Future Works by John Piper

One of my favorite pastor/theologians, John Piper, posted this on his website.  Thanks, Pastor Piper, for glorifying God with your writing.  We look forward to the fruition of your work!  Here’s what Piper had to say concerning his writing leave:

From February 4 through March 17, I will be on my annual writing leave (with a couple speaking trips thrown in). Thank you for supporting me in these focused times away. They are not vacation. I usually work longer hours during writing leave than during regular ministry seasons.

And here’s what he will be working on during his writing leave:

• First of all, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God, which I wrote last year, is scheduled for publication in September and needs final editing. That will take some days.

• Second, Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christians, which I also wrote last year, needs significant revision and will demand more work than Think to put it in a final form.

• Third, Don Carson and I hope to turn our two talks on The Pastor as Theologian, and The Theologian as Pastor into one book. I need to expand my talk so that it’s worthy of being called half of a (small) book. We hope this will be useful and encouraging to many pastors.

• The short piece I wrote the day before my surgery back in 2006, Don’t Waste Your Cancer, has proved surprisingly useful around the world. Crossway wants to put it in a small booklet. There are a few things that might make it better for that purpose.

• Finally, after two books on the life-and-death doctrine of Justification (Counted Righteous in Christ and The Future of Justification), I have one more in mind. I will not finish it this year, but I would like to make a start. This Fall I am to lecture on justification at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society and serve on a panel with N.T. Wright. So I hope to combine forethought on that lecture with a start on the book.

“Where Do You Put Your Hope?”

Tim Tebow and Focus on the Family

As many of you know, Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow will be appearing in a Super Bowl ad that will be telling the story about how his mother was pressured to get an abortion while she was pregnant with the future star quaterback.  In the end, she did the right thing and chose life for her unborn baby.

I heard Jim Daly from Focus on the Family have a brief debate with a pro-choice woman on Fox News this morning.  So I ran across his blog post to find the following excerpt:

Tim Tebow’s story is inspiring. Back in 1987, Tim’s mother Pam experienced a number of life-threatening medical problems during her pregnancy and, in turn, was coached by her doctors not to carry the baby to term. Since it was quite possible that her baby would be stillborn, her physician’s believed Pam shouldn’t take the risk to her own life by going through with her pregnancy.

After listening to their advice, Pam chose to keep her fifth child—and now the world has Tim Tebow. This former Florida quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner is arguably one of the most gifted quarterbacks to immerge on the college scene in recent history. I’d say Pam has given us an inspiring story of personal courage against the odds. After all, she was willing to risk her own life in order to give her son a chance at life.

soli Deo gloria!

James White to Debate Tim Staples on the Roman Catholic Doctrine of Purgatory

The Players:

James White, director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, is the author of numerous books and is an experienced debator.

Bio:

B.A. Bible (Major in Biology, minor in Greek), Grand Canyon College, 1985.
M.A. Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, 1989
Th.M. Apologetics, Faraston Seminary, 1995
Th.D., Apologetics, Columbia Evangelical Seminary, 1998
D.Min, Apologetics, Columbia Evangelical Seminary, 2002

Elder, Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church (www.prbc.org)

Critical Consultant, New American Standard Bible Update (1995)

Tim Staples, a Roman Catholic apologist, is with Catholic Answers.  He is an experienced lecturer on Roman Catholic issues.

bio:

Tim Staples was raised a Southern Baptist. Although he fell away from the faith of his childhood, Tim came back to faith in Christ during his late teen years through the witness of Christian televangelists.  Soon after, Tim joined the Marine Corps. During his four-year tour, he became involved in ministry with various Assemblies of God communities. Immediately after his tour of duty, Tim enrolled in Jimmy Swaggart Bible College and    became a youth minister in an Assembly of God community.

During his final year in the Marines, however, Tim met a Marine who really knew his faith and challenged Tim to study Catholicism from Catholic and historical sources. That encounter sparked a two-year search for the truth. Tim was determined to prove Catholicism wrong, but he ended up studying his way to the last place he thought he would ever end up: the Catholic Church!

He converted to Catholicism in 1988 and spent the following six years in formation for the priesthood, earning a degree in philosophy from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Overbrook, Pennsylvania. He then studied theology on a graduate level at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, for two years.

When, Where, and How:

To tune into the debate, go to this web page at 5pm (CST) and follow the online instructions.  Here’s the debate information:

Don’t forget to be with us live this afternoon at 3pm PST, 6pm EST, for the special 90-minute edition of the Dividing Line, featuring a live debate with Tim Staples of Catholic Answers on 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 and the doctrine of Purgatory. The format is as follows:

15 minute opening statements (Tim gets to go first)

8 minutes rebuttals

5 minutes cross examination each

8 minute closing statements

Then, we will take phone calls for just under 20 minutes. We will open the lines for your calls when Tim begins his closing statement. So be ready to ask a QUICK and CONCISE question at 877-753-3341.

soli Deo gloria!

Tim Keller on “The Shack”

Though I have not read the book, I have been very interested in doing so.  I’ve heard of several people who have reviewed the book, but these “impressions” from Tim Keller are the most intriguing.  To read the whole thing, click here.

“Over the holidays I read a good (and devastating) review of William P. (Paul) Young’s The Shack in the most recent print edition of Books and Culture: A Christian Review (Jan/Feb 2010.)  It was a reminder that I was one of the last people on the planet not to have read the book. So I did. So why write a blog post about it? It had sold 7.2 million copies in a little over 2 years, by June of 2009. With those kinds of numbers, the book will certainly exert some influence over the popular religious imagination. So it warrants a response. This is not a review, but just some impressions.”

Here’s my favorite quote:

“The Shack effectively deconstructs the holiness and transcendence of God. It is simply not there. In its place is unconditional love, period. The God of The Shack has none of the balance and complexity of the Biblical God. Half a God is not God at all.”

John Piper – “A Sweet and Bitter Providence”

Mohler on “The Shack”

Here’s the link to his article.

“Why Memorize Scripture?”

A Good Blog to Visit

In case any of you are interested in the Calvinism/Arminianism debate, here’s a good blog that keeps a weekly track of the latest news regarding the subject.  Of course, this blog covers a range of issues, but it’s the “This Week in Calvinism” posts that I especially enjoy.  At any rate, here is the site: http://contemporarycalvinist.blogspot.com/

soli Deo gloria!
Matthew

“99 Balloons”