Quoteable

Bob Kauflin on blended worship services: "It's the gospel that blends us together, not music."
pg. 105, Worship Matters, Bob Kauflin

Are we distracting ourselves to death?

ht: Zach Dietrich

Two articles worth reading
Stoooopid .... why the Google generation isn’t as smart as it thinks
Are We Distracting Ourselves To Death? Five Practical Tips Our Family Is Trying

The Church, Machen

Is there no refuge from strife? Is there no place of refreshing where a man can prepare for the battle of life? Is there no place where two or three can gatherin Jesus' name, to forget for a moment all those things that divide nation from nation and race from race, to forget human pride, to forget the passions of war, to forget the puzzling problems of industrial strife, and to unite in overflowing gratitude at the foot of the Cross? If there be such a place, then that is the house of God and that the gate of heaven. And from under the threshold of that house will go forth a river that will revive the weary world.

J. Gresham Machen, Christianty and Liberalism pg. 180

Grace in the Strangest Places

From Ronald Allen's commentary on Numbers (concerning Numbers 20:1-13):

But Moses, like ourselves, had no erase track. All is forward play; yet the rest of his life he would relive the infamy of this moment."

I'm thankful for that reminder.

Amazing Video about DTS and China

Colin Hansen Interview: "Piper is not an innovator"

Interesting Colin Hansen interview concerning Young, Restless, Reformed.

especially commenting on Piper and the "Passion Conferences"

It's worth watching.

From Quarries to the Temple, Felix Neff

But, surely, it was not so in the marble quarries, or in Lebanon, where the cedars were cut; or in the glowing furnaces between Succoth and Zarthan (1 Kings 7:46) where they melted the brass for the sacred vessels. Thus, in heaven, this majestic sanctuary is erected without noise, without labour; every material is brought thither pure and perfect. The Bride of the Lamb has neither spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing. But in this impure and dark world, this obscure quarry, whence the Great Builder is pleased to take some stones for his edifice, what shall we find, but work-yards for a season, where everything appears to be in a movement and disorder? What unshapen stones, what rubbish, what fragments!

How many things fit only for temporary service! How many arrangements merely provisional! How many mercenaries and foreigners are occupied in these quarries… How many dissentions among the laborers, how many conjectures and disputes about the final purposes of the Great Architect… which are known only to Himself! Shall we search in this chaos for the true church, the spiritual temple? Shall we endeavor to arrange, in one exact and uniform order, all those stones that we find in the various quarries opened in a thousand places in the world? Oh, how much wiser is the Master! While some are disputing about the excellence of this or the other department of the work; and while others are spending their strength in endeavoring to introduce perfect order, the wise Master-builder surveys, in silence, the vast scene of operations, chooses and marks the materials which he sees to be prepared amidst all this confusion, and causes them to be removed and placed in his heavenly edifice; assigning to every piece the place most proper for it, and for which he has designed it. Such, my beloved brethren, is the sublime idea which we ought to form of this universal church. Oh! How contemptible now will appear, in our eyes, those endless disputes which have at all times divided the believers, and continue to do so to the present day. Let us rather labor in the quarry where our work is assigned, to prepare as great a quantity of materials as possible; and especially, let us entreat the Lord to make us all lively stones fit for his building. Amen

Cited in Evangelicalism Divided

Nieces are Evidence of God's Goodness

Dogmatism...

Relativism kills protest and passion...When we resist apartheid in South Africa (or in North America, for that matter), we are being dogmatic. When we insist that everyone is created in the image of God, that is a dogmatic doctrinal assertion, a theological statement of faith. That one doctrinal absolute defines the value of such causes as the pro-life stuggle, the resolve to decrease homelessness, and so on. Without dogmatism, slavery would still be an American and British institution. Slavery worked; it helped prosper the national economy. But it was wrong. Without the dogmatism of Rosa Parks, the black woman who refused to sit in the back of the bus, and the dogmatism of the marchers in Selma, Alabama, who, in 1965 dared to contradict the government's and soceity's status quo, in spite of being attacked by two hundred state police with tear gas, nightsticks, and whips--were it not for such dogmatism, injustices like this would persist to this day...Those modern relativists who insist dogmatically on justice or truth are using borrowed capital of a Christian past.

Horton, Made In America, pg. 162

How to be a Popular Evangelical Writer

Take notes... The Constructive Curmudgeon

Link

1. Write on a controversial topic with little understanding of it.
2. Be autobiographical.
3. Luxuriate in metaphors you don't understand.
4. Take potshots at "foundationalism," "propositional truth," and "modernism," without defining, explaining, or actually arguing against them.
5. Chose a clever title for your book like, "Plastic Jesus" or "Velour Bono," or "Red like Rock."
6. Make the book short, with plenty of graphics.
7. Make a video to go with the book. No, make a series of them.
8. Write in incomplete sentences. Like this.
9. Use plenty of one sentence paragraphs, like this:

Huh?

10. Advocate something historically rejected by Christians in the name of "tolerance" or "freedom" or "postmodernism" or "authenticity."
11. Be sure to "reinvent," "deconstruct," "reimagine," "reconceive," and "emerge."
12. Pose in on your yoga mat for the back cover, smirking.

"Harmony of intellect, emotion, and reform",

The average unbeliever today is unlikely to have the impression that to be a thinking person, it is unreasonable to be fettered by religious dogma, especially by the Bible. But it is important that we recognize that this perception is due in part to our having accepted the divorce between the heart and mind--a divorce which the Puritans, like the Reformers before them, refused to recognize. It is difficult for us to appreciate the harmony of intellect, emotion, and reform that Reformation Christianity enjoyed. Thoughts had inspired Reformers and Puritans, shaping their outlook, affections, and activities in the community. 'My heart is stirred by a noble theme,' sang the psalmist. Great thoughts produced great emotions and both created motivation for reform in the surrounding world.

(Made in America, by Michael Horton, pg. 22)