Month: March 2009

Who was John Calvin?

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This year marks the 500th anniversary of reformer John Calvin’s birth. To mark that anniversary, Reformation Trust has published a collection of essays from some of the top reformed teachers and pastors looking at Calvin’s life, ministry and teachings. The list of authors in the 20-chapter book is impressive:  Derek W. H. Thomas, Sinclair B. Ferguson, D. G. Hart, Harry L. Reeder, Steven J. Lawson, W. Robert Godfrey, Phillip R. Johnson, Eric J. Alexander, Thabiti Anyabwile, John MacArthur, Richard D. Phillips, Thomas K. Ascol, Keith A. Mathison, Jay E. Adams, Philip Graham Ryken, Michael Horton, Jerry Bridges, and Joel R. Beeke.

About the book, D.A. Carson says: “On the five-hundredth anniversary of John Calvin’s birth, it is utterly fitting that a book of essays should appear that is designed for ordinary Christians, not scholars. The scholars will have their conferences, of course, and rightly so, but here is a collection of essays that will inform and move ordinary readers to grasp something of the profound gift God gave to the church in the person and ministry—and especially the writings—of Calvin.”

Ligonier Ministries, of which Reformation Trust is a division, is selling the book as well as offering a sample chapter online. It would do anyone well to better understand a man who had a profound effect on church history and was probably one of the greatest Christian thinkers.

Jane Eyre audiobook — for only $1.95

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jane-eyreThis is something I thought I’d pass along. My wife and daughter, faithful followers of Jane Austen adaptations and all things romantic and such, were captivated by a recent viewing of Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre.” Well, actually it was just half of it. One of the discs of the two-disc set was missing.

Of course, this wasn’t satisfying to them so they managed to find the remaining episodes on YouTube. After this, to please the cravings of the women in my house, I went to iTunes to see if I could find the movie. While that was unsuccessful, I did manage to find something that could turn out to be quite a deal. An unabridged version published just last year is being offered for $1.95 at the iTunes Store. Considering that most titles are usually around $10-$15, this is quite a bargain. There are also titles from Jane Austen and Bram Stoker being offered at the $1.95 rate.

Time Magazine notices: There’s something about those Calvinists

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Time Magazine lists Calvinism — or rather, the “New Calvinism,” as it calls it — as one of the 10 Ideas Changing the World Now. It comes in at No. 3:

Calvinism is back, and not just musically. John Calvin’s 16th century reply to medieval Catholicism’s buy-your-way-out-of-purgatory excesses is Evangelicalism’s latest success story, complete with an utterly sovereign and micromanaging deity, sinful and puny humanity, and the combination’s logical consequence, predestination: the belief that before time’s dawn, God decided whom he would save (or not), unaffected by any subsequent human action or decision.

Read the rest here.

Embryonic snake oil salesman

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Charles Krauthammer, who doesn’t come off as a religious right wingnut, says Barack Obama’s address while reversing Bush policy on embryonic stem cell research was unserious:

This is not just intellectual laziness. It is the moral arrogance of a man who continuously dismisses his critics as ideological while he is guided exclusively by pragmatism (in economics, social policy, foreign policy) and science in medical ethics.

Science has everything to say about what is possible. Science has nothing to say about what is permissible. Obama’s pretense that he will “restore science to its rightful place” and make science, not ideology, dispositive in moral debates is yet more rhetorical sleight of hand — this time to abdicate decision-making and color his own ideological preferences as authentically “scientific.”

Read the rest here.

Handling explosives: Teens and dating

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The news released recently that Bristol Palin and fiance Levi Johnston broke off their engagement probably was greeted a few ways — glee from those who hate her mother and everything they think she stands for, scorn from those who have strong feelings about what a women’s role is as far as family, cynicism because “that’s what kids do” or indifference. There has been much scrutiny and much discussion about this issue.

I look at this as another sad instance of how we get things out of order in our society and how our view of marriage is too low. We want to assume that young people are mature enough to have sex, yet not to be married. After all, how many failed marriages have we heard being chalked up to “I was young and immature”? So, maybe we should not be so quick to allow them to pair off with one another. After all, wouldn’t it be better to not put them in a position that they are not ready to be in? Of course, that assumes that you think that sex is more than just a pleasurable release for those involved. Even the best of kids can be in this situation. What to do?

Consider this advice from John Piper:

Pairing off is a powerful thing. If the relationship here means groups of 4, 8, or 20 people doing stuff together without the dynamic of “she and I are a thing,” you know, that’s great. But this question is talking about pairing off.

Pairing off is hormonally charged, psychologically charged, physically charged, spiritually charged, and it is meant to be! It’s meant to lead somewhere! And it’s beautiful where it is meant to lead.

