Mark Dever over at Together for the Gospel has written about how we should expect persecution. He may well be right. As I read his post, however, and also a few of his buddy, Al Mohler’s, cultural observations, I wonder if I detect a more general note of pessimism about the future of the church. I may very well be wrong about that in the case of the individual people I mention, but I’m sure there are many Christians who... Read more
It’s been awhile since I last did this, but I intend to revive the series now. For more information about Together for the Gospel, please see my Conference Round Up Post. If you haven’t already done so, I would encourage you to read the statement in full — it is available as either a pdf file or as Google’s html version. There is also an ongoing Blogger’s Challenge which I have set to encourage us all to blog about this... Read more
Tim Challies gets to live-blog more and more conferences. Soon it seems he will just live at a conference permanently. I have only ever done this with one conference — Together On A Mission 06. Live-blogging is simply sharing notes and reflections of the sessions. I have made it something of a tradition that I extract a few quotes from these posts. I call it “remote blogging.” Examples include Together for the Gospel 06 and Worship God 06. So here... Read more
Phillip E. Johnson—not to be confused with the Pyromaniac—said the following yesterday at The Royal Institute of Philosophy: “. . . my personal view is that I identify the designer of life with the God of the Bible, although intelligent design theory as such does not entail that. Scientific materialists fiercely resist consideration of the existence of a designer of what we see in nature, in part because they fear that even the most minimalist version of a deity will... Read more
If today was April 1st, I would be sure this was a hoax. An article in today’s Times suggests that the Anglican Communion may sweep hundreds of years of history (and the little matter of the Reformation) under the carpet and go back to Rome. Quite how they propose to take a union that is at the brink of collapse over issues that the Catholics are quite clear on and steer it intact back to what they call the Mother... Read more
God moves in a mysterious way. I was thinking about revival and found a talk by John Lanferman on revival. I liked that talk, so I decided to listen to another talk by John Lanferman, which turned out to be on Elijah. Interestingly, I have been thinking about Elijah this week as well! I found the talk to be very encouraging, focusing on the idea of Elijah as a man of purpose. This Old Testament character is well worth spending... Read more
Most Mondays I take the time to raid my electronic version of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ materials, which is produced by Logos Bible Software. Today’s quote centers on the way revival demonstrates God’s sovereign power: “A revival, by definition, is the mighty act of God and it is a sovereign act of God It is as independent as that. Man can do nothing. God, and God alone, does it … A revival is something which, when it happens, leads people to... Read more
It’s been awhile, so I thought it would be a nice idea to do a blogspotting post today. Blogspotting was initiated by Phil Johnson and ruthlessly copied by me and others. It is simply a way for me to thank all of you for linking to this blog. Links are the lifeblood of the Internet, and the more of them we send each other’s way, the healthier the Internet is as a whole. They also help Google out a lot.... Read more
I plan to make my way slowly through Calvin’s Institutes. Many years ago I read through Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology. It did me much good. Calvin was the Grudem of his day, so after much careful thought, I’ve decided to make an attempt at reading through the Institutes. It may take me a very long time as I have so many other reading projects underway. I won’t blog every page or even every chapter, but from time to time I... Read more
There is no doubt that of all the doctrines of Calvinism, the so-called limited atonement is the most misunderstood and controversial. Sadly, many interpret this as indicating that salvation itself is “limited” and that few will be saved. Spurgeon clearly didn’t think so as this extract from one of his sermons will show. Incidentally, this is preaching as it ought to be! My Spurgeon Challenge remains open, but at least this shows Spurgeon speaking about something similar to the sentiments... Read more
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