Blogs

Eight Warning Signs of a Bully Church Member | ThomRainer.com
Thom responds to the following question:

“Thom, I am currently encountering a bully church member. He wants me fired. I didn’t see it coming. How can we be warned about potential bullies before they inflict the most damage?”

Does a Husband have the Authority? | Mary Kassian: Girls Gone Wise
Here’s a thought-provoking post that challenges a few stereotypes:

“According to the Bible, a wife’s submission is her choice alone. A husband does not have the right to force or coerce her to do things against her will. He does not have the right to domineer. He does not have the right to pull rank and use strong-arm tactics. He does not have the right to make his wife submit. No. According to the author of our faith, it must not be like that among us!”

When We Say, “I Forgive You” | Gentle Reformation
This is excellent:

“When we really dig into Scripture’s teaching on forgiveness, we find that it stretches and challenges us, forcing us into the uncomfortable territory of being more like Jesus. Without further ado, taking our cues from God’s Word and God’s forgiveness, here’s what we should mean when we say “I forgive you…”

A Normal Parent’s Guide To Homeschooling | Lifehacker
A non-Christian take on homeschooling.

Help! My Congregation Struggles With My Preaching | Gentle Reformation
Kyle Borg asks, “What should I do if my congregation is struggling with my preaching?” He then offers a number of helpful attitudes to adopt.

Why We Don’t Punish Our Kids | TGC
“The next time an offense is committed in your home, remember how your Father treats you when you sin. Address it head on, but don’t neglect the heart. Pursue relationship. Remember that you’ve been entrusted with the care-giving staff of a shepherd, not the gavel of a judge.”

Sunday Women: Being in Ministry Saved My Marriage
“I also know firsthand the privilege of a ministry marriage. And I worry that an endless litany of blame-the-ministry could cause faithful pastors and their wives to view the local church as their marriage’s enemy rather than its best ally.”

Fighting for Holiness Under Fire | The Christward Collective
“Though the trials we face will vary greatly from person to person and season to season, we must learn to recognize those that are common to all people in order to withstand them. Here are a few of the temptations that suffering believers commonly face:”

Kindle Books

The Baker Compact Bible Dictionary $1.99.

Inside the Nye-Ham Debate $2.99

Scripture Alone: Exploring the Bible’s Accuracy, Authority, and Authenticity by James White.

Seeing Christ in all of Scripture by Westminster Seminary Faculty $2.99.

For I will be like a lion to Ephraim. (Hosea 5:14)

What would you most like to meet, an angry lion or a peaceable lamb? That’s the choice we all face. The Lord Jesus is revealed in Scripture as both the Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Rev. 5:5) and the Lamb of God (John 1:36). To His enemies, He will be an angry lion, and to His friends, He will be a peaceable lamb.

Hosea foresees this and predicts that, for Ephraim and indeed the whole of unrepentant Israel, the Lord will be as a lion who will tear them and then take them away without hope of rescue. “For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and as a young lion to the house of Judah: I, even I, will tear and go away; I will take away, and none shall rescue him.” Terrifying!

To be torn apart by a lion is surely one of the great human horrors. So, here, the Lord takes this most frightening of fears and says, “This is how bad it will be.” And it was. The brutal Assyrians came, tore them in pieces, and carried them away captive without hope of rescue. And it could have been so different. Through the annual Passover and the daily sacrifices, God was pointing Israel towards the Lamb of God who would take away their sins and give them peace with God. But because they did not want the Lamb, He changes into a soul-tearing Lion.

We will all meet the Lord Jesus one day, either on the day of our death or on the Day of Judgment. So, the question is not, “Will you meet Him?” but “How will you meet Him?” or, rather, “How will He meet you?” Will He be as a Lion or a Lamb to you? Will it be anger or peace? Will the Lion want your blood, or will the Lamb give you His blood? Will you spend eternity being torn asunder without remedy, or will you spend eternity celebrating “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8)? “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.”

Blogs

The Immaturity of Addiction | Gentle Reformation
“The age you began to use intoxicating substances to get drunk or high in an ongoing way is the basic maturity level you currently have. For instance, if someone began to use drugs heavily at age sixteen and was now twenty-four, such areas as his mental, relational, and work maturity levels would roughly still be that of a teenager. You simply stop maturing very much when you do drugs.”

Trends in Church Architecture, Part 1 | Ed Stetzer
Fascinating reflection on what our church buildings communicate about our message.

Who’s Really Influenced by Their Cultural Situation? A Deep Irony in the New Perspective on Paul | Canon Fodder
“There is a deep and biting irony in the NPP.  While chiding reformed folks for being culturally bound, the NPP folks themselves seem influenced by their own cultural and theological climate.”

Five Things I Pray I Will Not Do as a Senior Adult in the Church
Thom Rainer, who recently turned 61, reflects on what he does not want to be in his senior years.

Recovering the Priority of Personal Holiness | Alistair Begg
“What gave John Owen success in ministry was not so much his oratory skill, nor his evangelistic zeal, nor even his love for the people he shepherded. John Owen was used mightily by God in all these ways because he was a man characterized by personal holiness. ”

The Recent Turkish Coup: What It Means and How to Pray | TGC
“For people outside of Turkey, the most pressing questions are simple: How did this even happen, and what does it mean? Answering them requires a basic understanding of Turkish political and religious history, so let’s take a quick look back.”

Behind the Tears in Baton Rouge | TGC
“My beloved city is in turmoil. Grief, fear, anger, and frustration are settling on our community like a dark cloud. We hurt. We grieve and mourn. Deep down, we feel something we’ve never really felt before; to be honest, it’s hard to put into words.”

New Book

Biblical Church Revitalization by Brian Croft.

