Here’s a pile essays from Reformed and Puritan authors, such as William Bridge, C.H. Spurgeon, J.C. Ryle, and John Owen. These are types of things you could see printed in small paperbacks, pamphlets almost, with great depth of thought beneath the cheap cover.
Category Archives: Religion
Good Company
Hating Your Brother
I was born and raised in the South. I’m glad to be a Southern. I think y’all is a great word–not a stupid slang term like you’uns. The literature of the South is better than it is everywhere else. But I hate stories like this:
[Dad] must have been about thirty years old at the time, a young man, sitting in that room with all his elders, trying to be respectful. But finally he said, “This church doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to Jesus Christ. And I don’t think he would keep anyone from joining because of their skin color.” And the man who had chaired the search committee looked at my dad and said, “Son, I don’t know what kind of religion they taught you in seminary, but we’ve only got one kind of religion here, and it’s that good old Southern religion.”
Pastor Jim Somerville writes about his father’s brief stint as a pastor of a Presbyterian church in Alabama sometime in the ’70s. How could so many goats fill the churches in southern states back then? What blindness do we have today, if lies like racism can live freely among God’s people at any given time?
The Friday Fight: Apollyon
“Whilst Christian is among his godly friends,
Their golden mouths make him sufficient mends
For all his griefs; and when they let him go,
He’s clad with northern steel from top to toe.”
But now, in this valley of Humiliation, poor Christian was hard put to it; for he had gone but a little way before he espied a foul fiend coming over the field to meet him: his name is Apollyon.
(Artist Justin Gerard did some fantastic work on Pilgrim’s Progress, but the illustrations are no longer online. You can view his work on his website, Gallery Gerard.)
Then did Christian begin to be afraid, and to cast in his mind whether to go back, or to stand his ground. But he considered again, that he had no armor for his back, and therefore thought that to turn the back to him might give him greater advantage with ease to pierce him with his darts; therefore he resolved to venture and stand his ground: for, thought he, had I no more in mine eye than the saving of my life, it would be the best way to stand.
So he went on, and Apollyon met him. Now the monster was hideous to behold: he was clothed with scales like a fish, and they are his pride; he had wings like a dragon, and feet like a bear, and out of his belly came fire and smoke; and his mouth was as the mouth of a lion. When he was come up to Christian, he beheld him with a disdainful countenance, and thus began to question him. Continue reading The Friday Fight: Apollyon
More Free Books
For March only, Donald Whitney’s great book, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, is available in audio from Christianaudio.com for free. You have to go through a normal check out and use a coupon code at the end to download it in seven mp3s. This book is very strong. If you haven’t read it and wouldn’t mind listening through it, you can pull it down now. See the author’s home page for details.
Also, I have neglected to tell you about a book on 1 Corinthians 13 by my pastor. It’s call The Most Excellent Way, and I recommend it to you–especially if your Pentecostal.
iMonk Projects Evangelical Collapse
The Internet Monk, who is not a Lutheran for those of you in doubt, has a commentary in the Christian Science Monitor called, “The coming evangelical collapse.” The article is condensed from three posts available here. He opens by saying:
I believe that we are on the verge- within 10 years- of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity; a collapse that will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and that will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West. I believe this evangelical collapse will happen with astonishing statistical speed; that within two generations of where we are now evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its current occupants, leaving in its wake nothing that can revitalize evangelicals to their former “glory.”
To the extent that such a collapse makes evangelicals look less like Joel Osteen and more like Tony Evans, this could be very good. But it ain’t necessarily going to happen.
On stopping swords, with swords
This will have to be a short post. My new publisher is finally calling on me for input in getting my book put together, so I can’t give my topic the word count it deserves.
But here’s tonight’s Provocative Thesis™:
All liberals are Christians.
Even if they’re atheists. Even if they’re Jewish or Buddhist or New Age or “Spiritual, Not Religious.”
They’re Christian heretics, but they’re Christian heretics. Continue reading On stopping swords, with swords
The church Mark Twain built?
One of the oddest stories of the day comes from Nevada. The Reno City Supervisors, apparently, want to spend money to preserve its First Presbyterian Church. Their reason for this is that Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) helped to raise money to build it, during his 3-year sojourn in the state. (Apparently he participated as a favor to his brother, who was a member.) “Americans United for Separation of Church and State” objects.
Considering Mark Twain’s well-known views on religion, the whole story is kind of surreal. Like preserving a historically black church in memory of George Wallace or something.
Going out and playing with God
One of the recurring irritations of my life has been one of my brothers. This brother, from an early age, made it his constant purpose to try to get me to go outside and do stuff.
My idea of a good time is to stay in the house with a book. A house to be inside of, a good book, and chocolate are about all I need for perfect contentedness.
This was, naturally, highly frustrating for my brother, who loved the outdoors and wanted somebody to play with, but was stuck with me for a sibling. As a playmate I left much to be desired. Experience had taught me that if I yielded to his importunities, the result would be 1) some game in which he’d beat me, and then, 2) a fight in which he would beat me again. This was a programme whose charm wore off at a pretty early stage.
For my brother, of course, as a normal human being, going outside and playing was a good thing in itself. My refusal to help him out with that was a major frustration in his young life. Continue reading Going out and playing with God
Ash Wednesday thoughts
Over at Patrick O’Hannigan’s The Paragraph Farmer, he quotes Peter Kreeft’s response to the question: “But is not God a lover rather than a warrior?”
A: No, God is a lover who is a warrior. The question fails to understand what love is — what the love that God is, is. Love is at war with hate, betrayal, selfishness, and all love’s enemies. Love fights. Ask any parent. Yuppie-love, like puppy-love, may be merely “compassion” (the fashionable word today), but father-love and mother-love are war.
Read the whole thing. It’s not long.
In a somewhat related vein, I had reason to consult one of Sigrid Undset’s novels today (The Axe, the first novel of her less-famous tetralogy, The Master of Hestviken, which the author preferred to the more famous Kristin Lavransdatter, and I think I agree). Here’s a speech from one character:
“It is an easy matter, Olav, to be a good Christian so long as God asks no more of you than to hear sweet singing in church, and to yield Him obedience while He caresses you with the hand of a father. But a man’s faith is put to the test on the day God’s will is not his. But now I will tell you what Bishop Torfinn said to me one day—it was of you and your suit we were speaking. ‘God grant,’ he said, ‘that he may learn to understand in time that whoso is minded to do as he himself wills will soon enough see the day when he will find he has done that which he had never willed.’”
Olav looked earnestly before him. Then he nodded. “Aye. That is true. I know it.”