Contending for the Faith at Southern

I’ve known of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary‘s turn from liberalism to orthodoxy under the leadership of President Al Mohler. However, I’d not heard him describe the convictions and the process which brought about the rescue until I listened to these two messages (part 1, part 2) from Sovereign Grace’s 2003 Leadership Conference. I commend them to you. I [...]

Jeff Anderson, Scripture, and 10,000 African Pastors

My brother Jeff Anderson has been traveling to the mission field to train pastors for years—in Uganda, India, Russia, Albania, Egypt, Thailand, and the Philippines. His influence for the gospel has exploded in recent years. Last year in Uganda he was able to minister to almost 10,000 African pastors, all of whom heard Bible teaching for [...]

Two Beautiful Gospel Presentations

I never get tired of rehearsing the gospel and its power to save wretched sinners like me. I love to read it, to hear it preached, to hear it sung. Today I’ve been blessed by two beautiful presentations of the gospel, which I commend to you. The first is an animation of the gospel from [...]

Looking Askance to the Right

I recently read Douglas A. Sweeney’s The American Evangelical Story. It’s a quick read (just over 200 pages), especially considering the scope of the topic he covers. He moves from the Great Awakenings to the present, providing an overview of what has shaped American evangelicalism during the centuries in between. I recommend it to you [...]

David Hosaflook: Extraordinarily Ordinary

I enjoyed spending some time over the weekend with a college friend and one of my missionary heroes, David Hosaflook. Dave has been called of God to do an amazing thing, taking the gospel to Albania, which has been benighted by almost 2 millenia of darkness in various forms—Paganism, Catholicism, Islam, and Atheism. He’s one [...]

New Christmas Hymn: Gloria Deo!

Last Christmas I was meditating on the angelic announcements from Matthew 1-2 and Luke 2, and I came up with a new hymn text. I intentionally used the rhythmic word “Glo-ri-a” as the basis of the meter, and I mentioned in a blog post that I was looking for a fitting, joyful tune to carry [...]

Chime In: Elijah-Like Discouragement

Count me among those whose knee-jerk reaction to depression has typically been “Toughen up, read your Bible, and pray. Sissy.” A verse a day keeps dark moods away, after all. As a result, those who are going through times of painful sadness have often been reprimanded by Christian leaders rather than pitied and helped. I think [...]

ChurchWorks Links

I received two encouraging notes regarding ChurchWorksMedia.com today. The first was from SoundForth in an email announcing the new ChurchWorks Choral Series we’re working on together. You can view the email here, which also links to a new CWCS page here. The second note was from my friend, Dan Olinger, who is leading BJU’s African [...]

Confession is not Propitiatory

Not long ago I heard a message about dealing with guilt. The gist of it was that if as a Christian you confess your sins and are still overwhelmed with condemnation, you need to, well, confess harder. I grieved as I sat through the service. In fact, I fumed. I hoped against hope that the [...]

I Think I’m Gonna Throw Up

This almost seems too blasphemous to be real. Unfortunately, it’s not. Terrible. (HT: Scott Aniol)