Daily Archives: February 11, 2012

“When Your Preacher Is Not John Piper”



An article by Steve Burchett from The Gospel Coalition.

Something to remember for your Sunday service.

Excerpt:

“Unless you attend a church led by of one of the celebrated preachers of our day, you most likely have faced a similar situation. Either at a conference or on the internet, you have heard exceptional preaching, but each Sunday you’re back in your simple little home church that hardly anybody beyond your town knows about, with its ‘nobody’ of a pastor who will probably never preach to thousands.

What if your gospel-preaching pastor is not as good as one of the great orators of our day? Is it time to sell the house, pack up the family, and change churches? No, I don’t think so. But what should you do?”

Continue Reading at The Gospel Coalition


Read related:
The Ex-Pastor: How To Appreciate Your Pastor
- The Beneficial God: Modern Christianity and Its Ubiquitous Psychological Slope
- Guest Q&A: Losing Faith in Guilt
- Gospel Idolatry
- Church Matters: What The Church Doesn’t Talk About
- When Pastors Just Want To Quit

Quote: Pilgrimage

All the animal life in us, all schemes of happiness that centered in this world, were always doomed to a final frustration. … If we thought we were building up a heaven on earth, if we looked for something that would turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city satisfying the soul of man, we are disillusioned, and not a moment too soon.

– C.S. Lewis

Question: Premarital Sex Is Bad?

Anonymous asked:
Hey. I listened to your sermon on Daniel in the Lions den. <3'd it. You showed me some things I didn't pick up when I read it. Anyway, my question is about pre-marital sex. Historically people could have sex outside of marriage and from what i gather, waiting to get married until we have sex was (aside from protecting us from dieseases and such) ordained to keep young women safe. So would it still apply now? What exactly is the spiritual danger? Does it exist?

Thank you for saying that. I’m constantly insecure about preaching so I really do appreciate your encouragement. That one was unusually lit up by some Holy Spirit juice.

The church’s teaching on premarital sex is not just a preacher’s invention but a biblical mandate: even if you define the word adultery much different from the Bible like some do (which takes some linguistic gymnastics), you’d still have to consider 1 Corinthians 7:3-4, 9, and Jesus’ words about remarriage with the implicit assumption of virginity. There are also logical implications from marriage’s design from Genesis to Revelation that are easy to read into. You can pretend they don’t exist but I don’t enjoy the taste of lightning wrath either.

Having just finished The Meaning of Marriage by Tim Keller, I’ll share some thoughts about this augmented by Keller’s teaching. Just so you know, the primary reasons are not about disease or pregnancy.

Continue reading →

Quote: Delighted

It is written that we shall ‘stand’ before Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God … to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness … to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son — it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.

– C.S. Lewis