Finished reading: Faithful and Fruitful: Essays for Elders and Deacons. Straightforward essays on a wide range of special topics including pastoral review, hospitality, and avoiding burnout. 📚
Reformed Evangelism: “the promise of the gospel…together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be declared and published to all nations and to all persons promiscuously and without distinction, to whom God out of His good pleasure sends the gospel.” (CoD II:5.)
When John Calvin helped with the refugee crisis in Geneva, he was thinking about people made in the image of God. Learn more in this good article by Chris Woznicki and Jesse Gentile. § Twtr: @CWoznicki @JesseGentile
🎵 Listening to Hank this AM… I Heard My Mother Praying for Me
Imitating the Trinity as Trinity is not a biblical way of talking. We are told to imitate God the Father in his relationship to humanity; to be imitators of God as beloved children; to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect (sending his rain on the just and the unjust). But most of the equipment of trinitarian theology points to ways in which God differs from us, not ways in which God is like us.
Following up on my sermon today from 1 Corinthians 5, here’s a good article by Carl Trueman that’s worth your time: Discipline, Dirty Hands, and the Silent Abolition of Christianity.
If you need a study Bible for older kids, mine like using the ESV Student Study Bible. It’s a good all-around study Bible, especially for jr high and high schoolers.
Being especially charming isn’t necessarily terrible for pastoral ministry, but it isn’t necessary either. Read more at 9marks.org.