Everyday Gospel: A Daily Devotional Connecting Scripture to All of Life by Paul Tripp. Crossway. 489 pages. 2024
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Over the past year, I’ve been using Paul Tripp’s Everyday Gospel as a part of my daily devotional reading. While I’ve enjoyed many devotional books in the past, including several of Paul Tripp’s, this one is different. With Everyday Gospel, Tripp takes us through the entire Bible over 365 days.
Beginning in Genesis, each day has a few chapters assigned to read, and Tripp then writes a devotion to go along with those chapters. I chose to use the free ESV Bible App to listen to these chapters as I did my daily walks of our neighborhood. I found this book to be a valuable resource to assist you as you read through the entire Bible in a year, and highly recommend it to you.
Here are 25 helpful quotes from the book:
Click on ‘Continue reading’ for:
BOOK REVIEWS ~ More of this review…
BOOK NEWS ~ Links to Interesting Articles
BOOK CLUB ~ Tim Keller on the Christian Life: The Transforming Power of the Gospel by Matt Smethurst
I’M CURRENTLY READING….
- As long as sin still lives inside of us, we will struggle with idols of the heart. God meets us not with condemnation but with convicting and empowering grace, so that he may purify us again to serve him and him alone.
- Our lives are mixed with sorrow and joy, courage and fear, but at the end of our journey we will look back at all the mountains and valleys and we will see one thing that was always there: the shepherding care of our Lord and Savior.
- God doesn’t call us because we have, in ourselves, everything we need to accomplish what he’s calling us to do. No, he calls weak and broken people to do huge and important things because he is able.
- God takes us to hard places not to do things to us, but to do things for and in us.
- Sabbath is God’s gift to us. It welcomes us to step away from our labors and remember who we are and who he is, so that in submission and rest we may once again find life and strength in him.
- God makes the invisible mercy of his kindness visible by sending people of mercy to respond with kindness to people who need mercy.
- As long as God calls us to be holy as he is holy, and as long as sin still lives inside of us, confession must be an essential ingredient in the life of every child of God.
- You and I should never stop celebrating that, because God is who he is, he not only judges sin but also extends grace for sinners. This is the overarching plot of the biblical story: sin, judgment, and atonement.
- Christian maturity is not about independence, but about a growing willingness to be wholly dependent on the providing grace of the Savior.
- Sin is deceitful, but God’s grace is up to the task; it will expose sin’s lies again and again until we’re on the other side and sin is no more.
- God’s sovereignty is no reason for our passivity. No, God exercises his sovereign rule through the vehicle of valid human choices and actions.
- It’s not the sovereignty of God or the responsibility of people. It’s both operating together to deliver God’s preordained plan.
- Partial obedience is not obedience at all; rather, it is dressed-up disobedience.
- Any time I give the love of my heart to something other than God, so that this love controls my thoughts, desires, choices, and actions in the way that only God should, I have committed spiritual adultery.
- Our thought life is a place of spiritual warfare, a place of battle between God’s will and our will, and for that we need God’s rescuing and protecting grace.
- Success in life and ministry isn’t God’s endorsement of your character but rather a revelation of his.
- God gives you success not to display your glory but to reveal his own.
- All the “kings” he has placed in my life are temporary representatives of Jesus’s always faithful and eternal kingship.
- God regularly takes his children places they never would have planned to go in order to produce in and through them things they never could have produced on their own.
- As we read separate parts of the grand biblical story, we must remember that the central character of every chapter of the biblical story is the Lord. The biblical story is his story. He is on center stage, and the spotlight is always on him.
- When you are jealous of the gifts and successes of others, you’re not just angry that you don’t have what they have; you are angry with God.
- Every truth in the Bible calls you to a certain lifestyle. If biblical truth doesn’t radically change the way you act, react, and respond, then you probably don’t
- Jesus offers us not only real life with a joyous end, but also power right here, right now to stand against sin’s deceit.
- The Bible is a story, God’s story. It is his biography; he is the hero of every story, and he is always on center stage.
- Everyone’s life is directed and shaped by what one’s heart values and serves.
- Study, Savor and Share Scripture: Becoming What We Behold. My wife Tammy has published a book about HOW to study the Bible. The book is available on Amazon in both a Kindle and paperback edition. She writes “Maybe you have read the Bible but want to dig deeper and know God and know yourself better. Throughout the book I use the analogy of making a quilt to show how the Bible is telling one big story about what God is doing in the world through Christ. Quilting takes much patience and precision, just like studying the Bible, but the end result is well worth it.”
- Either/Or or Both/And? Tim Challies reviews Gary Millar’s new book Both/And Ministry. He writes “It is only by acknowledging and embracing the both/and that we emulate Jesus and most become full-formed followers of him. Hence, I commend the book to you and trust it will help you better understand how to live a life that’s fully pleasing to our God.”
Won’t you read along with us?
lTim Keller on the Christian Life: The Transforming Power of the Gospel by Matt Smethurst
Pastor and author Timothy Keller (1950–2023) built a lasting legacy in Christian ministry, planting Redeemer Presbyterian Church and cofounding the Gospel Coalition. With sharp biblical insight that has shaped countless church leaders, along with counsel on the Christian life that has stirred and strengthened audiences worldwide, Keller’s teaching promises to influence generations to come.
Synthesizing Keller’s work topic by topic, each chapter of this book highlights a key aspect of the Christian life—covering his views on prayer, suffering, friendship, vocation, intimacy with God, and more. Written by pastor Matt Smethurst, Tim Keller on the Christian Life draws from Keller’s nearly 50 years of sermons, conference messages, and books to share practical theological insight that will galvanize leaders and laypeople alike.
As we read through this book, we now look at Chapter 1: One Hero Jesus Christ in All Scripture. Here are a few helpful quotes from the chapter:
- From beginning to end, the Bible is an epic story about Jesus.
- Keller sees the Bible as the foundation for the Christian life.
- So much of Keller’s teaching about Jesus Christ, our mighty Champion and King, focused on his sacrificial substitution.
- From beginning to end, Keller’s teaching is suffused with the good news of Christ’s self-giving love as he absorbs—for our sins—God’s righteous judgment in our place.
- In the final analysis, says Keller, there are two ways to read the Bible: as if it’s all about you, or all about him.
- We miss out on the breathtaking beauty of the Bible when we reduce it to only a textbook or only a devotional book or only a morality book. Above all, the word of God is a Jesus book.
