December | 2015 | Coram Deo ~

December 18, 2015
by Bill Pence Leave a comment

BOOK REVIEWS and NEWS

book reviews
Child in the Manger: The True Meaning of Christmas by Sinclair Ferguson. The Banner of Truth Trust. 203 Pages. 2015.
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Sinclair Ferguson is one of today’s best Reformed theologians. I have read many of his books and heard him speak many times at the Ligonier National Conference. He has been a pastor and seminary professor in numerous churches and seminaries throughout the world, and is also a Ligonier Teaching Fellow. I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed and was blessed by this new book.

Dr. Ferguson writes that this book sets out to explore the question of the real meaning of Christmas. He tells us that when we find the answer we realize that it isn’t only for the Christmas season. He states that at the center of history stands the person of Jesus Christ. He does so because he is at the center of God’s story. Christ who is the creator of all things has entered his own creation in order to become our Savior. That is what gives Christmas meaning. It is what gives history and our lives meaning too.

He tells us that the meaning of Christmas is this: the Light of the world has come into the darkness of the world, in order to bring light into the darkness of our hearts, and to illuminate them with the grace of forgiveness. He tells us that Christmas is not coming, but it has already come. The Word already has been made flesh. He already has lived, bled, died, and risen again for us. Now all that remains is to receive him. For Jesus is the meaning of Christmas.

He tells us that Philippians 2:5-11, which he calls a bold, even a daring passage, tells the inside story of Christmas. As we mature as Christians, we begin to count others as more significant than ourselves. This is what the Christmas gospel does. Or to state it differently, this is what the Christ of Christmas does. But he does so only when we discover the true meaning of Christmas.

The author tells us that the New Testament does not obligate Christians to celebrate Christmas. However, he writes, the wisdom of the church throughout the ages suggests that if we do not celebrate the incarnation of Christ deliberately at some point in the year we may be in danger of doing it all too rarely, perhaps not at all.

In his writing and speaking, Dr. Ferguson has a wonderful way with words. Here is an example as he writes of the birth narrative: “The one who populated the forests with trees lies within the bark of one. The one who has always been face to face with his Father now stares into the face of his teenage mother. The one whom the heavens cannot contain is contained within a stable. He who cradles the universe is himself cradled in an animal’s feeding trough.”

Today, most people in the United States celebrate Christmas. The author states that they love to hear Christmas music, even to sing the familiar Christmas carols. But, he tells us, their hearts seem to go cold when they hear about the true meaning of Christmas, that Jesus came into the world to save sinners. The response is then, whether they say it or not, “Let’s sings the songs, but don’t talk to us about being saved from sin!” Let us enjoy Christmas without Christ!”

Finally, Dr. Ferguson tells us that the true meaning of Christmas is seeking, finding, trusting, and worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ.

I so enjoyed reading this book just a few weeks before we celebrate the birth of the One who came to save our sins. Ferguson writes about Jesus “The heart of the Christmas message is a baby bound in swaddling bands and lying in a wooden manger who is destined to be bound again in later life and laid upon wood on the cross of Calvary.”

Reformation Study Bible (ESV)
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The Reformation Study Bible first appeared in 1995 as the New Geneva Study Bible. It was initially released in the New King James Version (NKJV), and later in the English Standard Version (ESV). Earlier this year a significantly updated and revised edition of the Reformation Study Bible (ESV) was released. The updated and revised edition in the NKJV is due to be released in February, 2016.

The updated version includes more than 20,000 new, revised, or expanded study notes from 75 distinguished scholars. There are new theological notes from R.C. Sproul, the General Editor, new topical articles and expanded introductions to each book. In addition, historical creeds and confessions, new maps, concordance, etc. are included.

I read nearly all of my books on my Kindle device. The e-book edition of The Reformation Study Bible was recently released. It includes user-friendly navigation, which allows the reader to easily move between the text and the study notes. Like any other e-book on your Kindle, you can adjust your font size, add highlights and notes. This is the Bible I will use for my daily reading.

10 Christian Books to Give (or Ask for) This Christmas Season. I enjoyed this helpful list of books from our friend Kevin Halloran.
Top 25 Christian Classics. Gene Veith shares this list of Christian classics originally published by Christian History magazine. What others would you add to the list?
Reflections on the Top 25 Christian Classics. Keith Mathison writes about Christian History’s recent list of the top 25 Christian classic books “There are several titles that I would add to the Top 25 list. My inclusion of these is based on the meaning of the word “influential.” These are all works that, in one way or another, profoundly influenced the thinking of subsequent generations of Christians. I should also note that influence can be either good or bad, so my inclusion of the following titles does not necessarily mean that I endorse the theology.”
Top Ten Books of 2015. I love reading people’s top books of the year lists. Here’s one from one of my favorite bloggers/authors Kevin DeYoung.
Top Ten Books I Read in 2015. Sean Lucas gives us his list of top books for the year, including two of his own (in the “Honorable Mention” section).
Tim Challies’ Top Books of 2015. I love reading “Best Books” lists. Here’s one from my favorite blogger Tim Challies.
Top 10 Books in 21 Categories. David Murray shares a very helpful list of books in 21 different categories.
Two New Christian Books on Productivity. Jason Dollar writes “Joining in the voices calling for better time management and higher levels of productivity are two Christian leaders with new books. Matt Perman and Tim Challies are not interested in ways to increase earnings or respect through disciplined time management; rather, they are concerned with instructing Christians on how to be more productive for the sake of serving others and the glory of God.”
Do More Better Review. Eric Davis reviews Tim Challies’ new book on productivity Do More Better.
Another Do More Better Review. David Murray reviews Tim Challies’ new book on productivity Do More Better. I’m currently reading the book and have signed up for Tim Challies’ “10 Days of Productivity”. Why don’t you as well?
The Truth About Employee Engagement. Patrick Lencioni has re-titled and re-released one of his books, The Three Signs of A Miserable Job. The new title is The Truth About Employee Engagement, and other than the title, the content is exactly the same. He writes “The reason we decided to re-title is because we learned that a book with the words “miserable job” in the title might have been perceived as more negative than it is.”
Best Leadership Books of 2015. Paul Sohn offers this infographic. Interestingly, I haven’t read any of these books.
On My Shelf: Life and Books with Trevin Wax. Matt Smethurst interviews Trevin Wax about the books he is reading.
Female Brains and the Bestsellers List. Aimee Byrd reviews Beth Moore’s bestselling book Audacious.
The 2016 Reading Challenge. Tim Challies writes “Do you love to read? Do you want to learn to love to read? Do you enjoy reading books that cross the whole spectrum of topics and genres? Then have I got something for you! Whether you are a light reader or completely obsessed, this 2016 Reading Challenge is designed to help you read more and to broaden the scope of your reading.”
Plan Your 2016 Devotions with a Bible-Reading Calendar. Tim Challies has prepared a selection of Bible-reading calendars that may help you. The wall calendars display the entire year and show every day’s reading. There are 3 versions available, each of which will guide you through the entire Bible over the course of the year.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount BOOK CLUB – Won’t you read along with us?

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

This book made a significant impact on my wife Tammy when she read and discussed it with friends thirty years ago. When I picked up my diploma the day after graduation ceremonies from Covenant Seminary last year I was given a copy of this book. After enjoying Lloyd-Jones book Spiritual Depression (and the sermons the book was taken from), I couldn’t wait to read this book, which is the printed form of sermons preached for the most part on successive Sunday mornings at Westminster Chapel in London. This week we look at

Chapter 16, Let Your Light So Shine

The first thing to consider is why we as Christians should be like salt and light, and why we should desire to be so. It seems to me that our Lord has three main arguments there. The first is that, by definition, we were meant to be such.
But let us come to the second argument, which seems to me to be that our position becomes not only contradictory but even ridiculous if we do not act in this way. We are to be like `a city that is set on a hill’, and `a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid’. In other words, if we are truly Christian we cannot be hid.
They are more outside, in a sense, than the man who is entirely worldly and makes no claim or profession, because he at least has his own society. Of all people, then, these are the most pathetic and the most tragic, and the solemn warning which we have in this verse is the warning of our Lord against getting into such a state and condition.
God give us grace to take this solemn warning unto ourselves. A mere formal profession of Christianity is something that will ultimately always suffer that fate.
Perhaps we can sum it all up in this way. The true Christian cannot be hid, he cannot escape notice. A man truly living and functioning as a Christian will stand out. He will be like salt; he will be like a city set upon a hill, a candle set upon a candlestick.
The true Christian does not even desire to hide his light. He sees how ridiculous it is to claim to be a Christian and yet deliberately to try to hide the fact.
These comparisons and illustrations, then, are meant by our Lord to show us that any desire which we may find in ourselves to hide the fact that we are Christian is not only to be regarded as ridiculous and contradictory, it is, if we indulge it and persist in it, something which (though I do not understand the doctrine at this point) may lead to a final casting out.
That is the first statement. Let us now come to the second, which is a very practical one. How are we to ensure that we really do function as salt and as light?
Am I sure that I have the oil, the life that which the Holy Spirit of God alone can give to me? The first exhortation, then, must be that we must seek this constantly.
We so often tend to think that these gracious invitations of our Lord are something which are given once and for ever. He says, `Come unto me’ if you want the water of life, `Come unto me’ if you want the bread of life. But we tend to think that once and for ever we come to Christ and thereafter we have this permanent supply. Not at all. It is a supply that we have to renew; we have to go back and receive it constantly. We are to live in contact with Him, and it is only as we constantly receive this life from Him that we shall function as salt and as light.
But, of course, it not only means constant prayer, it means what our Lord Himself describes as `hungering and thirsting after righteousness’.
The second essential is the wick. We must attend to this also. To keep that lamp burning brightly the oil is not enough, you must keep on trimming the wick. That is our Lord’s illustration.
What does this mean in practice for us? I think it means that we constantly have to remind ourselves of the Beatitudes. We should read them every day. I ought to remind myself daily that I am to be poor in spirit, merciful, meek, a peacemaker, pure in heart, and so on. There is nothing that is better calculated to keep the wick in order and trimmed than just to remind myself of what I am by the grace of God, and of what I am meant to be. That, I suggest, is something for us to do in the morning before we start our day.
But not only are we to remind ourselves of the Beatitudes, we are to live accordingly. What does this mean? It means that we are to avoid everything that is opposed to this character, we are to be entirely unlike the world.
We are to be humble, peaceable, peacemaking in all our talk and behavior, and especially in our reactions to the behavior of other persons.
The last principle is the supreme importance of doing all this in the right way.
In other words, we are to do everything for God’s sake, and for His glory. Self is to be absent, and must be utterly crushed in all its subtlety, for His sake, for His glory.
It follows from this that we are to do these things in such a way as to lead other men to glorify Him, and glory in Him, and give themselves to Him.
In other words, in all our work and Christian living these three things should always be uppermost. We shall always do it for His sake and His glory. We shall lead men to Him and to glorify Him. And all will be based upon a love for them and a compassion for them in their lost condition.
We are to live in such a way that, as men and women look at us, we shall become a problem to them. They will ask, `What is it? Why are these people so different in every way, different in their conduct and behavior, different in their reactions? There is something about them which we do not understand; we cannot explain it.’ And they will be driven to the only real explanation, which is that we are the people of God, children of God, `heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ’. We have become reflectors of Christ, re-producers of Christ. As He is `the light of the world’ so we have become `the light of the world’.

