What About The Shack? August 29, 2008
The Shack is very popular. People often ask me about it. Here are some thoughtful links:
Preacher and Author Ray Pritchard has written a bunch of really good books. He has a beautiful web site full of free, helpful resources. I have read his blogs for years. He has read and commented on The Shack. I would suggest you read his posts on the topic if you are interested in the book.
Theologian Al Mohler discussed it on his radio program Mohler is one of the finest, most thoughtful Christian leaders in America.
Blogger Tim Challis has reviewed the book, too. I would suggest you download the PDF version from his site.
We who are teachers–who are trying to help people wrestle with human hurts and questions–will use every creative means possible, but we must keep in mind the warning of James 3:1:
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
Tozer Biography August 28, 2008
I’ve been reading a new biography of A. W. Tozer by Lyle Dorsett. It is worthwhile and honest.
Janice Meredith Wilson April 14, 2008
I brought this post to the top of my site because I mentioned it in my message Sunday morning. Be sure you follow the link at the end of my essay.
Do you know who Janice Meredith Wilson is? You should. Let me get on my soapbox here for a minute and then I will introduce her to you.
The guest list for lecturers at the National Cathedral in Washington D. C. is heavily weighted toward an odd amalgam of men and women, writers and preachers, educators and media persons who almost always speak with robust confidence about questionable things. The same people treat with detached skepticism the simple, straightforward claims of the Bible. In other words, the people who speak at the National Cathedral are often sure of things that Christians have historically been doubtful about and doubtful about things that have historically defined Christianity.
I know I’m speaking in direct tones here, but I would not recommend that you surf onto their site and start watching lectures unless you have a strong stomach and a stalwart faith. None of us have enough time on our hands to watch people talk on and on about what they DON’T believe, no matter how sophisticated, popular, elite, educated, or well-spoken they are.
But there have been a few exceptions. On December 6, 2005 the powers that be at the National Cathedral invited Janice Meredith Wilson to lecture. From what I can tell it was one of their best decisions in recent years. I watched the lecture on my computer.
Janice Meredith Wilson is the name of the author who is known by the pseudonym, Jan Karon. She is the author of the Mitford series of novels about an Episcopal pastor from a delightful fictitious village in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains called Mitford, North Carolina. There are nine books in all. They tell a warm story about a community of people and a pastor, his wife, his dog, and her cat. The books are entertaining and insightful, they are descriptive and delightful. Her depictions of people make you laugh and cry. Her descriptions of food make your mouth water. Her insights on the things of God make you want to pray and serve and love and give. Though fiction they are accurate and tasteful in their treatments of human nature and Janice is able to accomplish all this without resorting to profanity, offensive violence, or sexual innuendo.
She did in her address at the National Cathedral what she did in her books. She told her story in a compelling and clear way weaving into the story spiritual insights and biblical truths. It is an art and she is a skilled artist. She told how she came to the place where she knew her life was empty and she called on the Lord Jesus to forgive her sins and take over her life. She so tastefully and boldly proclaimed Christ and the gospel that I literally jumped to my feet and cheered her on.
We may not be asked to speak at the National Cathedral, but we all have our pulpit, our lectern, our microphone, our street corner, our place at the table in the coffee shop. We all have our moment on the stage. We all have our circle of influence. When the time comes-follow Jan Karon’s example. When you have a brief moment in the lights don’t forget who your God is. Don’t forget who your creator is. Don’t forget the One who is your hope and your salvation. Don’t forget the One who is your life. Don’t forget the One in whom we live and move and have our being. With a winsome spirit, with the bold confidence of someone who is handing out one hundred dollar bills, with graceful poise, stand up and make Christ known.
He is the way, the truth, and the life and when you proclaim his name it will have the ring of truth in the hearts of those whom God is calling to himself. He is at work in the hearts of people, do your part and make Him known. Here is a link to Jan’s lecture
Ken Pierpont
Brook Place
Hinsdale, Illinois
January 16, 2007
Spring Tomorrow March 20, 2008
Hannah and I ran some errands this evening. At the Riverview Library I found two nice, hardcover fly-fishing books for sale in the lobby. For a paltry quarter each they are mine. Leaving the library the sun had just sunk from sight. The sky is beautifully clear tonight. In the southeast a bright full moon is rising. Tomorrow is Good Friday and the first day of spring. My heart is quiet.
Good Reading March 18, 2008
I’m reading F. W. Boreham’s Mushrooms on the Moor this evening. He was a pastor but not a “preachy” writer. He possessed a unique style of writing. You can read his “blog” here Of course he has been dead for years, but you can sample his writings on the blog devoted to his writing. He attended Spurgeon’s Pastor’s School and was the last student interviewed personally by the great preacher.
