Drs Danny Akin and Al Mohler have worked together to provide for us a wonderful resource that deals biblically with the topic of infant salvation. If you haven’t studied the topic before I would recommend that you do so now. When one loses an infant to death you will be ill equipped in that moment of extreme emotionalism to adequately research and understand the implications of infant salvation. This is a topic that you need to have a strong understanding of before that event occurs so that you can confidently answer questions and provide loving hope.

We owe a debt of gratitude to these men for this resource.

You can access the article here.

Also known as bad theology captured on tape. If you’ve ever wanted to see a good example of bad theology, this from a recent meeting in Lakeland, FL is a perfect example of theology run amok.

HT: MMI

Tom Ascol emailed me the other day with the information regarding this year’s Founders Conference lineup. I’ll have to be honest that I’m very impressed. Whether you are Reformed or not, this conference can be one that you would enjoy.

The lineup of speakers includes men like Voddie Baucham, Don Whitney, Tom Nettles and Ed Stetzer. That has got to be one of the more eclectic lineups found in SBC life today.

You may want to run over and take a look at the conference website. You can do so by clicking here.

Over the past few weeks I’ve recieved a new book and a new cd and it’s time to offer my reviews, for whatever they are worth :-).

VINTAGE JESUS :: by Mark Driscoll & Gerry Breshears

About a week ago I received my copy of Vintage Jesus, the newest book offered by Mark Driscoll, from the kind folks over at Crossway Books. I’ve read all of Driscoll’s previous works, and have enjoyed them, and I’ve made no secret of the fact that I appreciate Driscoll’s ministry. I was curious, however, to see if this book would stand up to some of the impressive reviews that I’ve been reading. I’ll have to admit that I was not disappointed.

In comparison to Driscoll’s first two books, Vintage Jesus was written in a manner that reflected a much more mature Driscoll than the man who wrote those earlier books. In a sense, it seems to me, these books reflect the very public maturation process that we’ve seen Driscoll go through. Vintage Jesus is much more of a theological treatise than is any of Driscoll’s other books. What makes it most appealing, however, is Driscoll’s ability to take a deeply theological topics, like the virgin birth, the atonement, the resurrection and other aspects of Jesus’ life, and communicate them in a way that is easy for the theological novice to understand. While Driscoll offers his usual biblical teaching laced with sarcastic humor, which occasionally detracts from the topic, but can also offer great insight into the person of Jesus, I think the reader will find themselves drawn in and asking for more.

All things considered, this isn’t a book without flaws, it is certainly one worth reading. I would consider encouraging your teenagers to read it. I think they’ll not only enjoy it, I think they’ll also learn much about Jesus through this book.

It gets two thumbs up!

HERE I GO :: Carl Cartee

This past week I received my copy of Carl Cartee’s newest cd, Here I go, in the mail thanks to the generous folks over at his management company, Blair Artist Management. If you’ll remember, just a couple of weeks ago I shared about finding Cartee’s music for the first time and I shared the video of “Glorious Impossible”. This new cd features that fantastic song, but also features a number of other songs that, much to my enjoyment, more than meet the level of excellence that Glorious Impossible set as the standard.

Whether it be “The Sound”, “Honestly”, “Trust in You” or my favorite, “Don’t let me miss the glory” this album is fantastic. As I listened to the album I was constantly impressed by the vocal and production quality, the incredibly good musical content and most of all, what really gets me excited, the vocal content. In fact, as I was listening to it in my car I had to call Tracy and tell her how excited I was about it. All of the quality made even more sense when I noticed that the whole effort was produced by Nathan Nockels, who has helped shape some of the best music out there today.

If you have not heard Cartee yet, I would strongly encourage you to run over to his website and pick up this cd. I am really enojying it!

Boy, I must just be in a generous mood tonight but I’ve got to give this two thumbs up as well!

I found these two helpful resources today that I wanted to pass along. It should be noted that they are wholly unrelated to each other.

The first resource is  an article by John Piper on the biblical statements concerning elders within the church. As a lifelong Southern Baptist, the concept of elders in the church was a foreign one to me until about 10 years ago. As I began to study God’s word on my own, however, I began to be more convinced of the importance of a plurality of elders within the New Testament church. I now serve in a church that is led by a body of elders whom I respect greatly and who are being blessed by God in their efforts. If you are interested in the concept of biblical elders at all, I would recommend this article to you.

Click here / HT: Jason 

The second resource is a great idea for anyone who is working on church facilities. At our church we are opening our newest building project on Easter Sunday (if you’re in the area, join us for service, Grand Opening and continental breakfast), and we are getting started on our next project which includes the completion of our children’s facility, our youth facility, adult classrooms, dining hall and kitchen. Anyway, I’m one of those geeks who is always interested in what’s out there for church facility design and ran across an article on ChurchRelevance.com dealing with the 7 most innovative new church designs across the country. It’s fascinating stuff.

Take a look by clicking here

I continue to get a variety of questions from people who ask whether we should like or dislike the Emerging Church movement. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time you will know that I don’t believe there is much of an answer to that question. I believe that the EC movement is too diverse and too large to be labeled as simply “good” or “bad”. We’ve essentially got to consider each church on an individual basis.

Pastor Mark Driscoll, of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA preached a message this past Sunday dealing with the topic of the EC movement. It wasn’t new material for me but enough of you have asked about it that I think it would be good to post it so that you can consider it.  

Well, not exactly, but this is a very good attempt at wading through the various streams of Christian thought from Fundamentalism all the way to beyond Emerging to full blown liberalism. I’d recommend that you take a look at it if you have studied the Emerging church at all. You can read it here.

HT: Jason Allen

I love missionaries! To most of you this is no secret. One of the reasons that I appreciate them so much is that I have rarely run into any group of people more involved in persistently thinking through biblical theology and its application in the local context. Guy Muse is a missionary in Guyaquil, Ecuador. He and his wife have served with the IMB in Ecuador since 1987. Guy has written a series of posts that deal with the topic of whether or not a woman is biblically qualified to baptize. I would highly encourage you to read the post and interact with his thoughts. You can access the article by clicking here.