Pastor John Piper tells the story of a woman who “prophesied” over him after a church service one day: “Once a woman prophesied over me that my pregnant wife would give me a daughter not a fourth son, and that my wife would die in childbirth. That was not a helpful prophecy. It was pointless. And, as you know, it proved false. Love did not govern the use of that gift. That is not the way saving faith uses gifts” (source).
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Review of Jim Hamilton’s God’s Indwelling Presence
James M. Hamilton. God’s Indwelling Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Old & New Testaments. NAC Studies in Bible & Theology. Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2006. 233pp. $19.99. The Gospel according to John has the reputation of being the “spiritual gospel†within the fourfold gospel tradition. Its distinct characteristics have caused it to be one of the most beloved books in the Christian canon. Indeed, one recent commentator has said that John’s Gospel “penetrates more deeply into the mystery of God’s revelation in his Son than the other canonical Gospels and perhaps more deeply than any other biblical book†(Köstenberger, John, 1).
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Touchstone Magazine on Human Life
Touchstone magazine is a staple for the serious Christian reader, and if you are not a regular reader of Touchstone magazine, you should start your subscription today (click here to order). The January 2007 issue is about human life, and it is outstanding. Here is an excerpt from Patrick Henry Reardon’s excellent editorial: “Because ours is a journal ecumenical in structure, we are rarely apodictic in our views of public matters. In general, we have endeavored to be more Socratic than prophetic. Most of the subjects encompassed by our interest, after all, are open to more than one legitimate approach. . .
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The New York Times on Free Will
See the article in today’s New York Times on free will. “Free Will: Now You Have It, Now You Don’t” – Dennis Overbye
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C. S. Lewis and Egalitarianism
S. M. Hutchens has some provocative things to say about C. S. Lewis’ attitude toward egalitarianism and whether he considered it compatible with “mere Christianity”: “[Lewis’] gentleness toward egalitarians was evangelical: he wished to win them to Christ. He did not think they could be mere Christians because he did not consider them Christians at all. To come to Christ is to leave egalitarianism; a church with priestesses, he gently indicated, was ‘not like a church.’ The egalitarian may honor and admire Lewis, but cannot honestly retain him as a coreligionist, much less a patron, since he has rejected the cosmology that undergirt his writings.”
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C. S. Lewis and “The Weight of Glory”
Perhaps you’ve read Mere Christianityor The Screwtape Letters, two of C. S. Lewis’ better known books. But have you ever read any of his essays? I recently came across an online version of one essay that has had a significant impact on me over the years. I just reread this one over the holidays, and I thought I’d share it with you. In “The Weight of Glory” Lewis takes on Immanuel Kant and the Stoics and the idea that self-denial is the ultimate Christian virtue. Lewis argues that “glory” and human desire are not at odds. Here is one of the many quotable quotes:
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The New York Times versus a Nigerian Bishop
Examples of media bias are too numerous for me to comment on with any regularity. But sometimes I read things so egregious that I have to say something. An outrageously biased piece appears in a recent New York Times article by Lydia Polgreen and Laurie Goldstein.
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What is Christmas all about?
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Essential Books for Understanding Christianity
In today’s Wall Street Journal, George Weigel gives his Top 5 “Essential books for understanding Christianity.” I’m glad that he picked one old book, Dante’s Divine Comedy, but the other four are all from the 20th century. It seems rather odd to suggest that four of the five essential books for understanding a two-thousand year old religion would all have been written within the last twenty-five years. In any case, it seems to me that Weigel left off one fairly influential volume. As it turns out, this particular book has been pretty helpful for Christians throughout the history of the church. Needless to say, my “Top 5” would have looked…
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CNN’s “After Jesus”
If you missed CNN’s “After Jesus” special last night, you didn’t miss much. It was more fanciful musings on the history of earliest Christianity of the sort that we saw last Spring with the release of The Gospel of Judas, the media blitz of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, and the release of the movie The DaVinci Code.