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Tim Keller on Evangelism Best Practices...

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R.C.Sproul - What is the Rapture?

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On the "crime" of circumcision:

This is a bearing on another conversation I'm listening in on about infant baptism...this paragraph:

Along with many other religious people, they regard children as members of a community that precedes individual decisions and outlasts them — a community created by a covenant, not a choice. Circumcision is the outward sign of this spiritual reality.

Denny Burk adds:

Modern liberalism is upside down. On the one hand, it supports the right of a woman to kill her unborn child in utero for whatever reason or no reason at all. On the other hand, it opposes a parent’s prerogative to have their baby undergo a safe procedure that incorporates them into a community of faith. Does that make sense to you? Me either.

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Women as "Kingdom Warriors, Too..."

If Adam must think, decide, protect, and provide for the woman, she actually becomes a burden on him – not much help when you think about it. The kind of help the man needs demands full deployment of her strength, her gifts, and the best she has to offer. His life will change for the better because of what she contributes to his life. Together they will daily prove in countless and surprising ways that two are better than one. (pg 114-115).

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What Does Your Church’s Statement of Faith Protect?

 As we discussed the statement Saturday, the conversation turned to the importance of the statement of faith in protecting various aspects of the church and its ministry.  As I’ve noodled on that conversation, it seems to me that a local church’s statement of faith should protect five important things...

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"We Are at a Turning Point" by Judge Andrew Napolitano

Hence, we have laws that force us to be charitable to those whom the government designates as worthy of our charity, that limit the amount of salt that restaurants can put into our food, that permit the government to watch us on street corners and subways and in the lobbies of buildings, that let the president fight wars of opportunity, that permit the Federal Reserve to print money with no value and inflate prices and destroy savings, that allow the government to listen to us on our cellphones and use those phones to follow us wherever we go, and, according to CIA Director David Petraeus, that let the government anticipate our movements inside our homes.

once again, trying to make sense of my life through blogging (just kidding - but getting through books is more interesting when I get my thoughts in writing...and sometimes life just irritates me into writing about it.)

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[rating=5]I think this is one I'll go through here (spiritual discipline, perhaps?)

As I was reading this book, the first part seemed like it is full of "white guilt" - expanding the sin of racism to all white people in the USA by virtue of the color of their skin.

After that, Piper explores individual sins on both sides of the issue - "both" because the reality is (at this point, anyway) the big divide seems greatest between African-Americans and Americans of European descent.  There is plenty of sin to go around.

When Piper gets into the meat of the topic - WHY it is a sin and why it matters, this is an excellent book.  I also broadened to topic to include "favoritism" (not just the race kind) and it became more excellent.

by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation, (Rev. 5:9)

From chapter 6 on, the book is steeped in the Gospel.  We are all created in the image of God - to practice favoritism in any way strikes at the image.

I'm giving this 4 stars (also working on a star system... 😉

 

 

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[rating=0]I don't like to review books that I haven't finished, but this one I just can't get through. (yes, it got zero stars)

It's based on the "twelve step program" of AA, which leans heavily on Scripture.

The program itself may be great and I know people who have gotten their lives together with the help of AA. But this book (I'm not going back) is also heavily laced with

1. Arminianism
2. Finneyism
3. "Sarah Calling" (another review of a book that I didn't get through)

I got more than 2/3 done, but then it started with "the most important part of prayer is the listening."

I put it back in the cloud...

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[rating=4]"Mercury Rises" is a fun sort of tale of angels and demons and humans who are (mostly) acting with a piece of information while chasing around the world trying to stop (or start) the apocalypse.

Fiction is "mind candy" for me most of the time - meant to be fun and tasty without a whole lot of substance. This fits that bill.

Well written, characters were well defined (with some books it's hard to keep track and this book was nice in that regard)

I'm planning on reading more in this series.

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I love religion. I know it's popular to parrot the "I hate religion" mantra these days, and I understand what those saying it are trying to say - they don't like it when people abuse religion for personal gain, whether that gain is financial, personal, or whether it just to make themselves feel better.

But to say "I hate religion" is an abuse of the word "religion," which is actually a pretty morally neutral word. To assign a neutral word a meaning that it was never intended to carry is an abuse of the word.

We don't want the political gay agenda to change the meaning of the word "marriage" - well, don't change the meaning of the word "religion." When somebody abuses it, reclaim it.

    - the service or worship of God (If you - generic, not specific "you" hate that, I'm not sure what to say)
    - the commitment or devotion to religious faith or devotion - again, I'm not sure why anyone would hate that.
    - a personal set or institutionalized system of religious beliefs, attitudes or practice. Our Christian beliefs that connect us with nearly 2,000 years of people of faith who have gone before us? Yeah...those

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I love these things that add up to: religion.

I am committed to, and devoted to, the service and worship of God - that is, my religious faith.

What spurred this post, is the book "Affirming the Apostles' Creed" by J.I.Packer. That institutionalized system of beliefs is best summed up in the "Apostles' Creed"

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. AMEN

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and can I hear another AMEN?

what part of this would any Christian hate?