The Gospel Coalition

From back when I was still a student...

Savior and King,
I find it so easy to revel in knowledge for knowledge's sake,
avoiding the goal of instruction: to learn love.
A puffed-up mind may be able to hide an impure heart,
an aching conscience
or insincere motives from others,
but before you, all is laid bare.
The purpose of my training is to grow in love and faithfulness,
purity and authenticity.
Help me, O Lord, to keep in mind your purposes
for the instruction I receive.
I pray that when I leave here,
my love will have grown,
many sinful habits will have been left behind,
and any insincere motivations or spiritual facade will have been shattered.
May you work in my heart to draw me closer to yourself.
Help me to love, O Lord.
Give me a heart that breaks
for those held in the chains of sin.
Clear my conscience
and authenticate my faith.
May the knowledge I obtain be for your glory
and for the growth of your love...

Herschel Hobbs:

The Bible speaks of God's redemptive purpose. It reveals how God proposes to bring sinful man back into His fellowship and to use him in His service.

From Genesis to Revelation this message runs like a scarlet thread. Its message begins in eternity with the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world, and ends with the triumphant Lamb on His throne ruling over a redeemed universe.

The Bible points forward to Christ, backward to Christ, and again forward to Christ in His glorious return and reign. And it reveals God in the person of the Holy Spirit as He empowers and directs the people of Christ in God's mission of evangelism and missions.

The Bible has one central theme: God's redemptive purpose.
It has one central figure: Christ.
It has one central

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Seven links for your weekend reading:

1. Marilynne Robinson on Democracy, Reading, and Religion in America

2. Who Speaks for Millennial Evangelicals?

3. An Interview with Joel Hunter, President Obama's spiritual advisor, on same-sex marriage

4. Summary of Chuck Colson's memorial service

5. Five Things Mentors Should Model

6. The Bottom-Line of Church Ministry

7. When Your Life is Mostly Full of Just Ordinary...

I'm working on a book proposal this weekend. Hopeful I don't receive these letters in return.





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Nate (N. D.) Wilson is one of my favorite writers. He has given us some excellent fiction and non-fiction books. He knows what makes a story work.

Nate was in town recently, and we had a conversation about books, beauty, and bestsellers. Naturally, we talked about The Hunger Games. His take on it was too good to keep to myself, so I asked if I could share it here.

Why Hunger Games is Flawed to Its Core
N.D. Wilson

Almost everywhere I go, I'm asked about The Hunger Games (book, not film). The questions used to fly about Twilight and Potter, but Katniss and dystopic death-matches have taken over.

First, I completely understand why The Hunger Games took off. Suzanne Collins knows how...

Love Covers a Multitude of Sins:

The Bible gives us two: lovingly overlook that sin or lovingly address that sin. The question is, when are we to overlook and when are we to address?

Why the Leadership Movement is Leaving Your Church Leaderless:

Are our development programs about releasing leaders to the missional frontier? Or, more likely, are they about recruiting volunteers to keep the machine of the church running? To be sure, we should attend to the organization of the church, for it is a significant thing when the scattered church gathers. But as the Church stares precipitous decline in the face---as we look to re-embrace the missio Dei---we must learn again the art that Jesus exhibited: the task of multiplying missional leaders and releasing them into the cracks and crevices of society where there is little-to-no Gospel presence.

J.D. Greear on asking Jesus into your heart:

My concern is not

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The Southern Baptist blogosphere has erupted in conversation on whether it's proper to use phrases like "asking Jesus into your heart," "accepting Christ," or methods like the "sinner's prayer" when sharing the gospel. Like many online conversations, this one has tended to generate more heat than light, and I get the feeling that good folks on both sides of this issue may be talking past one another.

This discussion over methods and terms has been bubbling under the surface for a good while now. A younger generation of pastors look out at the state of evangelicalism and are rightly concerned that many people with cultural Christianity in their background cling to assurance they are saved despite an overwhelming lack of evidence of genuine conversion. It's no surprise that some pastors are blaming the...

From one of my favorite Wesleyans, Timothy Tennent - Robust Christianity in a Post-Christendom World:

The great project of our generation is to reclaim biblical Christianity as the Church. This will inevitably involve standing up and articulating with far more precision exactly what Christianity actually is.  It has become almost a trite statement in recent years that our culture has abandoned the Christian faith.  This actually is not my greatest concern.  My greatest concern is that those of us who are pastors and leaders have ourselves forgotten the gospel.

Rescued from Isolation:

Pastor, I've got good news for you: you are not alone! By God's grace there are other pastors just like you on the other side of town, and profound blessings await if you simply make a habit of meeting together for lunch. That obvious truth is easy to overlook. I certainly ignored it for too long.

Reality...

On The Exchange this afternoon at 2:00 p.m. CST, I will be joining Dr. George Guthrie and Philip Nation for a conversation about the importance of knowing the overarching story of the Bible. Dr. Guthrie is the author of  Read the Bible for Life: Your Guide to Understanding and Living God's Word, one of the most helpful, accessible books on hermeneutics I've come across.

George has also been influential in the development of The Gospel Project, particularly the second and third volumes (Winter 2012 and Spring 2013) which provide an overview of the Bible in 26 weeks. The two of us worked together on choosing the appropriate passages and how to incorporate some of the Bible's more important themes into the lessons.

Here are some topics we'll...

9 Tips for Eating Christianly:

Nine tips/suggestions for how me might approach our consumption of food more thoughtfully and Christianly...

Consternation over Ben Carson, Evolution, and Morality:

If Emory University professors want to argue that evolution has no ethical implications, they are free to make that argument. (I wonder how many of them actually believe this.) But, if they do, they need to recognize that they are not just arguing against "benighted" anti-evolutionists, but they also are arguing against many of their cherished colleagues in evolutionary biology, including Darwin himself.

7 Marks of a Good Theologian

What's a Homemaker Really Worth?

Allow me to suggest two simple reasons why homemaking isn't esteemed by our culture. First, there is a general ignorance of what homemaking entails. And second, more importantly, we don't value

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