Monthly Archives: February 2007

Lunger

I will be preaching {from Luke 8:40-56} tomorrow {Feb 18th} at a church that I am candidating at, would you pray for myself and the congregation that we might “lunge” toward Jesus and be satisfied with all that God is for us in His Son? Thank you…

Bible

Just found out about this and I have one coming in any day now…I suggest you get one of these…single-column and prargraph-free with plenty of room to scribble. Now you can really get the author’s argument and shake off those thought-destroying, interruptive paragraph divisions…oh, how modernity has made us slaves to the paragraph! Now if I could just get rid of those numbers!

Thanks to Ross for telling me.

For The Theological Nerds Out There {Especially You OT Lovers}

Found some GOLD out there for you Old Testament lovers:

A few good online books by none other than Kenneth Kitchen are available. If you haven’t heard of him, Dr. Kitchen is one of the leading conservative Egyptologists around {that means he can read Egyptian hieroglyphics like you’re reading this sentence}. Here’s his Wikipedia blurb.

The Bible in its World: The Bible & Archaeology Today. This book is a must read. It’s out of print unless you can find an old copy or one of the Wipf and Stock reprints or Amazon.

Ancient Orient and Old Testament.

{HT: BiblicalStudies.org.uk}

Jonathan Edwards, or How A Skinny Man Who Wore A Wig Is Radically Changing My World

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I recently picked up the 2 volume set of the complete works of Jonathan Edwards. Wow, has my life been rebuked! I’ve been reading his thoughts on Heaven…utterly mind boggling. I don’t even have categories for what he is saying. And I believe he’s right. If you can’t get a copy of this $50 set {I got mine because I sold a few of these at work and received a gift card} then let me point you to a message by Sam Storms called “Joy’s Eternal Increase: Edwards on the Beauty of Heaven” which was delivered at the Desiring God national conference in 2003- “A God-Entranced View of All Things: The Unrivaled Legacy of Jonathan Edwards.” Or, you can find it in the book or mp3s from the conference.

Maybe you’ll be interested in a book by Dr. Glenn Kreider “Jonathan Edwards’ Interpretation of Revelation 4:1-8:1.”

Or THE t-shirt…

Desiring God Day 2, Part 3

Sproul just wrapped up his last session. Wow. He was incredible. Everyone left with a massive reminder and weight of the depravity of our condition and the amazing grace of God as seen on the Cross in Jesus. I urge you all to listen to R.C.’s message if you can. He uses a great illustration in there about justice. Priceless.

Tomorrow William MacKenzie will speak, followed by a Q & A with all of the speakers {Dr. Sproul has to leave early, so he will be missed!}. The Q & A session is always a highlight of this conference because the speakers get to interact with each other and each other’s theology. And Piper usually pulls no punches!

On another note, I ran into an old high school friend who I have not spoken with in well over a year. Sankie Lynch is on staff at Grace Baptist Church in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. It was good to see him and we plan on some more fellowship this evening. This may be my last post until I return home. If any of you can ever make it, this conference is one you shouldn’t pass up. This was my 3rd year here, and it gets better every year. The Lord has been good!

Desiring God Day 2, Part 2

How should I describe today thus far? How about “drinking from the fire hydrant”? David Michael was great, Thabiti was incredible, R.C. was phenomenal, and Piper, was, well, as usual, Piper, which means he was awesome. Again, you can listen to the audio on the DG blog.

I had lunch with a fellow DTS alum, Mark Rubio. He used to frequent the Starbucks that I worked at and now he pastors a First Baptist Church in Forest Grove, Oregon. We “randomly” ran into each other when he asked me where the continental breakfast was located. I turned around and yet another God-ordained encounter! It was very encouraging to hear his story.

I should be having dinner/breakfast/lunch/coffee with Gunny, a DTS ALUM, friend, former prof of mine, pastor of Providence Church and the man behind the Semper Reformanda blog, along with Lance Ward, a fellow DTS alum and Senior Pastor at Rowlett Bible Fellowship.

More later…

Desiring God Day 2

Woke up at 5:30 this morning. Its snowing outside. There’s just something about seeing the snow and being in a large downtown metropolis. Makes me want to move downtown…

Day 2 here begins at the Desiring God Pastor’s Conference. I ran into 2 friends from seminary yesterday. Carlos Astorga and I {and our wives and kids} were in a spiritual formation class at seminary that lasted for 4 semesters. He is now Associate Pastor of Hispanic Ministies at Stonebriar Community Church.

