Category: Gospel and Culture

New Statesman Article

Posted on September 5, 2009

The Statesman was kind enough to run my article on God’s Promise of Renewal today. Check it out and interact with the comments. An excerpt:

Walking out into the backyard, I could see the Cape Cod peninsula on the horizon. The Boston skyline stood tall to my right, and the Atlantic waves crashed into the shore below. With my pipe packed with black Virginia, I took a deep breath, inhaling New England beauty. Taking in the glories of this veritable paradise, my thoughts climbed the trees around me, jumped to the clouds overhead and scrambled into heaven. What force, what greatness, what creativity could will such beauty out of nothing?

Read the Rest.

Moralism of Man

Posted on September 3, 2009

Just as parents rightly teach their children to obey moral instruction, the church also bears responsibility to teach its own the moral commands of God and to bear witness to the larger society of what God has declared to be right and good for His human creatures.

But these impulses, right and necessary as they are, are not the Gospel. Indeed, one of the most insidious false gospels is a moralism that promises the favor of God and the satisfaction of God’s righteousness to sinners if they will only behave and commit themselves to moral improvement.

The moralist impulse in the church reduces the Bible to a codebook for human behavior and substitutes moral instruction for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Far too many evangelical pulpits are given over to moralistic messages rather than the preaching of the Gospel.

Read the rest from Al Mohler here.

Holiness of God

Posted on September 3, 2009

On Sunday we were met with the holiness of God. It was powerful; he is powerful and gracious. During the sermon (manuscript) I mentioned several resources: the Sumerian Myth of Martu (which you probably aren’t looking for!), Dynamics of Spiritual Life, (A shorter version is: Renewal as a Way of Life), and Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul. If you are looking to grow in your understanding of God’s holiness and personal renewal, I highly recommend the following books: