Gospel Living

Tim Hawkins Scary Bedtime Prayer from crownentertainment on GodTube .

HT to Kevin DeYoung for introducing us to Julian Smith and wasting the next couple of hours of my life on YouTube.  Thanks for that.

Bridges on the need for consistent family religion: This opens a wide field; including daily family worship—the whole circle of family instruction—the principles of education, essentially upon a scriptural oasis—the regulation of conversational habits—all bearing a concurrent testimony to the doctrine of the pulpit in its fullest detail . Habits of order also form an important part of this Christian model—doing every thing at its proper time—keeping every thing to its proper use— putting every thing in its proper place. Regularity in the payment of bills, and a strict avoiding of debts—are here worthy of high consideration. With respect to children—we must be careful to exhibit a clear practical illustration of the rules of order, submission, and indulgence, which we give to our people. How many of us in this point are wise for others, and yet unwise for ourselves! --Charles Bridges, The Christian Ministry . Kindle Edition.

If you have an iPhone or iPad and you have a sermon to preach, check out this email I just received: Former TMS Adjunct Professor Vincent Greene has designed an iPhone and iPad app that is specifically designed for preachers. This app entitled "Sermon Design for Preachers" allows a preacher to fully design and preach his sermon with his Bible and iPad in hand. This app will allow the user to save unlimited amount of sermons and will allow the user to work on the sermon in "compose mode" and preach the sermon in "preaching mode." There are many other features to the app as well. Click the link below which will take you to the app description page in iTunes for more information about the app. It is my hope that an app like this could be used to better enhance the student's ability to preach expositorily. If you download the app and use it, let me know how it works for you. Any feedback you might have will be appreciated. Link: http://itunes.apple.com/...

(HT: Kevin DeYoung )

In case you haven't seen, the Creation Museum's advertising billboards created quite a stir among atheists .  We love atheists and their call for reason and logic, though we obviously believe they lack the epistemological basis for their call.  We can only pray for them to see the light of God's revelation as we continue to shine it on this fact. Here is what appeared on the AiG site: 1. This one mocks Noah’s Flood (with a ridiculous statement and false assumptions about the height of the mountains before the Flood and about where the water came from). 2. This one totally misrepresents the Bible’s teaching about masters and slaves (servants). 3. This one shows it is the atheists who want to indoctrinate children.   I urge you to look at the rest and get a real feel for how atheists conduct their campaigns of mocking and hatred against God and His Word. Go to  http://atheistbillboards.com/2012/ .  Actually, the fact that the secularists are so up...

We've seen the TSA strain against the norms of privacy and law with the practice of their policies .  We've seen videos of police officers arresting street preachers and then confiscating the film ( Dearborn was a case in point ).  The question of photography rights rises frequently in these kinds of cases, and Lifehacker posts some helpful information for you .

Preaching illustrations should be clear, free from baggage, and tangible to the most number of people possible.  Pastor Jesse Johnson reminds us that  the latest flick won't quite do that  for people. Let me add one to the list - we want to avoid distracting the mind's eye from the glories of the biblical text.  Optimally, illustrations support preaching points and move on, but movie illustrations encourage the mind to rerun the film for the next several minutes.

A key element of biblical teaching that's absent from our churches today is expositional teaching on the Law, the Torah . Possibly one of the causes of this want of the “whole council of God” is that of the false dichotomy—shall we preach Christ and His New Covenant, or shall we commit our preaching to that which has passed away? In other words, the either-or proposition erroneously leads our churches to decide between preaching Law or Gospel.  This dichotomy is false in that it ignores the Law’s inspired profit to us even today (2 Tim 3:16–17) and that it fails to divine part of God’s intent in the Law—to lead His people to the glories of the Gospel. Without the Law, the good news has no meaning.  Consider this from Bridges: [The Law’s] cognizance of every thought, imagination, desire, word, and work, and its uncompromising demand of absolute and uninterrupted obedience, upon pain of its everlasting penalty—convince the heart of its guilt, defilement, and wretchedn...

