Dutch likes to "sort" our books — meaning he enjoys moving them all around, on different shelves, under and on top of objects, and "reading" them from time to time in his spare time. Yesterday he put four books in my book bag, thinking I needed to meditate on the Gospel. He selected one paperback each from four great authors: Andrew Murray, H.A. Ironside, D.L. Moody, and J.I. Packer. Thanks son, your exhortation is heeded! (The yellow duct tape hold together my DIY laptop case.) SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "A few good books from a good son", url: "http://www.deTheos.com/2008/10/28/a-few-good-books-from-a-good-son/"...

I seem to always be reading a handful of books at once. Here’s the latest: Total Church: A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel and Community by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy by John Piper Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards Leading from the Second Chair by Mike Bonem and Roger Patterson Always reflecting on and praying through the pages of The Valley of Vision Reading for seminary: Ephesians at least three times a week (love that epistle!) Biblical Preaching: The Development...

Tim Chester, co-author of Total Church, was interviewed over on the Desiring God blog. Check it out. Good stuff.  I’ve been reading the book and am challenged on a number of levels. My soul and mind resonate with the subtitle: “A radical reshaping around Gospel and community.”  A helpful quote from Chester: One of our catchphrases is “ordinary people living ordinary life with gospel intentionality.” It means doing the chores, having meals, watching sports, and so on with an intention to talk about Jesus, to pastor one another with the gospel, and to share that gospel with...

We are all a prone to have small visions for life. But you have to admit that bacon is pretty amazing… Read A Quest for More: Living for Something Bigger Than You by Paul David Tripp SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Hmm … bacon", url: "http://www.deTheos.com/2008/09/07/hmm-bacon/" });

This week we had week two of our class, Enjoying the Bible for All Its Worth (see note on the first week, on erasing biblical aliteracy ). The three-week crash-course is meant to only whet one’s appetite for devouring God’s Word, so we can enjoy HIM for all He’s worth! A number of the attendees asked for a list of helps — how can I understand the Bible better? (If you are like me, you feel so far behind!) I had a stack with me and showed them a few of my most trusted ones. Here’s the list and a comment on each. Some are for beginning and intermediate readers, others...

Just finished reading a fascinating book, Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists by Collin Hansen (Crossway Books, 2008). Hansen is editor-at-large for Christianity Today magazine, and a phenomenal writer and story teller, in my humble opinion. His new book is an expansion and more detailed research project of his September 2006 article in Christianity Today magazine . During that time and afterward he traveled all around the country (for nearly two years) chronicling the diverse movement, from the Passion conferences to Southern Seminary, to Bethlehem Baptist...

" ‘Tis not that I did choose Thee, For Lord, that could not be; This heart would still refuse Three, Hadst Thou not chosen me … My heart owns none before Thee, For Thy rich grace I thirst; This knowing, if I love Thee, Thou must have loved me first." – Josiah Conder, 1836 Found in the front matter of the Jesus Storybook Bible we bought Dutch. Wow, that’s the type of Christ-exalting humility and truth I hope our young son to grasp. We hope to swim with him in the deep end of God’s perfections and grace (even from this young age). "We love becaus e...

Damian and Norman over at Christians in Context posted a guest post by me (Jeff) after I won a great new book in a recent drawing they held. I won The Expository Genius of John Calvin by Steven J. Lawson. Looks to be a great book and from what I’m told highly accessible and full of practical helps. Here’s what they let me say as a promo for their blog/site (read it here or there ): Last week, after arriving home from a discouraging day attempting to tutor disinterested public high school students, I received an email from Damian saying I had won a book from Christians in Context....

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. . . . The gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any [person] is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that comprises the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God.” - A.W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy...

By its nature, saving faith loves God and delights in God as the sum of all that could ever satisfy the soul. —John Piper, Future Grace , p. 252. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Saving faith delights in God", url: "http://www.deTheos.com/2008/04/24/saving-faith-delights-in-god/" });