In When I Don’t Desire God John Piper demonstrates how much reading you could do in 1 year simply by reading for 15 minutes each day.
Suppose you read slowly like I do–maybe about the same speed that you speak–200 words a minute. If you read fifteen minutes a day for one year (say just before supper, or just before bed), you will read 5,475 minutes in the year. Multiply that by 200 words a minute, and you get 1,095,000 words that you would read in a year. Now an average serious book might have about 360 words per page. So you would have read 3,041 pages in one year. That’s ten very substantial books. All in fifteen minutes a day.
Or, to be specific, my copy of Calvin’s Institutes has 1,521 pages in two volumes, with an average of 400 words per page, which is 608,400 words. That means that even if you took a day off each week, you could read this great biblical vision of God and man in less than nine months (about thirty-three weeks) at fifteen minutes a day.
The fight for joy is a fight to grasp and marvel at what happened in the death of Christ — and what it reveals about our suffering Savior. If it were not for the death of Jesus in our place, the only possible joy would be the joy of delusion — like the joy on the Titanic just before it hit the iceberg. Without the cross, joy could be sustained only by denying (consciously or subconsciously) the inevitability of divine judgment. In fact, that’s the kind of joy that drives most of the world — a joy that preserves the power of its pleasures by being oblivious to the peril just ahead. If the passengers were suddenly made aware that in a matter of hours most of them would drown in the icy ocean, all their merrymaking would cease. Their joy depends on their ignorance (John Piper, When I Don’t Desire God, 71).
In the introductory material of his commentary on The Gospel According to John, D.A. Carson includes a helpful section on preaching from the fourth Gospel. Carson reminds preachers and Bible teachers that John’s Gospel is about Jesus; his person and work and “his place in the sweep of redemptive history”. He then remarks,
“…John’s stated purpose in composing the Fourth Gospel is not that his readers might believe, but that his readers might believe that the Christ, the Son of God, is Jesus, and that in believing they might have life in his name. To hammer away at the urgency of belief without pausing to think through what it is John wants his readers to believe and whom it is he wants them to trust is to betray the Gospel of John. Preaching from the Gospels is above all an exercise in the exposition and application of Christology (102, emphasis in the original).
Justin Taylor has some info on a new bibliography of D.A. Carson’s publications compiled by Carson’s research assistant Andy Naselli. The bibliography contains links to over 300 free PDFs of articles written by Carson.
Happy downloading!
I would like to pose a question. In the observance of the Lord’s Supper are we offering something to God or is God offering something to us? Do we give to God or do we receive from Him? Do you think this is an important nuance to make conclusions about?
What exegetical and theological arguments would you use to support your position? Please share your thoughts.
This past Sunday at our church’s internship meeting we discussed various worship related issues. One of the questions that came up was what to do when you feel like you can’t sing the lyrics of a hymn/song during the corporate worship service.
Jim Newheiser, who was leading the meeting, helpfully suggested that you first ask whether your issue with the song is one of preference or doctrine. There’s a difference between simply not liking a hymn or worship song because of its tune, for example, and not liking the song because you believe it doesn’t teach sound doctrine. Jim encouraged us to put aside preferences when necessary. However, if we believe the song isn’t teaching correct doctrine then we must not violate our conscience.
What do you do when the lyrics of a hymn or song are so vague or unclear (but not clearly false) that you can’t sing with conviction? There a few songs we sing at our worship services that contain lyrics I can’t sing with conviction because I’m not sure what the words are communicating.
For example, do you think the following line is a proper/true description of Jesus Christ?
“You are the love song we’ll sing forever”.
I’m not asking whether that line makes you think of other things that are true of Christ, but whether the statement that Jesus is a “love song” is true on its own.
I’ve tried hard not to be a stick in the mud over this line, but I simply can’t bring myself to sing it. It’s not clear to me what it means for Jesus to be a love song and I haven’t come across anything in Scripture that would shed some light. I haven’t scoured the entire Bible over this lyric though so please let me know if I’m missing something!
What songs/lyrics do you have a hard time singing and why (keep it civil)?
Mark Lauterbach’s article People, Not Culture in the May 2009 issue of NEXT is a helpful piece for those who are thinking through how to relate to the world around them. Lauterbach writes,
But I want to suggest that this question–“How should a Christian relate to culture?”–may be the wrong question. This may be the wrong place for us, as Christians in the middle of culture, to start. Here’s why: I am not sure how I am to relate to the culture, but I am sure I am to relate to people outside of Christ for the sake of their salvation
You can read the full article here.
Jonathan Dodson posted several suggestions at theresurgence.com for being more intentional about spending time with non-Christians. The suggestions are simple, common sense stuff, but all too often we overlook these types of opportunities.
- Eat with Non-Christians
- Walk, Don’t Drive
- Be a Regular
- Hobby with Non-Christians
- Talk to Your Co-workers
- Volunteer with Non-Profits
- Participate in City Events
- Serve Your Neighbors
(via JT)
The Gospel Coalition website is proving to be a great resource for Gospel centered text, audio, and video resources. You can browse resources by the name of the author/speaker, topic, or Scripture reference. In addition, you can browse for specific types of resources such as sermons, articles, interviews, etc.
If you’re looking for a place to start I suggest you listen to or watch D.A. Carson’s lecture entitled “What is the Gospel?”. You can find the audio and video here or in iTunes.
Posted on February 24, 2009
Recently one of our church’s interns, Matthew Seymour, a student at Westminster Seminary California, preached an excellent sermon on suffering from I Peter 4:12-19. Matthew helpfully summarized how we’re to understand passages that deal with suffering and persecution.
We may not face trials and suffering on the same level of physical intensity that our brothers and sisters do around the world. However there is a wider sense in which Peter’s words apply to every situation in our lives. We experience a trial any time when our faith is tested and proved true. We suffer when we feel the effects of sin in our work, relationships and our own bodies.
Peter wants to prepare these believers to stand firm in trials and suffering and so he gives them a ‘vaccination shot’ of a biblical theology of trials and suffering. Whether or not we are facing trials and suffering at this present moment, we need right thinking now so that we will respond with right responses in the future.
You can listen to or download the sermon here. It will be well worth your time.