December 17, 2015
by Bill Pence Leave a comment

THIS & THAT and Favorite Quotes of the Week

CHRISTIAN LIVING:

A Prayer for Slowing Down and Pondering the Grace-full Mystery of Jesus’ Birth. Here’s our prayer of the week from our friend Scotty Smith.
Connect This Season by Putting Your Focus on Others. John Maxwell writes “One final thing to remember about good connection: It’s not about you. It’s about the other person. If you truly want to connect with family, friends and colleagues this season, you must put them first. You have to change your focus from inward to outward, off of yourself and onto others. And that’s the spirit of the season anyway.”
Nine Consequences of Debt. Randy Alcorn writes “Scripture discourages debt. It condemns the misuse of debt and the failure to repay debts (Psalm 37:21; Proverbs 3:27-28). If we take God’s Word seriously, we should avoid debt. In those rare cases where we go into debt, we should make every effort to get out as soon as possible (2 Kings 4:1; Matthew 5:25-26; 18:23-24). The question isn’t, “Why not go into debt?” but why? Unless the answer is extraordinarily convincing, we shouldn’t do it.”
Is Happiness Different From Joy? Randy Alcorn discusses this question with Tony Reinke on the podcast “Ask Pastor John”.
The Paradox of Chronic Pain. Jeremy Linneman writes “About 40 percent of Americans suffer from chronic, persistent, and untreatable pain. Imagine this: in a congregation of 200 adults, about 80 of us are currently in pain. So how can pastors, churches, and ministries better understand and care for their suffering members?
Lay Aside the Weight of Low Self-Image. Jon Bloom writes “If we find that we struggle with a low self-image, we need to look carefully at it, because it may not be low at all. It may in fact be a frustrated inflated self-image.”
Modesty Lets Our Light Shine. Kim Cash Tate writes “Immodest clothing says, “Look at me. Focus on my body.” But as believers, we live to point people to something more. We are witnesses to a lost and dying world in need of a magnificent, all-satisfying Savior. We want them to know of the saving power of Christ, and his ability to transform from the core.”

Doug Michael’s Cartoon of the Week

GREAT RESOURCES:

2016 Moody’s Founder’s Week. Moody Bible Institute Founder’s 2016 Week will have a theme of “No One Like Him”, and be held in Chicago February 1-5. Notable speakers include Alistair Begg and Ravi Zacharias. Road trip anyone?
Martyn Lloyd-Jones in 2015. Paul Levy writes about the new books and film about Martyn Lloyd-Jones released in 2015. I’ve enjoyed the Logic on Fire film project, and the books Spiritual Depression, Studies on the Sermon on the Mount and Walking with God Day by Day (devotional) from Lloyd-Jones this year.
Woe to You When All Speak Well of You. This fourteen minute video from John Piper is part three of a six-part series through his book What Jesus Demands from the World. In the book, Piper looks at the demands of Jesus as found in the four Gospels. It’s an accessible introduction for thoughtful inquirers and new believers, as well as a refreshing reminder for more mature believers of God’s plan for his Son’s glory and our good.
Relativity: Moral Relativism and the Modern Age. Albert Mohler writes “Moral relativism and the rejection of absolute truth now shape the modern post-Christian mind. Indeed, relativism is virtually taken for granted, at least as an excuse for overthrowing theistic truth claims and any restrictive morality.”

THE CHURCH AND THEOLOGY:

You Need the Local Church to be Healthy. In this less than three minute video, Trip Lee explains why the local church is essential to every Christian’s health.
What Was God’s Purpose in the Cross? R.C. Sproul writes “The doctrine of limited atonement (also known as “definite atonement” or “particular redemption”) says that the atonement of Christ was limited (in its scope and aim) to the elect; Jesus did not atone for the sins of everybody in the world.”
A Crash Course on the Muslim Worldview and Islamic Theology. Justin Taylor shares four “Islam in America” videos from Dr. Adam Francisco, a professor of history at Concordia University in California. Dr. Francisco has who has a Ph.D. in Islamic-Christian relations from Oxford University.

IN THE NEWS:

Colorado Springs Pastor Killed in Planned Parenthood Shooting. The shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs recently wounded nine people and killed three, including Garrett Swasey, an evangelical pastor working as a police officer.
Sleigh Scooter Race. Did you see Chris Hemsworth and Jimmy Fallon race recently on The Tonight Show?
The Newsboys will release a new album titled Love Riot on March 4.
Top Trending YouTube Videos of 2015. USA Today shares the top trending YouTube videos of the year.

World Magazine Cartoon of the Week

Anxiety is a daily fax to God saying, ‘I don’t think you have my best interests in mind. Tim Keller
When truth gets into a hymnbook, it becomes the confident possession of the whole church. Sinclair Ferguson

The gospel is like a caged lion. It does not need to be defended, it simply needs to be let out of its cage. Charles Spurgeon

A man who is little in his own eyes will account every affliction as little, and every mercy as great. Jeremiah Burroughs

When affection turns to annoyance, delight to drudgery, grace to a grudge, rest to restlessness, we have forgotten about Jesus and grace. Scott Sauls

We belittle God when we go through the outward motions of worship and take no pleasure in his person. John Piper

Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell? John Bunyan

As Christians we never really need to fear that we will be ultimately forsaken because of the work that Jesus has done. Robert Godfrey

Buying things to find contentment is like drinking water to satisfy hunger; it stops the ache briefly, but can’t solve the problem. Dan Doriani

Alistair Begg Quote

December 16, 2015
by Bill Pence Leave a comment

FAITH AND WORK: Connecting Sunday to Monday

Faith and Work News ~ Links to Interesting Articles

Four Productivity Lies. Tim Challies writes “I have invested a lot of effort in understanding productivity and emphasizing it in my life. Eventually I came to peace with it. But I only did so after addressing some of the prevailing lies about it.”
Entitlement. In this “Minute with Maxwell”, John Maxwell discusses what entitlement means to him.
9 Ways to Glorify God at Work in Your “9-5”. Paul Sohn writes “I stumbled across a blog post from John Piper, which he spoke at a conference called Engage whose mission is to equip young professionals in the workplace. The 9 ways Piper he suggests how young professionals can glorify work are worth memorizing.”
Trust: A Currency For Christian Business. Chris Patton writes “As Christian business owners and leaders, we need people to trust us. We need employees to trust us so we can lead them. We want our customers to trust us so they will buy our products or services and remain loyal to us. Our vendors need to trust us to pay them accurately and on time or they will not continue to service us.”
Four Huge Distractions in Meetings and How to Fight Them. Eric Geiger writes “One of the biggest culprits of disengagement in a meeting are distractions. Distractions can steer emotional energy, creative thinking, and collective wisdom away from the important matters being discussed.”
Are You Putting the Gospel to Work? Steve Graves writes “Make no mistake; every community has men and women putting the gospel to work. Those who work next to them and live in community with them know them as catalytic vessels of salt, light, and the sweet perfume of the gospel.”
The Centennials are Coming. Mark Miller talks about the Centennials. He writes “They are a cohort of approximately 73 million young people born between 1997 and today. And guess what… in many areas, they see the world differently from previous generations.”
How I Work: An Interview with Melissa Kruger. Joe Carter interviews Melissa Kruger, a Women’s Ministry Coordinator, writer, wife and mother, about how she works.
How to be a Great Mentor. Dan Rockwell writes “Great mentoring is more than developing skills, helping people create connections, and navigating organizational politics.”
Lessons from the First 20 Years, Part 2. In this edition of the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast, he concludes a conversation that explores the best, most effective leadership principles learned in the first 20 years of his organization.

LEADERSHIP:

10 Things Leaders Should Never Do. Mark Miller shares his answer to the question “What are the things a leader should never do?”
5 Things for Which All Leaders Should Pray. Art Rainer writes “Leaders have a great responsibility. By the very nature of their role they are responsible for guiding others. For those who choose to take on this responsibility, prayer becomes a necessity.”
Five Reasons Leaders Must Constantly Clarify and Communicate Mission. Eric Geiger writes “It is insufficient to declare mission once. Clarifying and communicating mission is not a once-and-for-all event but a continual discipline. Leaders must constantly repeat the significant things, must constantly remind people what is important.
Leadership and the Local Church with John Maxwell. In this edition of the “Rainer on Leadership” podcast, John Maxwell discusses his latest book, Intentional Living: Choosing a Life That Matters. They also cover a few leadership topics related to the local church like pastoral tenure, the need for leadership training, and how to make a difference that outlasts your life.
The 5 Ultimate Responsibilities of Leadership. Dan Rockwell writes “Frantic leaders manage too much and lead too little.” He suggests that leaders engage in fewer activities.
John Maxwell on Leadership Changes Through the Years. In this edition of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, John Maxwell talks about how leadership has changed over the years. Maxwell also shares about his new book, Intentional Living: Choosing a Life that Matters.
7 Ways to Gain and Keep Trust as a Leader. Ron Edmondson writes “People follow people they trust. I’ve found trust develops over time and experience – as we witness trustworthy behavior. Honestly, as a leader, I’ve felt a delicate tension in maintaining trust. People look for a leader to be strong, independent and confident. Yet, we trust people who are approachable, inclusive and humble. How do we combine those traits to be trusted leaders?”

