Archive for the 'Recommended Reading' Category

A new book from Russell Moore on Christians facing temptation should be excellent.

See also this post.

Here for more information on Tempted and Tried.

The Atlantic recently interviewed pastor and author Tim Keller.  Without comparing myself to Tim Keller!, I can relate to a great deal he says about what it’s like for a pastor to write.

In 1989, Timothy Keller moved from rural Virginia to New York City with his wife and sons to start Redeemer Presbyterian Church. The church started small but in the past two decades has grown to 5,000 weekly attenders, attracting attention from the New York Times for its ministry to New Yorkers after the September 11th attacks and New York magazine, which called Keller the “most successful Christian Evangelist in the city” in 2006. Keller’s influence began to extend beyond New York in 2008 when he published The Reason for God, a rational defense of belief in God that became a New York Times bestseller. Keller spoke with The Atlantic about how his success as a writer has affected his church and the process he went through to write his latest book, The King’s Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus, which comes out this week.

What made you decide to write a book about the life of Jesus?

In a way, the reason why I wrote the book is I’m a Christian minister. And a basic job, I think, is to get people to be attracted to Jesus. That’s the purpose of the book: to take the continual, almost inexorable, interest that people have in Jesus—it seems like no matter whether people have a positive or negative view of the church, regardless of whether the culture is secular or religious, there is an interest in Jesus. I’m trying to connect with that because I find Jesus very attractive, and I want people to be attracted to him.

And why did you choose to focus on the Gospel of Mark rather than any of the other three gospels?

You’re an author, so you’ll probably laugh at this: I chose Mark because . . .

Read the rest here.

I previously recommended that a great way to prepare for Holy Week would be to spend time reading the Gospel of Mark while also reading Tim Keller’s book, King’s Cross.

I haven’t read this. But I’ll bet it’s worthwhile.

Whether or not you are a student of history, you will benefit from reading Tim Challies’ short biography of Stonewall Jackson.

Tim Challies:

Not too long ago I had the opportunity to prepare a few short biographical addresses on various Christians. For one of these addresses I spoke on John & Betty Stam. For another one I spoke of the life of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. I’m sure many of you are familiar with his life, but let me tell the story again…

We’ll start the story near the end, on July 21, 1861. It was on this day that nearly 61,000 men fought in what was the first major battle of the American Civil War. Over the previous years the United States had fractured and split with many southern states seceding from the union to form the Confederate States of America. America had become two nations, the Federals or the Union in the north and the Confederates or the Rebels in the south. And these nations were at war, state fighting state, sometimes even brother fighting brother. It split a country, it split churches, it split families. On July 21 these two nations met on the plains outside a small Virginia town called Manassas.

On that afternoon a battle raged. Already thousands of men had fallen. The Federal forces pushed hard against the Confederate army until it looked as if the line might break and the battle would be lost. One of the Southern Generals, General Bee, had already seen his forces fight a long and devastating battle. He had seen many of his men die or leave the battle terribly wounded. Though he tried to rally the men who remained, they were tired and terrified and he just couldn’t convince them to follow him. He spurred his horse and rode over to Thomas Jackson who commanded the brigade next to his. Pulling to a stop near the general he called out “General, they are beating us back!” Jackson’s reply was short and calm, “Then we will give them the bayonet.” Jackson’s confidence inspired Bee. Galloping back to his troops he called to them “Look! There is Jackson, standing like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians!” Inspired by Jackson’s stand, Bee led his troops in a charge and was killed in the effort.

But the Confederates won the battle that day

Read the rest of Part I here and Part II

Who will you remember at 11:59PM this evening?

“Auld Lang Syne” is a song that asks the rhetorical question, “Should loved ones who have gone before us be forgotten?”  The song essentially answers, “No, the end of one year and the beginning of another is the time to remember those who have gone before us.”

In a Wall Street Journal article, Peggy Noonan explains the song we will be singing this New Year’s Eve and how it asks and answers a very appropriate question.

You know exactly when you’ll hear it, and you probably won’t hear it again for a year. The big clock will hit 11:59:50, the countdown will begin—10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4—and the sounds will rise: the party horns, fireworks and shouts of "Happy New Year!"

And then they’ll play that song: "Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days of auld lang syne?"

It is a poem in Scots dialect, set to a Scots folk tune, and an unscientific survey says that a lot of us don’t think much about the words, or even know them. The great film director Mike Nichols came to America from Germany as a child, when his family fled Hitler. He had to learn a lot of English quickly and never got around to "Auld Lang Syne": "I was too busy with words like ‘emergency exit’ on the school bus," he told me. "As a result, I find myself weeping at gibberish on New Year’s Eve. I enjoy that."

The screen and television writer Aaron Sorkin, who this year, with "The Social Network," gives Paddy Chayefsky a run for his money, says that every year he means to learn the words. "Then someone tells me that’s not a good enough New Year’s resolution and I really need to quit smoking."

"Auld Lang Syne"—the phrase can be translated as "long, long ago," or "old long since," but I like "old times past"—is a song that asks a question, a tender little question that has to do with the nature of being alive, of being a person on a journey in the world. It not only asks, it gives an answer. . .

The question it asks is clear: Should those we knew and loved be forgotten and never thought of? Should old times past be forgotten? No, says the song, they shouldn’t be. We’ll remember those times and those people, we’ll toast them now and always, we’ll keep them close. "We’ll take a cup of kindness yet."

Read the rest here.

HT: Josh Harris