If you want to crawl inside the possible world that opens when a dirt-poor, illiterate, former-share-cropin’, homeless 50-something enters the life of a swank, upscale, southern, Christian art dealer, read Same Kind of Different As Me. These two men tell their increasingly interwoven stories in alternating short chapters that kept me coming back night after night.

Their names are Denver Moore and Ron Hall. There is a woman who binds them together. But if I tell you what happens to her it might ruin the story for you.

Here are the kinds of lines that would keep me going even if the story didn’t (which it did):

• “Denver and I are not preachers or teachers but sinners with a story…

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John and Noël are in Egypt this week to meet with others in preparation for Lausanne 2010. And since they knew they would be there already, they planned a few other activities as well.

Today they got to tackle one of these other plans and visit several ancient Egyptian historical sites. You can go to Noël's blog for more pictures and thoughts about what they saw.

I loved you by the bending tree
Where N plus J marks you and me.

 

I loved you outside Williston,
The year before God made us one.

 

I loved you in a paisley dress,
When everything in me said, Yes.

 

I loved you when your hair was long,
Like Mary and her sixties song.

 

I loved you in your wedding gown,
And how we tiptoed out of town.

 

I loved you on the balcony
Of our small flat in Germany.

 

I loved you when your heart was buoyed,
And even when you were annoyed.

 

I loved you when our first son came;
Yes, Karsten is a boy’s first name.

 

I loved you with the quiver full;
How could you carry such a bull!

 

I loved you for y…

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God faithfully directs the paths of everyone who trusts in him with all their heart (Proverbs 3:5-6). But sometimes, as Moses experienced in Exodus 18, God directs us through a word of correction from someone else.

The reunion of Moses and Jethro was a sweet one. Moses was glad to have his wife and his two boys back with him. And Jethro sat astonished as Moses described the ten plagues, the pillar of God’s presence, the Red Sea deliverance, the provision of manna, and water from a rock. Jethro rejoiced in such unparalleled demonstrations of divine power and confessed God’s supremacy in everything.

Then Jethro observed his son-in-law at work. Clearly Moses was an extraordinary proph…

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From February 4 through March 17, I will be on my annual writing leave (with a couple speaking trips thrown in). Thank you for supporting me in these focused times away. They are not vacation. I usually work longer hours during writing leave than during regular ministry seasons.

So please pray for me that I would love my family well and that I would be very productive for the glory of Christ. Pray that I would devote more time to prayer, not less; that I would give more time to read and meditate on the Scriptures, not less; and pray that I would see beautiful truth in God’s word and be able to write about it in spiritually compelling ways. What will I work on?...

Read the rest of th…

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I recommend Doug Wilson’s Five Cities that Ruled the World (Thomas Nelson, 2009). The cities he highlights are Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and New York, each leaving the world a legacy.

Jerusalem has bequeathed to us a legacy of the spirit; Athens, reason and the mind; Rome, law; London, literature; and New York, industry and commerce. (xx)

In developing the literary legacy of London, Wilson unearths this nugget from C. S. Lewis about William Tyndale and the Reformation:

Tyndale was willing to endure great trials because of what he believed about the gospel. C. S. Lewis explained that the “whole purpose of the ‘gospel,’ for Tyndale, is to deliver us …

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Jesus keeps us off balance. We think we know that perfection is a fastball of justice, and he throws us the curveball of grace.

When I read Matthew 5:48 abstracted from it’s context, I’m thinking mainly in terms of justice.

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

“Perfect,” ah yes, surely that’s mainly about being just. But Jesus’ context gives this charge some wicked spin.

Despite what I would guess in extrapolating from verse 48, with my innate definition of perfection, Matthew 5:38-47 is all about moving beyond mere justice to God-like grace. “Perfection” in God is not merely “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” (verse 38) …

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What the Bible teaches keeps us in line with reality. But what the Bible includes keeps us balanced and protects us from ill-advised overstatement.

As he came to Christ C. S. Lewis was learning from J.R.R. Tolkein that Christianity is “true myth.” “It really happened.”

Then he says, “The ‘doctrines’ we get out of the true myth are of course less true: they are translations into our concepts and ideas of that which God has already expressed in language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection.”

My Bible awareness triggers a response: “More adequate” for what?

Certainly the events of incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection are “more adequa…

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Jesus in Haiti
After the Earthquake

Do you consider safety, or your health,
          A sign from me?
I am not awed by might, nor struck by wealth,
          Or poverty.

O, I am struck! And crushed. Buried, I wince,
           And dying, pray,
A sympathetic Priest in Port-au-Prince,
          Even today.

But there, in those United States the boot
          Is on my face.
“Saul, Saul,” I ask, “Why do you persecute
           And not embrace?”

Your King, I lift my arms to you in peace
          And patient grief;
And summon now to Haiti enemies
          For my relief.