Category: Site News

latest news about the blog

Amazing Grace and a Contest

~ fundyreformed ~ 2 Comments

The History & Theology of CalvinismI haven’t yet featured this excellent resource on the study of Reformation Theology. Amazing Grace: The History and Theology of Calvinism is a first-class video production and a resource second to none.

I have not yet actually purchased and viewed it, but I have enjoyed the several video clips of it that are available online. We plan on purchasing it sometime, and asking some of our relatives who are somewhat biased against Calvinism, to at least watch this DVD presentation.

The reason I am bringing this up now is that there is an opportunity to win a free copy of this DVD. Rhett Kelly has a contest running over at his blog, and promises to award the winner a free copy. I didn’t win, but perhaps one of my readers will. So go over and check it out.

Also, Rhett made me aware of a special sale price of 14.95 for the DVD through the NiceneCouncil.Com. This price is so good that it beats Monergism.Com’s longstanding sale price of 17.95! The DVD usually retails for $30.

So try your hand at Rhett’s contest, and if you lose, purchase that copy from NiceneCouncil.Com. Or for 2 dollars more total (with shipping and handling), support Monergism.Com, and order through them.

The Kingdom is Coming

~ fundyreformed ~ 5 Comments

Christ is even now on His throne ruling. His global triumph over all evil is surely coming. But the title of this post is not only addressing this wonderful theme.

Kingdom Surge is coming as well. It is a team blog headed up by yours truly which focuses on missions. We have not yet officially launched, but I thought I’d notify you all so you could see some of what I’ve been up to lately.

As we’re assembling posts in preparation of our launch in a couple weeks or so, I thought I’d post some previews. The preview I posted today centers on the glorious theme of Christ’s coming Kingdom victory. Let the words of this sentence fill you with wonder and praise this Sunday morning. May you all be blessed in your various places of worship today.

Before the return of our great King and Savior, Jesus Christ, the gospel will “surge” across the face of the earth, flooding the peoples with the knowledge of the glorious God, a knowledge they were made for, and in which is their eternal life (see John 17:3), but which they lost in the great Fall of Adam.

Happy Memorial Day

~ fundyreformed ~ 11 Comments

Happy Memorial Day, everyone. I thought I’d post about some of what’s been happening around here.

Recently our oldest daughter turned 4 years old. That is quite amazing to us. She is not a baby anymore. School is little more than a year away. And this was the age I was, when I first trusted Jesus. So we are all the more conscious of our responsibilities as Christian parents.

The number four has another meaning to us these days. We are expecting our fourth child. We have 3 girls; so we are hoping for a boy. Some may think less of us for being so undisciplined as to have four kids in a little more than 5 years, but we have determined to have as large a family as we are able to support for God’s glory. See my post, Christians, Contraceptives, and Children for more on that topic.

These thoughts about our responsibility as parents were deepened through an experience we shared yesterday. We survived a car accident which most likely totaled our only vehicle. We were going about 30-35 mph down a city street when a car pulled out in front of us hoping to cross in front of us. I didn’t see it coming until it was too late. Pray for a passenger in the other car who was ejected from the vehicle in the crash, and was taken to a hospital. Thankfully, we suffered no injuries and we have collision coverage on our insurance. We still can’t stop thinking about our near brush with tragedy. Our children are precious to us. May we be worthy stewards of them as we raise them for God’s service.

Finally, let us not forget to remember those who sacrificed for our freedom this Memorial Day. Praise God for the freedoms we enjoy in America. They truly are a foretaste of the complete redemption of the world, that Jesus and His Kingdom will effect one day. Until then let us be thankful and use our freedoms for the spread of Christ’s kingdom.

Why Go to Church?

~ fundyreformed ~ 13 Comments

I’m back. We returned from a grueling 3000 mile road trip last week. It was fun, but left me worn out. I need a vacation from my vacation!

I realize I haven’t been keeping up with the blog all that much in the past few weeks. I hope to pick the plow back up this week. Unfortunately, when I returned I found out that my sidebars had vanished. Just the WordPress default sidebars are showing, all my customizations just disappeared. Hopefully I’ll be able to restore them soon.

On our trip (we drove to Pensacola, FL to see my sister-in-law graduate, and then to North Canton, OH to visit my brother’s family and my mom), we couldn’t help but notice this unusual sign on Interstate 65 a few miles north of Montgomery, AL.

This sign raises a question: why do we go to church? I, for one, don’t think the answer given on the sign is theologically correct. Before I explain my thoughts, perhaps some of my readers (assuming I still have any…) would like to weigh in on what is wrong with this sign. Or maybe you agree with its basic premise. Please, join the conversation. I’ll be posting my thoughts on this later today or else tomorrow.

Update: Here are my thoughts concerning the sign above:

My beef against the sign is that it seems to imply that one earns brownie points for going to church. If you don’t get those points, you become vulnerable to the Devil. Now it is highly probable that if one is not going to church they also are vulnerable to the devil’s attack, but such is not a direct cause and effect relationship.

Salvation from the devil comes by grace. It is only because of Jesus and His work on the cross that we have a hope of standing against the devil. Going to church and living obediently does not earn us anything. It can provide for greater assurance, and it witnesses to the genuineness of our salvation. If obedience is lacking we should have cause to doubt the legitimacy of our salvation. But in all of this we are to trust in Christ more.

Trusting and believing in Jesus is how we overcome the devil. It is true that he is seeking to devour us and is very real. The way to fight him, however, is not to grit our teeth and determine to go to church more often. Instead it is to find our hope and faith in Jesus and fly to Him for refuge.

Going to church should be something us believers LOVE to do. We should want to meet God and find more grace in the assembly of believers. We go to church because God wants us to (Heb. 10:25), and we want to obey and please Him.

Our hope should not be that we are religious people who go to church. It should not be that we have DONE anything, not good works, baptism, church membership, or even doing the “sinner’s prayer”. Our hope should be that Jesus DID it all for us, and he has caused us to love and trust Jesus alone for our only hope of salvation.

I am sure the people responsible for the sign have every good intention. I have nothing against them. I just think such a sign obscures the gospel message. If you are unsure of what the Biblical gospel is, or if you have been trusting in your own efforts to ward off Satan, please take time to follow the links near the top of my right sidebar, under the title “Good News”.

Thanks to all for the excellent interaction in the comments concerning the question “Why Go to Church?”