Archives: life

Teaching children to pray

Everyday Ministry, Life, Sola Panel

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Graeme Goldsworthy…

Teaching the children to pray and praying for the children

Christian parents have a vital ministry in the church.  The Christian nurture of children is primarily the responsibility of the parents, not the day school (even if it is a Christian school) nor the Sunday school.  Unfortunately, in our modern society, mothers who stay at home to care for their children are often considered to be unemployed and to have sold out on the right of women to pursue a career.  There can be no nobler career than nurturing Christian children to be well-adjusted citizens of our society and to be faithful citizens of the kingdom of God.1

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In the footsteps of Ezekiel

Life, Sola Panel

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Ezekiel: Michelangelo

When a man was called by God to be a prophet in Israel, he could be pretty sure he wasn’t in for an easy life. Jeremiah, marked out as a traitor by his own people, thrown into a cistern and waiting for his nose to slip beneath the mud (Jer 38:1-28). Ezekiel, his life a bizarre acted parable of Jerusalem’s fate, lying on one side for months on end and cooking his food over excrement (Ezek 4:1-17). Hosea, commanded by God to marry and be reconciled to an adulterous wife, to picture God’s relationship with his unfaithful people (Hos 1:2-11, 3:1-5).

All those words of judgement, all that rejection, all that sacrifice! I sometimes think how glad I am that God didn’t make me an Old Testament prophet.1  (more…)

Discipline, routine and the ‘quiet time’

Life, Sola Panel

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Graeme Goldsworthy on the ‘quiet time’…

Avoiding legalism while exercising self-discipline

Most of us need some kind of self-discipline in all kinds of things that we do on a regular basis.  Usually we don’t have any difficulty in having three meals a day, but some do.  We get into a routine for eating, sleeping and going to work.  One routine that is often observed is the ‘quiet time’, particularly by Christians who recognize the need to study the Bible and to pray, usually on a daily basis.  A quiet time is a good routine, but it needs to have some flexibility.  The quiet time can become a legalistic requirement to the point that some feel that if they sleep in and have to miss their quiet time, their whole day will be a virtual disaster.  This borders on superstition.  The person who cultivates the art of praying without ceasing will recognize that, like the Sabbath, the quiet time was made for man and not man for the quiet time!  All kinds of things can interrupt our routines, from storm, tempest, flood, fire and earthquakes.  Or it may be simply a neighbour in need who calls on us, or a sick child.  On the other hand, the person who makes a habit of chaotic indiscipline needs to take this matter in hand.  However we might discipline our day to include Bible-reading and prayer, it is important not to reduce this habit to the level of the fulfilment of a legal obligation.  It is always a privilege for the children of God and, as such, it is an expression of our being saved by grace alone.

Source: Prayer and the Knowledge of God (IVP), page 196. (more…)

Read the Psalms on your knees

Life, Sola Panel

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Graeme Goldsworthy:

The Significance of the Psalms for prayer

For any Christian for whom prayer is becoming formal and stereotyped, the Psalms provide a rich source of inspiration. It is true that to read the Psalms on your knees, as it were, can be a great boost to one’s prayer experience. The book of Psalms provides the most sustained and concentrated biblical expressions of prayer. There are two qualifications I would make to this recommendation to resort directly to the Psalms for prayer.

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Encouragements to Prayer #1

Life, Sola Panel

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Yesterday, as I preached on Hebrews 4:12-16, we touched at some length on prayer:

  • the possibility of prayer – through Jesus our great high priest, vv15-16,

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→ In Defense of Apologetics

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Tim Keller:

Apologetics is an answer to the “why” question after you’ve already answered the “what” question. The what question, of course, is, “What is the gospel?” But when you call people to believe in the gospel and they ask, “Why should I believe that?”—then you need apologetics.

Towards the end of this short piece, Keller makes the same (excellent) point concerning the myth of human rational neutrality that Martin Ayers outlined in his previous article here, Keep the faith. Both are worth a read.

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The ‘S’ word: some thoughts on singleness

Life

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Recently, a good friend who is a pastor asked me to jot down reflections on my experience of being single so that he could use them to help struggling single women in his church. One of my first thoughts was: why should singleness be an issue, or an aspect of life that I am asked to frame myself in? (more…)

The delightful results of memorizing the Bible

Life, Sola Panel

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This is the final post in my series on Bible memorization. Today I’ll talk about the “why” of memorizing Bible passages and the impact this has had on me. You can read part 1 here, part 2 here and part 3 here.

flickr: chefranden

God’s word written on three-by-five inch index cards: it doesn’t sound like much of a weapon. But there I was, sitting on the floor, staring out the window, repeating words scribbled on the index card in my hand: “…do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own…” (Matt 6:34 NIV).

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Q&A today

Life

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We Christians today find ourselves at a very contested intersection with science and ethics. The amount of conflict is partly because in a post-Christian society there is no longer any shared ‘moral grammar’ about the common good. Our world has not just drifted from but also actively rejected many of the beliefs and virtues that largely derived from the Christian world view of previous centuries. (more…)

→ Breaking Hearts

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R. C. Sproul, Jr.:

I am here and not there because He has brought this to pass. I am here for Shannon’s sake, for her good. I am here for my own sake, for my good. And I am here for the sake of Darby, Campbell, Delaney, Erin Claire, Maili, Reilly and Donovan. My Father knows what each of my children need. He knows how to grow the fruit of the Spirit in each of them. He knows precisely what they each need to become more like Jesus. And He has the power to bring this to pass. What they need right now if for me to be here.

Tragic; beautiful.

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Libertarian censorship

Life

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Censorship was a debate most people thought was won (or lost) in the 1960’s. But it has been neither won nor lost—just changed—and that for the worse. (more…)

A smorgasbord of Bible memorization methods (and one way to learn whole books)

Life, Sola Panel

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This is the third post in my series on memorizing Bible passages. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here. Next time I’ll conclude with the “why” of Bible memorization, and the impact it’s had on me; but today I want to talk about the “how”.

flickr: chefranden

They say that memory is dead. Socrates sounded its death knell back in the days when books began to replace oral culture – for who needs to remember what’s been written down? Now we’ve gone one better with the outsourcing of memory to electronic devices.1 It’s said that human beings have forgotten how to remember.

I’m sure there’s some truth in that, but I won’t accept it. (more…)

Same-Sex Parenting – No Differences?

Life, Thought, Sola Panel

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Last year, when I published my article on same-sex marriage, commenters asserted that the academic literature suggested children with gay or lesbian parenting situations did just as well as those with heterosexual parents. As I looked into it, even as a non-specialist, I could note that many such studies displayed methodological weaknesses such as the lack of control groups, or self-selection and self-reporting by participants. This should have cautioned against such dogmatic conclusions. (more…)

To dye or not to dye?

Life, Sola Panel

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To dye or not to dye? This question came up on Jenny’s blog, and I just couldn’t resist jumping in with a typically over-long comment! Here’s an edited version of what I wrote, for women considering the pressing question of whether or not to dye greying hair. It’s not a bad test-case for issues of beauty and personal adornment.

flickr: foxtongue

Like all things the Bible doesn’t legislate on, whether or not to dye your hair comes down to the freedom to serve one another in love (Gal 5:13). It’s the teaching of demons to declare a created thing “bad”: it’s good if received with thanksgiving (1 Tim 4:1-5). We’re not to submit to rules like “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch!” (Col 2:16-23).

So yes, hair dye, waxing, and, dare I say, even botox and surgery to improve appearance are not evil in themselves: (more…)