The Bookends of the Christian Life

Tim Challies posted a review of the book "The Bookends of the Christian Life" on his blog.

Some of his thoughts:

This book relies upon a metaphor that extends from cover-to-cover: the metaphor of bookends. ... Through the bookend metaphor, the authors use this book to teach about God’s solution (of holding our "books" up). “When we become united to Christ by faith, God places a set of bookends on the bookshelf of our lives. One bookend is the righteousness of Christ; the other is the power of the Holy Spirit. Though they’re provided by God, it’s our responsibility to lean our books on them, relying on them to support, stabilize, and secure all our books—everything we do.”

The authors dedicate half of this book to each of the two bookends. In the first half they look at the righteousness of Christ as a means of assurance in our day-to-day relationship with God. It is only because of the righteousness of Christ that God can see us as righteous. As our sin was transferred to Christ on the cross, his righteousness was credited to us. And so we live now in the present reality of being justified before the Father. In the second half they turn to the power of the Holy Spirit to fight with us and for us as we battle against indwelling sin. Here we see both the Spirit’s monergistic work in giving us new life, in giving the gifts of repentance and faith, but we also see the necessity of synergistic work where we cooperate with the Spirit in putting sin to death (though obviously this is a qualified, uneven synergism much in the same way my six year-old daughter may help me shovel the driveway).

In The Bookends of the Christian Life Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington look at the Christian life through a wide-angle lens, examining the framework that supports, stabilizes and secures the believer’s life in Christ. They teach elements of a distinctly biblical worldview, leaning upon the righteousness of Christ on one hand and upon the power of the Holy Spirit on the other. This is a deeply pastoral book that constantly encourages the reader to look to Christ and to depend on the Holy Spirit. I have read it twice and have benefited from it both times. A wise and powerful book, it is one I heartily recommend.

Read his complete review.

Renewing every dimension of life with the gospel

Good quote posted on Of First Importance -- Living each day in the good of the gospel:

Renewing Every Dimension of Life with the Gospel

“The Christian life is a process of renewing every dimension of our lives — spiritual, psychological, corporate, social — by living out the ramifications of the gospel. The gospel is to be applied to every area of thinking, feeling, relating and behaving.” - Timothy Keller, Paul’s Letter to the Galatians: Living in Line with the Gospel (Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2003), 53.

A word to new Christians from J.I. Packer

I saw this on Justin Taylor's blog, Between Two Worlds, which borrowed it from from Mike Anderson at Resurgence:


JI Packer Speaks To New Christians from Mike Anderson on Vimeo.

Below is a transcription of the audio.

J.I. Packer’s advice to a new Christian:

I’m speaking to a young Christian who has just found Christ. Actually, it’ll be better to say whom Christ has just found, ‘cause he’s the Lord now; he’s in charge. You’ve discovered the joy of forgiven sins. You’ve discovered the joy of a hope of glory. You’ve discovered that you now have a new allegiance. You don’t belong to yourself; you belong to your Savior, who will be with you forever. He promised, “I am with you always.” And you will be with him always, as his disciple in this world and as his friend in the world to come. OK, so that’s where you are.

Read, study, and mediate on God's Word

Get into the Bible. Learn to love the Word. Read it. Read it with a willingness to leave –for your first journey through it anyway – passages that you don’t fully understand, but don’t stop reading the Word. Read it through, right the way through, cover to cover, Genesis to Revelation. You should be aiming, I think, to read the Bible once a year. Read what you can, understand what you can, and appreciate that the Bible is written to be spiritual food for disciples. That means folk like you.

Pray to God at all times

Then pray. Keep in touch with your Savior and with your heavenly Father every day of your life. Get into the habit of praying as you go along in life, shooting off arrow prayers, you see, to God as you do your ordinary everyday business, keeping up your sense of being in his presence because that’s where you really are.

Worship God with and serve other Christians

Worship in church and get to know the folk with whom you’re worshiping. Christianity is fellowship, needs to be fellowship right from the start. One helps another along. You know how it is in a group; you encourage each other. You know how it is in a team; each one plays better because of the quality of the play that’s going on around them. Well OK, a church is a team. A Christian community is a team, and we encourage each other to play better. So stay with the church; don’t go off on your own.

Share the gospel and your testimony with other people

And just get into the way of talking to those who will understand you about the Lord and his love and the life that you’re now living for him and about the Bible. Christians are talking about these things every day of their lives. Well, develop the habit, join the club. Walk with the Lord’s people as you walk with the Lord.