I’m also enjoying this study of Spurgeon’s preaching by Zack Eswine. With every page I thank God for the great privilege He has given me to Herald the Word every week.
“Have you ever seen an assembly listening to an orator all unmoved and stolid? Suddenly the Holy Ghost has fallen on the speaker and the King Himself has been visibly set forth among them in the midst of the assembly and all have felt as if they could leap to their feet and cry, “Hallelujah, Hallelujah!” Then hearts beat fast, and souls leap high; for where Jesus is found His presence fills the place with delight.” (from a message by Charles Spurgeon on the Personality of the Holy Spirit).
I long for the King to show up when I preach. I love dear, benevolent, redeemer, King Jesus!
Cherry-picking Piper March 14, 2008
If I had a dollar for every time I have recommended The Supremacy of God in Preaching, by John Piper I could buy a new Easter suit. It is one of the top five books on preaching I have ever read and I have read hundreds of books on preaching.
Matt Frey did a great job putting together some interesting quotes from a powerful message by John Piper given recently on the west coast. It was a helpful message and had something like 32 points on How Pastoral Ministry Shapes Pulpit Ministry. Can you imagine?
“I cannot overstate how hell affects my ministry. I listen to a preacher for just a while to see if I smell the belief in hell. And if I don’t, I pray for him and I’m concerned; whether his demeanor or his doctrine or whatever just doesn’t smell like he believes in it. And that’s tragic. Because that’s what’s at stake. You’re not just tweaking people’s lives. You’re not just fixing their marriages, or fixing their health, or fixing their jobs, or fixing their personalities and their depression. You’re rescuing them from hell. This is the great passion. From hell for God. It’s a rescue operation and shaping them into the people that love to praise the grace that did that for them.”
“I don’t do change lists…I hardly ever talk about biblical principles of stuff. I don’t do principles. I do Jesus. I want to lift up Christ and his ways and his works and his purposes in such a full rich way, that people are caught up into another world, another realm of reality…and then they do diapers differently. They shop and cook and do computer and internet and audio…All of it is just in another realm. We have died and our life is hidden with Christ in God.”
“I get fed up with hearing so much non-Bible…I hear “Oh well we believe that… that’s foundational…” Well, get it out of the foundation and put it in the kitchen. Nobody remodels the cement blocks of their basement. People are worried about…the kitchen…they live up there. They don’t give a rip about what the foundation looks like…So I’m not impressed by that answer…
These glorious truths in the Bible are not there to be hidden in the basement while you talk about other things. I’m talking about the value and the worth of Jesus, the triumphs of Jesus, the knowledge of Jesus, the wisdom, the authority, the providence, the power, the purity, trustworthiness, the justice, the patience, the endurance, the wrath, the love…that’s enough to keep you going for a life time. Talk about him. Make it so absolutely glorious they’ve got to come back and hear the next installment about King Jesus! Rather than just…oh my goodness…Another little pep talk about how you can do better at work or something. It’s just so sad…All I can conclude is that there are pastors who are not moved by their Bibles. They’re not moved. They read them and they say…”I’m supposed to talk about this…but frankly I find this new book about church planting, or marriage…This is what is really fascinating. I’m energized here, but here…this thing…this does not energize me…That’s all I can conclude…”
“Show your people [in the text] where you get your points. There’s a big reason for that. [The Bible] has authority. I don’t have any. To the degree that I persuade people of my ideas, without showing them that it’s right here [in the Bible], they can see it over lunch, after the service, they can talk about it as a family, right out of that book…To the degree that I detract them for [the Bible], I raise up their dependence on me, and I reduce their dependence on The Book. You don’t want to do that. The Lord will spank you…”
Heaven’s coming real fast… We murmur about our circumstances on the way to heaven. You’ve got two seconds to live folks, James says, because that’s how long a vapor lasts when you go “whew” on a Minnesota morning. You’ve got two seconds to live. And then you inherit the universe…
All things are yours…and “you are Christ’s and Christ’s is God’s”. Why would you murmur? You don’t believe it, or you don’t feel it. That the treasure coming for you in heaven is infinitely valuable, and it’s just around the corner.
So get free from the love of money. Do everything. There is more about money in the gospels ten-times over than there is about sex…That’s the killer. We’re greedy. We think we have to have endless securities and comforts around our lives, when actually we should be the most radical and risk taking, let-it-go kind of people.”
Here is a link to the message if you want more.
A Man Called Peter; A Romance Worth Reading June 28, 2007
I am among many, many thousands who love Catherine Marshall’s story of the life of Peter Marshall; A Man Called Peter. In case there are some of you who are not yet among them I would like to tell you some of the reasons I love this book.
