A very interesting discussion on names and terminology in the 17th century is going on here. Would the first Baptists have embraced the term ‘anabaptist’? Apparently not.
Apparently labels matter (or mattered) to some.
by on 10.7.09
matthew henry on God’s delight
Matthew Henry’s final sentence on Ps 81.16:
He delights in our serving him, not because he is the better for it, but because we shall be.
Huh… so he doesn’t delight in himself for his own glory? Who’d a thunk it?
by on 9.27.09
Book Review: Will Medicine Stop the Pain?
Will Medicine Stop the Pain?, by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Laura Hendrickson, Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2006.
This book, subtitled Finding God’s healing for depression, anxiety, & other troubling emotions, is written by two women who are certified by NANC, the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors. This is the organization whose philosophy and literature we tend to recommend and attempt to follow in the area of counseling. It is opposed to integrating secular psychology with the Bible in counseling.
by on 9.26.09
Book review: 25 Surprising Marriages
25 Surprising Marriages, by William J. Petersen, Timothy Press, 1997, 2006 rpt.
This book, subtitled How Great Christians Struggled to Make Their Marriages Work, is one that my brother describes as being helpful for its cumulative effect rather than any one of the particular biographies it sketches for you.
by on 8.16.09
an outline worth stealing
My morning sermon this Sunday (8/14) was based on an outline I found in a footnote to William R. Newell’s commentary on Romans 4.14. The footnote was so profound that I thought it shouldn’t lie dormant in the commentary but be fleshed out in a whole sermon.
I thought I’d share the entire footnote with you as well. I’d encourage the preachers in the audience to steal it too. It is well worth preaching.
by on 5.27.09
the pleasure of anger
I just completed the first volume of The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, a set I picked up a few weeks ago. The set is the first two volumes of three, the third just came out recently in hardback and isn’t yet included in the paperback version. The books are about 1000 pages each, so it is quite a task to read, but I found the reading so fascinating, I couldn’t put it down. Even the early letters,when Lewis was still a boy, reveal keen intellect and interesting insight (and breadth of reading).
The first volume also reveals the mind of a totally lost man. His conversion comes at the end of the first set of letters, but one has to say that he exhibits the pride and malice of a lost man in all his educated sophistication through the years prior to his conversion.
I’ll not debate the quality of his conversion, certainly he uses terms unfamiliar to us. It is quite clear that a real change took place in his life and he left us with many valuable works as a result.
In one of his letters, he makes an interesting observation about the pleasure of anger.
The pleasure of anger — the gnawing attraction which makes one return again and again to its theme — lies, I believe, in the fact that one feels entirely righteous oneself only when one is angry.
by on 2.4.09
a Mohler interview worth reading
Hugh Hewitt is a talk-show host who I can’t get on my radio anymore. His show used to be available by a distant and scratchy signal from Seattle, but the station changed formats on him and he is no longer carried in the Seattle market (as far as I know). I keep up with his thinking by regular visits to his blog.
The other day, he interviewed Al Mohler on the subject of the changing views of young evangelical types. I think the whole transcript is worth reading, but a few highlights follow:
HH: As you talk with two distinct cohorts, the leadership elites in the Evangelical, with whom you are in daily contact, and your students, what are the reactions in those two groups to the events of November?
AM: Well, I’ll tell you, the older Evangelical leadership is in danger right now of looking really old, and old not just in chronological terms, but more or less, kind of acting as if the game hasn’t changed, as if we’re not looking at a brand new cultural challenge, and a new political reality. And so I would say that the younger Evangelicals that I look at every single day, and they are so deeply committed, so convictional, they’re basically wondering if a lot of the older Evangelical leaders are really looking to the future, or are really just kind of living in the 80s while the 80s are long gone. So I think there’s a crucial credibility issue there.
Hmmm… sound familiar?
by on 1.19.09
a review of Welch on depression
Donn Arms reviews Ed Welch’s book, Depression, A Stubborn Darkness here.
I have been positive of Welch in the past, especially for his book on addictions. I have read several of his other books as well. However, if this review is accurate, Welch is basically an integrationist and an unreliable guide for Christian counsellors. Arms is quite severe in his criticisms.
by on 1.16.09
the subtle scholarly unbelief
I’ve given up on a commentary. I am one willing to read the works of quite a range of authors, but I get so fed up with the scholarly evangelicals and the subtle way they cast doubts on inspiration. Give me an honest liberal any day, they are worth far more than the "perhaps" and "maybe-so" crowd.
by on 12.27.08
the certainty of uncertainty
That would be the mark of neo-orthodoxy, I think. Or would it be the uncertainty of certainty? One can never tell.
This line illustrates what I mean:
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