Therefore my counsel is that as the electric charge begins to happen between two seventeen-year-olds, they better think really clearly about how to manage that. And if they don’t intend to get married in the next year or so, they better not pair off but keep it in groups and step back from it.

Free resources: Hymns for modern ears

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This is a great site you check out. Page CXVI’s expressed purpose is “making hymns accessible and known again. These are some of the richest, most meaningful and moving pieces of music ever written.” To do this they are making some of their recent recording available for free to bless the wider church.

New lead singer for Newsboys: Michael Tait

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Former dcTalk member Michael Tait will replace Peter Furler when the Newsboys perform in concert, it was announced this week at Jesusfreakhideout.com:

Peter will continue with the band and his trademark songwriting and production will remain as he focuses his professional career toward future newsboys recordings. Michael has been on the road with the band over the past weeks working alongside Peter in what has been a positive and enjoyable experience for both parties. It has been a graceful process that both Peter and Michael have worked through as they prepare to make the change in the coming weeks. 

Peter states “newsboys to me has always been a mission, and I entrust Mike, Jeff, Jody and Duncan to continue all that is in store for us as a band. I’m looking forward to focusing on the band’s studio career and spending time in my own bed after many years in a tour bus and hundreds of thousands of miles on the road.” 

Wes Campbell, newsboys manager explains, “While the decision to replace Peter on the road was a painstaking one, when the idea of dc Talk vocalist Michael Tait was presented it was a no-brainer to all of us. No one can replace Peter, but we know Michael will bring a new attitude, energy and vocal style that will thrill our audience. To be able to continue a world class show and still have Peter behind the scenes guiding the career and making of newsboys music is a huge opportunity for all of us. It’s amazing that after many years of touring with dc Talk in the 1990s that in 2009 our paths would cross once again. It’s an exciting time for all of us.” 

HT:  Tim Challies

News books coming from John Piper

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Currently, John Piper is on a writing leave at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. This update was posted today on the progress he’s making five weeks into it. Here is where he’s at:

I have completed a manuscript titled Seek It Like Silver: The Place of Thinking in the Pursuit of God. It’s the same length as Finally Alive.

To explain the title, here’s the last paragraph of the introduction:

If you…raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver…then you will…find the knowledge of God” (Proverbs 2:3-6). I need all the help I can get to love the knowledge of God more than the profits of silver. I assume you do too. So I wrote this to remind myself of the place of thinking in the pursuit of God. As a little echo of Calvin and Augustine, I say with them, “I count myself one of the number of those who write as they learn and learn as they write.” If you join me, I hope you find it helpful.

I put the finishing touches on the fifth book of The Swans Are Not Silent series, Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ: The Cost of Bringing Christ to the Nations in the Lives of William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson, and John Paton.

I tweaked the endings of the four narrative poems on Ruth with a view to producing a new artistic book on Ruth like the big Job book. This will go with a new book on Ruth that will be out in about a year titled, A Sweet and Bitter Providence: Sex, Race, and Sovereignty in the Book of Ruth.

And there are more projects he’s working on that you can read about here. Continue to pray for John, his family and his church as he works for another three weeks on this leave.

Don’t let DST cheat your Sundays

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Here is a good idea. How about not waiting until Saturday night to move your clocks ahead an hour? Change them on Friday night or Saturday morning. This person did and gave themselves a day to get adjusted. I think we might try it at our house next year.

 

HT: 22 Words

Fear not, trust God and act

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I have read and heard this story before, but it is a great example of how we should not be quick to proclaim what spiritual gift we have before we understand what a great God we serve.

John Piper, who preaches before thousands of people each year, was once absolutely terrified to do public speaking. He describes the terror that gripped him from grade 6 to the summer between his sophomore and junior years at Wheaton College:

(I)t wasn’t funny. It wasn’t like when you get butterflies in front of a group or your knees shake or whatever. It was never funny. It was blood earnest because I simply couldn’t do it.

And it was absolutely humiliating when I was forced to try. Like when we had this training union thing in church where you had to give parts that lasted one minute. And I would hold a card, and it would shake so bad. And everybody would start to look at their laps. They would feel so tense. And I would go home and cry, and my mother would try and…

His breakthrough came when he let go of his deep fear and trusted God to help him. And, as he pleaded with God, he made a vow that he would never let his fear master him. I love this story because, first of all, it shows what kind of God we serve. After all, who could listen to a passionately speaker like John Piper and imagine him being afraid? This is how God works. And I appreciate how Piper always points to God’s merciful hand on his life. That is humility and that honors God.

So, when I hear a story like this it brings hope to my life. What am I so afraid of that God is willing to handle better than I ever could? Am I perhaps nursing fears that are keeping me from really enjoying a closer relationship with God? We serve a great God, and he never ceases to amaze how he works powerfully in our lives for His glory.