The word of God in Hebrews 9-10
Back in August 2006 at the WorshipGod06 Conference (hosted by Sovereign Grace Ministries), Ryan Ferguson gave a memorised dramatic recitation of Hebrews 9 and 10 using the ESV.
This powerful 11 minute recitation (via Google Video) is a great blessing to all who want to understand Hebrews better.
True Worship
“To worship God ‘in spirit and in truth’ is first and foremost a way of saying that we must worship God by means of Christ. In him the reality has dawned and the shadows are being swept away (Hebrews 8:13). Christian worship is new covenant worship; it is gospel-inspired worship; it is Christ-centred worship; it is cross-focussed worship.”
– D.A. Carson, Worship by the Book (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 37. With thanks to firstimportance.org
‘How about a fresh cup of reality?’
Among Anglican bloggers, there has been a great deal of comment on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s video about his hopes for Lambeth. American Anglican blogger BabyBlue has posted an entertaining, but serious, comment –
Something is missing from the video. It’s often called the “Elephant in the Room,” … the question we ask is how can any bishop trust another bishop when the chief pastor bishop cannot even admit that there is “division of the first magnitude” going on outside his palace gates? …
What we see here instead, is an Archbishop of Canterbury who has created an environment free from bishops suing laity, bishops suing clergy, bishops defrocking clergy, bishops deposing bishops, bishops suing bishops, bishops wigging out so much that judgment flies out the window and they start threatening to defrock the general editor of the English Standard Version of the Bible, for heaven’s sake. Hello? Apparently, none of that is visible from inside this ivory tower. Pull up a comfy chair. A full course of denial is on the menu.
See her full post – complete with The Parrot Sketch – here.
Patristics for busy pastors
Who cares about the Church Fathers?
This Interview with Dr. Ligon Duncan addresses questions such as, Why should a busy pastor invest time in reading the patristic authors? How will a pastor benefit? Where should he start?
The 14.4MB mp3 file of the interview with Tony Reinke may be downloaded from Sovereign Grace Ministries.
(With thanks to Faith by Hearing for the link. Photo: First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Mississippi.)
Together for the Gospel 08 audio
The 2008 Together for the Gospel Conference is currently under way in Louisville, Kentucky.
More than 2,500 Christian leaders have gather to be encouraged by Mark Dever, John Piper, and friends. Mark Dever’s talk is titled: Improving the Gospel: Exercises in Unbiblical Theology.
As each talk is given, the audio is being made available for free download here.
Counterfeit Gospels
How many counterfeit gospels can there be?
9Marks’ Jonathan Leeman summarises seven ‘counterfeit gospels’ – from the book How People Change: they are – Formalism, Legalism, Mysticism, Activism, Biblicism, Therapism, Social-ism.
He asks, “How many of these do you recognise in your own heart?”
– Read about them at Church Matters, the 9Marks blog.
ESV Study Bible in the works
A Study Bible based on the ESV is in its final stages of preparation and it is due to be published (in the US) in October.
Details are available at www.esvstudybible.org.
Huldreich Zwingli, Swiss Reformer
“Zwingli was born on January 1st, 1484, a few weeks after Luther, in a tiny village high in the Alps above Lake Zurich. Of peasant stock, he early showed his brilliance, and graduated at the University of Vienna in 1505, where he met Wittenbach. Ordained in 1506 and appointed to the pastoral charge of Glarus, he laboured there ten years studying the classics, the Fathers, and the Bible at the same time.
In 1516 he removed to Einsiedeln, where he began to show his real theology. He preached that Christ, not Mary, is our only salvation, and gained his reputation as a preacher. He was promoted to Zurich in 1518 and by his Biblical preaching began to formulate the principles and doctrines of the Reformation. …”
In 1961, Churchman published an article by James Atkinson on this Swiss Reformer. Happily, Church Society are continuing their tradition of republishing helpful Churchman articles, and this one has just been placed online.
It’s available as a PDF file here.
Gnosticism in the bookshops
Dr. Michael Horton and friends at the “White Horse Inn” broadcast continue their series on “Christless Christianity”.
This week, it’s part 2 of “The Gospel According to Barnes and Noble”. So what’s popular in US bookshops? – The same books are probably already on sale in Australia.
– from The White Horse Inn.
Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones audio online
Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones was one of the great preachers of the 20th century and was highly influential among British evangelicals. ‘The Doctor’ was born in Wales but laboured for almost thirty years at London’s Westminster Chapel where many came to hear him expound God’s Word.
Until recently, audio recordings of his sermons have not been easy to come by. Now, however, the D M Lloyd-Jones Recordings Trust has begun to sell copies on CD – and to produce a weekly programme. Each typically has a sermon over two weeks and is in Windows Media or Real Audio format.
Faith by Hearing points out that One Place has just begun to host these broadcasts. These are available as mp3 files as well as the other formats. So far, part one of a sermon on Galatians 1:3-5 is online.
See One Place for the free download. (Photo of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones via One Place.)
Liberal theology and theological education
President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Al Mohler, tells a cautionary tale of what can happen to formerly strong evangelical theological colleges –
“Andover Theological Seminary was indeed the first freestanding seminary in the United States … ‘started by orthodox Calvinists who fled Harvard after it embraced Unitarianism’. But then look at the fact that today one-fourth of the students enrolled in the school are Unitarian-Universalists. The school is also tied to the United Church of Christ, the nation’s most liberal mainline denomination. The school now represents the very beliefs its founders sought to oppose. …”
– from Al Mohler’s blog.
A Christian celebrity?
“A few years back I attended a conference celebrating the 300th anniversary of Jonathan Edwards. J. I. Packer was one of the keynote speakers and I was eager to get a book autographed by him. I purchased a hardcover 20th anniversary edition of Knowing God, and made a beeline for Packer after the conclusion of his presentation.
For 30 minutes after his speech he was swarmed by scores of young men, some asking questions, others seeking advice, most simply listening, all seeking to have him autograph something. Two things happened during that time that I will never forget. The first is something Packer wrote, the second is something he refused to. …”
– Josh Gelatt writes on J. I. Packer’s legacy of leading with humility.
A ‘pregnant man’?
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn’t,” the famed literary character Alice quipped. “And contrary wise; what it is wouldn’t be, and what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?”
The aforementioned quote from Lewis Carroll’s children’s classic, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” seems to be nonsense. But if you read it again slowly – very slowly – you will see that it adequately sums up the current state of sexual dysfunction in America. …
Kelly Boggs comments on the story that’s gripped many media outlets in the last week – from Baptist Press. (Kelly Boggs’ photo from Baptist Press.)
Don’t waste your life
What does the ‘unwasted life’ look life?
All Christians need to be continually challenged on this. Hear John Piper on The Appearance of the Unwasted Life – Part 1 (audio and video) and Part 2.
Invest your time by being challenged to treasure Christ more.
The Limits of Fellowship – Phillip D Jensen
This important address given by Dean of Sydney, Phillip Jensen, at the Sydney Lambeth Decision Briefing on March 14 has attracted widespread interest.
Although it is already available as a 70 minute audio file and a PDF file, we are also making it available as a web page, for greater accessibility.
Click here to read it all – in our Resources section.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…