→ The Path of Least Resistance

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Richard Perkins on Ephesians 6.1-2 and instilling obedience in kids:

But child centred parenting is the modus operandi of most of the families I know. It’s what most of us do most of the time, isn’t it? We want a quiet life. And if little Jonny is going to be pacified then we need to surrender to his demands. And so we run up the parenting white flag, he puts down his weapons of mass destruction and we’re all better off, aren’t we? Not in the long run. Can you think of a better way to raise a self obsessed, selfish brat than to reinforce his impression that other people are there to satisfy his needs and that he can get his own way simply by being obnoxious and making a scene?!

NB – “child-centered parenting” has a different usage in some of the circles I’m in. Perks means “running family life around the the needs, desires and tantrums of our kids”. He’s also got a follow-up article on 4 reasons for kids to obey their parents (not that they’ll listen).

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When to jump ship?

Pastoral Ministry, Sola Panel

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Anyone in a mainline denomination infected by liberalism, or some other divergence from the evangelical faith, will have faced the question of when to stay or when to go? How bad does the denomination have to get before you decide to abandon ship?

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→ To suffer faithfully

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Nicole Starling:

We sometimes tend to focus on those aspects of the Christian life (spontaneity, starry-eyed-ness, passionate intensity…) in which the younger seem to have an advantage over the older, but there are a bunch of other aspects in which the very experiences that knock some of the shine off our youthful naivety are exactly the things that equip us to be better at enduring.

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Is this Christianity?

Thought, Sola Panel

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Call me a spoilsport, a curmudgeon, or perhaps just confused, but I’ve always felt uneasy about the theology contained in this quote:
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Fear of God

Thought

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I grew up with a serious fear of vampires. This was because one night sometime in early primary school, my mischievous (or culpably negligent) grandmother let me stay up and watch the classic 1922 silent horror film Nosferatu. (more…)

The Two-Pronged Strategy of a Master Evangelist

Everyday Ministry

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It’s amazing how culture changes and we don’t notice it. The practices that one generation took for granted become unknown, and slightly shocking, to a later generation. Even for those of us who live through the change it happens too incrementally for us to observe it. It is when we revisit the old times that we detect how much we have changed—sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, and often without any real difference. (more…)

→ Moral imperatives

Link

Frank Turk:

… it’s one of those stories where all manner of addled thinking comes to the surface from everyone on the spectrum of lifestyle blogging—from the secular liberals and conservatives to the panoply of Christian bloggers in the weird polygon of ideas bounded by points produced by mixing the adjectives “conservative,” “liberal,” “radical,” “progressive,” “traditional,” “biblical,” and “missional,” with the proper noun “Christian.”

[…]

Dear Son,

Since you have made your confession about your situation, let me confess mine: I have never really been a good man at all. I could make a list here of all the times I have failed you, and your mother, and your siblings, and my employer, and the elders at church, and so on — but I’ll bet you can make that list also. You may remember some things I have forgotten, and I’ll simply stipulate to the entire exercise. I want you to know that I know I am not a good man, and I come to this problem we now face as a man who, at the end of the day, can’t advise you from the moral high ground.
I can only advise you, my son, as a man who has spent his life utterly at the mercy of Jesus Christ.

Turk only really gets going in the second half of the post, so stick with it, because it’s got a twist in the end.

 

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Liturgical v. freeform prayer

Pastoral Ministry, Sola Panel

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Relevant for our corporate praying! A thoughtful balance from Goldsworthy…

In assessing the relative virtues of liturgical versus non-liturgical prayer, I have come to conclude the following:

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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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→ Notice the famine?

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Trevin Wax on how location impacts your Bible interpretation:

In other words, Americans see the famine as an insignificant detail that intensifies the prodigal’s big problem – wastefulness. Russians, on the other hand, see the prodigal’s wasteful spending as an insignificant detail that intensifies the real tragedy – the famine.

Details matter—both those in the texts and those in our lives and backgrounds.
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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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