- How Pastors Can Care For Their Children (Chap Bettis)
- Why Nature is Necessary (Doug Wilson)
- Fred Phelps and the Anti-Gospel of Hate – A Necessary Word (Al Mohler)
- Diligent in Studying the Scriptures (D. Martin Lloyd-Jones)
How Pastors Can Care For Their Children
Chap Bettis gives some great advice for the unique challenges
that face a pastor’s family when raising children.
1. Think long-term
2. Be intentional
about your children's behavior on Sundays
3. Praise your
congregation to your children
4. Don't talk about
church conflicts in the hearing of your children
5. Train and deploy
the elder team
6. Focus on the
heart
7. Guard your
special family times
“Pastors, someday your
young children will be adults. From what they see at home, would they say you
love Jesus? Would they say you love them?”
Why Nature is Necessary
Doug Wilson's articles are always full of insight and never
lacking in wit. This one in reaction to the
news that on Friday a federal judge ruled that Michigan's prohibition on
same-sex marriage violates the U.S. Constitution.
“Nature was intended
to be tended. Adam was placed in an untended garden that was entirely natural,
and he was commanded to make it more like itself.”
“ The cultural mandate
is not authorization for environmental rape. At the same time, rape of nature
is a possibility. That category does exist. It is just that the people who are
most likely to chatter on about it have no earthly idea of what they are
talking about. “
“… nature speaks everywhere, including in the heart of every man, woman, and child. God speaks through nature in the galaxies, in the buttercups, and under the breastbone of every proud atheist.”
Fred Phelps and the Anti-Gospel of Hate – A Necessary Word
A necessary word from Al Mohler on one of the most divisive
and (unfortunately) public religious media figures: Fred Phelps.
“Thus brings to an end
one of most bitters lives in modern history — and one of the most harmful to
the Gospel.”
“He (Fred Phelps) single-handedly
committed incalculable damage by presenting an enormous obstacle to the
faithful teaching of the gospel. He made the job of every Christian more
difficult in telling the truth about homosexuality as a sin and in declaring
the good news of the gospel that Christ saves sinners.”
“We must be very clear
about the fact that Fred Phelps’ sin was not that he said that sin is sin.
That’s an essential task of every biblical Christian. It was that he seemed to
celebrate the sinfulness of sin rather than be brokenhearted over it, and he
never saw it as the opportunity — without skipping a breath — to get right to
the declaration of the promise of salvation and forgiveness of sins in Jesus
Christ.”
Diligent in Studying the Scriptures
A solid word by the late D. Martin Lloyd-Jones.
“There is no doubt but that the most unhappy and discouraged
Christians today are those who do not exercise their senses with respect to
this Word of God.”
“We do not sit back
and ‘just look to Jesus’ to do it all for us. That is a false doctrine: I do
not hesitate to use such a term. We must exercise our senses, we must build
ourselves up in our most holy faith. It will not happen to us automatically;
there are no shortcuts in the Christian life. If you want to build yourself up,
exercise yourself in the Scriptures.”