Rejoice in the Lord

And rejoice; you’ve found the secret of real life. And, I’ll tell you, it’ll get better and better and better all the way until you get to glory.

The Gospel According to the Old Testament (Series)

Anything that has "gospel" in it gets my attention. Anything that receives praise from Sinclair B. Ferguson or D. A. Carson causes me to seriously consider it. Monergism Books is offering a news series of books by P&R Publishing titled "The Gospel According to the Old Testament."

Description: The Gospel According to the Old Testament is a series of studies on the lives of Old Testament characters, written for laypeople and pastors, and designed to encourage Christ-centered reading, teaching, and preaching of the Old Testament.

Books in the series:

• The Gospel According to Jonah: Salvation Through Judgment and Mercy by Bryan D. Estelle
• The Gospel According to Elijah & Elisha: Faith in the Face of Apostasy by Raymond B. DillardThe Gospel According to Hosea: Love Divine and Unfailing by Michael P. V. Barrett
• The Gospel According to David: After God's Own Heart by Mark J. Boda
• The Gospel According to Job: Crying Out for Vindication by David R. Jackson
• The Gospel According to Abraham: Living in the Gap between Promise and Reality by Ian M. Duguid
• The Gospel in the Lives of Isaac & Jacob: Living in the Grip of Relentless Grace by Iain M. Duguid

Praise for The Gospel According to the Old Testament series:

"At last a series on the Old Testament designed to provide reliable exposition, biblical theology, and a focus on Christ. These books should be like manna in the desert to pastors, preachers, teachers, and many individual Christians who struggle to come to terms with how to read the Old Testament."--Sinclair B. Ferguson

"One of the most urgent needs of the church is to grasp how the many parts of the Bible fit together to make one 'story-line' that culminates in Jesus Christ....This series of books goes a long way to meeting that need. Written at a thoughtful but popular level, it deserves wide circulation."--D. A. Carson

Served by God, serving man

David Mathis, executive pastoral assistant to Pastor John Piper at Bethlehem Baptist Church and Desiring God in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from his Pro Ecclesia: For the Church article in March's Tabletalk magazine:

Sacrificial service in the church doesn’t start with serving. It starts with being served by God. Then as we are satisfied in Him and who He’s revealed Himself to be in His crucified Son, we gladly overflow in service of others.

The Bible actually warns us against serving God. There is a clear sense in which we must not serve Him. Jesus’ spokesman Paul says that God is not “served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). We humans can’t give God anything that He hasn’t already given to us. Jesus’ ancestor David prayed, “All things come from you, and of your own have we given you” (1 Chron. 29:14). Nowhere is this seen clearer than in Jesus Himself, who “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

Beware serving the God who became man not to be served! But there’s another sense in which Christians do serve. We serve others. And we do so “by the strength that God supplies” (1 Peter 4:11). God is the giver. Our posture toward Him is one of receiving, even in our service. As we turn from facing God to face our fellow Christians, there should be a reorientation of the posture of our souls from receiving to giving. What amazing communities our churches are when we gather both with the expectation of receiving from God and with the
expectation of giving to others.

Read the whole article. Also consider subscribing to Tabletalk or trying three months for free.

What is church discipline?

"What is church discipline?" asked Matt Schmucker, executive director of 9 Marks and an elder at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., in his Pastor's Perspective article in Tabletalk magazine.

His answer: In the narrowest sense, it is the act of excluding someone who professes to be a Christian from membership in the church and participation in the Lord’s Supper for serious unrepentant sin — sin they refuse to let go of. More broadly, church discipline is the act of excluding an individual who carelessly brings disrepute onto the gospel and shows no commitment to doing otherwise. Discipline helps the church to reflect God’s glorious character faithfully. It helps the church to remain holy.

"Why should we even care, let alone practice church discipline?" he asks.

Schmucker gives five reasons:

1. God’s glory.
2. The unrepentant sinner.
3. The young believer.
4. The steadfast Christian.
5. The neighbors.

Schmucker summarizes: Sin in the church, left unaddressed, hurts our evangelism, leaves the proud unchecked, confuses young believers, hardens the unrepentant, and, worst of all, brings shame on the name of Christ.

Read the entire article. Better yet, subscribe to Tabletalk or try three months for free.

Apart from the cross, God is our judge. Under the cross, he is our father.

Question and answer 120 of the Heidelberg Catechism:

Question 120. Why has Christ commanded us to address God thus: "Our Father"?

