“The Christian really has a double task.
He has to practice both God’s holiness and God’s love. The Christian is to exhibit that God exists as the infinite-personal God; and then he is to exhibit simultaneously God’s character of holiness and love.
Not His holiness without His love: this is only harshness.
Not His love without His holiness: that is only compromise.
Anything that an individual Christian or Christian group does that fails to show the simultaneous balance of the holiness of God and the love of God presents to a watching world not a demonstration of the God who exists but a caricature of the God who exists.” (Francis Schaeffer, The Mark of Love)
by Stephen Rodgers
Alright, hopefully you all managed to 1) get through a weekend without my incredibly weekly links, and 2) survive Satan’s Birthday April Fool’s Day. So…here we go! Like last time, I’ll be experimenting with letting the various sites and resources provide their own blurbs, and put my own thoughts in italics.
Taking God at His Word by Kevin DeYoung (free audio book)
“It serves as a comprehensive and comprehensible introduction to a classic, orthodox doctrine of Scripture for the average man or woman in the pew, helping Christians across the globe gain confidence that the Bible really is knowable, necessary, and enough.”
Seriously, reading anything DeYoung writes is probably a better use of your time than whatever else you had planned. Get this.
On the Incarnation of the Word of God by Athanasius of Alexandria (free Logos book)
“Written just before the rise of Arianism in AD 319, On the Incarnation of the Word of God is the best-known work of Athanasius of Alexandria and a pillar of the doctrine of the Incarnation and the divinity of Jesus. Addressed to a recent Christian convert, this text demonstrates Athanasius’ intellectual acumen and biblical wisdom. This edition contains a scholarly introduction with a thorough outline of Athanasius’ arguments and points.”
I’ve spoken about this particular book in both my Cults & World Religions class and my Church History class, because it is just that good. Athanasius absolutely devastates the Arian view, and his arguments still are extremely effective against groups that hold to that position (e.g. Jehovah’s Witnesses).
April Edition of Tabletalk: Islam (free devotional resource)
“The April issue of Tabletalk considers Islam. Since originating in Arabia during the seventh century, Islam has expanded around the globe. Some estimates identify as much as twenty-three percent of the world’s population as being Muslim. Christianity has a long history of encountering and engaging Islam, whether through evangelization, military crusades, or even living under Islamic rule. In the modern era, many nations identify as Islamic, and Islam is growing in the West. To add, Islamic terrorism is a major force today. This issue of Tabletalk considers Islam’s history, our present circumstances, how Islam and Christianity relate to one another, and how Christians can share the gospel with Muslims.”
Again, this is a timely and helpful resource.
The Ligonier Statement on Christology (website)
So this is interesting. Athanasius certainly got their first, but this is a helpful little resource by the folks at Ligonier. Honestly, the statement itself is a bit fancy in terms of it’s presentation, because it’s a callback to the creeds and confessional statements of history. But you’ll get a lot of mileage out of the Affirmations page, so be sure to go over that carefully.
Credo Magazine: “Preach the World: Preachers Who Changed the World” (free PDF)
“In this issue of Credo Magazine we aim to help pastors and churchgoers alike recover a love for Bible-preaching. Several contemporary pastors explain what expositional preaching is, why it matters so much, and how churches today can recover the expository sermon in the pulpit. Other contributions take us back in time to those preachers God used in extraordinary ways. By looking to the ministries of men like Spurgeon, Augustine, Edwards, Lloyd-Jones, and others, we desire to see their preaching influence our own. Imitation is not the goal; we rather crave their commitment to expounding the scriptures and pray God’s people would as well.”
Shepherds’ Conference 2016 (free audio and video)
Last but not least, it seems like the majority of the sessions for the 2016 SC are up now, so if you wanted to add these to your list of sermons to listen to / watch, this would be the time! I caught the first general session on their livestream, but am looking forward to hearing the rest.