Top 10 Faith and Work Quotes of the Week

The leader’s job is to inspire people to work together in the service of something greater than themselves. Eric Geiger

We are most likely to succeed when ambition is focused on noble and worthy purposes and outcomes rather than on goals set out of selfishness. John Wooden

Tell me how many things you’ve finished, not how many you’ve started. Dan Rockwell

We’re made for work and rest, not toil and leisure. Andy Crouch

We must find a purpose or cause to pursue otherwise all we have left are our imperfections to focus on. Simon Sinek

With all the negative going on in the world, it is important to lead with a mindful and open heart and be the change you wish to see. Ken Blanchard

Clarity is the preoccupation of the effective leader. If you do nothing else as a leader, be clear. Marcus Buckingham

Your team will mirror you. If there is something you don’t like, you probably created it. Brad Lomenick

Leaders who attempt to make all the decisions are stunting the growth of their people and their organization. Mark Miller

When something bad happens you have three choices: You can either let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you. Coach K

BOOK REVIEW: Creating a Business Plan that Actually Works: Especially, But Not Only, for Faith-Based Organizations by Matt Perman. What’s Best Next. 33 pages.
****

Matt Perman is the author of the excellent 2014 book What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done. That book was so helpful (I’m reading it a second time with colleagues at work) that I’m going to be interested in anything that he writes. He is an important voice in helping people integrate their faith with their work. In fact he states that this resource will be especially helpful for those looking for a resource that makes the integration of faith and work explicit. He encourages us to see our work as an act of service, to the glory of God, stating it is at the heart of how to glorify God in our work and do your business plan in a gospel-centered way.

He writes that this short e-book was written to provide guidance for how to create a business plan that actually works––a plan that will truly help you in launching your new business, department, or other large initiative, without getting you stuck in the details of over-planning. It also gives specific guidance for how to create a business plan from a faith-based perspective.

He defines a business plan as simply a guide or road map for your business, new department, or other large effort. It will help us think through and articulate your mission and values, main objectives, core audience, comparison organizations or competitors, financial plan, core activities, marketing plan, and other key realities. A business plan is not just for those starting a new business. Perman states that if you’re starting anything or want to refine what you’ve already started, a business plan is a key step.

In looking at how to create a business plan that actually works and to do so in a way that relates to the Scriptures, we should learn from the best business minds (Jim Collins, for example), common grace realities as well as the Bible.

He takes the reader through each of the sections of a business plan and briefly explains what they mean and how it translates into the ongoing fabric of our business. He also includes some helpful resources that you may find useful. He stresses that the process of developing a business plan is as important as the final result; as the activity of thinking through your business or new endeavor in this way prepares you for effective implementation.

This short book contains much helpful information and is well worth your time to read it. I know I’ll be sharing what I learned here with others, including my sister-in-law who is the Director of a Pregnancy Resource Center.

BOOK REVIEW: StandOut 2.0: Assess Your Strengths. Find Your Edge. Win at Work by Marcus Buckingham. Harvard Business Review Press. 211 Pages. 2015
****

I’m a big Marcus Buckingham fan, having read all of his books, with the exception of the one he specifically wrote for women. Eight years ago, when on the leadership team for a professional learning organization we brought him to our community as a part of his book tour for Go Put Your Strengths to Work, one of the most impactful business books I have read. He briefly revisits his “Love it/Loathe it” exercise from that book here, an exercise I continue to use both on and off the job.

Buckingham writes that although the strengths-based approach to managing people is now conventional wisdom, performance appraisal systems remain “stubbornly remedial”. In this new book, Buckingham has taken his StandOut strengths assessment (introduced in 2011) and dramatically increased its power.

A few of the enhancements are:

To make our strengths visible, he has designed a StandOut Snapshot that can be used to present the very best of ourselves to our teams and organizations.
To give us a way to keep learning, he has provided us with our own personal learning channel.
The StandOut assessment has been made to be a “front door” to an online performance system that is entirely strengths based. He wants us to think of StandOut as a toolbox, in which each tool is designed to tackle one aspect of performance management. To help us do more of our best work, the reader will receive a weekly “Check-In” tool that will capture our weekly priorities and track how engaged you feel week by week.
Leaders will find an employee survey tool that can be used to see what your team is thinking and feeling, as well as a performance tool to evaluate the performance of each member.

The above enhancements are designed to help you and your teams to leverage your strengths and manage around your weaknesses. The new tool is not just a descriptive tool but also a prescriptive tool. The StandOut assessment measures you on nine strengths roles and reveals your top two “strength roles”. The book provides you with a key to input and take the assessment, which will take about fifteen minutes. Your results will reveal how you come across to others. Buckingham shares with the reader three lessons for building your strengths. He calls the StandOut assessment an innovation delivery system. It delivers to those who complete the assessment weekly practical innovations, tips and techniques that you can use to sharpen your edge and win at work. I plan to share my assessment with team members and mentees and encourage them to take it as well.

Don’t Waste Your Life Book Club – Won’t you read along with us?

Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper. Crossway. 192 pages. 2003

Other than the Bible, this small book by John Piper has had the most influence on my life. It played a key role in my returning to seminary after ten years in 2005. I have read it almost each year since it was published in 2003. Listen to John Piper describe the book in this less than two-minute video.

This week we look at Chapter 2 Breakthrough – the Beauty of Christ, My Joy:

If there is only one life to live in this world, and if it is not to be wasted, nothing seemed more important to me than finding out what God really meant in the Bible, since he inspired men to write it. If that was up for grabs, then no one could tell which life is worthy and which life is wasted.
The driving passion of my life was rooted here. One of the seeds was in the word “glory”—God’s aim in history was to “fully display his glory.” Another seed was in the word “delight”—God’s aim was that his people “delight in him with all their heart.” The passion of my life has been to understand and live and teach and preach how these two aims of God relate to each other—indeed, how they are not two but one.
No one outside Scripture has shaped my vision of God and the Christian life more than Jonathan Edwards. His life is inspiring because of his zeal not to waste it, and because of his passion for the supremacy of God.
Delighting in God was not a mere preference or option in life; it is our joyful duty and should be the single passion of our lives. Seeking happiness in God and glorifying God were the same.
Here was the greatest mind of early America, Jonathan Edwards, saying that God’s purpose for my life was that I have a passion for God’s glory and that I have a passion for my joy in that glory, and that these two are one passion. When I saw this, I knew, at last, what a wasted life would be and how to avoid it.
God created me—and you—to live with a single, all-embracing, all-transforming passion—namely, a passion to glorify God by enjoying and displaying his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life.
The wasted life is the life without a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.
The Bible is crystal-clear: God created us for his glory.
Life is wasted when we do not live for the glory of God. And I mean all of life. It is all for his glory.
We waste our lives when we do not pray and think and dream and plan and work toward magnifying God in all spheres of life.
God created us for this: to live our lives in a way that makes him look more like the greatness and the beauty and the infinite worth that he really is.
We were made to see and savor God—and savoring him, to be supremely satisfied, and thus spread in all the world the worth of his presence. Not to show people the all-satisfying God is not to love them.
The really wonderful moments of joy in this world are not the moments of self-satisfaction, but self-forgetfulness.
Love has to do with showing a dying soul the life-giving beauty of the glory of God, especially his grace.
Every good work should be a revelation of the glory of God. What makes the good deed an act of love is not the raw act, but the passion and the sacrifice to make God himself known as glorious.
If you don’t point people to God for everlasting joy, you don’t love. You waste your life.
All heroes are shadows of Christ. We love to admire their excellence. How much more will we be satisfied by the one Person who conceived all excellence and embodies all skill, all talent, all strength and brilliance and savvy and goodness.
God loves us by liberating us from the bondage of self so that we can enjoy knowing and admiring him forever.
Would you feel more loved by God if he made much of you, or if he liberated you from the bondage of self-regard, at great cost to himself, so that you enjoy making much of him forever?
Now we see that in creating us for his glory, he is creating us for our highest joy. He is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.
That is the single, all-embracing, all-transforming reason for being: a passion to enjoy and display God’s supremacy in all things for the joy of all peoples.
God created us to live with a single passion to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. The wasted life is the life without this passion. God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of, but to make much of him in every part of our lives.
Jesus is the litmus test of reality for all persons and all religions. He said it clearly: “The one who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Luke 10:16). People and religions who reject Christ reject God. Do other religions know the true God? Here is the test: Do they reject Jesus as the only Savior for sinners who was crucified and raised by God from the dead? If they do, they do not know God in a saving way.
There is no point in romanticizing other religions that reject the deity and saving work of Christ. They do not know God. And those who follow them tragically waste their lives.
Life is wasted if we do not grasp the glory of the cross, cherish it for the treasure that it is, and cleave to it as the highest price of every pleasure and the deepest comfort in every pain.

