Many years ago now I heard a sermon on Matthew 6—the section where Jesus tells his disciples to pray behind locked doors to ensure that they pray to God and not to men. It was, in many ways, an unremarkable sermon. It was clear, faithful and challenging, like much of the preaching that, in God’s kindness, I get to hear. But, like most sermons, it was destined for the dustbin of my mind. Except for one thing: it was the first time I had ever heard a preacher ask, “Have your deeds of righteousness become so secret that not even God can see them?” The question stopped me in my tracks. (more…)
Tag Archives: Living the Christian life
Humility: True greatness
Humility: True greatness
CJ Mahaney
Multnomah, Colorado Springs, 2005, 176pp.
Humility and pride are funny things. It’s amazing how often I catch myself taking pride in my humility. Actually, I catch myself taking pride in my public displays of humility. When someone pays me a compliment, I know just how to affect the right degree of nonchalance—the right shrug of the shoulders—the right words to deflect the glory away from me—while, on the inside, I am proud that my efforts have been recognized—proud (and perversely so) that they think I’m humble. At the same time, I convince myself that pride is not that serious—certainly not as bad as other more obvious sins. In my sophistry, I convince myself that surely pride is a good thing (when it is deserved); it’s arrogance that is the sin. Yet, when I read the Bible, I know I am kidding myself: as Proverbs 16:5 makes clear,
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Christians and culture: An interview with Michael Horton
Spurgeon for the sick and afflicted
Up front
I’ve appreciated reading the sermons of 19th-century Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon over the years, and have quoted him on my blog a number of times. So when I came down with the flu and found myself in bed for three days straight, I thought it would be encouraging to pick up Arnold Dallimore’s short, well-researched biography of the man. Sick Calvinists of the world, unite! Spurgeon, so it happens, was a lot sicker than me for most of his life. He was seriously, often cripplingly ill—both mentally (with depression) and physically—from his mid-30s until his death at age 57. His wife Susannah also suffered from chronic illness which meant she was unable to attend meetings where he preached.
However, despite many ailments, Spurgeon’s life was full of the service of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here are a few examples.
• He was known in London for his pastoral visits to the houses of people dying during the cholera epidemic of the 1850s (cholera being, at the time, untreatable, and of unknown cause).
• He had a weekly time set aside to meet individually with people who wanted to become church members because they had become Christians. In this way, he came to know at least 6000 church members by name, as well as how they were converted.
• He began and ran a pastor’s college offering a two-year course. (For a sample of what he taught them, see Lectures to My Students.)
• By 1866, his trainees had begun 18 new churches in London alone.
• He began a door-to-door book-and-tract-sellers (colporteurs) organization to sell Bibles, as well as books, magazines and tracts produced by him. In the year 1878 alone, 94 colporteurs made 926,290 home visits. Their aim was not merely to sell books, but to talk about spiritual questions with the people they met.
Most weeks, Spurgeon wrote, delivered and published a weekly sermon; looked after an orphanage, a pastor’s college and an almshouse; read and responded personally to 500 letters; and preached up to 10 times in churches that he had started.
• Spurgeon began and maintained 65 different institutions, ranging from welfare organizations through to mission organizations, preacher training colleges, and organizations for the distribution of literature.
Contrary to appearances however, Dallimore’s biography is not a hagiography: it records with disappointment Spurgeon’s moderate drinking, smoking, and use of a church fete to raise money for the completion (debt free) of the Metropolitan Tabernacle.
I trust that, in God’s providence, this was the right book for me to read while I was sick in bed. But let me say that Spurgeon’s attitude to his own labours do not fit easily with our recommendations in Going the Distance, which is aimed at helping those in long-term ministry. Spurgeon wrote in 1876,
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Finding Jesus at GAFCON
Up front, Sola Panel
The buses left early for our trip (or pilgrimage, as it was styled) to the Mount of Olives. It offered a strange mix of experiences: joy at the extraordinary singing of the African choir, who led us in a brief prayer service on the mountain; fascination at seeing the places where Jesus walked and talked and prayed and was betrayed; eye-rolling distaste for how it all has been turned into a site for religious tourism and idolatry (the Franciscan church at Gethsemane being an extraordinary example of both); and above all, a strange blankness at not feeling even one little bit closer to Jesus through the whole experience. (more…)
Virtues we dislike: dignity
Up front, Sola Panel
We shouldn’t be shocked when non-Christians find Christian virtues out of date, incomprehensible or just plain hateful. The natural person, Paul reminds us, “does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him” (1 Cor 2:14). (more…)
Virtues we dislike: mortification
Up front, Sola Panel
The story of the Bible can be summarized in two words: death and resurrection. Ultimately, the story of the Bible is about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This is the core of the story we call the ‘gospel’. But this basic story also finds its expression in many different and complementary ways throughout the Scriptures. To take just a few examples:
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New year’s resolutions
Couldn't Help Noticing, Life, Sola Panel
It’s that time of year when certain sorts of people flirt with the idea of New Year’s resolutions. I once made such lists. After multiple failures and subsequent guilt, I made a resolution to give up on resolutions.
A summary of our captivity and freedom
William Tyndale lived from about 1494 to 1536.
The fall of Adam has made us heirs of the vengeance and wrath of God, and heirs of eternal damnation. It has brought us into captivity and bondage under the devil. The devil is our lord, our ruler, our head, our governor, our prince and our god. And our will is locked and knit closer to the will of the devil than could a hundred thousand chains bind a man to a post. To the devil’s will we consent with all our hearts, with all our minds,with all our might, power, strength, will and lusts. The law and will of the devil is written in our hearts as well as in our members. We run headlong after the devil with full zeal, and the whole force of all the power we have; just as a stone cast up into the air comes down naturally of its own accord, with all the violence and force of its own weight. With what poisonous, deadly and venomous hate does a man hate his enemy! With what great malice of mind, inwardly, do we slay and murder! With what violence and rage, and with what fervent lust do we commit adultery, fornication and such like uncleanness! With what pleasure and delight, inwardly, does a glutton serve his belly! With what diligence do we deceive! How busily do we seek the things of this world! Whatever we do, think, or imagine, is abominable in the sight of God. For we give no honour to God; his law, or will, is not written in our members or in our hearts; neither is there any more power in us to follow the will of God, than in a stone to ascend upward by itself. And besides that, we are as it were asleep in such deep blindness, that we can neither see nor feel the misery, slavery and wretchedness we are in, until Moses comes and wakes us, and publishes the law.
The sum of the Christian life: The denial of ourselves
John Calvin lived from 1509 to 1564.
(The Christian philosophy of unworldliness and self-denial; we are not our own, we are God’s, 1-3)
Can a Christian go to reiki?
Life
The servant’s paradox: Part III
Life
Here’s one more paradox for those living to serve Christ and to grow his kingdom. It’s one which has been taxing my mind, because it goes to the heart of what Christians believe. We live in the time that gets called ‘the now and not yet’—the period of history after Christ’s resurrection and ascension, but before the revelation of his lordship to the entire universe. It’s an in-between time, so we have the blessings and securities of the eternal age, and yet we don’t see them all, experience them all, know them entirely or enjoy them fully.
The servant’s paradox: Part II
Life
The servant’s paradox: Part I
Life
A paradox is where two things seem to be opposite, but you know they are both true. It’s a tension, a contradiction, an antimony (according to my thesaurus), a mystery. It’s the fact that too many cooks spoil the broth, but at the same time, many hands make light work. It’s the truth that he who hesitates is lost, but only a fool wouldn’t look before he leaps.
Godly grief
Life
For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. (2 Cor 7:10)