I also ran into a good friend who was the Associate Pastor at the church I attended all through seminary. Russ Gaar is now the Senior Pastor at Grant Evangelical Free Church in Grant, Nebraska. We had a great time reconnecting yesterday. The Lord is really blessing his ministry and I couldn’t be happier for him.

So, day 2 looks promising:

Session Two: Thabiti Anyabwile- The Glory of Holiness in the Life of the Pastor

Thabiti Anyabwile is the senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman (Cayman Islands) and served previously as elder and assistant pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. Thabiti holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Psychology from North Carolina State University. He is the author of two forthcoming books: The Faithful Pastor: Recapturing the Visions of Three Pioneering Preachers (Crossway, 2007) and The Decline of African-American Theology: From Biblical Faithfulness to Cultural Captivity (IVP, 2007). A former high school basketball coach and bookstore owner, Thabiti loves reading, sports, and watching sci-fi films. He is married to Kristie and has two daughters. He also runs the Pure Church blog.

Session Three: R.C. Sproul- The Holiness of Christ

Session Four: John Piper- Holy Faith, Worthy Gospel, World Vision: Andrew Fuller’s Broadsides Against Sandemanianism, Hyper-Calvinism, and Global Unbelief

Session Five: R.C. Sproul- Holiness and Justice

I’m off to atend a special seminar with David Michael, Pastor for Parenting & Children’s Discipleship at Bethlehem Baptist Church. David and his wife Sally are passionate about children & seeing God-centered children’s ministries. If you have not heard this couple, then you must. They also host the Children Desiring God conference each year. David will be speaking this morning on “A Vision for the Next Generation: The Pastor’s Role in Children’s Ministry.”

Again, the audio as well as a summary of Dr. Sproul’s message last night is available at the DG blog. I’ll post more later today…

Desiring God Day 1, Part 2

Wow. Here is how Dr. Piper began the evening, just prior to worship/singing {I’m paraphrasing}:

“We will hear tonight about the holiness of God. I could read from a passage that you are all familiar with: Isaiah 6. However, I will read out of Nehemiah {chapter 8:9-12}. This is a time to feast. We live in between the tensions of God’s holiness on one hand and our desire to be satisfied on the other. We live between the tension of fearing God and feasting on God. Tonight we have come to fear and feast. And the only way that we can do that, that we can dare come into His presence is because of Jesus. So come and feast from our holy God.”

I’m not doing Piper justice, but that’s it in a nutshell. What a way to start the evening! The music, as usual, was incredible. Chuck Steddom is my favorite worship leader. Multi-cultural worship encompassing every style, tradition, tribe, tongue, etc. He may have a job in Heaven leading the nations in worship! Superb.

R.C. Sproul delivered, as expected. He started by mentioning that we serve the God who is. Not the God of our imagination. You can hear the rest on the DG blog. I saw Abraham Piper on the elevator 15 minutes ago and he said he was going up to his room to put the audio online. You can hear all of Sproul’s message there. Feast, brothers, feast…

Desiring God Day 1

Just registered for the conference. In past years, DG has kindly given away a book or two {sometimes one of Piper’s} in the registration/information/gift bag that you receive upon registration. This year they have outdone themselves. Here’s what caused a shoulder strain as I picked up my gift bag. These books were “weight-ing” on me:

Mission Minded by Peter Bolt

Leading With Love by Alexander Strauch

One With A Shepherd by Mary Somerville

The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification by Walter Marshall

Judges: Such A Great Salvation by Dale Ralph Davis

Meet the Puritans by Joel R. Beeke & Randall J. Pederson

Seeking Him: Experiencing the Joy of Personal Revival by Nancy Leigh DeMoss & Tim Grissom

I am grateful for the books. This conference gets better every year and it looks like this year’s will be too. Dr. Sproul will be speaking tonight on “The Holiness of God.” I’ll post more later tonight…

Chillin’ {Pun Intended} In Minneapolis…

Its 9:17 A.M. and I am sitting in a Panera in Minneapolis, MN. Across the table from me is Ross Strader of the Charcoal Fires blog fame. Our Macs are staring each other down like a game of Battleship. We are attending the Desiring God Pastor’s Conference. Speakers will include John Piper, R.C. Sproul, Thabiti Anyabwile, William Mackenzie. The audio of each session is suppposed to be available an hour after it has been delivered, according to the DG blog.

Its -15 degrees here with a windchill of -30 degrees. Its COLD!!!

We might do some live-blogging during the sessions. We’ll see…