Amazing What Human Beings Are Able to Create

A bit from the Batman musical score, by Hans Zimmer.

Where the Gospel Takes Us

Thank you, Tullian. I have affection for you, across the miles.

Theology for Life

Thrilling to see the new theological education web platform uniontheology.org, which has just launched and is being overseen by our brother Mike Reeves of WEST. Get to know Mike a bit through this 9Marks interview, back when he was head of theology at UCCF.

I had the privilege of contributing to the new platform a short piece on Jonathan Edwards' view of sanctification. Though I was invited to do it last year, in rereading it I was struck by how relevant the essay is for current confusion and discussions about how Christians grow. I hope it helps people. We have so, so much to learn from Edwards and the great saints who have gone before. How impoverishing to neglect church history. 

A fuller enjoyment of Edwards' theology of Christian living will be released in August by my favorite publisher (who also very kindly provides my paychecks). More on that later. I mention it now to say that if you find help in the essay you may want to consider ordering the book and thereby supporting said publisher!

Here is a compelling articulation from Mike on the need and vision for Union.

God's Global Purposes

John Piper recently visited Immanuel Nashville and spoke twice for the Immanuel Theology Group and did a brief Q&A.

John Piper Session 1 - ITG January 2014 from Immanuel Nashville on Vimeo.

John Piper Session 2 - ITG January 2014 from Immanuel Nashville on Vimeo.

John Piper Session QA - ITG January 2014 from Immanuel Nashville on Vimeo.

An Inexpensive Way to Deal with Your Rabbit Problem

Remember Your Leaders

Francis Schaeffer died thirty years ago today. If you are an evangelical Christian born after he died, you may know nothing about him, maybe never even heard of him. But you owe him far more than you know.

For me, I know of no other modern leader in whom was so beautifully manifest the blend of thinking faith and real-time dependence on the Holy Spirit.

Grumpiness

Maybe you don't vent--you just stew. A leaking, low-level irritability is a great temptation on a journey of love. You feel you have the right to be moody--you've earned it. It is a way of exacting emotional payment from a disappointing life. Grumpiness provides momentary relief, but it always involves a splitting of the self. I commit outwardly, with my hands, but not with my heart. I go through the motions of love, but anger smolders just below the surface like a simmering rant. . . . The result? I'm split. My will has slipped off the tracks of quiet surrender to the Master, and I'm just going through the motions. Life ceases to be fun. If left unchecked, my inner moodiness begins to distort my heart, and I can slip into cynicism, which begins a downward trajectory into bitterness.

Self-pity, compassion turned inward, drives this inward spiral. Instead of reflecting on the wounds of Christ, I nurse my own wounds. . . . But self-pity is just another form of self-righteousness, and like all self-righteousness it isolates and elevates. . . .

The cure for a cranky soul begins by repenting, by realizing that my moodiness is a demand that my life have a certain shape. Surrendering to the life that my Father has given me always puts me under the shelter of his wings. That leaves me whole again, and surprisingly cheerful. 

--Paul E. Miller, A Loving Life: In a World of Broken Relationships (Crossway, 2014), 109-10