While most of what finds its way into my mailbox is books, I also receive a surprising amount of music. This works out well since I happen to love listening to music while going about my daily work. Here are a few of my favorite recent albums.

Jesus in My Place by The Summit Church. This is an album of modern worship that focuses on the good news of the gospel. The artists say, “Our prayer is that these songs deepen your personal worship of Jesus. The Christian life is ultimately a life of worship, and nothing fuels worship like dwelling on the glorious gospel of Christ. Wherever you are and wherever you go, these songs will help you rehearse the truths of the gospel, allowing the Holy Spirit to stir your affections for Jesus.” You can find lyrics and chords at the church’s web site. Musically, you will find that it is similar to Sovereign Grace Music, Chris Tomlin, and the like. FULL POST

Read on and you will be able to download a free audiobook. That’s a teaser, of sorts. Before we get there, I want to remind you of the new Reading Classics Together project that will begin next week.

John Piper once said, “God brings books at their appointed times. The Hidden Life of Prayer arrived late but well-timed. This little jewel-strewn tapestry has done for me at 64 what Bounds’ Power Through Prayer did at 34. I could be ashamed that I need inspiration for the highest privilege. But I choose to be thankful.” For all the great classics we’ve read as part of the Reading Classics Together program, none of them have focused exclusively on prayer. For that reason, and based on its history and acclaim, we will turn next to The Hidden Life of Prayer. Already hundreds of you have agreed to read along.

The format is simple: Beginning next Thursday will read one chapter of the book each week and then gather here to discuss it. If you want to participate, all you need to do is get a copy of the book and start reading. For next Thursday just read any introductory matter along with chapter one.

There are many ways you can get a copy of the book, some of which are free and some of which will require just a few dollars. FULL POST

Near the center of every religion is a ledger. Every religion acknowledges, on one level or another, that people do good things and bad things and every religion then maintains a tally, supposing that one day there will come a reckoning. Every religion hopes that on the day of accounting, the day of the audit, the good will outnumber or outweigh the bad. There is hope for those who come to that day with a surplus and no hope for those who come with a deficit.

Islam acknowledges sin—deeds that contradict the will of Allah—and calls its adherents to do good that will outweigh the bad. Good deeds are repentance, prayer and certain acts of charity and kindness. Each of these go in the ledger as credits meant to balance the debits.

Judaism acknowledges sin—violations of God’s commandments—and calls on its adherents to make atonement, reparation of relationship with God, through the good work of repentance, through making right the wrongs done to another person, through prayer and devotion. Each of these is a black entry in the ledger that may outweigh the red.

Buddhism acknowledges sin, or something like it, and calls on its adherents to avoid it in favor of something higher and better. Bad deeds bring bad karma which must be outweighed by the good deeds that bring about good karma. When the accounting comes, the good must outweigh the bad, or fate will not be kind. FULL POST

I guess I’m a little late to the party. Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts was released almost eighteen months ago and since then has been a consistent bestseller. If anecdotal evidence can be trusted, its appeal has been almost entirely to women. Not surprisingly, I’ve received many questions about the book and most of them have come from women—women who have been given the book or who have been told to read it. So at long last I had the book sent to my Kindle and I gave it a read.

The book’s appeal seems to come on at least two levels. In the first place, it features a uniquely poetic form of writing. Voskamp has a style all her own; it appeals to some and is exasperating to others. Just to give you a taste, here is an excerpt from the first page:

A glowing sun-orb fills an August sky the day this story begins, the day I am born, the day I begin to live.

And I fill my mother’s tearing ring of fire with my body emerging, virgin lungs searing with air of this earth and I enter the world like every person born enters the world: with clenched fists. FULL POST

In God’s revelation of himself to Moses on Mount Sinai, he says that he is “slow to anger” (Exodus 34:6). However, later in the Old Testament, in the prophecy about Christ in Psalm 2, we are told to “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled“ (2:12).

So which is it? Is God slow to anger or is he quick to wrath? It can’t be both, can it?

It seems to me that the answer lies in understanding that there is a distinction between “getting angry” and “kindling wrath.” Getting angry refers to the attitude God has toward his creation. Kindling wrath refers to the ways in which he acts out that attitude.

In this sense, we can affirm both: God is slow to become angry, as he tells Moses on Mount Sinai (and repeats throughout the rest of Scripture (see Nehemiah 9:17; Psalm 86:15, etc.). But after he is angered, his wrath, the means through which that anger is manifested, can be kindled quickly.

Romans 2:4-5 captures this distinction powerfully. After mentioning how the people have been presuming upon “the riches of [God’s] kindness and forbearance and patience” (referring to the slowness of God’s anger), Paul says that they are storing up wrath for themselves “on the day of wrath,” which, as we know from Paul’s words in 1 Thessalonians 5:2, will come quickly, “like a thief in the night.” FULL POST

A few days ago I shared John Bunyan’s wisdom on why some who profess faith in Christ eventually backslide. Today I want to follow him a little bit farther. Having covered the why, I’ve now drawn from Pilgrim’s Progress instruction on the how. In each case I’ve given my short summary followed by Bunyan’s own words. Here is how to backslide in nine easy steps:

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Jeremiah Burrough’s The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment is one of the most important and personally-impactful Puritan works I’ve ever read. Let me give you just a taste of what Burroughs has to say about contentment. Here he shares eight things that will be opposed by a true, biblical contentment.