I've added a new link under "Creationism" on the right nav-bar.   Creation Works have a nice documentary in the works that explores the impact of the 1912 Alaskan volcanic eruption.  Mt. Novarupta blew past Mount St. Helen's material output (pun intended), and, just like that latter eruption, it provides us with a microcosm the destructive ability of the global deluge in the book of Genesis.  Here's the trailer: T he catch?   They're looking for support , but you don't have to be a big spender to help - there's a $1 minimum pledge, and $10 can secure you a digital version of the documentary.  Their goal is only $5,500 by July 20.  Here's more detail on the documentary from their site: On June 6, 1912, the biggest eruption in over one hundred years occurred in what is now Katmai National Park, and The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes in Alaska. Ejecting over thirty times more material than Mount St. Helen’s, Novarupta exploded for more th...

nbelievers, invited there to begin a several-week investigation of Christianity, arrive at a catered midweek service. There, they meet their group leaders who encourage them to ask questions about the faith. Aspects of the Gospel are presented over the next few weeks with hopes that unbelievers will repeat the sinner’s prayer, and many will. They are now ready for their Holy Spirit Weekend, where they will gather to lift their voices in chaotic syllables and tones—where they will learn to sing and pray “in the Spirit.” I’ve attended one of these Holy Spirit Weekends, but since I did not believe the Holy Spirit endorses tongues “singing,” I took on the role of an observer. The instructions I heard were similar to those given by Charismatic radio broadcasts. Get rid of doubt and fear. Ask, and the Father will give you the good gift of the Holy Spirit. Open your mouths in faith and begin producing sounds, and the Holy Spirit will take control. As the guitar plays, listen to ...

We teach our kids more than "right and wrong" when we discipline them - we teach them about how to deal with with our anger directed at others and disagreements.  We teach them the relationship between love and the correcting hand of a parent.  Therefore, how we discipline, from start to finish, is as important as the discipline itself. Do we demonstrate self-control?   Do we model authority under God when we call them to obey authority? Finally, are we more concerned with the child's behavior than the child's heart? Kevin DeYoung channels Martyn Lloyd-Jones and  posts the following : In  Ephesians 6:4 , God tells fathers (though I think the application is fair for both parents) to raise children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. He also warns against provoking our children to anger. So how do we do one without the other? How do we discipline exasperating kids without in turn exasperating them unnecessarily?  Commenting on th...

Yeah, so I thought there was yet another Michael Bay Transformers coming out.  I wasn't the only one, apparently:

If you've never seen the second Star Wars movie (which was really the fifth, but not really), let me save you some time: Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

From the fossil footprint page of the Genesis Park . HT:  Andrew Gulick , who wrote on his Facebook page: A human footprint intruded by a tridactyl dinosaur (the human print was first and then the dinosaur stepped into the human print) ... an MRI was done on this that shows the compression areas that takes place during the process of walking Compression takes place when the heal hits the mud as well as the toes as the foot pushes off. the MRI showed compression marks for both for the dinosaur as well as the human print; thus, proving that this was not a fake casting of some prankster, but a real fossil print. A print proving that man and dinosaurs lived at the same time, just as the Bible says when it says that God made the beasts of the field on the same day he made man. ... the 6th day.

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward   -- Psalm 127:3 Keep far from a false charge,  and do not kill the innocent and righteous,  for I will not acquit the wicked. -- Exodus 23:7 With the defeat of HR 3541, the mixed message from the Obama administration is that gender discrimination in every form is wrong, except when it comes to criminalizing the murder of an unborn child simply because it was a girl. Planned Parenthood apparently feels the same way about gendercide .  Here are some undercover videos from the infamous Live Action team revealing that the market for murder is open for any reason. Part 1: Undercover in Texas ( Transcript ) Part 2: Undercover in NYC ( Transcript ) Part 3: Undercover in Arizona ( Transcript ) (HT: Crosstalk America )

By now, many of you have heard of the staggering amount of textual material surrounding the NT text compared to other Greek works of antiquity (Plato, Homer, etc.).  No other work can boast of extant copies within a century of the originals, nor of the sheer volume of copies available.  This does not prove that the Bible is inspired, but it does evidence the simple fact that it is trustworthy -- no one can claim that we don't know what the original said. Here is a graphical representation of the data: click to enlarge ( HT )

ommunication is a two-way street. This includes prayer, says Dallas Willard in his book, Hearing God , the free audio book of the month at ChristianAudio . If we want to feel close to God, then we should be willing to listen for His voice when we pray—and no, he doesn't just mean that Scripture verse that came to mind last night. Christians leaders throughout Evangelicalism are teaching the idea that God actively delivers new knowledge to believers. This naturally stirs confusion in the hearts of many Christians— Will God also speak to me? How will I know if He does? If I don’t hear a clear voice, does that mean that there is something wrong with my faith?   Compounding the issue is the fact that when Christians claim that God told them something, they are essentially claiming to have a prophecy. While we won’t take up space with a full examination of all biblical prophecy here, let’s consider how Christians with the gift of prophecy operated in the NT to see i...

Hey, it's not glamorous, but someone's got to keep the plumbing business going. At least he has the option of getting one with mushrooms.