The only people I can beat in wrestling are my children. Apparently it’s not only good for my pride and their humility, but throwing my children around is also good for their physical, emotional, social, mental and spiritual development.
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Dads don’t need to be told how awesome roughhousing is. But it feels good to be told anyway.
HT: Jared Pickney
Many thanks to Joe Carter for this link.
Ronald Davis is homeless and living on the streets of Chicago. In this video clip he shares how he feels about the way other people treat him.
“No matter what people think about me, I know I’m a human first.”
When we see people like Mr. Davis on the streets our first tendency is often to wonder how he got into this situation or what, if anything, can be done to help him out of his plight. But Davis shows there is an even deeper need that is as powerful and as urgent as food or shelter: the need to be treated with dignity.
All too often we see the Ronald Davis’ of the world and our thoughts turn to big-picture policy questions (e.g., What can be done about homelessness in America?). But while such concerns should motivate us to find responsible solutions, that shouldn’t necessarily be our first thought when we are face to face with the men and women in our world like Davis.
We can think about the “homeless problem” when we’re in our cars or at our desks. While we’re on the street, confronted with a cup-shaking panhandler, we should be wondering how we can show them that we recognize their dignity. We should seek to let them know we realize they too were made in the image of Creator of the universe. We need to show them that whatever else they’ve lost—job, home, family—they still have their dignity. And that no matter what we might think of them, we know they’re a human first.
Justin Taylor just published a blog by the title, “Not Your Mother’s Bible Study Guides.” For all of the fine books published in recent years from a Christ-centered reading of Scripture, there has been very little written in the Bible study genre.
That just got fixed.
And while these aren’t most people’s mother’s Bible study guides, at least one volume will be the study of choice for my mom.
In Crossway’s new Bible study series, Knowing the Bible, my brother, Drew Hunter, is author to the study on Isaiah. Drew is careful with Scripture, attentive to the contours of the Bible’s storyline, and pastorally minded in all of his study. He’s also a pest and a shrimp, but please don’t let that stop you from purchasing a copy of this study.
Here’s a brief description of Isaiah:
The book of Isaiah, which alternates between promises of judgment and restoration, reminds God’s people of the magnitude of humanity’s sin, the judgment that we all deserve, and how God displays his glory by saving sinners. This guide shows us how the prophetic promise of cosmic renewal ultimately anticipates the work of Jesus Christ, the servant-king whose death results in new life for all who trust in him.
Several other titles are currently available, all by careful and Bible-loving brothers:
In time, all 66 books of the Bible will be covered in this series. The next batch, due out this Summer, will include Kathleen Nielson on Ruth and Esther, Doug O’Donnell on Psalms, Lydia Brownback on Proverbs, my brother again on Matthew, Justin Holcomb on Acts, and Ryan Kelly on Philippians. That last name will be familiar to many of you. Ryan Kelly is preaching pastor at Desert Springs Church, where I serve.
This introduction to the series by Dane Ortlund will give you a feel for the heart and shape of these studies:
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*This blog is cross-posted at the Desert Springs Church Blog.
The good news of the gospel is that, in Christ, we are no longer condemned for our sin (Romans 8:1). It is also good news that we are no longer slaves to sin (Romans 6:17). Here’s a good word on the gospel’s life transforming purposes in our lives:
I would like to buy about three dollars worth of gospel, please.
Not too much—just enough to make me happy, but not so much that I get addicted.
I don’t want so much gospel that I learn to really hate covetousness and lust.
I certainly don’t want so much that I start to love my enemies, cherish self-denial, and contemplate missionary service in some alien culture.
I want ecstasy, not repentance; I want transcendence, not transformation.
I would like to be cherished by some nice, forgiving, broad-minded people, but I myself don’t want to love those from different races—especially if they smell.
I would like enough gospel to make my family secure and my children well behaved, but not so much that I find my ambitions redirected or my giving too greatly enlarged.
I would like about three dollars worth of the gospel, please. (pp. 12-13)
—D. A. Carson, Basics for Believers: An Exposition of Philippians (Baker, 1996)
HT: Justin Taylor
It was not a hard decision to click an article this morning by the title, “The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking,” published at the New York Times. Here’s how the article begins:
Thirteen years ago, researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum began the grim task of documenting all the ghettos, slave labor sites, concentration camps and killing factories that the Nazis set up throughout Europe.
What they have found so far has shocked even scholars steeped in the history of the Holocaust.
The researchers have cataloged some 42,500 Nazi ghettos and camps throughout Europe, spanning German-controlled areas from France to Russia and Germany itself, duringHitler’s reign of brutality from 1933 to 1945.
The article describes what went on at these different places:
The documented camps include not only “killing centers” but also thousands of forced labor camps, where prisoners manufactured war supplies; prisoner-of-war camps; sites euphemistically named “care” centers, where pregnant women were forced to have abortions or their babies were killed after birth; and brothels, where women were coerced into having sex with German military personnel.
At the time this research began, only 7,000 camps were expected to be found based on previous estimates. So, the sheer number of camps is astounding, which further illustrates the brutality of Hitler’s reign. When Holocaust scholars are shocked to make a discovery about the Holocaust, it’s bad.
But the meaning of this number yields an additional insight. Given that there were 42,500 camps, how did we not know about them until now? Here’s how the article ends:
Dr. Dean, a co-researcher, said the findings left no doubt in his mind that many German citizens, despite the frequent claims of ignorance after the war, must have known about the widespread existence of the Nazi camps at the time.
“You literally could not go anywhere in Germany without running into forced labor camps, P.O.W. camps, concentration camps,” he said. “They were everywhere.”
The average American would not be able to relate to the Nazi soldier, even though we’re all sons of Adam. But the average American would probably relate in many ways to the average business owner, homemaker, or farmer in Germany in the 1930s.
I can’t stop thinking about that last paragraph.
