Session 4, John Piper's biographical sketch of J. C. Ryle —

Read the entire manuscript of the message:
"The Frank and Manly Mr. Ryle" — The Value of a Masculine Ministry"

The audio and video will be posted on Friday.

Session 5, Doug Wilson on "Father Hunger" in Leading the Church —

• "Remember the good newsness of the gospel. The gospel is outside of us. It is for us, but is external to us."
• "We must always remember the gospel because we are tempted to forget the gospel in throughout the busyness of ministry."
• "We are privilege to carry around our sin the same way David carried Goliath's head."
• "The gifts to the church are windows you look through, not murals you look at."
• "Because we don't understand how imitation governs the world, we've neglected one of the most important realities we're to imitate."
• "Grace and peace in your life come to you in a person, the Holy Spirit."
• "The church needs fathers who…

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Session 3, Darrin Patrick on "Being and Building Men for the Local Mission" —

• "When you become a leader of men, you plug your life into an ampiflier and everyone hears it."
• "There's nothing more destructive for people who are trying to know God than legalism."
• "You don't obey for your acceptance, you obey from your acceptance."
• "You don't measure your maturity by comparing yourself with others. You judge maturity by comparing yourself to Jesus."
• "You can’t legislate inner character. It can’t be done. Law cannot do anything with the root of anger, greed and lust."
• "Paul tells us to crucify the flesh. Crucifixion is a slow death, but it is a certain death."
• "Your flesh is anything you use o…

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Session 2, Crawford Loritts on "Lessons Learned from His Father" —

• "Greatness is not pop or fad. Greatness has a staying power."
• "Manhood is not a private matter. It is a public thing. A man aspires to be the desired destination at which others arrive."
• "This summarizes my dad: Stepping up, never walking away, if it belongs to you, you do something with it."
• "There is a correlation between being a man and keeping promises."
• "Every child is born with two broad categories of emotional need: nurture and discipline."
• "Manhood is imprinted."
• "Our disproportionate desire for relevance is injecting embalming fluid into the next generation."
• "Out of struggle comes strength; out of strength come…

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Session 1, Doug Wilson on "'Father Hunger' in Leading the Home" —

• "Begin with gospel, walk in the gospel, end with the gospel."
• "Fatherhood in the home and pastoral care in the church are analogous activities. This makes sense only if they are related activities."
• "When Paul considers the leadership of the church he doesn't first refer to a rigorous MDiv program."
• "Is there anything that the Father has which he has withheld from us?"
• "The way we image the Father is to be open-handed and generous in all that we have."
• "Masculinity is the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility."
• "Masculine toughness has to lay underneath masculine tenderness. It is a velvet covered brick."
• "Biblical a…

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Jesus tells us a story about a fool in Luke 12.

This fool was a rich man — a productive farmer who built big barns to store his increase. And there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. We need productive farmers in this world.

But if it's not riches that makes this man a fool, what is it?

Expounding this story and giving personal application, John Piper explains the heart matter of money, and how what we do with it brings hazard or help.

Stream or download this week's message.

Don’t rest on past reading. Read your Bible more and more every year. Read it whether you feel like reading it or not. And pray without ceasing that the joy return and pleasures increase.

Three reasons this is not legalism:

1. You are confessing your lack of desire as sin, and pleading as a helpless child for the desire you long to have. Legalists don’t cry like that. They strut.
2. You are reading out of desperation for the effects of this heavenly medicine. Bible-reading is not a cure for a bad conscience; it’s chemo for your cancer. Legalists feel better because the box is checked. Saints feel better when their blindness lifts, and they see Jesus in the word. Let’s get real. We are despera…

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

Discipleship means adherence to Christ, and, because Christ is the object of that adherence, it must take the form of discipleship.

An abstract Christology, a doctrinal system, a general religious knowledge on the subject of grace or on the forgiveness of sins, render discipleship superfluous, and in fact they positively exclude any idea of discipleship whatever, and are essentially inimical to the whole conception of following Christ.

With an abstract idea it is possible to enter into a relation of formal knowledge, to become enthusiastic about it, and perhaps even to put it into practice; but it can never be followed in personal obedience.

Christianity wit…

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Being a Christian doesn’t only mean that you assent to a certain set of doctrines. There are other equally important things that must be true. Jonathan Edwards explains.

It is essential to Christianity

• that we repent of our sins,
• that we be convinced of our own sinfulness,
• that we are sensible we have justly exposed ourselves to God’s wrath,
• that our hearts do renounce all sin,
• that we do with our whole hearts embrace Christ as our only Saviour;
• that we love him above all, and
• are willing for his sake to forsake all, and
• that we do give up ourselves to be entirely and forever his.

Religious Affections, 334; bullets added.

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Recent posts from "They Still Spe…

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There he sat, the scum of society on the footstep of heaven on earth, begging the condescending mercy of pious passersby going in and out of the temple. Enough mercy today and he could eat.

This man was blind. He had been born that way. And it was his own fault. As a fetus this man had sinned in the womb against the Almighty. Either that or his parents had sinned and brought a curse upon him. Whichever it was, he was suffering a just punishment.

Those who had been righteous fetuses walked by and sometimes dropped a coin in his hand. This would merit them even more divine favor.

You see, in the law and prophets God had not explained exactly why one sinful person suffers more than anot…

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