Tom Davenport’s post on how to write good comments on blogs applies equally to blogging itself. Here’s the summary:
Read whole article here.
This book is one year too late. Twelve months ago, I was about to start teaching Eschatology here at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, and discovered there was a dearth of books about heaven, especially written from a Reformed perspective. There were lots of books about the millennium, but precious few about heaven. Hardly reflects biblical proportions, does it?
If you had asked me then, “Which Reformed theologian or pastor would you choose to write a book about heaven?” Maurice Roberts would have been in my top three. As a young Christian, I was privileged to live relatively close to Pastor Roberts, and regularly profited from his preaching. However, what I remember most were the fellowships I attended in Pastor Roberts’s manse, first in Ayr and later in Inverness. Pastor Roberts has the wonderful ability to stimulate and lead Christians in discussing theology and its relation to Christian experience. Two subjects were always central in these discussions: the person and work of Christ, and the believer’s happiness in heaven. Many of us experienced unforgettable foretastes of heavenly glory during these memorable evenings.
The Happiness of Heaven comes from the pen of one who has often visited heaven by faith. Pastor Roberts writes of heaven, not as someone who has simply cut-and-pasted from the books and sermons of others, but from hours of personal reflection on Scripture, many years of deep Christian experience, and years of ministering these precious truths to his congregations in Ayr, Inverness, and to Christians throughout the world.
I would not ask Pastor Roberts to analyze contemporary politics, or popular culture or any other transient things of this world. But, if I had a questions about heaven – where it is, how to get there, what it is like, who is there – then I can think of few more knowledgeable or reliable than this heavenly-minded man. In this book, Pastor Roberts gives bible-soaked answers to often-troubling questions such as: “What about children dying in infancy?” “Will we recognize one another in heaven?” “Do people in heaven know what is happening on earth?” “How can heaven be heaven without my loved ones?” Will we remember our sins in heaven?”
Pastor Roberts writes on such profound subjects in a clear, succinct, and simple style. This book is biblical, not speculative; practical, not philosophical; pastoral, not academic; evangelistic, not presumptive; searching, but also comforting. Throughout the book he challenges preachers to fill their pulpits again with the primary things, the ultimate things, the real things, the eternal things.
This book will produce much spiritual fruit in its readers. It will provide pastors with many sermon-provoking ideas. It offers mature Christians new light on old texts. It inspires aging Christians to long more for heaven, and busy Christians to slow down and find time to meditate on these heavenly themes. Young Christians will find their basic questions answered. Worldly Christians will be convicted of their earthly-mindedness and stimulated to live a more heavenly life on earth. Suffering Christians will be assured “that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18). Theologians will find challenging material to “chew” upon. Unbelievers will be faced with their unfitness for heaven and be directed to the Savior, who alone can fit them for the heavenly mansions.
Randy Alcorn says Reformed theologians have somewhat neglected heaven in their writing. In his own book on heaven, Alcorn notes that Calvin commended meditation on heaven but wrote little about it. William Shedd’s three-volume Dogmatic Theology has eighty-seven pages on hell but only two on heaven. Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology devotes only one page out of 737 to the eternal state of heaven. Pastor Roberts greatly assists the church by righting this theological imbalance with his book.
I have never read any of Pastor Roberts’s books without looking heavenwards with greater longing and desire. This book will quicken your spiritual pulse, put this fading world in perspective, and unite you with Jonathan Edwards in determining to be “Resolved to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness, in the other world, as I possibly can.”
The Happiness of Heaven by Maurice J. Roberts. $7.50 from Reformation Heritage Books
In this video tour of Ligon Duncan’s study, you’ll see that that Ligon sometimes uses a stand-up workstation. That brought back a lot of painful memories for me! I resorted to stand-up working for a while after being diagnosed with one prolapsed disc and one herniated disc in my spine. This was the result of hundreds of hours hunched at my computer on a slightly uneven study chair, while preparing Old Testament and Hebrew courses in the winter of 2003. The pain eventually spread down my left leg, and got so bad that I remember thinking that amputation would be preferable to day and night of this. Thankfully, God did not answer that prayer!
