by: John Park, October 30th, 2009
Sovereign Grace Ministries is having a drawing in which you can enter to win a free ESV Study Bible! Below are some of the stipulations of being entered into the drawing:
Since the Study Bible was created to serve the church, this giveaway is built around highlighting God’s grace in your particular local church. We want to hear from you about what God is doing. To enter the drawing, just write a note describing what you most appreciate about your pastor or your local church.
Email this note to us and—voilà—you are entered in the drawing.
RULES—
• The deadline for submission is 11pm on Wednesday night, November 4.
• Entries must be at least three sentences but no longer than a page.
• Include your first name, last initial, hometown, and the name of your church.
• Please submit one entry per person.
• Email those entries to blog AT sovgracemin DOT org with the subject line: ESVSB entry.
OTHER FINE PRINT—
• We’ll only ship the Bibles to addresses in the United States or Canada.
• If we like your entry a lot, we might post it (or part of it) online.
• Winners will be selected at random and announced on the blog on Friday (Nov. 6).
• We’ll appreciate it if you reference a Bible verse to frame your entry, but it’s not necessary and won’t affect your odds of winning.
Also, they have a list of several different designs to choose from, as well, if you win. But even if you don’t win… or even if you don’t enter this drawing, I would most definitely recommend this Bible.
Here’s a link to the blog post on Sovereign Grace Ministries’ website.
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by: John Park, October 28th, 2009
Came across this post on Tim Challie’s blog. It’s part one of an ongoing series on the theology of sex. Despite the possibly misleading title, he notes very clearly that he wants “to speak especially to young men, those who are teenagers or dating or engaged or newly married.” Here’s a quick excerpt from it:
My great concern with young men today (which is really more a concern for their young wives) is that they may perhaps inadvertently or perhaps intentionally pornify the marriage bed. They may bring impurity to the pure, selfishness to the selfless. Having given themselves over to pornography, they have had their whole perception of sexuality altered, shaped by professional pornographers. They may be imposing on their young brides the impossible expectation of a porn star. With the vast majority of young men having been exposed to pornography (at least 90% according to recent studies), with a large percentage of them having been addicted to it and with many enjoying it still as they enter into marriage, they need to have their understanding and their expectations reset according to the One who created sex.
Many young men need a kind of sexual detox before they are equipped to be the kind of pure, loving, attentive, sacrificial husbands that God calls them to be. In this series of articles I hope to help young men reorient their understanding of sex, both in the big picture and in the act itself, according to God’s plan for this great gift.
Again, here’s the article in its entirety.
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by: John Park, October 27th, 2009
One of the things that I’m consistently confronted with in my conversations with people is the question, “How exactly, am I supposed to read the Bible?” John Piper, in his latest blog post on his website articulates in an embarrassingly better way than I ever did (or ever will) what is “One of the Most Important Principles in Reading the Bible.” Here’s a quick excerpt from it. He says this:
This is one of the most basic things people need to see about the Bible. It is full of conditions we must meet for God’s blessings. But God does not leave us to meet them on our own. The first and decisive work before and in our willing is God’s prior grace. Without this insight, hundreds of conditional statements in the Bible will lead us astray.
Amen and amen. This is exactly what I’ve failed to see my whole life before the Gospel took root in my heart, namely, that my whole life has been about trying to meet those conditions by my own abilities (i.e. “Just read the Bible as many times as you can, and then you’ll receive [fill in the blank] or “Just pray a lot and then, you’ll receive [fill in the blank]).
Oh how wrong I’ve been. The first step to “growth” is to recognize that no matter how hard I try, I can’t meet those conditional statements, but thank God for Jesus Christ that he has met all of those conditions for me on the cross (2 Corinthians 5:21). And now, in light of that Truth, out of a sense of grateful joy, I want to, by the grace of God, pursue those conditions.
Again, here’s the link to the full article.
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by: John Park, October 22nd, 2009
Recently, our high school group has been going over a 9-week study put out by World Harvest Mission called The Gospel-Centered Life. I have seen God do amazing things through this study as I’m beginning to see the Gospel begin to take root in some of the high school guys in a powerful way.
What I see are the faces of some of these guys literally light up as some as the Truth of the Gospel sinks into their hearts and minds. I would highly recommend it. However, the reason I am writing this particular post is because this study has been helping me see, often in very painful ways, how much more I am in need for the truth of the Gospel to take root in my own life.
For instance, this week, one of the things I noticed in myself was that I was just completely sapped of energy and didn’t have the usual enthusiasm for sharing the Gospel with people as I did the weeks before when, then, I felt as though if I died telling someone of the Gospel, I would die a happy man.
What the Holy Spirit revealed to me this morning (thus inspiring this entry) was that the reason why my emotions were so unstable as of late was because my sense of righteousness (being in a right standing with God) was not based on what Christ did on the cross for me, but my “good” actions. In other words, the last couple of weeks I was “happy” (if I can even use that word) because I thought God was pleased by me doing what He wanted me to do, and subsequently not doing what He didn’t wanted me to do.
But this past weekend, when I was reminded, yet again, of my whorish tendencies (see Judges 2:16-17) to bow down to other gods for my sense of dignity, value, and significance, I felt like crap. Why? Because I was basing my righteousness (God being pleased with me) not on what Christ did for me on the cross, but on my performance.
What the study helped me to realize is that God is pleased with me no matter what (Hebrews 10:14). That, in fact, by one sacrifice, He perfected me. However, the reason He’s pleased with me isn’t because of anything that I do or don’t do (because if it was, then we’re all screwed). But rather, He is pleased with me because of what Christ already did. And according to Galatians 2:20, because now Christ is living in me, when God looks down at me, He is pleased.
Thank you, Jesus for the cross. Thank you that you did for me what I could never do for myself.
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by: John Park, October 21st, 2009
At the risk of people thinking that I have some crazy man-crush on Tim Keller, I felt that that I had to post one more up. On theResurgence, they put a post that said that Tim Keller had 150 free sermons and lectures up online, categorized, labeled and available for download.
And sure enough, when I clicked the link to Redeemer’s sermon store, there it was, 150 free sermons and lectures neatly and conveniently categorized in the following subheadings: (1) Discovery, (2) Growth, and (3) Mission.
If you don’t know who Tim Keller is, repent, and read up on him in a few other articles that theResurgence wrote about him:
More Tim Keller content on the Resurgence:
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