Welcome to the SharperIron Blogroll.
The Blogroll is a collection of blogs that are often of interest and help to SI readers. SharperIron does not create the content of these blogs and the views expressed in them are those of their respective writers.
Brett McCracken has written a helpful, short book on managing our information-overload world. He rightly notes that though we live in a world of exponentially increasing knowledge, such knowledge has not done much to make us wise. The book breaks into two unequal parts. They are unequal both in terms of length as well as...
The post The Wisdom Pyramid: A Review appeared first on Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary.
Post-Christian society is full of deniers—Christians unwilling to cede the loss of Christian influence and often unaware that this loss has irreparably occurred in American culture. These deniers are still agitating to restore Christian privilege: getting the Bible and prayer back into public schools, getting the Ten Commandments back into courthouses, getting a real Christian...
The post When Your Authority Becomes Your Enemy appeared first on Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary.
This semester Dr. John Aloisi and I are co-teaching a class called “Great Books.” We are working our way through various books that have had a significant impact for one reason or another. Recently we read a healthy portion of Spurgeon’s Lectures to My Students. If you have not read these lectures, you are doing...
The post Wisdom from Spurgeon: On Re-qualification for Ministry appeared first on Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary.
Over the past year, Christian leaders have been forced to think through the nature of governmental authority as it relates to the church. One consistent refrain has been that churches must comply with much if not all of the current government restrictions, because these restrictions are reasonable and temporary. But does it matter if restrictions...
The post Does It Matter If Government Restrictions on Churches Are Reasonable and Temporary? appeared first on Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary.
As a professor and occasional interim pastor, I routinely hear a question (or something like it): “Is __________ (fill in the blank with any popular author, radio/TV preacher, apologist, musician) a good guy or a bad guy?” Often the question is asked in passing with the assumption that I can flash a simple thumbs up/thumbs...
The post Yet Another Question of Discernment: Binary Assessments appeared first on Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary.
John Piper’s 751-page magnum opus is now available:
John Piper. Providence. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021.
The print book is available from Amazon, but the best deal is currently from Westminster Bookstore.
Crossway and Desiring God are generously making the entire book available for free as a PDF.
My endorsement: “John Piper helps us see and savor God’s purposeful sovereignty by inductively demonstrating what the whole Bible...
There are currently no items in this feed.
There are currently no items in this feed.
The Urban Dictionary defines “don’t be that guy” as what you say to someone who is acting stupidly or with
a high degree of lameness or foolishness. When somebody is being dumb or annoying you say to them, “Dude, don’t be that guy.”
“...Anyone (who) is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.” Don’t be that guy!
In this passage, James describes a person behaving stupidly, lamely, and foolishly. They presumably value spiritual truth, taking time to understand what God’s Word says vis-à-vis their own life experiences: their actual behavior,
character, and motivation. But then, having obtained that tremendous insight about themselves, they do nothing about it! They simply walk away from the understanding they gained. They are unwilling to embrace the spiritual insights God brought into focus for them. Consequently, they are unable to incorporate these truths into their life; they experience no growth or transformation; and languish in a cycle of stagnancy. Let’s do everything we...
In the center of your body, known as the torso, resides a series of muscles that function together to provide stability for your body. These muscles collectively are referred to as your core. Without these muscles working together, you would lose your capacity to effectively maneuver, lift, shift stress from the spine, and accomplish the myriad daily activities we take for granted. Therefore, fitness trainers are very concerned with strengthening your physical core, to ensure your body is functioning as designed.
Similar to your physical body, you also possess a “spiritual core” which must function as God intended. This core consists of interdependent
elements that operate harmoniously to stabilize our spiritual walk and service, enabling us to function successfully in life and ministry. These four elements are: our purpose, evident in a heart motivated to glorify God; our being, evident in Christ- like character; our impact, evident as we influence other people to embrace God’s objectives; and our practice, evident through a faithful commitment to Spirit-led leadership disciplines. Similar to our physical core, these four spiritual...
My first engagement with IBL was during a church leadership summit. IBL was brought in to help guide our church through a new leadership structure. Little did I know a few months later, I would be needing them to guide me through the most difficult season in my life.
My name is Steven Polk and I serve as the Pastor of Worship and Pastoral Care at FiveStone Community Church in Garland, TX. I have served as a pastor for over thirty years. Never did I think I would need the services that David and Dawn provided in my time of need.
In January of 2020 I found myself in the loneliest, darkest season of my life. My wife of thirty years walked out on me, saying she was not sure she would ever come back and was not interested in being the wife of a pastor any longer. For those of you in ministry, can you imagine what would happen to your world should you find
yourself in that moment? I could not. I never imagined I would be facing these unbelievable circumstances. At this point, since you are reading a newsletter from a ministry concerning its counseling services, you are probably expecting to hear a miraculous, happily-ever-after...
“We need counseling!” I said angrily as I rolled away from my husband in hurt and frustration. Although, for the most part, my husband Mike and I had a great twenty years of marriage, we kept coming up on this same issue, this clash of perspectives and hurtful words spoken that left
me feeling unloved and scared. To my surprise Mike’s response was, “Sounds good! Let’s go!” With his response came a variety of emotions. I was relieved— that he wanted to work on our marriage, irritated—that we had to “resort to” outside help, that we couldn’t just
figure it out on our own, and embarrassed—that we had to admit we needed help. But, oh, am I glad we did reach out for help. Through a friend, Mike and I learned about IBL. We were both immediately drawn to the counseling model of IBL. IBL believes the answers to all of life’s challenges are found in God’s Word (II Peter 1:2-4). In addition, IBL believes mature believers, who know God’s Word accurately and are guided by the Holy Spirit, are qualified to counsel others. These truths resonated with us as both my husband and I had previously experienced “Christian counseling” and found it lacking....
We recently introduced a brand new missions devotional called Daring Devotion by M. R. Conrad (available now to order). Here is an excerpt from Day 14. On April 11, 1836, Müller accepted the first children into the orphanage. Soon, the orphanage reached full capacity, and the Lord provided funds for more buildings. Years passed and […]
The post George Müller’s (extra)Ordinary Faith appeared first on Church Works Media.
There are currently no items in this feed.
There are currently no items in this feed.
