Very interesting numbers here: Only 7 percent of Americans use Twitter. Of that, 52 percent with a profile never tweet. That means all tweets come from the same 3.36 percent of our population.
"For all I know, I will not live to see this book published. I have at least one relative infected with the coronavirus. I am seventy-four years old, and my lungs are compromised with a blood clot and seasonal bronchitis. But these factors do not ultimately decide. God decides."
Using 3D technology to "virtually unwrap" for the first time a 2,000-year-old charred scroll—the oldest scroll ever discovered—they find the text is "100% identical" to our version of Leviticus:
If they made a movie about modern evangelicalism, whom would you cast?
Obviously you'd start with Patrick Stewart as Tim Keller and Larry David as John Piper.
In my freshman humanities class, studying the Reformation, a fellow student had been assigned to present on Martin Luther's wife.
Clearly nervous, she cleared her throat and began: "Coretta Scott King was born..."
Longest five minutes of my life as we all stared at our desks.
Mike Pompeo is doing a great job, I am very proud of him. His predecessor, Rex Tillerson, didn’t have the mental capacity needed. He was dumb as a rock and I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. He was lazy as hell. Now it is a whole new ballgame, great spirit at State!
"My love for my wife, my family, coaching, basketball are wonderful things, but when you line them up in comparison to Christ and a relationship with him, with what he’s done for me and given me, they don’t compare. That’s the greatest truth I know.”
Unless I have missed it, one of the most striking things with regard to the new allegations against and investigations of Ravi Zacharias is a complete absence of the authority, presence, and discipline of a local church.
79-year-old immunologist with 50 years in public health and directing the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases > 32-year-old Silicon Valley technologist and political operative blogging at Medium dot com
David French: "One of my least favorite things about this incredibly stupid time is the argument from the Trumpist right that it's now basically elitist to ask a president to tell the truth, be faithful to his wife, and not act like a middle school dropout on Twitter."
Saying that undocumented criminals are "animals, not people" = wrong.
Calling groups of people a "basket of deplorables" = wrong.
Critiquing one and defending the other = wrong.
Maybe I'm missing something, but this doesn't seem that hard.
I would rarely recommend listening to a Senate floor speech. But this emotional speech from
@BenSasse
is worth listening to and sharing regarding the
#MeToo
movement and our current cultural sickness.
It's striking to me that the most important section of John Piper's article is also the one that has received the least amount of attention. And it speaks to pastors across the divide.
Russell Moore, writing in "Onward" (2015):
“The next Billy Graham might be drunk right now. . . The next Charles Wesley might currently be a misogynistic, profanity-spewing hip-hop artist.”
Having a political leader address our churches or associations of churches
1. goes against the pattern of the entire Bible
2. tempts us to misconstrue our mission.
3. undermines our evangelistic and prophetic witness.
4. hurts the unity of Christ’s body.
One of the reasons I try not to make fun of Pentecostals and Dispensationalists is that the Lord used a man who was both to save my mother.
In 1969, she was a 23-year-old sixth-grade public school teacher in California. Some of her students were using drugs, and she wanted to
"If I get discredited as a person, the message gets discredited too. What God is calling upon you and me is to so live that the messenger is always faithful and honest."
—Ravi Zacharias
My favorite hymn typo, projected on the screen at Bethlehem Baptist Church in the late 1990s, read:
"O make me thin forever"
It's maybe the only time I've ever raised both hands at the same time in worship, singing it with my whole heart.
In a sane world we'd all agree: don't comment on trials until the evidence is presented; the media is often irresponsible; it is exceedingly stupid to carry an AR-15 into a riot; self defense is legal; making fun of a teenager weeping is gross; all loss of life is to be grieved.
For the 15th consecutive month "Girl, Wash Your Face" by Rachel Hollis (Thomas Nelson) is the
#1
title on ECPA’s Top 50 list of bestselling books.
I would love to see the bestselling Christian books be Christian books.
Happy birthday to John Piper (b. 1/11/46).
True story:
His father wanted to name him Peter (a biblical name).
His mother overruled, preferring John (another biblical name).
In so doing, she saved her son from a lifetime of questions about pickled peppers.
Would you mind saying a brief prayer for my Uber driver, Tahir, a Muslim who had questions about the incarnation and the reliability of the Scriptures? I was able to give him a new reader's edition of the NT and sought to point him to Christ in the short time we had together.
If you are under the age of 50 and you engage in public speaking, self-consciously work to eliminate the verbal tic of punctuating every sentence with, "right?"
“Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities, and commercials.”
—Neil Postman, 35 years ago (before gifs)
Do not believe any article or story you read or see that uses “anonymous sources” having to do with trade or any other subject. Only accept information if it has an actual living name on it. The Fake News Media makes up many “sources say” stories. Do not believe them!
Michael Horton : "My public calling is not to bind Christian consciences to my own political positions. Rather, as a minister of the Word, I am joining others in sounding the alarm that a line has been crossed into rank spiritual adultery."
