Pure Church

We're a homeschool family. I had a good laugh at the parody here. Good parody builds on a germ of truth, doesn't it?

A sister in the church sent this to me; thought I'd share.

with a little help from Daryl Coley, "To Live Is Christ."



Titus, my 3-year-old son, walked in and asked, "What's that song?"

He had more interest than usual as he walked over to my laptop screen. Smiling he said, "That sounds like Jonah!" (of Veggie Tales' Jonah fame).



Guess different people prepare to different stuff!

JT posts a great video conversation between Bob Kauflin and David Powlison on the intersection between counseling and worship.

Thanks Kevin DeYoung

There are Friday Funnies at GirlTalk.

Kevin DeYoung devotes Mondays to starting with a laugh.

But who makes you laugh on Tuesdays?

Today, it's comedian Michael, Jr. for me. Check him out...

Jesus' lil' brother



Father Abraham




Related Posts:
One of the Funniest Pastors I Know on Humor in the Pulpit
How to Fill Your Church with False Converts

This is a video clip from Cone's appearance at Tavis Smiley's State of the Black Union a few years back. I can agree with some of Cone's critique of the predominantly African-American (and for that matter, American0 church, but notice the distortions. How many can you count in this 7-minute clip?



And it's the stuff that he almost gets right that is the most poisonous and dangerous. Can anybody seriously maintain that this man, a professor of systematic theology, inadvertently misquoted Matthew 16:25 at the end of his comments? What he distorts is so critical to understanding everything that the misquote is sinister.

The Buzzard Blog is circling prey again. This time he's giving some good thoughts in "3 Truths That Change Your Life."

Fifteen Years of Faithfulness. It was a great treat to join the saints at CHBC this weekend to celebrate Mark Dever's 15th year at the church and to give God thanks for all He has done there in that time. God in His kindness has sent 27 pastors to at least five countries from CHBC in 15 years. That's not counting all the interns and staff persons who are faithfully serving in other ways. May the Lord greatly magnify Himself with more fruit and make all our ministries as fruitful in their own right. Here's a post and video from one member. (HT: Gospel Coalition)

Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War. A very funny, insightful, and educational look at the Confederate subculture of the South. Also a decent overview of some Civil War facts and fiction. I thought the war was over, but apparently it's still being fought in some quarters. The title suggests the book might be mocking, but it turns out to be a rather warm outsiders (author Tony Horowitz is Jewish) look into what's inside things like Civil War re-enactments, Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy, and other such things. Very good read, including some provocative concluding chapters examining the current state of "race" relations in Civil War and Civil Rights battleground states.

Fifty pounds and 20 years ago... when I was in my prime... I still couldn't do this... not even close! Impressive.

HT: Z

Jim Packer and Martin Lloyd-Jones were the first two Christian authors I read as a new Christian. Packer's Knowing God and Lloyd-Jones' Great Doctrines of the Bible were formative right out of the gate. Recently, I finished Murray's two-volume biography on Lloyd-Jones and learned quite a bit more about these two men, their friendship, and their parting over the future of British evangelicalism.

We should despise stereotype, slander, and prejudice wherever we find it. I hesitate to post this only because I don't want more people to watch it. But since it's on national television, I guess my not posting it want stop the spread of hate disguised as comedy.

But here's the Quizno's hot tub commercial. As a fellow human being and empathetic southerner, the "hillbilly is stupid" approach is... well... stupid. I find it offensive. What about you?



Related Posts:
One More in the Coffin of "Race"
Another Reason "Race" Makes No Sense
Mark Noll Lectures on Race, Religion and American Politics
Talking to Children About "Race"
Thabiti's Top Ten Tips for Talking About "Race"

I profit so much from this brother's teaching! And I'm deeply grateful to God for him. The first minute or so on longing for the kingdom is moving (HT: Challies).

My man Stephen sent me a link to this video. Enjoy:

HT: Reformation Theology

Sovereign Grace from Sovereign Grace Ministries on Vimeo.

HT: Z



Damning people to hell with what they love as fallen people.

That's a pretty good summary of the 'prosperity gospel,' which is not the gospel at all. The appeal to the carnal desires of men (wealth, ownership, influence, etc.) as the basis, evidence, and goal of worship of God is, to put it mildly, soul destroying.

Now, a caveat. This is not to say there are not Christians involved in churches and sitting under preachers committed to the 'prosperity gospel.' There are. They trust Christ alone for their salvation. They love Him and they seek to serve Him.

