In her article “Down Syndrome Dangers” from this month's World, Joni Eareckson Tada writes,

A person with Down syndrome may never understand how to keep up with the Joneses or how to get over his head in debt. He or she may never be clever enough to sneak behind his spouse’s back and look for an illicit affair (yes, men and women with Down syndrome do marry, and some of those marriages are honest-to-goodness models to neighbors and friends). They won’t be cunning enough to know how to cheat, weave lies, or how to stab a friend in the back. People with Down Syndrome may not have driver’s licenses, but then again, neither do I—and I get around quite well for a quadriplegic.

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Ross and Barbara Anderson have a wide and deep network of friends who love them and continue to bear with them the weight of losing their son Luke Kenneth Anderson on August 27, 2007. Many have asked that we work with Ross and Barbie to make the “Service of Worship and Thanksgiving for the Life Of Luke Kenneth Anderson” available online to those friends and any others who might be helped through this witness to the mercy and power of Jesus Christ. We are eager to do this.

The service includes the hymns that we sang, the testimonies from family and friends and counselors, and a message of hope from God’s word in John 11. If you listen, keep in mind how agonizingly real this loss is to so…

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The death of James Kennedy on September 5 is marked by Al Mohler with more than the usual recollections about a leader's great achievements. There is the personal touch on Dr. Mohler’s life that adds the kind of thing we love to hear about a great leader:

My indebtedness to Dr. Kennedy is very personal.  I was a young Southern Baptist who as a teenager had serious questions about the big issues of the Christian faith.  Dr. Kennedy's ministry at Coral Ridge addressed those big questions.  He was unafraid to take on the intellectual challenges of the faith.  He was kind to a Baptist teenager, introducing me to Francis Schaeffer and dignifying my questions.  He clearly enjoyed talking the

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My wife and I just finished reading through The Big Picture Story Bible with our 2-year-old for his bedtime devotions. We went from Creation to Revelation in 26 simply-told and colorfully-drawn stories. Obviously, a lot has to be skipped over in order to sum up the Bible in 26 segments. But that's this book's whole point: to sum it all up; to give kids the gist of God's word. The whole point of the story of redemption is Jesus, “the forever king.”

Nothing I say could emphasize the value of books like this more than just quoting my son. For the last several minutes he has been reading this book to himself and making up songs about the pictures that he recognizes.

At the beginning of …

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There are two ways that the soul can resist the truth of God’s sovereign governance over all evil that is implied in Genesis 50:20—“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”

1. The soul can resist with an unbelieving and rebellious spirit that willfully resists God’s right and power and wisdom in “meaning evil for good.”
2. The soul can resist with a humble mixture of love for God’s holiness, justice, and love, on the one hand, and mental perplexity as to how these could be consistent with God’s “meaning evil for good,” on the other hand.

#2 brings God’s patient, merciful displeasure, leading eventually to greater light.

#1 brings God’s punitive displeasure, …

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This is part 4 of a 4-part series on how to talk about God's sovereignty over sin.

• Part 1, Does God Author Sin?
• Part 2, Does God Cause Sin?
  
• Part 3, Does God Permit Sin?
  

The following is from The Doctrine of God, Chapter 9, “The Problem of Evil,” by John Frame. The headings are added; the paragraphs are Dr. Frame’s.

The Author-Story Model

I should ... say something more about the nature of God’s agency in regard to evil. Recall from [chapter 8 in The Doctrine of God] the model of the author and his story: God’s relationship to free agents is like the relationship of an author to his characters. Let us consider to what extent God’s relationship to human sin is…

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This is part 3 of a 4-part series on how to talk about God's sovereignty over sin.

• Part 1, Does God Author Sin?
• Part 2, Does God Cause Sin?
  

The following is from The Doctrine of God, Chapter 9, “The Problem of Evil,” by John Frame. The headings are added; the paragraphs are Dr. Frame’s.

3) Does God Permit Sin?

Consider now the term permits. This is the preferred term in Arminian theology, in which it amounts to a denial that God causes sin. For the Arminian, God does not cause sin; he only permits it. Reformed theologians, however, have also used the term, referring to God’s relation to sin. The Reformed, however, insist contrary to the Arminians that God’s “permis…

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In his Touchstone article about evangelicals and literature, Donald Williams looks at the fiction of Flannery O'Connor and how her Catholic faith made her art possible. The question he wants to answer by considering O'Connor is why there are no evangelical writers who are recognized for their similarly high literary quality. Here is one of the reasons that he notes:

[T]he popular Evangelical subculture seems ... addicted to pragmatism in its approach, as a brief trip through the “Christian bookstore” will show. Fiction can only be justified if it has an overt evangelistic purpose; works of visual art must have a Scripture verse tacked under them.

Evangelistic fiction a…

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This is part 2 of a 4-part series on how to talk about God's sovereignty over sin.

Read Part 1, "Does God Author Sin? "

* * *

The following is from The Doctrine of God, Chapter 9, “The Problem of Evil,” by John Frame. The headings are added; the paragraphs are Dr. Frame’s.

2) Does God Cause Sin?

Causes is another term which has led to much wrestling by theologians. . . . Reformed writers have . . . denied that God is the cause of sin. Calvin teaches, “For the proper and genuine cause of sin is not God’s hidden counsel but the evident will of man,”¹ though in context he also states that Adam’s Fall was “not without God’s knowledge and ordination.”² Some other examples…

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This is part 1 of a 4-part series on how to talk about God's sovereignty over sin.

In his last three sermons, John Piper has made some provocative statements about God’s sovereignty over sin.

• August 12: “God created [Satan and his demons] knowing what they would become and how, in that very evil role, they would glorify Christ. Knowing everything they would become, God created them for the glory of Christ.”
• August 19: “God is sovereign over Satan, and therefore Satan’s will does not move without God’s permission. And therefore every move of Satan is part of God’s overall purpose and plan.”
• August 26: “[E]verything that exists—including evil—is ordain…

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