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Getting these out late. I'll blame the travel schedule! Grieving: You Path Back to Peace by James White This may be White's most pastoral book. Usually associated with his debates and staunch defense of his theological convictions, it is rare to see White take a step back and offer encouragement from a pastoral perspective. When this happens, however, it is truly a blessing. White gently reminds his readers that yes, Christians grieve too, no, you aren't the only one to feel this way, and that you should give yourself the time you need to process through your grief. He explores what upward healthy grieving patterns look like as opposed to downward patterns, and that the key difference between the two is hope.  From there, White goes on to give practical advise on how to actually do the real work of grieving. He helps the reading through things like transitions, sifting through belongs, and dealing with spontaneous emotion. He warns about common pitfalls and things that can ...

 Here are my February reads. Lighter month.  Click the link to jump to the section: Do You Pray? by J.C. Ryle The Pastor and Counseling by Jeremy Pierre and Deepak Reju The Expulsive Power of a New Affection by Thomas Chalmers Do You Pray? by J.C. Ryle This brief book probes into your heart and mind regarding the subject of prayer, and each chapter ends with the penetrating question "Do you pray? Ryle's pastoral heart shines through as he seeks to instill within the reader a burning desire to spend regular time in prayer.  This book is short enough to read in one sitting, but has enough to chew on that it would be worth slowing down and mediating on the sections.  The question "do you pray?" is about the habits of personal and private prayer. I'm sure there are many who pray with others, who bow their heads before meals, or even lead prayer at worship gatherings. The question that Ryle wants to know is if you pray when no one else is there to see or hear yo...

My Journey Through Translations I began my initial draft of this mini-series on Bible translations last summer. As I was finishing the article, I began to see the ESV pop up in online discussions because of changes being made (again) and now more people are walking away from the ESV as a result. My reasoning for my decision to change away from the ESV differs from why others are doing the same, and I officially transitioned away from the ESV back in August of last year. I do think the textual changes are a significant issue, but I believe what I will discuss in these posts may be even more significant. I grew up on the NKJV, and I have to say, I still feel very at home when I open and read from it. Most of my memorization work was in the NKJV, and it remains an elegant translation (many of those currently abandoning the ESV are going with the NKJV, and understandably so). I still consider it a top 3 translation. I started exploring other translations when I went off to college and prof...

Someone recently gave me a tip for AI image generation and its too good not to share. I've been using AI image generation for some time for create unique, passage-specific images to use for presentation slides for my sermons. Sometimes these look pretty good. Other times they don't. I recently learned how to take my AI game to the next level, and it's a really simple trick: Use AI to translate your thoughts to AI. No, really. Ask AI to give a prompt that you can use for AI image generation. What does this look like? After a friend of mine showed me how it worked, he joking said something like "can you imagine the billboards that John Hagee would have had if he had access to these tools back in the day?" And I took that as inspiration. I went straight to chatGPT and said,  I want an image that makes use of the themes John Hagee would preach about regarding end times. This image would be used on a billboard warning that the end was near ChatGPT responded with: Here’...

Here are the books I've read in January. While some the sections here are more traditional "book review-y" than others, these aren't intended to be formal book reviews but rather just my overall impressions and thoughts as I finish each book.   In this post (click to skip to section): Thomas Jefferson  by Joyce Appleby How Does Sanctification Work? by David Powlison The Preacher Behind the White Hoods  by John Collins Thomas Jefferson By Joyce Appleby This is part of the American Presidents Series published by Times Books. This set (minus two volumes) was gifted to me a while back and I've started reading through them. Last year I read the volumes on George Washington and John Adams. The bullet points here represent my impressions on this volume, followed by one critique I would have of the book. I'm not educated enough on the American presidents to offer my critique or evaluation of this biography in terms of its historical accuracy. From Appleby's presen...

I was thinking recently about different people who have influenced me in different ways over the years.  I don't agree with everything some of these men teach, but I was still influenced by them in ways that have stayed with me even if I no longer listen to some of them.  Al Potter and Bob Sheridan taught me to think pastorally. Al was one of my seminary professors and every time he taught and every time I had a conversation with him, practical shepherding just oozed out of him. Bob was my pastor growing up and I completed did a pastoral internship under him as an upper classman in college.  Neil Nelson and Andrew Smith taught me to think exegetically. These are my two Greek professors from Bible College and Seminary. Taking the original languages and breaking them down part by part opened my eyes up to the world of exegetical theology. John MacArthur taught me to think expositionally. Chapter by chapter, verse by verse, no one does it better than J-Mac. He's not the most...

The following article was initially drafted shortly after the 2020 election. I don't know why I never published it. I finished editing it and am publishing it now. Prior to the 2020 election, the vast majority of the charismatic "apostles" and/or "prophets" were claiming to have a word from the Lord, and that word was that that President Trump would secure re-election. When that didn't happen (and let's just set aside the all the voting issues for the moment), I thought this could be the perfect opportunity to challenge some of my charismatic friends on the seemingly and glaringly obvious issue that these individuals made very public, very specific prophecies, and it didn't happen. What gives? However, that was when I learned that charismatics have a fail-safe. They have an escape hatch. Every time a prophecy fails, there is an out. I was told that the reason Trump didn't return to the office was because we, as the church, didn't have enough ...