The Life of Grace

"Grace teaches us in the midst of life's greatest comforts, to be willing to die, and in the midst of its greatest crosses, to be willing to live."

Matthew Henry, Commentary on Job 3:20-26

HT: Jeff Haavisto

The Theology of John's Gospels and Letters

This week I am attending a class at the Sovereign Grace Ministries Pastors College. I just finished the first day with about 50 pastors and students from around the country. The class is entitled "The Theology of John's Gospels and Letters" and is being given by Andreas Köstenberger (pronounced like Kerstenberger.)

I have read a few things by Dr. Köstenberger including, Salvation to the Ends of the Earth and the Baker Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel of John. Everything I have read by Dr. Köstenberger has been fantastic and this class is no dissapointment.

This material is based on Dr. Köstenberger's work for a new book coming out in the next year on the biblical theology of the gospel and letters of John.

Day 1 has been very rewarding! Some things that have struck me so far:
1. Dr. Köstenberger's thoughtful work in probing the historical, literary and theological aspects of John is producing another great work that will serve believers and deepen our wonder and worship of our amazing God revealed through the glorious second person of the Trinity as portrayed in the Gospel of John!
2. Dr. Köstenberger's love for his Savior.
3. His commitment to a very high view of God's word.
4. His respect and appreciation for his wife.
5. Dr. Köstenberger's genuine humility. He is gracious when reviewing contrary opinions and very open to input. It is kinda funny when he actually invites our comments. (Don't worry, I know enough to keep my mouth shut.)

I'll try to take some time at the end of the week to summarize all that I am receiving in this class.

Free ESV Study Bible - Calfskin Edition.

Over at "Boomer in the Pew" Dave Porter is giving away a free calfskin leather ESV Study Bible (Retail $239)

This is probably the best study bible I have ever seen. And to get one in calfskin would be amazing.

You can check out other ESV Study Bibles at Crossway Books.

HT: Justin Taylor

How to Preach and How Not to Preach

Justin Taylor has an excellent post featuring Matt Chandler on how to wisely approach preaching about key topics as a pastor. Check out the video clip.





HT: Justin Taylor

Meet My Friend, Cotton Mather

I finished Richard Lovelace's book on Cotton Mather. I found Cotton Mather very intriguing and very inviting. In the end I found much to relate to and admire even though he lived in a very different time and culture.

Lovelace has many helpful thoughts in the interpretation of Mather in the Epilogue. Here are a few quotes:

"Mather's work 'unknowingly was fanning the spark in New England that eight yearrs later would burst into flames in Jonathan Edwards' Northampton church.' "

"The vitality of the Evangelical movement ebbed during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as its center declined into Fundamentalism, relinquishing the ecumenical and social initiatives cherished by Mather and Franck, and magnifying their tendencies toward confessionalism and legalism."

"Most of his reputed inconsistencies are the result of either the uncritical attempts by later critics to fuse together the testimonies of his friends and his enemies, or of the attempt to judge him without a thorough acquaintance with Puritan spirituality in the context of the history of the Christian experience."

Here are a few lessons I learned from my friend, Cotton Mather:

1. Cotton Mather was way better than portrayed in popular thought.
2. Cotton Mather was a vibrant example of a wholistic life lived in light of the gospel or grace and glory.
3. Cotton Mather was a charismatic.
4. Cotton Mather was an excellent pastor.
5. Cotton Mather thought too much about himself and his own spirituality and not enough about the sufficiency of Christ.
6. Cotton Mather learned from others and was very ecumenical for a 18th century Puritan.

Hope you can read this great book and learn from this Godly man!

An Amazing Appeal

Check out this eloquent appeal to change our practices of abortion. Would that our lawmakers would make such an ardent and well-informed appeal until this national tragedy is stopped.

To My Wife on Valentine's Day

Happy Valentines Day my love! You are such a blessing and the love of my life. I am so grateful to have you as my wife, friend, counselor, lover and the mother of our children! Our relationship gets better, richer and deeper with time!

How beautiful and pleasant you are,
O loved one, with all your delights!
Song of Solomon 7:6 (ESV)

With much love, Paul

Piper on Leadership

CJ Mahaney asked John Piper this question in his blog: What single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your leadership? This is Dr. Piper's response:

"Lead by helping people see the same truth in the Bible you do so that commonly perceived truth is the fabric that binds together. When truth is not the bond, power moves are inevitable."

Great advice for church leaders - we must lead by the authority and persuasion of God's word or we are left only with 'power moves'.