December 14, 2015
by Bill Pence 1 Comment

25 Quotes from Making Vision Stick by Andy Stanley

Here are 25 quotes that I appreciated from the book Making Vision Stick by Andy Stanley:

Vision doesn’t stick without constant care and attention.
The three primary obstacles to making vision stick are success, failure, and everything in between. There is no season in which a leader can push autopilot and expect the organization to remain vision-driven.
Vision is about what could be and should be, but life is about right this minute.
When it comes to making your vision stick, here is the most important thing to remember: You are responsible. It is the leader’s responsibility to ensure that people understand and embrace the vision of the organization.
If the people around us don’t know where we are going, it’s because we haven’t made it clear.
For your vision to stick, you may need to clarify or simplify it.
To make vision stick, it needs to be easy to communicate.
To cast a convincing vision, you have to define the problem that your vision addresses. Every vision is a solution to a problem.
Make your vision stick, your audience needs to understand what’s at stake. It’s the “what’s at stake” issue that grabs people’s hearts.
Buy-in by others hinges on your ability to convince them that you are offering a solution to a problem they are convinced needs to be solved.
To cast your vision in a convincing manner, you need to be able to answer these two questions: What is the need or problem my vision addresses? What will happen if those needs or problems continue to go unaddressed?
A leader points the way to a solution and gives a compelling reason why something must be done now.
If you haven’t defined the problem, determined a solution, and discovered a compelling reason why now is the time to act, you aren’t ready to go public with your vision. It won’t stick.
Vision needs to be repeated regularly. To make it stick, you need to find ways to build vision casting into the rhythm of your organization.
At some point you will need to determine the optimal times and contexts for vision casting in your organization. Look for ways to build it into your natural business or ministry cycle, into the rhythm of your organization.
To make vision stick, a leader needs to pause long enough to celebrate the wins along the way. Celebrating the wins does more to clarify the vision than anything else.
When you celebrate the right things, you are using the most effective form of vision casting.
What’s celebrated is repeated. The behaviors that are celebrated are repeated. The decisions that are celebrated are repeated. The values that are celebrated are repeated. If you intentionally or unintentionally celebrate something that is in conflict with your vision, the vision won’t stick.
Your willingness to embody the vision of your organization will have a direct impact on your credibility as a leader. Living out the vision establishes credibility and makes you a leader worth following.
Leaders must keep their antennae up for new things that have the potential to distract from the main thing. New projects, programs, or even products must be vision-centric.
As a leader, you need to do the due diligence necessary to keep distracting elements out of the organization.
Vision, not people’s random ideas, should determine programming. Vision, not a cool PowerPoint presentation, should determine which new initiatives are funded by your organization. Vision, not the promise of great returns, should determine which products are launched.
Every leader should identify gauges that measure the alignment between the organization’s activity and its vision.
Making your vision stick requires bold leadership. It will require you to develop a healthy intolerance for those things that have the potential to impede your progress.
Seeing a vision become a reality requires more than a single burst of energy or creativity. It requires daily attention. Daily commitment.

December 13, 2015
by Bill Pence Leave a comment

Movie Review ~ Trumbo

Trumbo, rated R
***

This movie tells the story of Dalton Trumbo (played by Bryan Cranston, and this week nominated for Best Actor for the role by the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild), a very successful screenwriter in Hollywood. He joined the Communist party in 1943, when the United States and Soviet Union were allies. Being a member of the Communist party was not illegal. We don’t see any of his Communist activities or beliefs, except for a short scene in which he explains what a Communist is to his young daughter.

Trumbo was one of the “Hollywood Ten”, mostly screenwriters, who were accused of being Communists and refused to cooperate before the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in 1947. They were charged with contempt of Congress and sent to prison, where Trumbo served for eleven months.

Hollywood studio chiefs then blacklisted the Hollywood Ten, making it impossible for them to get work. As a result, Trumbo wrote and re-wrote scripts (under fake names) of B-grade films for the King Brothers, played by John Goodman and Stephen Root. Trumbo ends up getting enough work that he brings in the rest of the Hollywood Ten to do this work, including Arlen Hird (a fictionalized character played well by Louis C.K.). Trumbo also writes two serious screenplays during this time (one under another writer’s name and one under a fake name) which would go on to win Oscars for Roman Holiday and The Brave One.

Trumbo is at the center of this film. He always looks tired, is a workaholic, smoking, drinking and popping pills while two-finger typing at his desk typewriter or working on scripts while soaking in the bathtub. He pretty much ignores his wife (Oscar nominee Diane Lane), son and young daughters, the oldest named Niki was played by Elle Fanning.

On the other side of the Hollywood political landscape are John Wayne (David James Elliott) as head of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (played by Helen Mirren, four time Oscar nominee and winner of Best Actress for The Queen. She has also received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in this film).

Michael Stuhlbarg portrays Edward G. Robinson. The film inaccurately shows him betraying his friends by naming them to the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Kirk Douglas (Dean O’Gorman) and Otto Preminger (Christian Berkel) later reach out to Trumbo for assistance on their projects, Spartacus and Exodus, respectfully. We see President Kennedy giving credibility to Spartacus at the same time that Hopper and her cohorts were trying to get people to boycott the film because of Trumbo’s involvement.

The film is directed by Jay Roach, who also directed the Meet the Parents and Austin Powers comedies. It is written by John McNamara.

I found the story interesting, having read about the Communist influence in Hollywood recently in the Bill O’Reilly/Martin Dugard book Killing Reagan. It was amazing to see how they seamlessly blended the old news footage with the current day actors. The film is rated R for a significant amount of adult language, some sexual references, and one scene of male nudity (as Dalton is being checked into prison). It features a strong cast, and one of the best acting performances of the year with Bryan Cranston as Dalton Trumbo. Like many films we’ve seen recently it was overly long at 124 minutes.

December 12, 2015
by Bill Pence Leave a comment

Movie Review ~ The Letters

The Letters, rated PG
** ½

I was motivated to see this film after reading the mini-biography of Mother Teresa in Eric Metaxas’ fine new book 7 Women. Here’s what I wrote about Mother Teresa in my review:

“Mother Teresa of Calcutta was born 1910. Her father died early. When she was 12 she felt God was calling her to a religious life. She left home at age 18, never to see her mother again. She took a vow of chastity, poverty and obedience in 1937. She then felt God’s call to leave the convent and live among the poor in Calcutta, where she would form the Missionaries of Charity Order. At the time of her death, there were more than 4,000 nuns in the order, along with others in related organizations she founded. Metaxas writes of her boldly speaking against the evils of abortion when receiving the Nobel Peace Prize and at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C., in front of the noticeably uncomfortable Clintons and Gores.”

This film is titled The Letters in reference to some six thousand letters of Mother Teresa, (portrayed here by Juliet Stevenson), that came to the attention of the Vatican as they were working on the process toward her sainthood. But these weren’t just any letters. These letters reflected her loneliness and feeling of being abandoned by God. These were letters that Teresa had wanted destroyed after she died. They were never intended to be made public.

As a result of the letters found, a Vatican priest, Father Benjamin Praagh, (portrayed by Golden Globe winner Rutger Hauer), is sent to see Father Celeste van Exem (portrayed by two-time Oscar nominee Max Von Sydow) who had been Mother Teresa’s spiritual advisor for many years. Father van Exem narrates the film and Teresa’s story by using the letters she wrote him over several decades.

We meet Teresa as a nun and teacher in Calcutta’s Loreto Convent, where she teaches young privileged girls, who absolutely adore her. Teresa is not allowed to go outside the walls of the convent, but she can see terrible suffering (poverty and hunger) through her window. While on a train ride, Teresa hears clearly, though not audibly, the voice of God giving her a call within her vocation of being a nun. That call is to serve the poor of Calcutta.

But the Mother General (Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal) of the convent tells Teresa that her idea is foolishness. However, Teresa, believing that she has been called by God, seeks the Pope’s blessing of this call, which she receives initially for a one-year period.

Some of Calcutta’s Hindus do not initially welcome Teresa, believing she is only there to convert them to her Christian God. But we never see Teresa talk to them about God or Jesus. Instead she demonstrates Christian love through her actions, something we can all learn from. Eventually, Teresa petitions the Vatican to recognize her work as a separate congregation, which they do, establishing the Congregation of the Missionaries of Charity, with Teresa becoming Mother Teresa.

Most of the film is a flash-back to the early years of Teresa’s ministry with occasional scenes showing Father Celeste van Exem telling Teresa’s story to Father Benjamin Praagh. While we see a few instances of Teresa writing the letters that van Exem tells Praagh speak to her emptiness, abandonment and darkness, that is about it as far as how much the letters influence the film. I did not see Stevenson’s Mother Teresa reflect the emptiness, abandonment or darkness. In contrast, she is seen cheerfully serving the poorest of the poor in Calcutta, living out the “calling within a call” she received from God on the train.

Later, we see Mother Teresa accepting the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize, where she prays the famous prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi. You can watch the real Mother Teresa’s speech here. The prayer she recites is:

“Lord, make me a channel of Thy peace that, where there is hatred, I may bring love; that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness; that, where there is discord, I may bring harmony; that, where there is error, I may bring truth; that, where there is doubt, I may bring faith; that, where there is despair, I may bring hope; that, where there are shadows, I may bring light; that, where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted, to understand than to be understood; to love than to be loved; for it is by forgetting self that one finds; it is forgiving that one is forgiven; it is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.”

The acting performances here are solid, and the film “looks” better than most faith based films. However, it is dreadfully slow (especially the early parts of the film, where it almost grinds to a halt). However, I’m glad I saw the film to find out more of Teresa’s amazing story.

You can visit the film’s official site here.

December 11, 2015
by Bill Pence 2 Comments

MUSIC REVIEWS and NEWS

Concert Review ~ This Christmas – An Evening of Holiday and Hits: Michael McDonald at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis

: Photos courtesy of

: the St. Louis Post Dispatch

A few years ago I asked Michael Card who he enjoyed listening to and appreciated. He mentioned Ashley Cleveland (who I have seen in concert several times) and Michael McDonald. We finally got to see McDonald last week in St. Louis. The 63 year-old McDonald and his band kicked off their tour on Saturday, November 28 at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis.

