This past Sunday I introduced the passage of study with a quotation from N. D. Wilson about how life gets progressively more and more difficult, regardless of how much you have actually matured. It seemed to capture the essence of Israel's sudden battle with the Amalekites. Ready or not, battle was thrust upon them. And …
I have little more than 100 pages left to read before finishing John Piper’s Providence, and it has been a truly profound book. The great value of John Piper’s ministry (sort of like John MacArthur’s ministry) is that even if you disagree with him, his reasoning is so rooted in Scripture that your knowledge of …
As I’ve noted previously, I am taking up Spurgeon’s recommendation for ministers to read through Matthew Henry’s commentaries. Thus far, I have not been disappointed. Henry’s explanation of the text is certainly valuable, but his nuggets of application are where he really shines. Below is a sampling of some of those gems taken from his …
In the introduction to Ford Lewis Battles' translation of John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, the role of piety in Calvin's thinking is briefly described. One who takes up Calvin’s masterpiece with the preconception that its author’s mind is a kind of efficient factory turning out and assembling the parts of a neatly jointed …
You may have noticed that Sunday's sermon had significantly less quotations than normal. That is because I ended up going in a different direction with the sermon than I typically do. Rather than focusing upon the centurion, the women, and Joseph in detail, I decided to largely focus on the three together as example of …
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3ijw3CIF4gUiskSIZyGwDw?si=5x1-rkEWR2qqHe613mmsoA For my latest pass through Be Thou My Vision, I have been reading a chapter of The Preacher's Catechism by Lewis Allen. Each of the forty-two chapters provides a question and answer, a verse or passage of Scripture, and some explanation, encouragement, and exhortation from Allen. Yesterday morning, I read chapter 7, which gives …
Recently, Banner of Truth released the completed three-volume set of John Calvin's sermons on the book of Job. Freshly translated by Rob Roy McGregor, the first two volumes are reprinted from earlier publication and released alongside the newly published third volume. Since Calvin is one of my dearest of study companions as well as a …
Recently, the men of our church have begun to read R. Kent Hughes’ The Disciplines of a Godly Man. Nearly halfway through, it is already a book that I cannot recommend highly enough. The following quotation comes from his chapter on the discipline of the mind. I am aware of the wise warnings against using …
Francis Grimke's Meditations on Preaching was one of the many books given away at Together for the Gospel that I came returned home with. For the last couple of months, it has occupied a place on my desk from whence I grab it once a week or so to read a couple pages before beginning …
Continue reading The True Mission of the Church | Francis Grimke
I recently read the second essay compiled in the book, The Weight of Glory, by C. S. Lewis. The first essay from which the book was named is worth the purchase alone, which is exactly what I did. Yet I finally ventured beyond that initial writing and read the essay titled, "Learning in War-Time." It …
Continue reading What’s the Point? | C. S. Lewis on Learning in Wartime
B. C. Newton 