Cotton Mather on Extraordinary Spiritual Gifts

I have just finished Lovelace's biography of Cotton Mather. I am still digesting it and will post a few more quotes and thoughts. For today, just a brief post on Cotton Mather's continuationist view of the Holy Spirit. Mather operated prophetically and recognized many others who did as well. Lovelace says the following on p. 184 of his book:

"Mather records in the Magnalia instances of actual prophecy (in the sense of premonitions of coming events) in the ministries of Thomas Hooker, and John Eliot; serveral instances of supernatural guidance by means of "sudden impressions" of "impulses"; and even a case of a vision given in a dream. Mather also records a number of instances in the Diary when he felt himself directly guided under the Spirit's impulse. He also had premonitions concerning the future fate of an Indian slave, the emergence of scandals in his congregation, and certain additions to his library. "¹

And Mather seemed to, for the most part, keep the operation of the gift of prophecy in its proper place.

"A soul sanctified with the Love of God, and of Christ, and of our neighbor, is altogether to be preferred before all the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit."²

"It is best not being too fond of enthusiasms, that may carry you beyond the dispensation of the day."³

More to come...


1. Richard Lovelace, The American Pietism of Cotton Mather, CUP, 1979, 184
2. Richard Lovelace, The American Pietism of Cotton Mather, CUP, 1979, 185
3. Richard Lovelace, The American Pietism of Cotton Mather, CUP, 1979, 185

The Main Character in the Bible Story

Just a tid-bit from "Dear Timothy - Letters on Pastoral Ministry".

"The key that unlocks the biblical outlook is the perception that the real subject of the Holy Scripture is not man and his religion, but God and his glory; from which it follows that God is the real subject of every text, and must therefore be the real subject of every expository sermon." - JI Packer¹




1. JI Packer, Shorter Writing, 3:274-5, taken from Roger Ellsworth, Preach the Word, Dear Timothy - Letters on Pastoral Ministry, Founders Press, 2004, 275-6

"Come Over Here and Help Us"

Here is some strong motivation to relocate and church plant in New England. The Gallup Organization recently published the state-by-state answer to the question, "Is Religion an important part of your daily life?" Not too surprisingly, all 6 New England states landed in the top 10 least religious states.

Massachusetts' original seal had a picture of a Native American with this motto on it, "Come over and help us" from Acts 16:9. It would be fitting to have a new seal with someone wearing a Red Sox jersey saying the same thing today.

New England needs missionaries who will proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and lay down their live to show folks how to live by it! Come over and help us!




HT: Albert Mohler

God's Eagerness to Listen

A great quote by Thomas Brooks from my buddy Jeff. May it encourage you as you cry out to God in your need.

"We cannot sigh out a prayer in secret—but he sees us; we cannot lift up our eyes to him at midnight—but he observes us. The eye which God has upon his people when they are in secret, is such a special tender eye of love, as opens his ear, his heart, and his hand, for their good: 1 Pet 3:12, "For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers;" or, as the Greek has it, "his ears are unto their prayers. If their prayers are so faint, that they cannot reach up as high as heaven, then God will bow the heavens and come down to their prayers."

Taken from the book The Secret Key To Heaven by Thomas Brooks 1665.

It Is Almost As If God Loves Us More Than His Son

Here is a quote from Sinclair Ferguson on God's love for us in Christ:

"When we think of Christ dying on the cross we are shown the lengths to which God’s love goes in order to win us back to himself. We would almost think that God loved us more than he loves his Son! We cannot measure such love by any other standard. He is saying to us: I love you this much. The cross is the heart of the gospel. It makes the gospel good news: Christ died for us. He has stood in our place before God’s judgment seat. He has borne our sins. God has done something on the cross we could never do for ourselves. But God does something to us as well as for us through the cross. He persuades us that he loves us."

God's love for us is measured by no lesser standard than the immeasurable worth of His all-glorious, wholly-perfect, eternally-beloved Son given up to unspeakable judgment for sinners - like me! It is almost as if God loved us more than he loves his Son! That is unimaginable love - for such as me!

God richly, richly bless you in the knowledge of His great love for you!


HT: CJ

John Updike (1932-2009)

Justin Taylor had a great post on John Updike yesterday:


Acclaimed American writer John Updike died this morning at the age of 76.

I do not know his spiritual state (he was born Lutheran and later became Episcopalian), but I rejoice in the truth that he saw. For example, here is his “Seven Stanzas at Easter”:

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

Crazy Sovereign Grace Music and Book Sale

Bob Kauflin posted about a great book and music sale at the Sovereign Grace Resoure Site - these are amazing deals!