We made a day of it in St. Louis, starting with lunch at Pappy’s Smokehouse, the best BBQ on earth, enjoying a concrete at Ted Drewe’s Frozen Custard, and staying at a new favorite hotel, the Hotel Ignacio, a short walk from the Fox. As we enjoyed a pre-concert dinner at the City Diner, just steps from the Fox, we watched the crowd heading to the Fox, most in their 60’s, or older. We had great seats for the show. Some in our section were quite dressed up, much different than most concerts we attend.

Being the first show on the tour, the transition between songs early was a little clunky for the band, prompting McDonald to welcome the crowd to their dress rehearsal. Other than the occasional green or red lighting, there was nothing on the stage (no Christmas trees, etc.) that would tell you it was a Christmas show.

McDonald has an excellent band, with Bernie Chiaravalle on guitar, Pat Coil on keyboards, Mark Douthit on sax/keyboards, Dan Needham on drums, Drea Rhenee on vocals (she directed the Praise Ensemble of the First Baptist Church of Chesterfield which joined the band on a few songs). About her he said that she “takes the edge off the middle-aged ugliness onstage”. The newest member of the band was a bassist (didn’t get his name) who has replaced Tommy Sims in the band. McDonald himself played several instruments (keyboards, mandolin, etc.)

McDonald’s rich voice is still an incredible instrument. He is passionate about his music, and although he spoke at times to the hometown crowd (he was born in nearby Ferguson, Missouri) for the most part he let his music do the talking for him.

He split the concert between Christmas music (standards with new arrangements and originals) and his Doobie Brothers and solo hits. As a result, the concert didn’t necessarily build excitement enough to get the crowd on their feet until the set closing “What a Fool Believes”. In addition, the set list had a more serious tone, perhaps reflecting the events that took place in Ferguson in 2014 and more recent events such as the Paris and Planned Parenthood in Colorado attacks. Before playing his classic “Peace”, he mentioned that it was written for In the Spirit: A Christmas Album, but added it to his regular set list after the events of 9-11. It is one of my favorite of his songs:

I have come from so far away
Down the road of my own mistakes
In the hope you could hear me pray
Oh lord, keep me in your reach

How I’ve longed through these wasted years
To outrun all the pain and fear
Turned to stone from my uncried tears
And now it’s your grace I seek

Love won’t compromise
It’s a gift, it’s a sacrifice
My soul renewed, and my heart released
In you I’ll find my peace

Wondrous child of whom the angels sing
Know my joy, feel my suffering
Shining star make this love you bring
So bright that I may believe

That my way will not be lost
From now on, ’til that river’s crossed
My soul renewed, and my spirit free
In you I’ll find my peace

He also included some other unexpected songs – Tommy Sims’ “Change the World” and the Burt Bacharach/Hal David song “What the World Needs Now” and “Love is the Answer”.

The four song encore began with “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, with McDonald saying that the song reminded him of Christmases growing up and also all of the people he loved who are no longer with him. The one hour and forty-five minute concert ended with a rousing “Takin’ it to the Streets”, which sent the happy crowd out onto Grand Avenue.

Christmas songs performed:

To Make a Miracle
Children Go Where I Send You
Everytime Christmas Comes Around
Peace
White Christmas/Winter Wonderland
Wexford Carol
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
O Holy Night (Drea Rhenee on vocals)
Christmas in the Bayou

Other songs performed:

Here to Love You
I Keep Forgettin’
What a Fool Believes
Takin’ it to the Streets
Sweet Freedom
Minute by Minute
Love is the Answer
Change the World
What the World Needs Now

Music News:

New Michael W. Smith Hymns Album. Michael W. Smith will once again partner with Cracker Barrel Old Country Store with a second hymns album, Michael W. Smith Hymns II – Shine On Us, to be released January 29, 2016.
No Love. New music from Andy Mineo, as he guests on this song by Fern of Social Club.
Adore. Watch this video of “Adore”, the title songs from Chris Tomlin’s new Christmas album.
Someday at Christmas. See Stevie Wonder and Andra Day sing Wonder’s classic Christmas song in this Apple ad.
Hymns of Grace. The Master’s Seminary, in conjunction with Grace Community Church, recently announced the publication of a new hymnal: Hymns of Grace. The new hymnal combines the most beloved hymns of church history with profound songs that are being written in the church today.
Keith Getty Isn’t Sick of Singing the Same Christmas Songs. Ivan Mesa talks to Keith Getty about how churches should prepare for Christmas, why suffering should be a theme this season, losing the “Christmas spirit,” and more.”
Worship and Believe. Steven Curtis Chapman’s new album Worship and Believe will be released March 4. You can pre-order the Deluxe edition now on iTunes and receive four songs as instant downloads, including the new single “Amen”. The album will features guests such as Matt Maher and Chris Tomlin. Here is a video of Chapman and his band singing and leading “Amen” at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas.
Mockingbird Duet. Stephen Colbert, who dueted with Carly Simon’s ex-husband James Taylor recently, duets with Simon on the song “Mockingbird” that Simon and Tayler had a hit with.
The Boss Back on the Road. Bruce Springsteen hits the road for a nine-week The River Tour, which will kick off in Pittsburgh on January 16 after a December 19 performance on Saturday Night Live. Each night’s set will be recorded and released as digital downloads and CDs, available for download and purchase several days after each show. The River Tour supports Springsteen’s new archival release, The Ties That Bind: The River Collection (Read Rolling Stone’s review here), which revisits his classic 1980 album The River. The River is my favorite Springsteen album and we saw two shows on the original The River Tour, classic shows that approached four hours in length.
Rolling Stones’ 50 Best Albums of 2015. The list includes a lot of albums I’m not familiar with, but it also includes some of my favorites this year by Bob Dylan, Don Henley and James Taylor.
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues. See this new video for Bob Dylan’s song “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” from The Best Of The Cutting Edge 1965 – 1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12.

Feel It by Toby Mac

This week we continue our countdown to our annual “My Favorites” listing with our #3 song of the year, “Feel It” by Toby Mac. Watch the fun video here.

Funktify
C’mon
’bout to do it like this
’bout to do it like this
1-2-3-4

When I sit back and imagine
Life without you, I can’t fathom
How I ever thought I’d make it on my own
And there’s at least a million reasons
I’m still standing here believin’
You’re my comfort, you’re my healin’
This I know (this I know)

Well, you can’t see the wind, but it moves the leaves Feel It Toby Mac
From the bottom to the top of the tallest trees
You are everything I will ever need
And they can’t take that from me

Oh, I feel it in my heart
I feel it in my soul
That’s how I know
You take our brokenness and make us beautiful
Yeah, that’s how I know (can’t take that from me)

Love came crashin’ in
Never gonna be the same again
Yeah, You came crashing in
You wrecked me, You wrecked me

Everybody talkin’ like they need some proof
But what more do I need than to feel you
Everybody talkin’ like they need some proof
But what more do I need than to feel you

Well, you can’t see the wind, but it moves the leaves
From the bottom to the top of the tallest trees
You are everything I will ever need
And they can’t take that from me

Oh, I feel it in my heart
I feel it in my soul
That’s how I know
You take our brokenness and make us beautiful
Yeah, that’s how I know (can’t take that from me)

Love came crashin’ in
Never gonna be the same again
Yeah, you came crashing in
You wrecked me, you wrecked me

That’s how I know
That’s how I know
That’s how I know
That’s how I know

Oh, I feel it in my heart
I feel it in my soul
That’s how I know
You take our brokenness and make us beautiful
Yeah, that’s how I know (can’t take that from me)

Everybody talkin’ like they need some proof
But what more do I need than to feel you
Everybody talkin’ like they need some proof
But what more do I need than to feel you

Michael Card Quote

December 9, 2015
by Bill Pence 1 Comment

50 Important Quotes from the book “We Cannot Be Silent” by Albert Mohler

New Mohler book I recently read Albert Mohler’s outstanding new book We Cannot Be Silent: Speaking Truth to a Culture Redefining Sex, Marriage, and the Very Meaning of Right and Wrong, a very important book that I can’t recommend too highly. I highlighted many passages in the book. Below are 50 of the best quotes from the book:

When it comes to marriage and morality, Christians cannot be silent—not because we are morally superior, but because we know that God has a better plan for humanity than we would ever devise for ourselves.
We are facing nothing less than a comprehensive redefinition of life, love, liberty, and the very meaning of right and wrong.
There is no middle ground in the church’s engagement with homosexuality. Either churches will affirm the legitimacy of same-sex relationships and behaviors or they will not.
The Christian church has long been understood by the culture at large to be the guardian of what is right and righteous. But now the situation is fundamentally reversed. The culture generally identifies Christians as on the wrong side of morality.
The moral revolution is now so complete that those who will not join it are understood to be deficient, intolerant, and harmful to society.
Put bluntly, so long as sex between a man and a woman implied the possibility of pregnancy, there was a biological check on extramarital sexual activity. Once the Pill arrived, with all its promises of reproductive control, the biological check on sexual immorality that had shaped human existence from Adam and Eve forward was removed almost instantaneously.
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the separation of sex and babies from the moral equation.
Marriage was thus shifted from being a covenant into being a mere contract that should be considered in force only insofar and for so long as both parties feel equally committed to the contract.
In the end, we will almost surely have to concede that divorce will harm far more lives and cause far more direct damage than same-sex marriage.
The Pill allowed sex without babies, and the modern reproductive technologies allow babies without sex.
In previous centuries, non-marital cohabitation between a man and a woman was not only frowned upon, it was sometimes even illegal. In recent years, cohabitation before marriage has become not only expected but also a replacement for marriage itself.
Ultimately, seen in tandem, the contraceptive revolution, the arrival of no-fault divorce, the arrival of advanced reproductive technologies, and the social acceptance of extramarital sex and cohabitation are all evidence of the success of the sexual revolution and elements that have fueled the expansion of that revolution into terrain that the early sexual revolutionaries could never have imagined.
The logic of same-sex marriage cannot end with same-sex marriage. Once marriage can mean anything other than a heterosexual union, it can and must eventually mean everything—from polygamy to any number of other deviations from traditional marriage. It is just a matter of time and the progressive weakening of moral resolve.
In After the Ball, Kirk and Madsen set out a program that, in retrospect, was likely even more successful than they had dreamed. They demanded that American society embrace homosexuality as a normal sexual experience and view same-sex relationships on par with heterosexual marriage.
In one of the most successful aspects of their strategy, Kirk and Madsen petitioned the movement to “portray gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers.” Similarly, the two argued, “For all practical purposes, gays should be considered to have been born gay”.
Again, the most amazing aspect of this strategy is its overwhelming success. If anything, the momentum gained by the effort to normalize same-sex relationships during the last two decades has exceeded even the wildest aspirations of these early activists.
While Kirk and Madsen provided the homosexual movement with marching orders, the actual outworking of the progress of the homosexual agenda has been documented in Linda Hirshman’s Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution. As she argued, the public acceptance of homosexuality had to overcome what she called the “four horsemen” of moral judgment. Those arguing for the normalization of homosexuality and same-sex relationships had to overcome the pervasive judgment in American society a generation ago that homosexuals were “Crazy, Sinful, Criminal, and Subversive.”
The efforts of the activists have been so successful they have not only undone the original psychiatric judgment on homosexuality, but in some ways they have completely reversed the nation’s moral judgments. At least in American popular culture, to consider homosexuality to be morally suspect, in any way, or a form of mental illness is culturally dismissed. “Homophobia” is now the new mental illness and moral deficiency, while homosexuality is accepted as the new normal.
The normalization of same-sex relationships and behaviors could not have happened without a significant group of liberal Bible scholars, theologians, and religious leaders who were willing to declare that the church’s position on the sinfulness of homosexuality—a position that had existed for millennia—was in error and needed a major overhaul.
In the main, liberal Protestant denominations have moved away from biblical teachings on human sexuality to the acceptance of same-sex relationships, the affirmation of openly homosexual clergy, and, more recently, the authorization of clergy to perform same-sex marriages. This trajectory can be traced over and over again in denominations such as the Episcopal Church, The Disciples of Christ, the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church USA, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Each of these denominations, in their own way and on their own timetable, has made headlines and nationwide news by moving progressively to the left on these issues.
The leaders who moved to normalize homosexuality recognized that they needed both the culture and the courts on their side if their movement was to succeed. They persuaded the public by means other than the courts, but they still used the courts to add moral authority to their movement.
The effort to normalize same-sex relationships has succeeded most when it presents homosexuals as harmless neighbors, kindhearted friends, and contributing members of a happy society. The nation’s entertainment culture has provided Kirk and Madsen’s strategy the space it needed to thrive. A concerted effort to present a constant parade of happy, nonthreatening homosexuals in popular culture has undercut the notion that homosexuality is subversive to a healthy society.
For those who understand marriage to be the lifetime union of a man and a woman on the basis of Scripture, same-sex marriage presents a situation of daunting challenge. The reason for that is quite simple: our convictions about the nature of marriage preclude us from recognizing the union of a man and a man or a woman and a woman as a real marriage. In the Christian understanding, same-sex marriage is actually impossible, so we cannot recognize same-sex couples as legitimately married.
While the law may redefine marriage in a legal sense, Christians must continue to affirm that marriage, in the eyes of God, remains the union of a man and a woman.
The ability to “transform” gender and have “gender reassignment surgery” is so new that it was not even considered a prominent part of the gay rights movement when it emerged in the 1960s.
Arguing that we should draw a clear distinction between who an individual wants to go to bed with and who an individual wants to go to bed as requires the dismantling of an entire thought structure and worldview. This is why the transgender revolution, even more than the movement for gay liberation, undermines the most basic structures of society.
A biblical response to the transgender revolution will require the church to develop new skills of compassion and understanding as we encounter persons, both inside and outside our congregations, who are struggling.
The (transgender) movement makes a sharp distinction between gender with regards to an individual’s self-understanding and an individual’s sex, which refers to the biological sex determined at birth.
Transforming the way children think of gender is actually central to the transgender movement.
The reality is that there is no end to the transgender revolution; endurance is one of its central dynamics.
We unflinchingly hold, therefore, that to be born male is to be male and that to be born female is to be female. We affirm that biological sex is a gift of God to every individual and to the human community to which that individual belongs.
The church must also respond to the transgender movement by rejecting both the reality and the morality of gender reassignment surgery.
The gospel provides the only true remedy for sexual brokenness. The theological and pastoral challenges we face in the transgender revolution are indeed enormous, but they are not beyond the sufficiency of Christ’s cross and resurrection.
Conservative Christians far too quickly accuse the proponents of same-sex marriage of being the enemies of marriage, believing that marriage was in great shape before same-sex couples started clamoring for the legal recognition of their unions. This is intellectual dishonesty, and the record must be set straight. The previous damage to marriage can be traced to the intellectual, sexual, legal, and therapeutic subversion of marriage by heterosexuals.
As the defenders of traditional marriage have warned for many years, the legalization of same-sex marriage will necessarily open the door, in both logic and the law, to the recognition of polygamy and a multitude of other sexual relationships.
The Bible is straightforward in its depiction of sexual sin—from adultery to incest and bestiality to same-sex behaviors. The Bible’s honesty on these matters is an incredible gift to us.
The doctrine of redemption reminds us that every single human being—whether heterosexual or homosexual—is a sinner in need of the redemption that can only come through Christ.
While gender will remain in the new creation and in our glorified bodies, sexual activity will not. Sex is not nullified in the resurrection, but rather fulfilled.
The Christian’s faithfulness in marriage and faithful defense of marriage and gender is an act of Christian witness—indeed, one of the boldest acts of Christian witness in this secular age.
Biblical Christianity is the final wall of resistance to the homosexual agenda. In the end, that resistance comes down to the Bible itself. It is not an argument over what the biblical text says, but over the authority of the biblical text and the proper means of obeying it.
With the movement toward same-sex marriage and the normalization of homosexuality gaining momentum, some churches are running for cover. Yet our Christian responsibility is clear—we are to tell the truth about what God has revealed concerning human sexuality, gender, and marriage. No one said it was going to be easy.
Any sexual expression outside of that heterosexual marriage relationship is outlawed by God’s command. That fundamental truth runs counter not only to the homosexual agenda but to the rampant sexual immorality of the age. Indeed, the Bible has much more to say about illicit heterosexual activity than it does about homosexual acts.
Our response to persons involved in homosexuality must be marked by genuine compassion. But a central task of genuine compassion is telling the truth, and the Bible reveals a true message we must convey. Those contorting and subverting the Bible’s message are not responding to homosexuals with compassion. Lying is never compassionate—and ultimately leads to death.
Religious liberty simply evaporates as a fundamental right grounded in the U.S. Constitution, and recedes into the background in the wake of what is now a higher social commitment—sexual freedom.
Even while religious liberty is supposedly recognized and affirmed, it is often being transformed and minimized. The Obama administration provides a classic example of this. Numerous representatives of the administration, including President Obama himself, have shifted their language from “freedom of religion” to “freedom of worship.” Though these two phrases may appear to be very similar, freedom of worship is a severe and deadly reduction of freedom of religion. Religious freedom is not limited to what takes place within the confines of a church building and its worship. Freedom of worship marginalizes and ghettoizes Christian speech so that its liberties only exist within the confines of a church facility—but it does not guarantee a right to a public voice. Freedom of worship essentially muzzles the Christian in the public square.
We must recognize that as the sexual revolution gains more and more traction in the court of public opinion, the church will continue to be displaced in the larger culture.
The moral revolutionaries now demand us to shift our understanding of same-sex behaviors and relationships from the category of sin to the category of moral good.
A robust biblical theology should inform us to expect that those struggling with same-sex attraction who come to faith in Christ and repent of their sins will continue to struggle with some of those sins and impulses until Christ calls them home.
Christian faithfulness in our generation demands that we allow ourselves to genuinely love people even when we cannot endorse their lifestyle, grant recognition to the relationship they believe they deserve, or sanction their sin.
Should a Christian attend a same-sex wedding ceremony? The simple answer is no, but, of course, there are a number of complex issues we must think about here. Attending a wedding ceremony always signals moral approval. Attending a same-sex marriage ceremony is to grant a positive and public moral judgment to the union. At some point, that attendance will involve congratulating the couple for their union. There will be no way to claim moral neutrality when congratulating a couple upon their wedding. If you cannot congratulate the couple, how can you attend?
We cannot be silent, and we cannot join the moral revolution that stands in direct opposition to what we believe the Creator has designed, given, and intended for us. We cannot be silent, and we cannot fail to contend for marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
In one sense, everything has changed. And yet, nothing has changed. The cultural and legal landscape has changed, as we believe this will lead to very real harms to our neighbors. But our Christian responsibility has not changed. We are charged to uphold marriage as the union of a man and a woman and to speak the truth in love. We are also commanded to uphold the truth about marriage in our own lives, in our own marriages, in our own families, and in our own churches.
We are called to be the people of the truth, even when the truth is not popular and even when the truth is denied by the culture around us. Christians have found themselves in this position before, and we will again. God’s truth has not changed. The holy Scriptures have not changed. The gospel of Jesus Christ has not changed. The church’s mission has not changed. Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow.

December 9, 2015
by Bill Pence 1 Comment

BOOK REVIEWS and NEWS

book reviews
Good News of Great Joy: Daily Readings for Advent by John Piper. Desiring God. 78 pages. 2013
****

In this short book of daily readings for Advent, John Piper writes that Advent is for adoring Jesus. It is an annual season of patient waiting, hopeful expectation, soul-searching, and calendar-watching marked by many. Advent is a tradition that developed over the course of the church’s history as a time of preparation for Christmas Day. He writes that many have found observing Advent to be personally enjoyable and spiritually profitable.

