As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“Assertions are often mistaken for arguments….An argument is required to back an assertion. By asking, ‘How do you know that’s true?’ the conversation moves beyond dueling assertions to why an assertion should be taken seriously.” - Breakpoint
“Watson warns that as we ease off in pursuing our relationship with God, we open ourselves to the temptations of the devil, for a fallow field bears weeds rather than wheat, and a fallow life bears sin rather than sanctification.” - Challies
“Play has helped me not to be defined by my difficulty or my desert. It’s helped me to see life as more than something that is challenging. It’s helped me see that my joy is not dependent on my health and my play is not dependent on whether life is good.” - Common Good
“Do you ever feel too small for God, as though your worries don’t deserve his attention? As though he has more important things to do than tend to that tricky relationship, those hidden regrets, that dwindling bank account?” - Desiring God
“ ‘Time is the most precious resource I have. I need to make the most of it.’ He looked at me like I had two heads. ‘No it’s not,’ he replied. ‘What about your health? Your family? Your faith and knowledge of the Scriptures?’ Oh, right. That stuff.” - TGC
First posted at Sharper Iron on July 24, 2009. Larry Blumer, the “Dad” in this essay, went to be with the Lord August 17, 2011.
An old adage says that when you’re sixteen your dad doesn’t know anything, when you’re twenty-six he’s occasionally sensible, and when you’re thirty-six he’s one of the wisest people you know. I can testify that there is some truth in that observation. Though I still rarely seek my dad’s advice, it’s because—at age forty-three—I have come to realize how much of his advice I’ve already absorbed from growing up around him.
Our Savior bought us with His own blood in order to redeem us and remake us in His image. That transformation is central to His great gospel purpose. In my life, He used my dad to accomplish some important parts of that purpose.
I don’t think my dad sat down and planned, “I need to teach these four values to my kids.” He did it mostly by just being there and speaking his mind (sometimes with passion!) in the context of a life that made what he meant unmistakably clear.
Bob Jones Sr. was fond of saying, “The greatest ability is dependability,” but that concept was familiar to me long before I read it in high school. I remember hearing as a kid, “If you say you’re going to do something, you do it. If you say you’re going to be somewhere, you be there,” and other variations on that theme (See Prov. 25:19). Dad wasn’t trying to preach, but his words drove a biblical principle deep into my young mind.
“Admittedly, many Christians will insist joy (deep, serious, lasting) should be sharply distinguished from happiness (light, trivial, fleeting), but this is a relatively recent—and in my view unhelpful—distinction.” - TGC
“If you’re a man, and especially if you’re a young man, they’re after you. They want you. And they know you’re vulnerable…. I’m going to give you four reasons that betting is not only unwise but also sinful” - Challies
“If we’re not careful, we can buy into a kind of modern-day gnostic heresy, where we deny the value of the body and the reality of our need to care for it.” - Christian Leaders
Discussion