Friday Round Up

(1) If you missed any of the blog entries here this week, you might have missed the hurriedly arranged radio interview I did on Tuesday. 000 miles a year; that’s 300 hours! Brian Tracy taught me early to turn my car into a mobile classroom. Listen to instructional CDs as you drive and each year is the equivalent of two semesters of an advanced degree. Combined with a reading routine, you can separate yourself from the herd of average, CD by CD, book by book!”

Though I sometimes listen to music, I must say that I have been using my driving time in this way since I started to drive in 1985. Back then, I listened to cassette tapes of the Bible and of Bible teaching, while averaging far more than 12,000 driving miles a year.

Education should never stop for any of us and implementing a plan for personal growth (spiritual, intellectual, etc.) while driving the car may seem a small step, but over time, it will reap great rewards.

(3) There’s a number of good resources available in this week’s Friday Ligonier $5 sale! Check it out here.

Handling Objections

Back in June I was interviewed by Pastor Kevin Boling about my new book “Twelve What Abouts” on the “Knowing the Truth” Radio broadcast. The 50,000 watt radio station originates in Greenville, covering all of South Carolina and parts of North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia.

There seems to have been a great deal of interest in the broadcast, with more than 700 mp3 downloads, and so I was invited back to do a second interview about the book today. We were able to talk about a number of the “what abouts.”

Here are the links to the two programs:

First Interview

Today’s Interview

Friday Round Up

(1) If you are not adverse to extreme satire, you might enjoy this compromised Bible version.

(2) Dan Phillips provides a number of excellent axioms to live by, such as this one:

“If nobody else has ever seen what you’re seeing in the Bible, that’s probably because it isn’t there”.

…and this one:

“Preach like God’s watching, like you’ll never get another chance, and like every second of your hearers’ time is precious.” More here.

(3) Some notable quotes: “I can say from experience that 95% of knowing the will of God consists in being prepared to do it before you know what it is.” – Donald Gray Barnhouse

“Be assiduous in reading the holy Scriptures. This is the fountain whence all knowledge in divinity must be derived. Therefore let not this treasure lie by you neglected. Every man of common understanding who can read, may, if he please, become well acquainted with the Scriptures. And what an excellent attainment would this be!” – Jonathan Edwards

“Thus it comes about that we see men who in [God’s] absence normally remain firm and constant, but who, when he manifests his glory, are so shaken and struck dumb as to be laid low by the dread of death – are in fact overwhelmed by it and almost annihilated. As a consequence, we must infer that man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God’s majesty.” – Calvin, Institutes 1:1:3

“We need to make plain that total depravity is not just badness, but blindness to beauty and deadness to joy; and unconditional election means that the completeness of our joy in Jesus was planned for us before we ever existed; and that limited atonement is the assurance that indestructible joy in God is infallibly secured for us by the blood of the covenant; and irresistible grace is the commitment and power of God’s love to make sure we don’t hold on to suicidal pleasures, and to set us free by the sovereign power of superior delights; and that the perseverance of the saints is the almighty work of God to keep us, through all affliction and suffering, for an inheritance of pleasures at God’s right hand forever.” John Piper, The Legacy of Sovereign Joy: God’s Triumphant Grace in the Lives of Augustine, Luther, and Calvin, p. 73.

(4) I remain very encouraged by the feedback I continue to receive regarding my new book Twelve What Abouts- Answering Common Objections Concerning God’s Sovereignty in Election. If you have no idea what I am talking about, perhaps you would like to click on one of the links on the right hand side of this page for more details. Its available in both eBook and paperback.

(5) Sadly, there’s nothing good in this week’s Friday Ligonier $5 sale. Of course, I’m joking! Check it out here.