1. It is opposed to murmuring and repining at the hand of God, as the discontented Israelites often did. If we cannot bear this either in our children or servants, much less can God bear it in us.
2. To vexing and fretting, which is a degree beyond murmuring.
3. To tumultuousness of spirit, when the thoughts run distractingly and work in a confused manner, so that the affections are like the unruly multitude in the Acts, who did not know for what purpose they had come together. The Lord expects you to be silent under His rod, and, as was said in Acts 19:36, “Ye ought to be quiet and to do nothing rashly.”
4. It is opposed to an unsettled and unstable spirit, whereby the heart is distracted from the present duty that God requires in our several relationships—towards God, others, and ourselves. We should prize duty more highly than to be distracted by every trivial occasion.
5. It is opposed to distracting, heart-consuming cares. A gracious heart so esteems its union with Christ and the work that God sets it about that it will not willingly suffer anything to come in to choke it or deaden it. A Christian is desirous that the Word of God should take such full possession as to divide between soul and spirit (Heb 4:12), but he would not allow the fear and noise of evil tidings to take such a hold in his soul as to make a division and struggling there, like the twins in Rebekah’s womb (Gen 25:22).
6. It is opposed to sinking discouragements. God would have us to depend on Him though we do not see how the thing may be brought about; otherwise, we do not show a quiet spirit.
7. It is opposed to sinful shiftings and shirkings to get relief and help. Thus do many, through the corruption of their hearts and the weakness of their faith, because they are not able to trust God and follow Him fully in all things and always. For this reason, the Lord often follows the saints with many sore temporal crosses as we see in the case of Jacob, though they obtain the mercy. It may be that your carnal heart thinks, “I do not care how I am delivered, if only I may be freed from it.” Your hearts are far from being quiet!
8. The last thing that quietness of spirit is the opposite of is desperate risings of the heart against God by way of rebellion. That is the most abominable. They find in their hearts something of a rising against God. Their thoughts begin to bubble, and their affections begin to move in rebellion against God Himself. This is especially the case with those, who besides their corruptions, have a large measure of melancholy. The devil works both upon the corruptions of their hearts and the melancholy disease of their bodies.

Now Christian quietness is opposed to all these things. When affliction comes, whatever it is, you do not murmur or repine, you do not fret or vex yourself.

This is the fourth installment in a series on theological terms. You can see the previous posts on the terms theology, Trinity, and creation. Today the series moves to man.

Surprisingly, attempting to define man in simple terms is not an easy task. There are many things that could be included in the definition and a line has to be drawn somewhere. I’ve chosen to define man according the very first use of the term in the Bible.

In Genesis 1 we find at least four defining characteristics that teach us what man is:

1) As most English Bibles make clear in their footnotes, the term man in Hebrew (adam) is very closely related to the Hebrew word for earth or ground (adama). This is an intentional and ongoing reminder that God formed man “from the dust of the ground” (Genesis 2:7), which teaches us that man is an integrated, natural member of God’s created world.

2) Man is created “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27); which means that, along with being a natural member of God’s creation, he is also a supernatural being. Having been made in the image of God, he carries the imprint of the supernatural Creator, the God who exists and operates in ways that exceed the natural order he has created. James 3:9 affirms that this divine image has not been removed even after man’s fall from his original state of sinlessness. FULL POST

John Piper once said, “God brings books at their appointed times. The Hidden Life of Prayer arrived late but well-timed. This little jewel-strewn tapestry has done for me at 64 what Bounds’ Power Through Prayer did at 34. I could be ashamed that I need inspiration for the highest privilege. But I choose to be thankful.” For all the great classics we’ve read as part of the Reading Classics Together program, none of them have focused exclusively on prayer. For that reason, and based on its history and acclaim, we will turn next to The Hidden Life of Prayer.

It was back in 2007 that I had an idea that genuinely changed my life. I wanted to read some of the classics of the Christian faith, but I knew that without some measure of accountability I would never have the self-discipline to make it happen. I realized that this accountability could come by reading classics together in community. I decided to launch a reading program called Reading Classics Together. It was simple: We would choose a classic work and read it at a pace of one chapter per week until it was complete; along the way we would “gather” here at the blog for discussion. FULL POST

In wisdom and love God does not leave his people to live this life alone, but rather calls us into community. One of the sad inevitabilities of living in community is that we will sin against one another. The invitation to Christian community is an invitation to be tested by other people’s sin and weakness.

There are many ways to react badly when sinned against by another Christian. Some of us tend to react with sulking and feeling sorry for ourselves. Some go big and blow up while others give in to the slow, brooding kind of anger. Some just walk away. There are as many ways to react badly to sin as there are ways to sin against one another. There are not nearly as many ways to react well to being sinned against. The Bible gives us two: lovingly overlook that sin or lovingly address that sin. The question is, when are we to overlook and when are we to address?

The well-known eighteenth chapter of Matthew provides a detailed roadmap for addressing sin, but before a person follows that route, he first needs to determine whether or not this is the kind of sin he can simply overlook. Overlooking a sin is held high in Scripture. Proverbs 19:11 says “Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.” Proverbs 12:16 says that “the prudent ignores an insult” and on the other side of the cross, in 1 Peter 4:8, we are commanded, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” FULL POST