From February 1–28, at the Sovereign Grace store, you’ll find these prices:

• Sovereign Grace books (23 of them, including Worship Matters, Worldliness, and Living the Cross Centered Life): $7 each

• all CDs produced by Sovereign Grace Music (including Together for the Gospel Live, Psalms, Come Weary Saints, and Valley of Vision): $6 each

• all books in our Pursuit of Godliness series (Why Small Groups, This Great Salvation, and others): $4 each

But wait…there’s more!

During February, we’re offering our normal free shipping in the continental US (library rate). But on all international orders we’re offering a discount of 50% on USPS First Class International shipping.

Why do we do this? Because we want to do whatever we can to make it easier for people to benefit from what we produce. We want to serve churches and individuals by providing biblically informed, gospel-centered resources at a low cost. We’d like to give it all away, but for now, that’s not financially feasible…

So we offer the February sale. Enjoy.

And tell your friends.

Mather on Reason & Inner Light vs. Revelation

"There are mysteries in religion which we know not now, but we may know hereafter. Those men are strangers to Christianity who as so vain as to write, Christianity not Mysterious...Tis true, there is nothing in the Christian religion that is against reason... God who makes all truths will make no rules of reason that shall give any contradiction to them. Nevertheless, there are truths that go beyond reason; truths that soar above reason; truths which the faculties of our feeble reason cannot see into, especially as our fall form God has enfeebled and impaired our faculties." ¹

"Reason is idolized, when men will set reason above revelation..when the light within becomes unto us a Christ and a God; when the natural conscience is advanced unto all the offices of our only Savior. A creature and one too that is darkened and wounded by sin, must not be deified." ²

1. Cotton Mather, Utilia (Boston, 1716), 260-261 from Richard Lovelace, The American Pietism of Cotton Mather: Origins of American Evangelicalism, Eerdmans, 1979, 52-53.

2. Cotton Mather, Iconoclastes, (Boston, 1717), 18-19 from Richard Lovelace, The American Pietism of Cotton Mather: Origins of American Evangelicalism, Eerdmans, 1979, 53.

Cotton Mather on Faith and Holiness

"The faith which does receive the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, will purify the heart." - Cotton Mather

Cotton Mather, The Everlasting Gospel, (Boston, 1700), 22-23 from Richard Lovelace, The American Pietism of Cotton Mather: Origins of American Evangelicalism, Eerdmans, 1979, 50

Human Rights Issue

Please consider signing the petition against the Freedom of Choice Act - a step in the wrong direction when it comes to human rights. See the previous post for more info.

HT: S&DC

Cotton Mather

I have been reading Richard Lovelace's book on Cotton Mather. It has been fantastic. For all of Cotton Mather's failings, frailties and folly he is still a great man of biblical truth, piety, wisdom and compassion. I would be glad to have such a man as my pastor! I'll be weaving in some quotes in the blog. One for now...

"Among all the subjects, with which you feed the people of God, I beseech you, let not the true Bread of Life be forgotten; but exhibit as much as you can of a Glorious Christ unto them: Yea; let the motto upon your whole ministry be, CHRIST IS ALL. ... I make no doubt of it, that the almost epidemical extinction of true Christianity, or what is little short of it, in the nations that profess it, is very much owing to the inexcusable impiety of overlooking a glorious Christ, so much in the empty harangues, which often pass for sermons." - Cotton Mather

Cotton Mather, Manaductio, 93-94 from Richard Lovelace, The American Pietism of Cotton Mather: Origins of American Evangelicalism, Eerdmans, 1979, 46-47

More Puritan Quotes

Some more great quotes from Joel Beeke's chapters in "Dear Timothy: Letters on Pastoral Ministry".

"Evangelism must rather be conceived as a long-term enterprise of patient teaching and instruction, in which God's servants seek simply to be faithful in delivering the gospel message and applying it to human lives, and leave it to God's Spirit to draw men to faith through this message in his own way and at his own speed." - JI Packer

"Like the Puritans, live in terms of the settled judgement that the joy of heaven will make amends of any losses and crosses, strains and pains that we must endure on earth if we are going to follow Christ faithfully. Regard preparedness to die as the first step in learning to live. " - Joel Beeke

"Puritan preaching revolved around 'Christ, and him crucified' - for this is the hub of the Bible. The preachers' commission is to declare the whole counsel of God; but the cross is the center of that counsel, and the Puritans knew that the traveler through the Bible landscape misses the way as soon as he loses sight of the hill called Calvary." - JI Packer

"Heaven would be hell to me without Christ." - Thomas Goodwin