Do you want a more effective ministry to your community? Then read your local newspaper. I subscribe to four newspapers: The Yazoo Herald, The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson), The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. By far the most important is the The Yazoo Herald. Here’s why: My church worships and serves in a community. Like all churches, my congregation represents only a slice of the community’s population. If my only interest is the people in my congregation, I lose sight of my neighbors, and that hardly squares with the admonition to love my neighbor. The local paper brings me back to the people and institutions that shape my city. What do I look for in the paper? Government officials. I have a responsibility to pray for them…
Read More“Wherever Christ is welcome, he expects that his disciples should be welcome too. When we take God for our God, we take his people for our people.” – Matthew Henry on Matthew 26:18
Read MoreWherever The Spirit of Christ Is
Wherever the Spirit of Christ is, He . . . Reveals Christ to the understanding, Enthrones Christ in the affections, Gives Christ the control of the will, Endears Christ to the heart, Glorifies Christ in the soul, and Conforms the person to the lovely likeness of Christ. – James Smith (1802-1862) In Mark Jones, Knowing Christ (Banner of Truth, 2015), 61.
Read MoreFor the next nine weeks, Lynne teaches again one of her favorite books, The Iliad, this time at Manchester Academy. I enjoy the new purchases that crop up around our home. I owe my love of The Iliad to one man, Dr. John Reishman, one of the outstanding literature professors at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Until his class, I don’t recall reading a work of ancient Greek literature, and, had I made the attempt, the ability to navigate the text would have been sorely lacking. I needed a teacher, and found one in Dr. Reishman. Since then, I have read The Iliad several times in the translations of Fitzgerald, Lattimore, and Fagles, and a very small portion…
Read More“Retirement” is not in my Uncle John’s vocabulary. At age 90, he is the visiting pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Ripley, TN and is in Chapter 5 of his Romans series. You can listen to him twice a week on the local radio station. I am thankful for his testimony and example. Ordained in 1951, Uncle John joined the PCA in 1974. What a joy to catch up with him last weekend at the wedding of Megan Joy Wingard and Timothy Stern!
Read More“Sometimes truth is lost first in a church, and then holiness, and sometimes the decay or hatred of holiness is the cause of the loss of truth; but where either is rejected, the other will not abide.” – John Owen, The Works of John Owen (ed. William H. Goold; vol. 7; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d.), 199.
Read More“For a minister to preach the word without constant prayer for its success is a likely means to cherish and strengthen secret atheism in his own heart, and very unlikely to work holiness in the lives of others.” – John Owen, The Works of John Owen (ed. William H. Goold; vol. 7; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d.), 190.
Read More“Gospel truth is the only root whereon gospel holiness will grow.” – John Owen, The Works of John Owen (ed. William H. Goold; vol. 7; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d.), 188.
Read MoreMy father established a nightly routine for me that continues to shape my life today. After supper from 1963 to 1969, we sat side-by-side on the couch and watched the evening news, either the Huntley-Brinkley Report or Walter Cronkite. During those years, I was exposed to people and events that would remain life-long interests: the space program (I loved watching the Mercury and Gemini launches), the war in Vietnam (with its tragic tallies of killed, wounded, and missing), political races (the first I remember is the 1966 Callaway/Maddox Georgia gubernatorial contest), and the civil rights movement. I was sitting next to my father when I learned of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in April 1968. The Atlanta church we…
Read MoreLynne and I were so impressed with this interview that we ordered an audio copy of The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis – and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance to listen to during our summer travels. Sen. Sasse discusses the tools, work ethic, and mental toughness young people will need to succeed in today’s dynamic work environment. The seven-minute clip is a part of an extended interview on BookTV. If I prepared a 2017 summer reading list for parents, this book would be at the top.
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