Comments on: The iMonk’s Weekend File 1/22/05

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

On your first point…

The one book I recommend to anybody and everybody on this matter is Graeme Goldsworthy’s *Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture*. Don’t let the title fool you. This book is for anyone who really wants to understand the centrality of Christ in either reading or hearing the Bible, and how every book and every genre is to be understood in light of Him. It is not “technical” for the most part, but stimulating reading nevertheless. This book is worth more than most seminary classes on exposition – and I can speak from experience on that.

By: imonk

imonk — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

I have that book and his According to Plan. GG is top notch in this way of looking at the Bible. Kudos.

By: Steve C.

Steve C. — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

Topic 1: I often wonder if some people have faith in the bible or faith in God.

Topic 2: I like to read your thoughts before going to church on Sunday to help me remember that I’m not the only one unsatisfied with shallow enthusiasm and emothional manipulation.

Topic 3: As a life-long charismatic, I should have been supernaturally transformed into something much more holy and powerful than I am by now. Must be my lack of faith and commitment. But lately I do notice God in many worldly and unholy places that most of my church-mates do not.

Have a blessed week, brother.

By: D. Goodmanson

D. Goodmanson — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

amen. Love point 3. Piper has been such a blessing for our church community. His continual work on our being most satisfied when God is most glorified. Some great mp3s from Piper speaking at a church-planters conference I attended at http://www.reformission.com hits on all this as well.

By: Joi

Joi — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

Topic 1: I was fortunate in my upbringing: the churches my family went to never gave any context or any outside help for Scripture (except for really bad teen devotionals), but my parents did. They taught me how to use Strong’s concordance, and often used Matthew Henry’s commentaries. Hooray!

Topic 2: Blogs are great for getting news/thoughts from a multiplicity of viewpoints. If I read blogs from various counterbalanced views, I find that my own thought life is more varied and more balanced.

3. Amen.

By: RJStevens

RJStevens — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

Mike,

I would like to disagree with your praise for blogs. As a computer network administrator who had a web page back in the mid-’90s, before anyone knew what dot com meant, it seems to me that blogs are a fad that is peaking right now and, while they won’t disappear completely, their importance has been greatly overstated. The link below to an article on Slate does a pretty good job of explaining what I mean here.

And as far as using blogs as a tool to reach the lost, every tool necessary to reach the lost existed back in 33 AD. Whether it’s a sickle or a mechanized harvester, there has to be a will to harvest. No tool can change that. Look at all the newfangled bible software packages – are people reading their bibles more today? It seems to me that if blogs were the panacea that everyone claims they are, Jesus would have made sure to set up Peter, Paul, etc. with blogging software.

It’s interesting and fun, but I doubt this new twist on fairly old tech will bring about the revolution so many expect.

http://www.slate.com/id/2112621/

By: David

David — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

On #1– Do you think that a recovery of preaching the narrative and context of the whole redemptive plan of God can happen apart from a re-framing of the whole approach of most local church ministries? It seems that the pragmatic, atomistic, “reduce everything to an alliterated outline” approach shows up in worship,discipleship approaches, counseling, decision-making,policy-framing, etc…The church is following the lead of the preaching in so many ways…
#3– The thirst for experience is stunningly subtle and tantalizingly powerful. Watch 5 minutes of the TBN nightly thing and see the people with glazed over eyes, jumping & swaying while the music cranks to a new key, certain that this will be the night they breakthrough. But it’s not just there–in our church, there is often a resistance to doctrinally rooted thinking in favor of the programmatic need of the moment. Piper’s book is a stunning diagnosis of the reasons for a faith that makes much of something other than God– and a hopeful, practical, biblical prescription.

By: In Search of a Clue

In Search of a Clue — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

The Naked Text

This topic indeed seems blasphemous to a life-long Baptist, but I feel it is worth investigating. What purpose should the Word of God have in our life? Does God desire we live solely by the words of the Word? Or does He desire us to seek the living W…