Answer: That immediately, in the very beginning of our prayer, he might excite in us a childlike reverence for, and confidence in God, which are the foundation of our prayer: namely, that God is become our Father in Christ, and will much less deny us what we ask of him in true faith, than our parents will refuse us earthly things.

Kim Riddlebarger, senior pastor of Christ Reformed Church (URCNA) in Anaheim, California, in his "For the Weekend of March 28-29" article in the March Tabletalk magazine states that it's not uncommon to hear critics of Reformation theology complain that Martin Luther, John Calvin, and those who followed them were so preoccupied with the justification that they depreciated adoption.

"This charge stems from the Reformation (and biblical) doctrine of justification, in which it is understood that the righteousness of Christ is reckoned (or imputed) to a sinner through the means of faith, so that the sinner is given a right-standing before God and therefore saved from His wrath," said Riddlebarger.

The charge is not true, said Riddlebarger, because "John Calvin and the Westminster confession of Faith speak about the importance of the biblical doctrine of adoption (wherein we become members of God's family) because God does not justify individuals and leave them on their own without uniting them to Himself through Christ. God incorporates all justified sinners into a covenant community (the church) and grants them access to the very throne of God (Rom. 8:26-27; 1 John 2:1-2). All justified sinners are the adopted children of God. ... once the sinner is justified, that same sinner now enjoys a wonderful new status as a child of God. The sinner, who was formerly estranged from God, is now a full member of God's family (Eph. 2:11-17). This new right-standing (justification) grants all the children of God access to His throne, and this unfettered access to the presence of God is the means through which we as God's children are protected, preserved, given gifts of the Spirit, and even chastened as needed."

"The Heidelberg Catechism does not speak of the doctrine of adoption per se," continued Riddlebarger, "but as something implied by the very first petition of the Lord's Prayer in question 120. Apart from Christ, we cannot speak of God as our Father, only as our creator and judge. As our creator and judge, God remains distant, even threatening to us because of our sins. There is no intimacy with God, and we dare not even approach Him. Once we are justified, because Christ's perfect and faultless righteousness has been reckoned to us through faith, God is no longer our judge. He is now 'our Father.' This comes about because God has already placed Christ under His judgment (the cross) so that we need never fear His wrath. Christ has borne that wrath in His own flesh. He was judged for us and in our place. Apart from the cross, God is our judge. Under the cross, He is our Father. ...

"If God is our Father, then by implication we are His children," concluded Riddlebarger. "We revere our God. We can trust Him in all things. Because we do, we can approach Him confidently in prayer, knowing that He hears us and that He delights in our feeble efforts to communicate with Him. But the only way we, as sinners, can become the adopted sons and daughters of God is because of Christ. His death for our sins and His perfect righteousness grants us a right-standing before God."

Subscribe to Tabletalk or try three months for free.

The Means of Relating to God

Tim Challies posted on his blog the following quote from "The Bookends of the Christian Life" by Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington:

Faith involves both a renunciation and a reliance. First, we must renounce any trust in our own performance as the basis of our acceptance before God. We trust in our own performance when we believe we’ve earned God’s acceptance by our own good works. But we also trust in our own performance when we believe we’ve lost God’s acceptance by our bad works — by our sin. So we must renounce any consideration of either our bad works or our good works as the means of relating to God.

Second, we must place our reliance entirely on the perfect obedience of the sin-bearing death of Christ as the sole basis of our standing before God — on our best days as well as our worst.

Challies plans to post a review of the book by March 31. Read his comments about the quote on his blog.

The two bookends in "The Bookends of the Christian Life," according to the Crossway Web site, are "Christ’s righteousness as it is transferred to dependent believers, and the Holy Spirit’s power as it enables their transformation."

"One bookend is the righteousness of Christ; the other is the power of the Holy Spirit. Though they’re provided by God, it’s our responsibility to lean our books on them, relying on them to support, stabilize, and secure all our books — everything we do" ("The Bookends of the Christian Life," page 15).

Crossway is offering a PDF copy of the book with a purchase of a hard copy, and you can read a PDF copy of the introduction and Chapter 3: Gospel Enemy #1: Self-righteousness.

Persecution from within the 'church'

Commenting on Galatians 4:28-29, Terry L. Johnson, senior minister of Independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah, Georgia, states the following in the March edition of Tabletalk magazine:

Christians are often persecuted "by their half-brothers — the unbelieving but religious people in the nominal church," says James Montgomery Boice. ... On a personal level, Christian people typically suffer far more at the hands of fellow professing Christians than people of the world. ... Why? Because the besetting sin of zealous Christians is Pharisaic self-righteousness. We can become Pharisees about food and drink, child-rearing and education, fashion and finances, and make these tests of orthodoxy.