Yet, they may not see how egregious an error the 'prosperity gospel' is. There is so much in the Scripture about blessings and about God's good gifts to His people. There is so much in the Bible about what is good and beautiful in life.

But the 'prosperity gospel' makes at least three critical mistakes that may not be easily discerned by a person regularly sitting under this teaching looking into a Bible that contains so much about God's blessings.

1. The 'prosperity gospel' makes wealth and possessions a part of the gospel. In other words, it teaches that Christ's work includes and purchases prosperity for His people, and defines that prosperity chiefly in terms of things in this life. That's a different 'gospel' (Gal. 1:1-9). It can not save. It says, "Come to Jesus to get your life in order" (the moralist prosperity gospel in so many 'evangelical' churches), or "Come to Jesus and you will have houses and lands and money in this life, now" (the materialist prosperity gospel variety taught by so many word-of-faith televangelists and their wanna-be followers). But the biblical gospel is "Turn to Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, to be reconciled to the True God, to escape the wrath to come, and live eternally in His love." That's good news and precious treasure whether or not we ever find wealth, comfort, ease, or get our lives in some moralistic order. The 'prosperity gospel' displaces this good news with a lesser news, "free stuff."

2. The 'prosperity gospel' mistakenly assumes that because something is mentioned a lot in the Bible it must be the main point of the Bible. That's a serious mistake. My wife and I talk a lot about bills that need to be paid. We have our entire marriage, from the time were were broke college students each working two jobs to just last week when thinking about vacation and the kids' back-to-school needs. We communicate about money. But is our relationship about money? No, praise God! Our relationship is about a lot of other far more glorious things than money and decisions about money. So it is with the Scriptures. The frequent references about money or possessions or blessings are not the main point: God is the main point. The Bible is about God and His redemptive work. All of life is about God and worship of Him. It's not about us and our stuff. Prosperity preachers baptize their concern with worldly things with a lot of God-talk. But God becomes the Bible's backup singer to man's solo quest for stuff. It's a theological folly in missing the point.

3. The 'prosperity gospel' overlooks suffering. That's to be expected. Anywhere prosperity gets defined as material wealth, etc., emphasis on comfort goes up and attention to suffering goes out. And yet, the Lord and the apostles call us repeatedly to endure suffering for the glory of His name. In fact, the Christian life, in one sense, is synonymous with the sufferings of Christ. "For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows" (2 Cor. 1:5). Because we're united to Christ, we suffer. And we are blessed when we suffer for Him (Matt. 5:10-12; 1 Peter). One can't help but think that much of our weakness as Christians is owing to our un-Christian aversion to suffering, avoiding it at all cost and christening cowardice as wisdom. The 'prosperity gospel' lays a pretty deep foundation for that mistake.

Anyway... I didn't intend to say much at all about this, just to show the video. But I pray that the Lord's people, redeemed by His blood, would leave these churches and ministries in a mass exodus.


Related Posts
John Calvin on the 'Prosperity Gospel'
Mohler on the Prosperity Gospel
Husband-Wife Co-Pastors?

I really appreciate his presence of mind in finishing the brief segment!

HT: Kerux

HT: kerux

The more I preach, the more I passionately agree with Piper in this short video. And I agree with him not because I'm a Greek scholar and can work in the original text. I can't.

But that's why I agree with him; that's why I need and want English translations that give me the words. I want to know the word of God and I don't want the translators and editors making the interpretive decisions for me. Give me all the words!

For all the men who don't have Greek and don't do their work in the original languages, for the integrity of the Scripture itself, for the average joe confounded by the different renderings offered by paraphrase v. word-for-word translations, preacher use a translation with all the awkward, difficult, inconvenient, puzzling, wonderful, transitional, connecting words of Scripture.

I appreciate the readability of the NIV. For now, that's what we use here. But that video captures one of my biggest pet peeves with the NIV--the constant practice of dropping necessary little word like gar (for, because, etc.). So much of the text turns on little two and three-letter words that we need them!

For various reasons, maybe you'll stay with the NIV. Maybe we will, too. But, oh, to have all the words spoken by a Holy God!

Watch John Piper reflect on John 4:27 ("They marveled that he was talking with a woman") here.

That's how my wife has been feeling the last couple of days. The house has been with the likes of:

James Cleveland



The Williams Brothers



Shirley Caesar



The Truthettes