to the left which is the complete 2400 word essay that I wrote about The Shack in four parts here on the blog.

This Momentary Marriage

I posted a quick bit about John Piper’s book This Momentary Marriage last month with a link to download it in pdf for free. Tim Challies has now reviewed the book and it is a review well worth reading. If you haven’t done so, do yourself a favor and download or buy the book and [...]

the Shack part IV (conclusion)

this is the wrap up of my series on The Shack. Part I, Part II and Part III are intended to convey to you that God is God. The reason that I am so exercised about this book is simple. The god portrayed in this book is not the God of the bible. Papa is [...]

the Shack part III

I have written two posts (part I and part II) now rebutting with scripture this statement from “Sophia” in the Shack: “But I still don’t understand why Missy had to die.” “She didn’t have to, Mackenzie. This was no plan of Papa’s. Papa has never needed evil to accomplish his good purposes. It is you [...]

the Shack part I

I am reading the Shack. It took all the way to page 165 (out of 246) before I got completely angry. Up to that time I was reading at a relatively low grade frustration level. The prose was juvenile. the story was wooden. The theology was wrong. The emphasis was on Mack instead of God. [...]