Acupuncture eased the immediate pain (I was a skeptic too until one “strategically placed” 6 inch pin transformed my life), and physiotherapy eventually squeezed the discs back into place. But my most valuable long-term discovery was Treat your own back, which taught me how to avoid a recurrence by adopting healthy back and neck posture. I don’t have a stand-up workstation just now, but I usually stand up and walk around my study if I am reading.
Pastors are ripe candidates for back trouble because of the amount of time they spend sitting down: in their studies, in cars, at meetings and on pastoral visitation. That’s why, in our Ministry class at Puritan Seminary, I spent some time showing students YouTube videos on avoiding and curing back pain.
If you still need persuaded to stand up more, then read Your chair is your enemy from the New York Times. It begins:
Your chair is your enemy. It doesn’t matter if you go running every morning, or you’re a regular at the gym. If you spend most of the rest of the day sitting — in your car, your office chair, on your sofa at home — you are putting yourself at increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers and an early death. In other words, irrespective of whether you exercise vigorously, sitting for long periods is bad for you.
Here are a number of lifehacker articles on setting up a standing desk. And if you are really keen, here are some exercises for standing desk users.
This could save you many sleepless nights and unproductive days.
At Wrestling with an Angel, Greg Lucas shares the lessons in life he has learned as the father of a disabled son. In a recent post, I love you – no matter what, Greg describes the daily violence he experiences as he tries to care for his dear son:
Almost daily I have to physically restrain my son. It is a physical battle to change his diaper and clean his body. Many times while cleaning and changing him I have been kicked in the face, bitten, smacked, clawed, or hit with flying objects. It is not all that uncommon to come away from a cleanup with a bloody lip or a new scratch.
But deeply moving though this is, Greg goes on to describe how it is only his own experience of the unconditional love of God the Father, who keeps on loving…no matter what, that keeps him loving…no matter what.
An unforgettable insight into the love of God for sinners like us is only one click away.
Not a good time to own a Toyota. Not a good time to be selling Toyotas. And especially not a good time to be an executive at Toyota. Because, according to Roberta Matuson, the company management has failed to follow the basic steps of rebuilding trust after making a blunder. These are:
1. When you make a mistake, own up immediately.
2. Take responsibility for your mistake by beginning your apology with “I” not “the company” or “the institution.”
3. Vow to make things right and keep people informed of your progress.
4. Re-define expectations by telling people what differences to expect in the future.
5. Do what you say you will do and in time you will regain trust.
Pastors and churches take note! So many pastoral resignations and church divisions are caused not by the initial blunder, but by the failure to follow these basic steps in responding to it.
And here’s another article that looks not so much at the after-effects of the blunder, but the causes of it. In summary, they were: 1. Over-expansion: the drive for quantity rather than quality
Pastoral ministry is not the only vocation which tends to be idealized by young men. In a recent post, Seth Kravitz (CEO of Insuranceagents.com) took business bloggers to task for over-romanticizing entrepreneurship. “Yes,” he says, “starting a company can be a wonderful experience. It can be empowering, life altering, etc….But what so many business bloggers forget to mention is everything else: stress, anxiety, doubt, heartbreak, sleepless nights, emotional roller coasters, destruction to relationships, lost friends, embarrassment, etc…”
Kravitz lists 20 statements, and challenges would-be entrepreneurs, “How many can you answer ‘Yes’ to?” As I read them, I couldn’t help wondering what a similar list for would-be pastors would look like. Here are Kravitz’s reality-checking statements. How many of them are transferable to pastoral ministry? What would you add or take away? Which would you qualify or amend?Picture: 2008 © Andy Dean. Image from BigStockPhoto.com