October, 2006
Reformation Day 2006
With gratefulness to God we celebrate the 489th anniversary of Martin Luther’s posting of his famous 95 Theses, calling for reformation in the church. The young Augustinian monk put his life on the line and we now know that a great Reformation was begun — a reformation that would lead to a recovery of Gospel [...]
C.J. at Southern Seminary
C.J. came to Southern Seminary and Boyce College this week and took the campus by storm. You can download or listen to his excellent messages here. As always, C.J. brought his heart and passion to the proclamation of biblical truth. I was so glad to introduce this dear friend to the Southern Seminary family. Of [...]
Contextualization, again
"I do not think for a moment that the church should aspire to become irrelevant. There is always a need for Christians to speak the gospel into their own context. Rather, my concern is with the ever present danger of over-contextualizing. Consider what happens to a church that is always trying to appeal to an [...]
Satan's Secret Script: The Slow but Serious Slide of Scripture-less Services
As I prepare to do another 9Marks interview with David Wells while I’m up at Gordon-Conwell this week, I’m looking through his latest book, Above All Earthly Pow’rs again. What a good book! David makes a statement early in the book about the centrality of the Word in the weekly congregational setting which is worth [...]
Pride as Impatience
I confess that I am sometimes, too often, impatient. I further confess that as I have meditated on it, it becomes clear to me that this is not a nice, junior kind of sin (at least not in me). It is a disguise for the sin of pride, the ugliest of all sins, and the [...]
The Last Time
I regularly read First Things. I don’t read all of it. I look at all of it. I read bits. One bit I read in the Aug/Sept 2006 number was Robert Louis Wilken’s moving piece on the late Jaroslav Pelikan. I’m a fan of Robert Shaw. (His "Amazing Grace" CD is one of my favorite [...]
John Wilson on the Packer Birthday Bash
Thanks C.J., for your report on the DGM conference. I can’t wait to listen to all the messages. And thanks to you, Mark, for your sobering counsel to Thabiti, which is surely good counsel to us all. Speaking of which, you are so faithful to tell the truth, kindly but clearly, whether the crowds like [...]
Temptations in the Crowds
What a privilege it was this past weekend to gather with the congregation and elders of First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman to install Thabiti Anyabwile as their new senior pastor! The congregation and elders are a sweet, faith-full group of brothers and sisters who have spent 3 years looking for a main preaching elder/senior [...]
"Above All Earthly Powers"
Mark, Lig and Al—since I was the only one who was able to attend the Desiring God conference, “Above All Earthly Powers,” I thought I would do a brief post relating my experience. Brief, because I would have to type all day to adequately recount all I learned and enjoyed at this great event. I [...]
