Excellent David Powlison Quote

Here is an excellent quote from David Pawlison that I found over on Between Two Worlds.

David is addressing the issues of overly personal application of the scriptures, I especially like his idea of God raising Kings & Queens not puppets - Awesome!

Between Two Worlds: iMonk interviews David Powlison on “Reading the Bible For Personal Application”

But there’s no magic answer to protect us from magical, over-personalized uses of Scripture. Hang out with wise friends and teachers. There’s no substitute for being in a community that pursues wisdom. He who walks with the wise becomes wise. That community will be in part literary – there are many wise, balanced, penetrating Christian books, and many foolish semi-Christian books. Seek wisdom from God – he gives it to us when we lack. Again I’ll say, always read texts in context. And remember that God is interested in raising grownups – kings and queens – not puppets. Grownups have to make hard decisions in difficult, ambiguous circumstances; they have to make judgment calls; they don’t read tea leaves.

John Stott on the seriousness of our sin!

Church Matters: The 9Marks Blog

Our sin must be extremely horrible. Nothing reveals the gravity of sin like the cross. For ultimately what sent Christ there was neither the greed of Judas, nor the envy of the priests, not the vacillating cowardice of Pilate, but our own greed, envy, cowardice, and other sins, and Christ’s resolve in love and mercy to bear their judgment and so put them away. It is impossible for us to face Christ’s cross with integrity and not feel ashamed of ourselves. Apathy, selfishness, and complacency blossom everywhere in the world except at the cross. There these noxious weeds shrivel and die. There they are seen for the tatty, poisonous things they are. For if there was no way by which the righteous God could righteously forgive our unrighteousness, except that he should bear it himself in Christ, it must be serious indeed…

J.I. Packer on Worship

Here is a great quote from an interview with J.I. Packer where he addresses the unfortunate tendency we all have to write off as irrelevant those of a different generation to the one we occupy, check it out:

Shane Rosenthal: What do you
think about a niche marketing approach that has by virtue of the
different worship styles--teen pop, alternative, and adult
boomer--created generational segregation?

J. I. Packer:
We have separated the ages, very much to the loss of each age. In the
New Testament, the Christian church is an all-age community, and in
real life the experience of the family to look no further should
convince us that the interaction of the ages is enriching. The
principle is that generations should be mixed up in the church for the
glory of God. That doesn't mean we shouldn't disciple groups of people
of the same age or the same sex separately from time to time. That's a
good thing to do. But for the most part, the right thing is the mixed
community in which everybody is making the effort to understand and
empathize with all the other people in the other age groups. Make the effort is
the key phrase here. Older people tend not to make the effort to
understand younger people, and younger people are actually encouraged
not to make the effort to understand older people. That's a loss of a
crucial Christian value in my judgment. If worship styles are so fixedthat what's being offered fits the expectations, the hopes, even theprejudices, of any one of these groups as opposed to the others, Idon't believe the worship style glorifies God, and some change, somereformation, some adjustment, and some enlargement of spiritual visionis really called for.

Theology - Digging Deeper done rightly

I seen an excellent quote over at on earth as in heaven blog. It lets us see what Theology done rightly actually does for us, I hope that all of us involved with Digging Deeper at PEC experience this!

Christian theology is specifically charged with the task of making problematic our relationship with God, of presenting God to ourselves and others in such a way as to be confronted with a person who cannot be conformed to the narrow and sinful precincts of our own longings, expectations, and concepts. The God who comes to us in revelation is not a projection, but a person. He wrestles us to the ground, takes away our pride, and leaves us walking away from the match with a limp so that we will never forget the encounter.

Here is Tullian's helpful thoughts on the above quote:

Mike’s profound point is that, far from putting God into a box, theology done right actually destroys our little boxes and shows us that God is God and we are not; He is big and we are small. Theology reminds us that there is no God but God and to encounter him is to be forever changed!

Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World

Here is a book for your wanted list:

Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World



Certainly looks like a must read.