The Plodding Preacher

The Bible doesn’t expect us to live as if every second were our last. If we did, we’d likely skip work, stay in our pajamas all day, hunker down with friends and family, and eat as much ice cream as possible. Numbering our days is not an excuse for irresponsibility. It’s an invitation to think more seriously about eternity. It’s a call to work for the things that will keep working when we can’t. Like pouring into people. Or proclaiming the truth of Scripture. Or putting our time into the local church. Kevin DeYoung

The second great command is not, “You shall love the sinner as you love your sinful self.” As Augustine succinctly put it: “No sinner is to be loved as a sinner.” Rather, we are to love our neighbor “as a man for God’s sake.” This involves first realize that “God is to be loved for His own sake. And if God is to be loved more than any man, each man ought to love God more than himself.” When we fail to place these truths in their proper order there is no end to the sorts of evil that we will readily tolerate in ourselves and promote in others. Nick Batzig

You’re only a person if I say so Carmen LaBerge August 25, 2017 We all know ideas have consequences. So, what are the consequences of the idea that human beings define not only moral authority but the moral value of other human beings?  Fringe thinking? Think again. These are the ideas being taught at elite U.S. universities to form the thinking of the next generation of America’s leaders. Elizabeth Harman, a professor of philosophy at Princeton University explained the morality of abortion in an interview on   “Philosophy Times”   with actor James Franco. In part she said:   “Among early fetuses, there are two very different kinds of beings.” We have to stop right there and consider this claim. Her differentiation of beings is a statement of ontological reality. Ontology is term philosophers use when they’re talking about the nature of being, existence, and reality itself. In Professor Harman’s ontology, some people are people when they are in the womb but others are

We do understand what is at stake in terms of the human judgment of history, but we are far more concerned about the divine verdict of eternity. We must speak the truth in love and seek to be good neighbors to all, but we cannot abandon the faith just because we are told that we are now on the wrong side of history. Albert Mohler

For this week's family article, we return to our friend Tim Challies who provides an excellent challenge to nurture our children. Nurture Your Children T here are few roles in which we feel deeper inadequacy than our role as fathers. What suits us to the task of raising little people? What assurance can we have that we are doing it well? What will our children someday say of us? These are big and perplexing questions, so it is little wonder that church bulletin boards are covered with posters for parenting seminars and library shelves are groaning under the weight of parenting books. One study found that in the past 10 years alone, publishers have released more than 75 thousand books on the subject. Parenting is tough, and none of us is fully up to the challenge. Considering the importance and difficulty of the task, we may find it surprising how little direct guidance the New Testament offers us. Its clearest instruction is found in Ephesians 6:4: “Fathers, do not provoke