Sam Allberry, writing in CT about Andy Stanley:
"When any leader suggests to me that chaste obedience to Christ in singleness is not sustainable, he is saying the very same thing to me that the Devil says."
Capitol Hill Baptist Church sues Washington, D. C., for violating the First Amendment by facilitating and tolerating massive anti-racism protests but forbidding worship services—indoor or outdoor—of more than 100 because of Covid-19.
.
Tim Keller says these two sentences from Derek Kidner changed how he read Psalms 39 and 88, the two psalms that end on a note of darkness:
“The very presence of these prayers in scripture is a witness of God’s understanding. God knows how men speak when they are desperate.”
Before you carve that wooden sign for your front porch announcing that you live there, remember that you don't need an apostrophe with your last name.
If your last name is Wilson, it should read:
The Wilsons
not
The Wilson's
Many do not know this!
With the RZIM report on Ravi Zacharias set to be released today, we should remember what Jesus told us about the final judgment as he warned his disciples about hypocritical religious teachers who were held in high esteem:
1. 🧵This substantial essay from Kevin DeYoung on Doug Wilson and "the Moscow mood" is excellent. I'm tempted to say: drop everything to go and read.
I hope it will be taken seriously by those who admire and seek to emulate the Moscow mood.
From
@JohnPiper
's last email to Tim Keller (7/19/22), where they reveled together in the coming glories of someday being with Christ:
"You may or may not beat me there. But a vapor's breath separates our arrivals."
A masterclass on how to issue an exhortation—Piper includes honor, respect, praise, and encouragement; he appeals to Scripture; he acknowledges his own weakness in this area and thus includes himself as needing the exhortation; he doesn't back down or resort to humor in light of
President Biden will reverse the Mexico City Policy on his first day in office. "Several billions in U.S. aid will once more be made available to abortion groups that operate around the world."
But remember: Presidents are irrelevant to the abortion rate!
There's a certain slice of progressive Christianity that has written a hundred takedowns of the Billy Graham Rule but says nary a word about pornography.
I hope this means we are starting to witness a new era of politicians who can ask basic questions about science and life to expose might-makes-right morality.
It'd be *really* amazing if some mainstream journalists would give it a try.
"44 Democratic senators are going to filibuster an anti-infanticide bill. There's *nothing* in the bill about abortion—nothing! It's about infanticide. You’ve got 44 people over there who want to hide from it and talk in euphemisms."
—
@SenSasse
Think about this. Multiple, independent women come forward with credible allegations. One was 14 years old at the time. And some pastors say they are *more* proud to support this man? I confess I don't know what to say in such a situation, other than that this is simply insane.
"None of the nearly 10 pastors reached by phone said the allegations of sexual misconduct changed their views about Moore. Several said the allegations made them more proud to vote for the former judge."
If you follow pastors who are still blogging about how the election was clearly stolen—and that lack of proof doesn't meant it didn't happen—it might be time to consider some new blogs.
Make sure you have a theology that can account for verses like Amos 3:6, which are embedded across the storyline of redemptive history.
"Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?"
If I was considering Liberty for my children, I think I'd want to know how the president of the institution views his spiritual leadership of the school (in the midst of defending a crude put-down of a faithful pastor).
A sobering comment from the Surgeon General:
“This is going to be the hardest and the saddest week of most Americans’ lives. This is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment, only it’s not going to be localized; it’s going to be happening all over the country."
When I couldn’t reach my mom by phone this morning I was concerned and drove over to check on her. I found her kneeling by her bed motionless. She went to be with Jesus today. She had marked this in her Bible yesterday:
3. Ultimately I was listening to the heartbeat of an evangelist. He was singing the song of a fellow sinner who longed to welcome others to the cross. There was a brokenhearted boldness in the timbre of his voice.
Everything looked different after that.
#ThankYouRavi
The news of
@T4Gorg
ending is further evidence of a pattern I think I see in God's work. The big evangelical platforms are being dismantled precisely on the point they thought was their strength:
Platt's Radical, about sacrifice for missions, is now radically Marxist...
(1/)
This is Herschel Walker today. He's 58. He's never lifted weights. He does only half the daily push-ups he used to. (He's down to 1,500 a day.)
This is a non-political tweet. My only goal is to make all the middle-aged guys out there feel crummy.
I wonder if the most falsifiable cultural mantra—"You can achieve anything if you just believe in yourself"—has implicitly convinced entire generations that there must be a scapegoat somewhere in my story to explain why my dreams never materialized and I'm not who I want to be.
"Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. . . .
I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
—Jesus (Matt. 12:34, 36-37)
Maybe this would be a good time to practice what we could call the Packer Liturgy?
1. I am a child of God.
2. God is my Father.
3. Heaven is my home.
4. Every day is one day nearer.
5. My Savior is my brother.
6. Every Christian is my brother too.
“Satan dreads nothing but prayer.
His one concern is to keep the saints from praying.
He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, prayerless religion.
He laughs at our toil, he mocks our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray.”
― Samuel Chadwick (1860–1932)