Romance First, everyone loves a romance and A Man Called Peter is a beautifully-written romance story between Peter and Catherine Marshall, a Scottish immigrant and a pastor’s daughter from the mountains of Tennessee. It’s not the kind of contrived, one-dimensional romance that is the stuff of popular fiction, but a real romance described in the setting of life.
The Romance of Ministry A Man Called Peter is an inspiring story of the romance of Christian ministry. It is about the pastorate and preaching and being a pastor’s wife. It is a healthy look at what it should look like to shepherd a congregation. It is an honest but positive telling of the trials and triumphs of the pastorate.
The Romance of Living Third, Catherine Marshall is a very gifted writer and a good storyteller and the story of Peter Marshall is a good story. Catherine Marshall had a beautiful way of looking at life and a moving way of describing living and dying.
The Divine Romance Finally, the story–front to back–is a story of the providence and love of God in the life of one Scottish boy who overcame the loss of his father when he was young, his unrequited longing to go to sea, and the hardship of poverty, to become one of the most popular pastors in America and the Chaplain of the United States Senate.
It has one of the most moving endings of any book I have ever read. It is one of the books I read and re-read. I know it has influenced how I look at life and ministry. It is a rich, romance in the highest sense of the word. I like the movie but I love the book. I predict that if you read it you will read other books by Catherine Marshall.
While you are waiting for your copy of A Man Called Peter to come you can read this.
Hard to Believe March 28, 2007
When I was not yet twenty years old I remember John MacArthur speaking for a week at Moody. It was as if he opened the Bible and answered the deepest questions of my young heart. He spoke on “Glorifying God” and “God’s Will is not Lost.” Since then I have always tried to read John MacArthur. He is a modern “Worthy.” This month his new book The Truth War is available. I’m sure I will read it soon. The following quote came from Hard to Believe:
Theodore Roosevelt once said, “there has never yet been a man who led a life of ease, whose name is worth remembering.” Certainly when the Lord calls us to be His disciples, He does not call us to a life of ease.
After a long, difficult life of Christian service in India, (Henry Martyn) announced he was going to Persia (Modern Iran), because God had laid it upon his heart to translate the New Testament and the Psalms into the Persian language. By then he was an old man. People told him that if he stayed in India he would die because from the heat and Persia was hotter than India. But he went nonetheless. There he studied the Persian language and then translated the entire New Testament and Psalms in nine months. Then he learned that he couldn’t print or circulate them until he received the Shah’s permission. He traveled six hundred miles to Tehran; there he was denied permission to see the Shah. He turned around and made a four-hundred-mile trip to find the British ambassador, who gave him the proper letters of introduction and sent him the four hundred miles back to Tehran. This was in 1812, and Martyn made the whole trip on the back of a mule, traveling at night resting by day, protected from the sweltering desert sun by nothing but a strip of canvas.
He finally arrived back in Tehran, was received by the Shah, and secured permission for the Scriptures to be printed and circulated in Persia. Ten days later he died. But shortly before his death, he had written this statement in his diary: “I sat in the orchard, and thought, with sweet comfort and peace, of my God ‘ in solitude my Company, my Friend, and Comforter.”
Travels, Reading, and Links August 14, 2006
INDIANAPLOIS Last week it was my delightful privilege to speak to hundreds of students and parents at our regional training conference in Indianapolis. I spoke for over an hour to the students, over an hour to the parents and then I stood around for three hours talking to friends old and new after that. We drove back to Hinsdale with Dewy Novotny and Victor Weib. The conversation made the over three-hour trip seem like minutes.
CHUK Charles passed another test while we were in Indianapolis so we celebrated that, too. Chuk is only three tests short of his B.A. degree and only 20 years old. He is exploring missions and ministry options now that his degree completion is in sight. He has some very exciting ministry ideas.
CHURCH Yesterday morning we attended the smallest church we have been in four years, but I left with tears of conviction on my face and a deeper desire to seek the Lord in my heart. The pastor is Dr. Tim Sisk, who is a professor and chair of the World Missions & Evangelism department at Moody Bible Institute. Here is a link to the delightful little church
CAMBRIDGE I was fascinated by reading John Piper’s account of his study sabbatical in Cambridge.
READING Saturday and Sunday I had some time to read a fascinating book about C. S. “Jack” Lewis and the influence of Ireland, Ulster, and County Down on his imagination and writing. The book is called “A Shiver of Wonder.” Lois caught me reading it on my little corner of the stone back porch.
Adam: “God, Why did you make Eve so beautiful?”
God: “So you would be attracted to her.”
Adam: “Why did you make her such an airhead?”
God: “That was so that she would be attracted to you.”
The Best Place to Do Theology January 9, 2006
Last night I checked the mail and it is official. All my requirements for my Master’s Degree from Moody Graduate School are now complete. I started six years ago almost to the day.
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Ken's new book - Sunset On Summer, now available for order, $13.95 each.