This is the question that came to my mind as I was reading Carl Trueman’s booklet, The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Particularly after this statement: Lacking a strong doctrinal center, evangelicalism’s coherence as a coalition of institutions and organizations is about to come under a huge strain—a strain that I believe will render [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Archive for the 'Reading Reflections' Category
The Wheels Are Full of Eyes
I went through such a stage of reading through the puritans in my late twenties and early thirties and that does something to you. Most of it is good, of course, but you do develop some quirks. For instance, I began thinking in long-winded sentence form. But I digress. It was a providential blessing for [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Preservation and Perseverance
There is a continuous call to perseverance found in the sermon-letter to the Hebrews. These exhortations are strong warning passages scattered throughout verses 2:1-4; 3:12-4:13; 5:11-6:12; 10:19-39; and 12:25-29. With an audience of believers (the first intended audience being believing Jews), maybe you wouldn’t expect such strong language like, “how shall we escape if we [...]
Read the rest of this entry »God’s Grace Displaces Us
If you’ve read any Flannery O’Connor, you are aware of her proclivity to take the reader into the darkness of humanity amidst the everyday, mundane life. She shows us that maybe our ordinary is familiar and common, but it is anything but unexceptional. We discover much about ourselves and the condition of our souls from [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Beauty and Harmony
My mom, her three sisters, and her brother sing gospel songs a cappella. They all have great singing voices, but they have a more special beauty when they are harmonizing together. I thought about this as I was reading Michael Reeves highlight the source of this beauty of diversity in unity in his book, Delighting [...]
Read the rest of this entry »The Measure of God’s Thoughts Concerning You
I can always go to Michael Horton’s The Christian Faith for inspiration and reflection. He has a beautiful section on The Trinity and Creation. Horton sums it up including a quote from Colin Gunton about the transcendence and immanence of God: In this Trinitarian economy, God is simultaneously transcendent and immanent, utterly distinct from creation [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Waiting in the Ordinary
I’ve been reading over Gene Edward Veith’s book, God at Work, a second time this weekend. He gives the reader much to think about concerning our vocations. One point that he emphasizes that I particularly like is that our vocation involves the here and now. What is our current situation? Who is our neighbor? How [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Do I Sin Less Now?
I’ve noticed a bit of a theme going on in some of my reading. It even came up in the comments of my last post. If we really are growing in the faith, shouldn’t we be sinning less? What does it mean to be a mature Christian? After all, we are being sanctified and transformed [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Another Way to Look at Turkey
This is the month of Thankfulness. All you have to do is log on Facebook to affirm it. Many friends participate and show their gratitude by posting a different thing they are thankful for each day leading up to Thanksgiving. While it’s good to give thanks for our blessings, Flannery O’Connor’s short story, The Turkey, made [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Bad Company?
The apostle Paul quotes a well-known proverb derived from a Greek comedy in 1 Corinthians 15:33. I like the NIV translation of it, “Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’” Did you ever consider that you may be your own worst company? Paul Tripp repeats a line several times in his book, Dangerous [...]
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