Archive for August, 2007
Stephen J. Nichols. Heaven on Earth: Capturing Jonathan Edwards’s Vision of Living in Between. Crossway, 2006. 144 pp.
Introduction
In heaven we will enjoy perfect, unbroken fellowship with the Triune God. We will relish the glory of God. We will savor the sweetness of Christ. We will have perfect fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Why not start now?
In heaven, bickering, complaining, and acts of injustice will all have fallen away. Peace and harmony and justice will be the order. We will love God perfectly. We will even love all our brothers and sisters in Christ perfectly. So why not begin now? There’s no reason not to. In fact, there’s every reason in the world to do so. . . .
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Steve Stephens. The Wounded Warrior: Survival Guide for When You’re Beat Up, Burned Out, or Battle Weary. Multnomah, 2006. 224 pp.
Wounds can make you or break you. It’s not the deepness of the wound that kills you; it’s your refusal to face reality and step forward.
Life is full of battles, and every warrior is going to sustain his share of injuries. Some soldiers incur one significant, overpowering wound; others receive numerous minor wounds. Regardless of his past history or present circumstances, every man has his gashes and broken bones.
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Wayne Grudem. Countering the Claims of Evangelical Feminism: Biblical Responses to the Key Questions. Multnomah, 2006. 284 pp.
Egalitarian Claim:
The New Testament writers urged the mutual submission of husbands and wives to one another (Ephesians 5:21). Therefore, there is no unique leadership role for the husband.
Ephesians 5:21 says, “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Egalitarians say this verse teaches “mutual submission,” and that means that just as wives have to submit to their husbands, so husbands have to submit to their wives. Doesn’t the text say that we have to submit “to one another”? And this means that there is no unique submission that a wife owes to her husband, and no unique authority that a husband has over his wife. . . .
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Mark A. Weathers. How to Pray for Your Wife: A 31-Day Guide. Crossway, 2006. 158 pp.
Introduction
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
—Genesis 2:24
I see a unique tree every day while traveling to the church building where I minister. It’s a dogwood, and for the majority of the year it looks like any other dogwood in the southeast—slender divided trunk with a bushy green top. But this past spring it caught me off guard as it was coming into full bloom. The tree boasted of both white and pink blossoms intermingled throughout its branches.
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Randy Alcorn. The Treasure Principle: Unlocking the Secret of Joyful Giving. Multnomah, 2005. 128 pp.
Introduction
All your life, you’ve been on a treasure hunt. You’ve been searching for a perfect person and a perfect place. Jesus is that person; heaven is that place. So if you’re a Christian, you’ve already met the person, and you’re already headed to the place.
But there’s a problem. You’re not yet living with that person, and you’re not yet living in that place! . . .
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John Piper. God Is the Gospel: Meditations on God’s Love as the Gift of Himself. Crossway, 2005. 192 pp.
What the World Needs Most: The Gospel’s Greatest Gift—God
Today, as in every generation, it is stunning to watch the shift away from God as the all-satisfying gift of God’s love. It is stunning how seldom God himself is proclaimed as the greatest gift of the gospel. But the Bible teaches that the best and final gift of God’s love is the enjoyment of God’s beauty. “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Ps. 27:4).
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Gary McIntosh. Beyond the First Visit: The Complete Guide to Connecting Guests to Your Church. Baker, 2006. 192 pp.
We’re a Friendly Church
If you were to survey churches and ask them to list their strengths, almost every one would include, “We’re a friendly church.” . . . It’s interesting that in every one of the churches I coached, someone either wrote on a survey or stated verbally that they believed their church to be a friendly place. It did not matter if the individuals were attending churches in danger of closing down, in the midst of twenty-year-long plateaus, or bursting forth in growth. They all felt their church was a friendly one. . . .
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Michael Fletcher. Overcoming Barriers to Growth: Proven Strategies for Taking Your Church to the Next Level. Bethany House, 2006. 144 pp.
God Has a Plan for You and Your Church!
If the pastor and elders will adjust the way they relate together in leadership and realign some of the internal structures they built into the church, they can keep right on growing. Most churches don’t make those adjustments for two reasons: (1) They don’t see the barrier, so they don’t see the need; and (2) they don’t want to change what they perceive made them successful in the first place.
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C. J. Mahaney. Living the Cross-Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing. Multnomah, 2006. 176 pp.
At the Core
Life’s Most Important Truth Can Be the Easiest to Forget
Each of our lives is centered on something. What’s at the center of yours? . . .
It could be one of any number of good things, but when it comes to centering our life, what really qualifies as the one thing God says should be the most important? . . .
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Alfred Poirier. The Peacemaking Pastor: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Church Conflict. Baker, 2006. 320 pp.
Christ is the reason many enter the pastorate. Conflict is the reason many leave. . . . Many young pastors enter their calling naïvely, believing that orthodox preaching, well-ordered worship, and a sufficient number of different venues for discipleship will be all they need to grow their members in faith and their church in numbers. Once in the pastorate, however, the reality of conflict and an inability to respond to it in a wise, godly, and gospel manner soon cripple both their effectiveness as pastors and their church’s witness. . . .
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