New feed for this blog
For a variety of reasons (they're all boring, I promise) I'm "shifting" this blog to a slightly different location. You won't be able to recognize the change visually, but the important shift comes in this way: the RSS feed is changing.This means that, if you're one of my tens of readers directly from the feed, you'll need to change your feed reader to the new feed (see below).If you're one of the folks who reads my posts via Facebook: over the next few days, you'll probably see a lot of my older posts show up again. Sorry for the redundancy.The new actual address for the blog is:

On "conversion"
"Obviously, what Jesus promises is highly desirable. Blessedness, freedom, healing of internal sin, access to eternal life-- who does not gladly hear of such things? Who would not want to celebrate with the King? What hinders us, since he calls to each of us and demands nothing in return?"But this misconstrues the intent of the goodness whose goal is to lead us to conversion. It is not shown to us so that we might remain what we are. It rather appeals to us to transcend our base drives and free ourselves from coarse desire. For the king remains the king, even when in his grace he opens his banquet to all. All his banquet serves his glorification, even if it bestows great b

Sermon texts for November 2009
Morning:November 1 Luke 22:54-23:25 -- Betrayal of the King (Guest Preacher Doug Barcroft)November 8 Luke 23:26-56 -- The wages of sin...November 15 Luke 24:1-12 -- He is not here...November 22 Luke 24:13-53 -- Eyes openedNovember 29 Advent part 1Evening:November 15 Colossians 1 -- GnosticismNovember 29 Advent part 2 (Chrismon Tree-Lighting Service)

Responding to the fear-mongerers
While Jerram Barrs was here over the weekend, I asked him (among many other things!): How should we respond to those who are trafficking in Gospel-denying fear about political matters?Part of his response was to point out how disrespectful talking about President Obama and others as some Christians do is-- not simply of our president, but of other Christians who have faced real threat and persecution. This is such a key point. This video underscores it:[HT: Glen

Spiritual Life Conference
The Hickory Withe Presbyterian Church Spiritual Life Conference starts this evening. Our theme for the conference is: Ask, Seek, Knock-- Learning to Pray.If you're in the area-- or even remotely close-- you might seriously consider changing your plans to come be a part of this. Prof. Jerram Barrs will