This post is probably going to sound more like an infomercial than a blog entry. (I promise I’m neither an official spokesman nor a paid actor.) But I wanted to share a resource with our readers that might benefit many of you.

Undoubtedly, some of you already know about this. But for those who don’t, it is an exceptional opportunity – especially for those who love to read.

If you want to grow your library with brand new Christian books, there is an easy and free way to do it. Christian publishers will gladly send you free books, in exchange for your willingness to post an online blog review of each book after you read it.

Signing up to receive free books is easy. Here’s how to do it: Continue Reading…

When D. James Kennedy fell asleep in Jesus, Coral Ridge Presbyterian found itself in a bind. A church with a massive building (dedicated by Billy Graham), Kennedy was their founding pastor and an icon of American Christianity. A leader like that is impossible to replace, but the longer Coral Ridge went without a pastor, the more their attendance dropped, and the more pressure there was to find someone who could follow Kennedy.

Meanwhile, only a few miles away, one of Billy Graham’s grandsons was pastoring a church plant with swelling numbers, and no building. In a match straight out of E-harmony, the elders from both churches realized that each congregation was incomplete. One had a building, the other had none. One was growing, the other not so much. One was famous, the other unknown. One had a pastor, the other was on the hunt. One was dedicated in the 1970’s by Graham, the other was pastored by his grandson. You don’t have to be a Calvinist to see how God was setting this up.

Eventually, Coral Ridge called Tullian Tchividjian to be their pastor, and the two churches merged. What happened next though, is not the stuff of fairy tales. To make a long story short, Coral Ridge seemed to revolt, and after a while the elders called a congregational vote to consider removing Tchividjian as their pastor. Before the vote, Tchividjian went away on vacation, and spent his vacation studying Colossians.

Jesus + Nothing = Everything is the story of Tchividjian and Coral Ridge, interwoven around a commentary of Colossians. At the center is the spiritual epiphany he experienced through his study of that book.   Continue Reading…

Watchman Nee was a Chinese pastor, theologian, and author. He was born in 1903, and was martyred for his faith at the age of 69. Communists arrested Nee in 1952, and he spent the next twenty years imprisoned in a Chinese Labor Camp. Although offered release if he promised to leave the country, Nee refused and died in prison in 1972. Some accounts say he died after authorities had cut out his tongue in an attempt to stop his preaching.

Watchman was not his birth name, but was what he called himself after his ordination to pastoral ministry. His grandfather was a pastor, and Nee saw himself as a guardian of the truth of the Chinese church, which he primarily did through his teaching and writing.

Nee’s name is attached to at least forty different books. Ranging from daily devotionals to complex theology, he was certainly a prolific writer. Yet it is very difficult to know with confidence what he actually penned. One can read his works and legitimately conclude that they were penned by different authors—not only did Nee rarely have an unexpressed thought, but it is said that many of his books were actually pieced together by his disciples from his oral teaching.

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The newest John MacArthur book, Twelve Unlikely Heroes hit the shelves this year. It is the third (and as far as I know, final) installment in his series on the personalities and backgrounds of Biblical people. You may not know this, but Twelve Ordinary Men is probably Pastor MacArthur’s best selling stand-alone book. That got me thinking: what are MacArthur’s best selling works? He has written hundreds of books, so in terms of sales, which ones are the most popular?

So, in honor of the release of Twelve Unlikely Heroes, here is a list of John MacArthur’s 12 best selling works. Publishers keep their sales figures pretty close to their chest, so this list was somewhat tricky to put together (I contacted some friends at the major publishers who worked with me on this list “off the record”). Plus, keep in mind that different publishers track their numbers differently, so this is not an exact science. The goal here is to inspire your last minute Christmas shopping, and to assuage your curiosity:

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When I have the privilege of leading someone to faith in Christ, I pray with them, give them a Bible, and always want to give them a book. I’ve gone back and forth with what book I give out, but I have landed on my new favorite: What is a Healthy Church Member?, by Thabiti Anyabwile.

Anyabwile takes Mark Dever’s list of nine marks of a healthy church, and flips them around. He goes through each one and shows how they are the basic commitments of a person who wants to follow Christ. He makes an unassailable case that believers in Jesus need to be plugged into a church, and he gives them 10 ways to do that effectively (he takes Dever’s nine, and adds a tenth on prayer). Continue Reading…

Our world is like a carnival. Not the expensive, Six-Flags kind of carnival, where admission is pricy and only the rich kids can go. Our world is like the carnival in the mall parking-lot. Everyone is there, and somehow in that environment even corn-dogs seem like a good idea.

The rides in this world go round-and-round, and you have to admit that many of them are silly. Plus, it is impossible to look dignified on most of them. Of course there are always those that try to appear noble on the merry-go-round, and they only look more ridiculous. Philosophers and university professors are akin to those who ride on the Ferris wheel, get to the top, and think that they really are superior to everyone else because they can see farther. Losing sight of the fact that they are carnival-going-folk like everyone else, they bask in their four seconds of intellectual superiority, but they will soon be replaced by those in the next cage.

And death is when you are finally mature enough to go on the really gnarly rides.  Continue Reading…