Mark Dever, Executive Director of Nine Marks ministries and senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, has just published another book that is sure to be a great blessing to all who care about healthy church life. In this most recent work, Dever addresses the difference between "comfort" and "health" in local church life. Building on his earlier Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, Dever unpacks how both pastors and laypeople can strengthen their local congregations in essential areas such as expositional preaching, biblical theology, and a biblical understanding of the gospel. Jim Hamilton … [Read more...] about Mark Dever on Healthy Churches
Archives for June 2007
Law and Gospel – Part IV
Continuing the series on Law and Gospel: 3. How should the two occurrences of “righteousness of God” in Romans 10:3 be defined (and translated)? My paraphrase of Rom. 10:3 is: For because of their inexcusable ignoring of the righteousness which comes from God, and because they are seeking to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted themselves to God’s righteousness. The way in which “their own” is understood is important. For Dunn, the phrase is to be understood corporately and nationally – something belonging peculiarly “to them” (as a race) rather than “to others” … [Read more...] about Law and Gospel – Part IV
Albert Mohler and Bradford Wilcox on Fathers
On the heels of Father's Day, Dr. Albert Mohler offers some good insight on the importance of fathers. Mohler cites four findings from an American Values report from Dr. Bradford Wilcox: 1. Children living with their fathers in an intact, married home are almost 50 percent less likely to be sexually abused than children living in a single-parent home. 2. Boys who grow up with their fathers in an intact, married home are 50 percent less likely to end up in prison as young adults than children living in a single-parent or step-family. 3. Girls who grow up apart from their fathers typically … [Read more...] about Albert Mohler and Bradford Wilcox on Fathers
Prominent Southern Baptist Church Elects a Female Senior Pastor
Julie Pennington-Russell, a married mother of two, was voted on Sunday (June 17, 2007) to become senior pastor of 2,700-member First Baptist Church of Decatur, Ga. She will begin her ministry with First Baptist on Aug. 19. Pennington-Russell, 46, has been serving as the senior pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Waco, Texas since 1998. She claims that Calvary was the first Baptist church in Texas to call a woman as a senior pastor. The Southern Baptist Convention's current Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M) – the denomination's confession of faith – adopted and revised in 2000, limits the … [Read more...] about Prominent Southern Baptist Church Elects a Female Senior Pastor
Desiring God Book Sale — $5 a book!
Desiring God announces a two-day sale: "Every book in our store will be $5 on June 27-28, Wednesday and Thursday next week." What a deal! … [Read more...] about Desiring God Book Sale — $5 a book!
Nine Marks Blog
Mark Dever and the Nine Marks guys have started a blog called Church Matters (which reminds me of Bob Kauflin's blog, Worship Matters). Mark announces: "I'm going to try to kick this off over the next couple of weeks by doing a brief series of 10 influences that I think God has used to bring about the current resurgence of reformed theology among the young. Stay tuned!!" It should be good. Related: Christianity Today story (September 2006) on the same theme. … [Read more...] about Nine Marks Blog