HARMLESS THOUGHTS

  1 Timothy 4:8

 I found this on the Gospel Coalition Website .

 Are you playing "the game"?  Any resemblance to actual persons or situations in this video is purely coincidental. 

  Oh... so many have taken the smallest possible view of "endures" and interpreted it themselves to have the least possible impact on their choices, desires, dreams, and decisions. 

 From The Book of Common Prayer, 1662 The Pastor: Into this holy union (the Man) and (the Woman) now come to be joined. If any of you can show just cause why they may not lawfully be married, speak now; or else for ever hold your peace. The Pastor:  I require and charge you both, here in the presence of God, that if either of you know any reason why you may not be united in marriage lawfully, and in accordance with God's Word, you do now confess it. The Pastor:  (The Woman) will you have this man to be your husband; to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live? The Woman answers, "I will." The Pastor:  (The Man) will you have this woman to be your wife; to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithfu...

  Happy Birthday, Dad!

This post will also be Episode 41 of my Podcast .   This is Part 3 in my Edgewood Edge-U-Macation series. You can find Part 1 Here and Part 2 Here . For the third part of this series, I am going to break from my This NOT That pattern. I contemplated a couple of titles for this post that might work, but in the end, I didn't really want to focus on what we don't do... but more on what we do do. In this particular case: Expository Preaching. 

(This post will also serve as Episode 40 of my Podcast .) This is the second in a potential series of posts where I would like to introduce newcomers (and others) to Edgewood. In the first post of this series, I started by stating that, "At Edgewood Church, in Danville, IL, we are about the person... NOT the program." ( You can read that post by clicking here .)  In this new post I would like to very briefly tackle the topic of church attendance and maybe even touch on the concept of church membership. I will attempt to do this in two simple points. 

 We live in a world with an empty tomb.

(This post will also serve as episode 39 of my podcast .) This is the first in a potential series of posts where I would like to introduce newcomers (and others) to Edgewood.  At Edgewood Church, in Danville, IL, we are about the person... NOT the program. What do I mean by this statement? Well, I'd like to answer that with Five Thoughts. 

(This post will also serve as episode 38 of my podcast .) God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform; This coming July, I will have been preaching at Edgewood Church in Danville, IL for thirteen years. I have preached at least three sermons per month, with several long stretches of preaching every sermon in the month. If I had to estimate the total number of sermons that I've preached, it would be well over 600 sermons.

In the Gospel According to Matthew, right after a section of recorded parables, we read this:  [51] “Have you understood all these things?” They said to him, “Yes.” [52] And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”  Matthew 13:51–52 (ESV) I have no idea what this means.  I love it. It is wonderful and marvelous and mysterious. Important truths have been opened to me in the reading of this short little parable. But I don't really know what he is talking about.  I do know that I genuinely want to be a scribe who has been trained for the Kingdom of Heaven. 

  Filling up the Afflictions of Christ is book number five in the series of books by John Piper called, The Swans are not Silent . I think, but I'm not sure, that each of these books... and even each of the three short biographies in each book... sprang from a conference message or a church message that John Piper originally delivered. I believe most of these have sermons that you can find online at DesiringGod.Org.  In this book we can read about William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson, and John Paton. The unifying thread with these three men is, as the book subtitle states: "The Cost of Bringing the Gospel to the Nations..." in each of their lives.  The title of this book comes from Colossians 1:24 --  Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. Piper goes on to explain this passage by saying,  "What is lacking in the afflictions of Christ is not ...

It is a snow day today... And I just completed a book! The book is Contending for Our All , by John Piper. This is the 4th book in his series: The Swans are not Silent.  This is the first book I have read in this series. In this book, John Piper writes about three men who contended for the Faith: Athanasius, John Owen, and J. Gresham Machen. He isn't attempting to give a complete biography of any of these individuals, but instead is seeking to highlight one aspect of their lives. In the case of these three: it is the controversies that surrounded them, and the heart for the beauty of God in the face of Jesus Christ that supported and motivated each of these men through these controversies.  With each one of the biographical summaries that Piper shares, I found myself to not only be intrigued by these men... wanting to read more of each of their lives and to read more of their writing, but also spurred on toward a more persistent delving into the mysteries of God myself.  ...