n reading old poetry to myself I tend to voice the ‘-th’ at the end of words as in ‘this.’ I find it establishes a pleasing sense of continuity between modern and archaic plurals.
On that note, I came across an interesting quotation this morning–apparently we mispronounce old poetry!
‘ve just put up a sermon I preached this evening on joy in the midst of difficult circumstances. The topic is very appropriate for these times!
abotage. What would you do if you really wanted to sabotage any organisation? Well, here are the CIA’s recommendations from 1944.
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Piper, graciously as always, has made the book freely available on his website in PDF format. For all of those who haven’t read the book yet, there is now no excuse!
While you’re there, you might note that there are many other free books from Desiring God. This what Piper says about giving books away:
Should ministries offer their online media for free?
Yes, I would try to persuade ministries to do what we do at Desiring God. And what we do is say that if you can hold an item in your hand, we’re going to sell it. And we’ll try to sell it at a margin that is as low as possible, so that our ministry can be kept solvent. (You can hold a CD in your hand. Same with a shirt.)
But if you can’t hold it in your hand—if it’s electronic—we give it away. So if you can download it from the internet, then we give it to you. That’s the way we’ve tried to draw the line, instead of requiring people to pay a dollar for each download, or whatever.
As the unofficial motto of Desiring God has it: “Freely you have received, freely give.” (Matthew 10:8, Acts 20:35)
Grace from first to last.
o one is immune from the deadly vice of dullness. As a congregation member I find it very difficult to listen to a dull sermon. It is hard to keep from drifting mentally while one’s eyes take on a certain sort of fixed stare. And when I catch myself my immediate reaction is to blame the sermon–rather than, rightly, working harder as a listener.
Two preachers, Phil Ryken and John Piper, give some very helpful advice on how best to listen to a sermon. In summary, they wisely urge us to listen:
with a soul that is prepared
with a mind that is alert,
with a Bible that is open,
with a heart that is receptive, and
with a life that is ready to spring into action.
I also recommend Thabiti Anyabwile’s article “Expositional Listening.”
But setting aside how best to listen to a sermon, let me reflect a bit–with an eye to preaching–on what makes a sermon come alive for me.
A good example of this, I think, is Charlie Skrine’s talk on Psalm 110, “The Return of the King.” The poetic picture he evokes of verse 3 in particular is beautiful and perfectly in keeping with the poetry of the original.
, meditates over and over again on the one verse, “Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight which He has made crooked?” (Ecclesiastes 7:13). It leads the reader in meditation on God. It provides motive after motive after motive for rejoicing in God and glorifying him in the face of suffering. I have found it personally immensely helpful.
Of course, at no point does Boston leave God behind, or spring-board away from theology as such. His application is as deep rooted as it is because he remains so focused on God.
These things, I am thinking on.
emember Richard Dawkins, prophet of the new religious atheism and author of The God Delusion
In a thoughtful and interesting article, Melanie Phillips at the Spectator points out that last month in public debate Dawkins observed that “a serious case could be made for a deistic God.” It’s not clear what that means for Dawkins’ debate so far. Admitting past error is likely to be one of the hardest things for a charismatic debater like Dawkins to do. But it will be interesting to see how Dawkins puts together his argument again, this time without simply discounting ‘the God delusion.’
This admission is no doubt in part to Dawkins’ involvement in lively debate with fellow scientists, for example this debate with John Lennox.
omplaining about the prominence that the issue of slavery played in the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, historian J. G. Randall wrote:
“With all the problems that might have been put before the people as proper matter for their consideration in choosing a senator–choice of government servants, immigration, the tariff, international policy, promotion of education, west ward extension of railroads, the opening of new lands for homesteads, protection against greedy exploitation of those lands … encouragement to settlers … improving the condition of factory workers, and alleviating those agrarian grievances that were to plague the coming decades–with such issues facing the country, those two candidates for the Senate talked as if there were only one issue.”
I shall leave the contemporary application as an exercise to the reader.
‘ve just put up a sermon I preached yesterday on Isaiah 61, about God’s everlasting covenant. It was very encouraging for me to spend time studying and meditating on Isaiah 61, which proclaims God’s favour and his comfort of those who mourn. Even if you don’t listen to the sermon, listen to the passage, and imagine Jesus applying it to himself when he preached it.
n theology, as in any academic discipline, there are games that ‘skilled’ practitioners sometimes play. One such is theological ping-pong, amusingly and ably described by Basil Mitchell in his essay “How to Play Theological Ping-Pong.”
his is not a new sentiment, but one worth repeating. Perhaps, also, it is the beginnings of a principled difference between the way the Bible speaks to the politician (as an individual) and the politician (as a legislator).
Christians who happen to be political liberals are fond of citing scriptural verses exhorting believers to perform charitable deeds. Indeed, there are many such verses, and they mean what they say. But what the liberals invariably fail to see is that the Bible never indicates that it is the Christian’s duty to compel others to do charitable works; rather, Christians themselves are expected to do those works. There is no charity by proxy in the Bible. True charity comes from an inner, spiritual impulsion, not from outward political compulsion. That is the essential difference between Caesar and Christ.
– Hendrickson, The Liberal Temptation
HT: Culture 11