Piper tells us that the English word “Advent” is from the Latin adventus, which means “coming.” Although the advent primarily in view each December is the first coming of Jesus two millennia ago, Piper tells us that Jesus’s second coming gets drawn in as well, as the popular Christmas carol “Joy to the World” makes plain.

Advent begins the fourth Sunday before Christmas and ends Christmas Eve. Piper states that Christians throughout the world have their different ways of celebrating Advent, such as lighting candles, singing songs, eating candies, giving gifts and hanging wreaths.

My wife and I started reading these meditations yesterday (December 1), to help us prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus and to keep Him as the center of our celebrations and the greatest treasure of our Advent season. The readings are short and can be completed in just a few minutes each day. I would recommend reading them with your spouse or family, if possible. An Appendix on Old Testament shadows and the coming of Christ coordinates with the meditation for December 12.

We Cannot Be Silent: Speaking Truth to a Culture Redefining Sex, Marriage, and the Very Meaning of Right and Wrong by R. Albert Mohler Jr. 256 pages, Thomas Nelson, 2015.
****

Albert Mohler, the President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, and one of the leading voices in evangelicalism today, has written a very important book regardless of where the reader stands on these issues. He states that we are now witnesses to a revolution that is sweeping away a sexual morality and a definition of marriage that has existed for thousands of years. He writes about that moral revolution, how it happened and what it means for us, for our churches, and for our children.

He takes us through the moral revolution and its vast impact. He states that any consideration of the eclipse of marriage in the last century must take into account four massive developments: birth control and contraception, divorce, advanced reproductive technologies, and cohabitation.

He includes a very interesting chapter on the transgender revolution and spends a chapter asking what the Bible really says about sex. I found the chapter on the real and urgent challenges to religious liberty to be of particular interest, recognizing many of the recent examples from culture he writes about. He also includes a very helpful “Question and Answer” section, in which he looks at 30 questions pertaining to the moral revolution. He concludes the book with a “Word to the Reader”, written in response to the Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage.

Mohler writes that when it comes to marriage and morality, Christians cannot be silent—not because they are morally superior, but because they know that God has a better plan for humanity than we would ever devise for ourselves. He wrote the book in the hope that the church will be found faithful, even in the midst of the storm.

This is a well-researched and written book. Mohler states that we are facing nothing less than a comprehensive redefinition of life, love, liberty, and the very meaning of right and wrong. He has covered some of this information in his excellent daily podcast “The Briefing”, which features an analysis of the leading news headlines and cultural conversations from a Christian worldview. I can’t think of a more important book that I have read this year and highly recommend it.

book news

Big Christianaudio Sale. I always look forward to this semi-annual sale from Christianaudio in which almost their entire inventory of audiobooks is priced at just $7.49. Hurry, though. The sale ends at midnight Pacific time on December 18.
The Whole Christ. I can’t keep up with all of the new books by Sinclair Ferguson – a wonderful problem to have! While I’m reading Child in the Manger, I’ll look forward to The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance—Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters, with a Foreword by Tim Keller, to be published by Crossway on January 31.
The Plausibility Problem. Tim Challies reviews Same-Sex Attraction and the Church: The Surprising Plausibility of the Celibate Life by Ed Shaw. He writes “Shaw’s book is just the latest in a number of excellent titles pushing Christians to better understand and serve those who experience same-sex attraction. It helpfully identifies specific concerns and shows how the Bible calls us to meet them in God’s way. It does all of this with a firm grounding in Scripture and without an ounce of compromise. I highly recommend it.”
Lessons from a Hospital Bed. Another new book I’m looking forward to in 2016 is Lessons from a Hospital Bed by John Piper. The 80-page book will be published on February 29.
Jesus is Never Mentioned in the Psalms, but Tim Keller Sees Him There. Jonathan Merritt talks to Tim Keller about the new book he wrote with wife Kathy, The Songs of Jesus: A Year of Daily Devotions in the Psalms. Listen to the Kellers discuss the new book with Eric Metaxas here.
Good News of Great Joy: Daily Readings for Advent Check out this book of Advent readings from John Piper and Desiring God, the e-book version being free. Tammy and I are using this in our daily readings as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ.
Christianaudio Free Audiobook of the Month. The free audiobook for December is Recovering Redemption by Matt Chandler and Michael Snetzer. Recovering Redemption, written with a pastor’s bold intensity and a counselor’s discerning insight, takes you deeply into Scripture to take you deeply inside yourself. The authors discover that the heart of all our problems is truly the problem of our hearts. But because of what God has done, and because of what God can do, the most confident, contented person you know could actually be you—redeemed through Jesus Christ.
Top 15 Books of 2015. Here’s the first of many “Best” lists that I’ll be sharing (including my own). This one is Tony Reinke. His top book is Happiness by Randy Alcorn.

Top 15 Books

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount BOOK CLUB – Won’t you read along with us?

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

This book made a significant impact on my wife Tammy when she read and discussed it with friends thirty years ago. When I picked up my diploma the day after graduation ceremonies from Covenant Seminary last year I was given a copy of this book. After enjoying Lloyd-Jones book Spiritual Depression (and the sermons the book was taken from), I couldn’t wait to read this book, which is the printed form of sermons preached for the most part on successive Sunday mornings at Westminster Chapel in London. This week we look at Chapter 15: The Light of the World.

First of all let us look at its negative import or claim. It always represents itself in terms of light, and men who are interested in that kind of movement always refer to it as `enlightenment’. Knowledge, they say, is that which brings light, and, of course, in so many respects it does.
Scripture still proclaims- that the world as such is in a state of gross darkness, in spite of our having discovered all this great and new knowledge, we have failed to discover the most important thing of all, namely, what to do with our knowledge.
Is it not obvious that our Lord’s statement is still true, that the world is in a state of terrible darkness? Think of it in the realm of personal life and conduct and behavior.
There is obviously no light at all in this world apart from the light that is provided by Christian people and the Christian faith.
The darkness of the world has never been more evident than it is now, and here comes this astonishing and startling statement. That, then, is the negative implication of our text.
Now let us consider its positive implications. Its claim is that the ordinary Christian, though he may never have read any philosophy at all, knows and understands more about life than the greatest expert who is not a Christian.
Let us always remember that it is a statement concerning the ordinary, average Christian, not certain Christians only. It is applicable to all who rightly claim this name.
The Lord who said, `Ye are the light of the world,’ also said, `I am the light of the world.’ These two statements must always be taken together, since the Christian is only `the light of the world’ because of his relationship to Him who is-Himself `the light of the world’.
It is essential that we bear in mind both aspects of this matter. As those who believe the gospel we have received light and knowledge and instruction. But, in addition, it has become part of us. It has become our life, so that we thus become reflectors of it.
The light that is Christ Himself, the light that is ultimately God, is the light that is in the Christian.
Here is a man who has become a Christian; he lives in society, in his office or workshop. Because he is a Christian he immediately has a certain effect, a controlling effect, which we considered together earlier. It is only after that, that he has this specific and particular function of acting as light. In other words Scripture, in dealing with the Christian, always emphasizes first what he is, before it begins to speak of what he does.
Far too often we Christians tend to reverse the order. We have spoken in a very enlightened manner, but we have not always lived as the salt of the earth. Whether we like it or not, our lives should always be the first thing to speak; and if our lips speak more than our lives it will avail very little. So often the tragedy has been that people proclaim the gospel in words, but their whole life and demeanor has been a denial of it. The world does not pay much attention to them.
Let us never forget this order deliberately chosen by our Lord; `the salt of the earth’ before `the light of the world’. We are something before we begin to act as something. The two things should always go together, but the order and sequence should be the one which He sets down here.
Bearing that in mind, let us now look at it practically. How is the Christian to show that he is indeed `the light of the world’?
The first thing light does is to expose the darkness and the things that belong to darkness.
Light not only reveals the hidden things of darkness, it also explains the cause of the darkness.
The sole cause of the troubles of the world at this moment, from the personal to the international level, is nothing but man’s estrangement from God. That is the light which only Christians have, and which they can give to the world.
In spite of all the knowledge that has been amassed in the last two hundred years since the beginning of the enlightenment half-way through the eighteenth century, fallen man by nature still `loves darkness rather than light’. The result is that, though he knows what is right, he prefers and does what is evil.
Light not only exposes the darkness; it shows and provides the only way out of the darkness.
What man needs is not more light; he needs a nature that will love the light and hate the darkness-the exact opposite of his loving the darkness and hating the light.
The Christian is here to tell him that there is a way to God, a very simple one. It is to know one Person called Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
He gives us that new life, the life that loves the light and hates the darkness, instead of loving the darkness and hating the light.

December 9, 2015
by Bill Pence Leave a comment

THIS & THAT and Favorite Quotes of the Week

this.n.that-small
BOOKS, MOVIES, TELEVISION:

My Reviews on Amazon. While we run at least one book or music review a week, you can see all of my Amazon reviews year here. The list is continually being updated, so check back often.
Church of England Defends Ad Refused by Movie Theaters. Stephen Castle writes about a 60-second commercial based on the Lord’s Prayer, which was to be shown before “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” when it opens next month, that has been refused screen time in most of Britain’s movie theaters.
Jerusalem: The IMAX Film Is Now on DVD. Andy Naselli writes “The 45-minute film Jerusalem that has been showing for a few years in IMAX theaters is now available on DVD.” He includes a 7-minute trailer for the film.
Sherlock Special. A 90-minute one-off special titled Sherlock: The Abominable Bride, co-written by series creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss will air on PBS January 1.

CHRISTMAS:

The Incarnation: What We Celebrate at Christmas. In this five-minute video except from the series What Did Jesus Do? R.C. Sproul reminds us what we really celebrate at Christmas—the incarnation of God Himself.
Jesus’ Answer to Holiday Loneliness and Cynicism. Scott Sauls reflects on Jesus being the solution for fractured relationships.
I’ll [Not] Have a Blue Christmas: Reasons to Rejoice and Be Happy This Christmas. Randy Alcorn writes “Is it possible to find genuine happiness during the Christmas season, even in the midst of the pressures? Yes. True happiness—the kind Jesus offers—is at the heart of what Christmas is all about!

