Winter Games. If you’re like me, you are pretty jazzed about the Winter Olympics in a couple weeks. Not totally sure why they’re so interesting to me. It probably has a great deal to do with the family I grew up in (the Olympics are always on, even curling…perhaps especially curling, actually). NBC is going to lose money on the Games, probably because they willspare no expense to present them to Americans. With the addition of NBC Universal, the network will have aired 835 hours of action, which is of course the most ever for a Winter Olympiad. According to a news story from Mediaweek, these Olympics will feature more programming than the 2002 Salt Lake and 2006 Torino Games combined. So you will now have every opportunity to watch the Austrailia/Mexico Curling match.
True Myth and Doctrine. Perhaps you are familiar with the idea of “true myth.” If you aren’t, it was a method J.R.R Tolkien used to convince his good friend C.S. Lewis–a literary critic– of the essential truth of the Christian gospel. Lewis said doctrines we get out of the true myth are less true than the story itself. Is this legitimate? John Piper provides some goodthoughts, drawing a distinction between what the Bible teaches and what it includes. God’s people are people of the Word, and the proclamation of the events of the “true myth” is as important as the events themselves. Read it here.
Driscoll in Haiti. If you don’t know me, I come from a Reformed evangelical conviction about salvation (read: Calvinism), so I’m all over evangelical pastors who are likewise Calvinistic in their soteriology (theology of salvation). Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill Church is one of those guys. He has an effective, biblical ministry in Seattle, and he’s a powerful (and often controversial), in-your-face preaching style. After the tragedy in Haiti, he came together with James McDonald of Harvest Bible Church in Chicago and flew into Haiti a few days ago to work with an evangelical church in the middle of the Port-au-Prince mess.
If you haven’t seen his tweets from during the trip, you need to check them out. Some examples:
Landed in hell but doing well. The soldiers first words off the plane were u will now see a crisis of biblical proportions.8:34 AM Jan 18th from HootSuite
Just saw ruins of largest evangelical church in PaP. Pastor is in his 60s many of his people are dead & his radio station no longer exists.1:50 PM Jan 18th from HootSuite
Just prayed for a 24 yr old xn man digging the body of his 26 yr old brothers body from a rubble heap – he was the worship leader.2:25 PM Jan 18th from HootSuite
Haitians are literally walking around stunned, not crying and just shell shocked.4:05 AM Jan 19th from HootSuite
Pray for this pastor. He just got back from his wifes funeral. He was teaching bible college when the earthquake… http://bit.ly/8nvi4g6:23 AM Jan 19th from Facebook
And a particularly haunting status from Facebook:
Mark Driscoll If u want a phone, cigarettes or a teenage girl you can get them here in Port au Prince. Like the American who said he’s on a relief mission and bought a hungry girl despite our confrontation. Tue at 1:29pm
The suffering is unreal. Here’s an article from USA Today about the Driscoll trip and sex trafficking.
Dug Down Deep. Pretty excited about this book. Josh Harris (of I Kissed Dating Goodbye fame) is now the lead pastor of C.J. Maheney’s Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD.Dug Down Deep is a book about sound doctrine, and how every Christian can benefit from deep-rooted theology.
Praise for the book is kind of a list of the who’s who of American evangelicalism. Here’s a part:
“More than forty years of quadriplegia has underscored to me the matchless value of knowing—really knowing—the doctrines of the Christian faith. Dug Down Deep reveals how biblical doctrine provides a pathway to understanding the heart and mind of God. If you’re looking for ‘that one book’ that will push you farther down the road to faith than you’ve ever journeyed before, Dug Down Deep is it. I highly recommend it!”
—Joni Eareckson Tada, author; founder and CEO, International Disability Center, Agoura Hills, CA“In Dug Down Deep my longtime friend Joshua Harris explains the basics of Christian theology in a way all of us can understand. He is a humble man and teaches humbly. If you are tired of hyped promises and want essential truth, this book is for you. As religious fads come and go, the truths in this book will last.”
—Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz“When the apostle Peter says, “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God…casting all your anxiety on Him,” he implies that humble people are fearless. They have the courage to stand up for truth humbly. I love the term “humble orthodoxy.” And I love Josh Harris. When they come together (Josh and humble orthodoxy), as they do in this book, you get a humble, helpful, courageous testimony to biblical truth. Thank you, Josh, for following through so well on the conversation in Al Mohler’s study.”
—John Piper, author of Desiring God; Pastor for Preaching and Vision, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis“Via vivid autobiography, Pastor Harris takes readers on a personal journey into the biblical theology that, belatedly, he found he could not manage without. A humbling, compelling, invigorating read.”
—J. I. Packer, author of Knowing God
Other reviews are written by Mark Dever, Lecrae, his brothers Alex and Brett Harris, and others. Tim Challies has a review up already over on his blog.
Piper. Loved the typography in the last post. Here’s another, with political implications, too.
faith by hearing 