Kindle Books

For your non-Kindle book buying needs please consider using Reformation Heritage Books in the USA and Reformed Book Services in Canada. Good value prices and shipping.

Fulfilled: The Refreshing Alternative to the Half-Empty Life by Joey Lankford $0.99.

J I Packer: An Evangelical Life by Leland Ryken $2.99.

Video

Welcome Home
Need some beauty in your media diet? Try these sights and sounds.

Therefore will I change their glory into shame. (Hosea 4:7)

Material and spiritual prosperity rarely go hand-in-hand. Apart from some happy exceptions, as a person increases in financial wealth, they usually decrease in spiritual health. So it is with churches and with nations. So it was with Israel: “As they were increased, so they sinned against me” (v. 7).

As the nation grew and expanded under the skillful economic management of Jeroboam, so did their sins. As men and women grew more self-sufficient, they grew away from dependence upon God. Places of idol-worship multiplied and flourished. They gloried in their shiny golden calves at Dan and Bethel which were much more impressive than the blood-stained temple at Jerusalem! And what about our priests and our ceremonies?

“I will change their glory into shame.” God zeroes in on what they especially boasted of and gloried in. He targets what was the greatest source of their pride—their man-made religion—and warns, “I will turn their glory into shame.” God can take what is the greatest source of pride and turn it into our shame. Hanging Haman, grass-eating Nebuchadnezzar, and worm-eaten Herod testify loudly to God’s abilities in this area.

Do you glory in your beauty? God can take glamorous supermodels and change them into bald models of the latest sackcloth (Isa. 3:16–24). How many beautiful women are in hell, their glory turned into their shame. Do you glory in your wisdom? God says, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent” (1 Cor. 1:19). How many clever men are in hell lamenting the glory they gave to their now shamed degrees.

How easily God can change your glory into your shame. So glory not in your children, your career, your church, or your nation. “But let him that glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, says the Lord” (Jer. 9:24).

How easily God can turn your shame into glory. He can take you from the lowest and most shameful condition and, through the grace of the Lord Jesus, transform you from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18).

Blogs

You Have No Rights Without Natural Law | Jim Demint
“Our rights as Americans are considered unalienable only because they were inherent in the natural order of life established by the laws of nature and nature’s God. ”

Why Are Progressives On An Anti-Christian Witch Hunt?
“The trend lines are genuinely disturbing. Christians are turning into the sort of minority it is socially acceptable to despise and marginalize. Ordinary rules of civility and social inclusion don’t seem to apply to them. We believe in free speech, except not for Christians. Freedom of association doesn’t necessarily apply to them. Rules of civility and decency are more optional when Christians are involved. Shall we even pretend that freedom of religion is a cherished American commitment in our day?”

A Word About Polite Abusers – Pastor Dave Online
“The heart desire for power and control can utilize even good things to do great evil. We must look at more than simply external behavior if we are going to seek to identify abuse in the home. We must hear the pleas of desperate women, take them seriously, and do the hard work of confronting the hearts of their seemingly polite husbands. Abuse can hide in plain sight. It may often look very different from what you’d expect.”

8 Steps for Pastors to Recover 10 Hours From Their Week
And here are 15 Productivity Tips for Pastors.

Is It Time To Ban Computers From Classrooms? | Cosmos And Culture : NPR
The debate continues but the evidence increasingly supports a ban. On a similar subject here’s A Practical Approach for Increasing Students’ In-Class Questions.

Ten Key Questions for Sermon Preparation — DASH/HOUSE
Good big picture reminders.

New Book

It’s Dangerous to Believe: Religious Freedom and its Enemies by Mary Eberstadt.

Kindle Book

For your non-Kindle book buying needs please consider using Reformation Heritage Books in the USA and Reformed Book Services in Canada. Good value prices and shipping.

Loving your Wife as Christ Loved the Church by Larry McCall $3.99.

Video

Colorblind brothers overwhelmed at seeing color for the first time
These are what you call “tears of joy.” Couldn’t help but think of the response of the blind men to whom that Jesus restored sight.

Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you. (Hosea 4:6)

God gave Israel more knowledge of Him than any other nation in the world. He gave them His law, His history, His poets, and His prophets. They had hundreds of chapters and thousands of verses. And yet, here God accuses them of “lack of knowledge.” How could they know so much and yet know so little? It was because they had rejected knowledge. They had received it but had rejected it.

Now, there is some knowledge we can do without. There are many subjects in the world that we can be totally ignorant of and yet live safely and happily. The knowledge of God through His Word is not one of them. The consequences of lacking knowledge of God are horrific and horrendous. God laments, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” Israel’s deliberate choice to reject the knowledge of God and instead to be ignorant of God had catastrophic effects. And their rejection of knowledge resulted, eventually, in God’s rejection of them. “Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you.”

Sadly, Israel’s experiences are still being repeated in many nations which God has blessed with His knowledge. The knowledge of God has been rejected, and these societies are in the painful process of inevitable self-destruction. This truth-rejection, self-destruction, divine-rejection cycle can also be seen in many Christian churches, schools, and universities.

But let’s make it personal. Has God given you His truth and are you rejecting it? Are you neglecting to read it? Are you disobeying it? Are you doubting it? This is not just geography or history or biology. This is eternity at stake.

Your schoolteacher imparts knowledge. You receive it. Your lecturer imparts knowledge. You receive it. Your boss imparts knowledge. You receive it. Your President imparts knowledge. You receive it. Your God imparts knowledge. You reject it. God says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you.” In fact, this also has grave consequences for your children. Hosea goes on, “Seeing you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.” Look into the eyes of your children and see the eternal effects of your ignorance. Listen to these solemn words, “I will reject you.” And He will.