Starting Missional Churches is a pressing and convicting volume on the future of the church and its planting procedures.
Book Review: Sheerluck Holmes and the Case of the Missing Friend by Karen Poth
The illustrations are spectacular. With 32 pages of simple and short sentences, the illustrations stand out and effectually drive the story for the child reader.
When you think about the fact that bats are blind and use sonar to navigate the night skies looking for bugs; or the fact that caterpillars hang from tomato plants in your back yard for a few weeks in order to turn in to butterflies; or the fact that the ring I gave my wife when I asked her to marry me was at one point a lump of black coal; these all seem like stories you could tell a kid before they go to sleep at night. Wilson gets at the fact that they are all stories; God's stories for us.
Contextual Uncleanness & God's Covenant in Ezekiel 36
17 “Son of man, when the house of Israel was living in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their deeds; their way before Me was like the uncleanness of a woman in her impurity. 18 Therefore I poured out My wrath on them for the blood which they had shed on the land, because they had defiled it with their idols. - Ezekiel 36:16-18
In our Adamic nature we are prone to chafe under our limits (for this was how Satan tempted our parents in the garden: "You will be like God"), however, when we rest in the sovereignty of God we find that we can not only accept our role as limited creatures but actually rejoice therein!
Most Influential Fiction Books
Contrary to popular belief, my theological paradigm shifts were not solely the result of theological reading. Fictional reading has a profound impact on the reader's worldview and subsequently their hermeneutic and theology.
A responsive & corporate liturgy takes the focus away from the individual and paradoxically strengthens the individual. Conversely, a liturgy that caters to the individual ironically isolates the individual in the experience they are having.
Addressing The Amillennial Alternative: Chapters 3-4
Sam Storms doesn't waste anytime addressing the root of premillennial theology and its reliance on a particular interpretation of Daniel's 70 weeks. Readers who are premillennial will notice and might take offense.
To Curse and To Court: A Football Story
I'm not sure that my curse on a Colts kicker ruined his career (I'm sinfully on the fence) but I'm grateful the other words I spoke during that season have had an impact that has altered the course of my life.
To Have and To Hold: A Football Story
My union with a Steelers fan was almost de-railed thanks to fanaticism.
Proximity of Fulfillment in Ezekiel 12
This prophecy is relevant. The whole fabric of Old Testament prophecy revolves around the concept of God giving His people a new heart and Spirit.
Book Review: How Sermons Work by David Murray
How Sermons Work does not stand on its own as a hermeneutics or homiletic guide for students. However, Murray’s work is a pleasant introduction and easy-access resource for laymen, experienced preachers, and elders.
The Book of Revelation in Ezekiel 9
6 Utterly slay old men, young men, maidens, little children, and women, but do not touch any man on whom is the mark; and you shall start from My sanctuary.” So they started with the elders who were before the temple.
In Which I Stopped Listening to Sermons
"Well, then, have the like faith with regard to Divine Scripture; believe that thy soul is profited by the mere reading, even though thy understanding does not receive the fruit of profiting by these passages. Our inner nature is charmed; its better elements are nourished, the worse weakened and brought to nought." - Origen, Philocalia 12.2
Book Review: NIV First-Century Study Bible
I am not a fan of study bibles, preferring full commentaries, but the FCSB is now on my short list of recommended resources. In a day and age where every theological tradition has a study Bibles, the FCSB brings back to life the original views of the early church and Jewish Rabbis in a resounding and edifying way.
While truth in the form of theology & philosophy is very helpful it is stories that ultimately grab us! In fact it is stories that grab us first as children before we even have the capacity to understand theological treatises. Christians should not shy away from stories but instead embrace them and learn to tell them better!
Much of our post-modern world is very inconsistency in the way its views hold together. People aren't taught to think how economic policy and gay mirage hold together and are connected. That's why you can have "conservative" pundits claim that all they care about is the economy and want to leave the "moral" issues out of politics.
Addressing The Amillennial Alternative: Chapters 1-2
Thanks to the wonderful people at Christian Focus Publications, I have a beautiful review copy of Sam Storms' Kingdom Come: The Amillennial Alternative. In due time a proper review will be out but in the meantime I've decided to blog through important portions of this fine book to get a little more interaction with Storms' theology.
Tossing TULIPs Helps No One
Bible verses in themselves do no persuaded and change minds. They certainly don't alter ingrained theological patterns. It is the interpretation of these verses that define theology and it is these crucial interpretations that are effected by our presuppositions.
Book Review: The Mess Detectives and The Case of the Lost Temper
Entertaining and ideal for discussing self-control, The Case of the Lost Temper has been read multiple times in our home, with no end in sight!