GREAT RESOURCES AND INTERVIEWS:

How Do We Love a Broken World? Richard Doster interviews Steve Garber, who was the speaker at my 2014 Covenant Seminary, and the author of the excellent book Visions of Vocation.
One Voice on Christian Social Media. Phillips Holmes and Rosaria Butterfield recently visited for nearly two hours on a variety of subjects, one of them being the Christians’ voice in America today.
Who was Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones? Christopher Catherwood, author of Martyn Lloyd-Jones: His Life and Relevance for the 21st Century.writes “Martyn Lloyd-Jones—often known as “the Doctor” from his medical degree—was one of the greatest preachers of the twentieth century, if not one of the most distinguished since his hero Jonathan Edwards in the eighteenth century.”
Why Martyn Lloyd-Jones Matters Today. Watch this eleven-minute video of Tim Keller and Mark Dever discussing why the great British preacher, who died in 1981, matters today.
2015 Magnify Conference Messages Now Available. The six sessions from the recent Magnify Conference, featuring Kevin DeYoung and Ligon Duncan are now available for you to watch.
Why We Preach Against Abortion. Watch this four-minute excerpt from Russell Moore’s message “Whatever Happened to Sin” at the 2015 Ligonier National Conference.
7 Ways Women Can Grow in Studying and Teaching Scripture without Seminary. Nancy Guthrie responds to a question from a woman who didn’t go to seminary and wants to know what resources there are for theological training.
6 (More) Curious Facts about Calvin’s Institutes. Nicholas McDonald writes “Last week, I posted “8 Irresistible Facts about Calvin’s Institutes“. I close the season of introductions out with 6 more curious facts about John Calvin.”
Lou Holtz Commencement Address. Watch this seventeen-minute 2015 commencement address by Lou Holtz at Franciscan University by from Lou Holtz.
Anna: The Faithful Witness. John MacArthur shares this article about Anna, adapted from his excellent book Twelve Extraordinary Women.
Family Tradition. As I’ve been listening to the messages from the 2013 Ligonier National Conference with a theme of No Compromise, I enjoyed the message “Family Traditions” from Cal Thomas. With humor and wit, he explores the culture’s assaults on the family and the very practical reasons why the church must speak to family issues. You can watch the message here. In the “Truth is Stranger than Fiction” category, as I was listening to this message in the car, and Thomas talking about the increased numbers of people cohabitating, the increased crime rate of those raised in a one parent homes, etc., I noticed that the car in front of me had a license plate of “Y MARRI 1”. Folks, I can’t make this stuff up!

as seen on Steve Camp’s Twitter Feed

CURRENT EVENTS:

What We Lose When We Prayer-Shame Politicians after a Mass Shooting. Russell Moore writes “I could hardly believe the front page of the New York Daily News Thursday. Reflecting on the horrific shooting in San Bernardino, the paper posted tweets of prayer for the victims from Republican presidential candidates with the massive headline, “God Won’t Fix This.” I’m hard-pressed to think of a more cynical and exploitative headline at a time of national mourning.

On ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ After the San Bernardino Shooting. Andy Crouch, author of the excellent Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (see my review here), writes a thoughtful piece in response to the criticism of prayer after last week’s shooting, ending with “Therefore the victims of the shootings in San Bernardino, and all those who were caught up in the violence and live this very moment in its awful continuing reality and consequences, and also those who perpetrated the violence, are in our thoughts and prayers.”

Foul-Mouthed and Proud of It on the ’16 Campaign Trail. This article from the New York Times speaks to the profanity used by the GOP Presidential candidates.

Ben Carson Is Dreaming of a White House Christmas. In this interview with Christianity Today, the GOP Presidential candidate discusses God’s role in his presidential campaign.

COURTESY OF WORLD MAGAZINE

TO MAKE YOU SMILE:

Enjoyed this photo posted by Crowder>>>>>>>>
Ellen’s Never-Ending Scares. I flat-out hate to be scared, but have to tell you I had tears in my eyes after watching this video clip that was shared by J.D. Greear last week.
Top Ten Seminaries of 2015. Enjoy Mark Jones’ tongue-in-cheek ranking of Reformed seminaries.
“BREAKING NEWS: Only five people left on earth have not bought the new Adele album.” Jim Gaffigan
“Why do doctors call your treatment their “practice”? Shoulda had that out of the way by now.” Crowder
“Lesson learned: When your wife shows you the craft she is working on don’t say, ‘The imperfections just add charm’.” Tim Challies

CHRISTIAN LIVING AND THEOLOGY:

A Prayer for Acknowledging Our Fears and Bringing them to Jesus. Here is our prayer of the week from our friend Scotty Smith.
John 3:16 and Man’s Ability to Choose God In discussing John 3:16, R.C. Sproul writes “What does this famous verse teach about fallen man’s ability to choose Christ? The answer, simply, is nothing.”
Is Pro-Life Rhetoric Deadly? Russell Moore writes “Those of us who are gospel Christians must speak with gospel conviction and with gospel pleading to those who are vulnerable, including women caught in crisis situations. This requires speaking honestly about what abortion is. That is, after all, the problem many have with the rhetoric of the pro-life movement; it is not so much about what we say as what we don’t say. We don’t dehumanize children with clinical language of “fetuses” and “embryos” and “products of conception.”
The Great Porn Experiment. One of the big problems with doing research about the effect of video pornography on people is it’s hard to find a control group. Not too long ago a researcher from the University of Montreal wanted to study the effect of pornography on men, but he said when he was looking for a control group of men in their 20s. Watch this five-minute video from Covenant Eyes.
Plunge Your Mind into the Ocean of God’s Sovereignty. John Piper writes “So let’s listen. Let’s treat the Bible as the voice of God. Let’s turn what the Bible says about God into what God says about God – which is what the Bible really is God speaking about God.
The Most Essential Life Skill: Teachability. David Murray writes “There’s one characteristic that separates the successful from the unsuccessful in every walk of life: teachability.”

Doug Michael’s Cartoon of the Week

When God promises us that He will forgive us, we insult His integrity when we refuse to accept it. R.C. Sproul
You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary. Jonathan Edwards
I’m throwing all my good works overboard and lashing myself to the plank of free grace; for I hope to swim to glory on it. Charles Spurgeon
Our lack of intimacy is due to our refusal to unplug and shut off communication from all others so we can be alone with Him. Francis Chan
Racism is nothing more than collective narcissism: I love my group above all others because I love myself. Michael Horton
Every area of Christian living––our worldview, worship, walk, work, and witness––is dependent upon the right knowledge of God. Steven Lawson
What does your life say to others about what you believe? Tim Kelle
Biblically speaking, man is free, but his freedom can never violate or overrule God’s sovereignty. R.C. Sproul
We should never sacrifice our values for the sake of political correctness. Ben Carson
God made the world out of nothing, and as long as we remain nothing, God can make something out if us. Martin Luther
He who begins by seeking God within himself may end by confusing himself with God. B.B. Warfield
The Christian life is a long obedience in the same direction. Eugene Peterson
The devil visits idle men with his temptations. God visits industrious men with his favors. Matthew Henry
If your spouse acts worthily, your love is the easier. If your spouse acts unworthily, your love is the more glorious. John Piper
Perhaps the most common reason people don’t believe in God is simply this: They don’t want anyone telling them what to do. Kevin DeYoung
There are only two ways of dying. We can die in faith or we can die in our sins. R.C. Sproul
Stir us up, O Lord, that we may lay hold upon the life that is really life in the Lord Jesus Christ. Alistair Begg
The principle of sola fide is not rightly understood till it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of sola gratia. J.I. Packer
Jesus isn’t interested in mowing over the weeds in our lives. He wants to uproot them. Matt Chandler

Alistair Quote

	John Rollet on What is a “Just War”?
	20 Leadership Lesson… on FAITH AND WORK: Connecting Sun…
	John C Rollet MD on FAITH AND WORK: Connecting Sun…
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	Bill Pence on Reflecting on 30 Years as a Ch…

Coram Deo ~

Looking at contemporary culture from a Christian worldview

Monthly Archives: December 2015

BOOK REVIEWS and NEWS

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount BOOK CLUB – Won’t you read along with us?

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THIS & THAT and Favorite Quotes of the Week

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FAITH AND WORK: Connecting Sunday to Monday

Faith and Work News ~ Links to Interesting Articles

Top 10 Faith and Work Quotes of the Week

Don’t Waste Your Life Book Club – Won’t you read along with us?

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25 Quotes from Making Vision Stick by Andy Stanley

Here are 25 quotes that I appreciated from the book Making Vision Stick by Andy Stanley:

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Movie Review ~ Trumbo

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Movie Review ~ The Letters

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MUSIC REVIEWS and NEWS

Concert Review ~ This Christmas – An Evening of Holiday and Hits: Michael McDonald at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis

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Feel It by Toby Mac

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50 Important Quotes from the book “We Cannot Be Silent” by Albert Mohler

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BOOK REVIEWS and NEWS

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount BOOK CLUB – Won’t you read along with us?

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THIS & THAT and Favorite Quotes of the Week

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Studies in the Sermon on the Mount BOOK CLUB – Won’t you read along with us?

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Faith and Work News ~ Links to Interesting Articles

Top 10 Faith and Work Quotes of the Week

Don’t Waste Your Life Book Club – Won’t you read along with us?

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Here are 25 quotes that I appreciated from the book Making Vision Stick by Andy Stanley:

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Concert Review ~ This Christmas – An Evening of Holiday and Hits: Michael McDonald at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis

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Studies in the Sermon on the Mount BOOK CLUB – Won’t you read along with us?

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