Those of us that are well-trained in cultural-Christian platitudes may be quick to tell our suffering loved ones “When God closes a door, he opens a window.” We say it with the most sincere intentions, but we likely haven’t inspected the words we’re saying to see if they square with what God has revealed to…
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Mark Dever, Senior Pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC, is a Baptist. If for some reason you think he isn’t convinced of his baptistic stances, or if you think, when pressed about Baptist distinctives, he might say something like, “Well, we can’t really know so we’ll just agree to disagree.” You’re dead…
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Jeremy defines the kingdom of God as: God’s reign through God’s people over God’s place (p. 15). In eight words he offers for us this working definition, and then for the rest of the book he elaborates on how that definition permeates our entire lives in the buckets of Kingdom Perspective, Kingdom Purpose, and Kingdom People.
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The movie The Greatest Showman captivated my imagination when it came out a while back for numerous reasons, but perhaps the biggest reason is the theme of idolatry running through the whole thing. I told my wife at the time that it seems like whoever wrote the script spent a lot of time reading the…
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In this book Jeremy Treat does what it seems few are interested in doing these days: he gets rid of the binary and focuses our eyes to the messy reality of “both/and.” Over the course of about 300 pages (and some change), he shows us how theology (biblical and systematic) and the two dominant motifs…
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God said, “dump it here, I’ll take it.” You see, the stink, the ugly, the mistakes you wish you never had. All of it. Christ took it, became it, and gave you what was his. Your trash for his treasure. He gave you what you made all of that trash trying to find. He gave you himself.
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Matt Smethurst is the Managing Editor for The Gospel Coalition. That means, in part, he makes decisions about what will be generally edifying, encouraging, and appropriately challenging to the readers that visit the site. It shows in this book.
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The point I’m bludgeoning to death is this: forgiveness can’t come from within, it has to come from without, and it has to come from the party offended.
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We live in a culture that tells us things like look inside, follow your heart, trust your gut. We’re not really conditioned to look outside of ourselves to find truth, but the real truth is that our hearts are deceitful, sick, and shouldn’t be trusted. That leaves us to find another (better) way.
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“When God closes a door, he opens a window.” –Worldly Wisdom I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this over the years, but it’s a big number. This saying permeates our culture, and to be honest it seems great. However, with some nuance, we will come to see that there is some truth to…
Read MoreBiblical and Systematic Theology According to the Scriptures
Informing the Reforming
“Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.”
my life & work in words
flotsam, jetsam, messages in bottles
Christian Reviews of Ideas and Culture
incompletely reformed thoughts on God, ministry, and life
growth, development, and urbanism in Stockton, California