Check out some of Johnson's messages at IPC or Monergism.com.

Are believers today more privileged than believers in the Old Testament?

The following is from Dr. Tom Ascol's article in March's Tabletalk magazine:

Old Testament believers and those who trusted Christ during His first advent were no less saved than any Christian since the coming of Christ, yet those who live on this side of the cross and resurrection are in a much better position than any of God's people who died before those events. We can see that all of God's promises have been guaranteed through the person and work of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 1:20). ... the only way a sinner can ever be justified before God is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. That has always been true, and now that Jesus has lived and died and been raised from the dead, it has been fully and finally revealed. That is what places those of us who live on this side of Christ's first coming in a more privileged position than even the greatest of our Old Testament brothers and sisters.

Ascol is currently the senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida, serves as the executive director of Founders Ministries, and authors the Founders Ministries Blog. Check out some of his messages at the Grace Baptist Church Web site or Monergism.com.

Why do authorities exist?

Here's an excerpt from an article by Cal Thomas in March's Tabletalk magazine is titled "The Authority of the State":

Why do authorities exist? It is because we live in a sinful and fallen world, and without authority everyone would do "what is right in his own eyes," resulting in chaos. Those who will not be constrained from within by the living presence of Jesus Christ, must be restrained from without by the state, acting under God's ultimate authority, in order to "promote the general welfare," in the words of the (U.S.) Constitution's preamble.

The divine foundation of authority

Dr. R.C. Sproul's Right Now Counts Forever article in March's Tabletalk magazine is titled "The Divine Foundation of Authority." Here are a few excerpts:

The very word authority has within it the word author. An author is someone who creates and possesses a particular work. Insofar as God is the foundation of all authority, He exercises that foundation because He is the author and the owner of His creation. He is the foundation upon which all other authority stands or falls.

“Unless I am convinced by sacred Scripture or by evident reason, I cannot recant because my conscience is held captive by the Word of God, and to act against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand. God help me. I can do no other.” In that statement, Luther was affirming publicly his commitment to the principle of sola Scriptura, that the Bible alone is the only authority that can bind the conscience of a person absolutely because it is the only authority that carries with it the intrinsic authority of God Himself. In the Scriptures we see that God creates the universe and owns the universe. It is His possession, and He governs it by His own authority.

... all lesser authorities on heaven and on earth are only as valid as they are delegated by God’s authority. Whatever authority we possess is extrinsic rather than intrinsic. It exists only by delegation. This was the issue in the garden of Eden. The primal sin of Adam and Eve could be described as the grasping for autonomy. They sought to take for themselves the authority that belonged only to God. To act on one’s own authority against the authority of God is the essence of disobedience and of sin. When we grasp authority ourselves and do what is right in our own minds, we are attacking the very foundation of life and of the welfare of human beings.

Any authority that rules without divine foundation is tyranny.

God the All

Here's a prayer titled "God the All" from "Valley of Vision: A collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions" edited by Arthur Bennett (pages 4-5):

O God whose will conquers all,

There is no comfort in anything apart from enjoying thee
and being engaged in thy service;
Thou art All in all, and all enjoyments are what
to me thou makest them, and no more.
I am well pleased with thy will, whatever it is,
or should be in all respects,
And if thou bidst me decide for myself in any affair,
I would choose to refer all to thee,
for thou art infinitely wise and cannot do amiss,
as I am in danger of doing.
I rejoice to think that all things are at thy disposal,
and it delights me to leave them there.
Then prayer turns wholly into praise,
and all I can do is to adore and bless thee.
What shall I give thee for all thy benefits?
I am in a strait betwixt two, knowing not
what to do;
I long to make some return, but have nothing to
offer,
and can only rejoice that thou doest all,
that none in heaven or on earth shares thy honour;
I can of myself do nothing to glorify thy blessed
name,
but I can through grace cheerfully surrender soul
and body to thee,
I know that thou art the author and finisher of faith,
that the whole work of redemption is thine alone,
that every good work or though found in me
is the effect of thy power and grace,
that thy sole motive in working in me to will
and to do is for thy good pleasure.
O God, it is amazing that men can talk so much
about man's creaturely power and goodness,
when, if thou didst not hold us back every
moment, we should be devils incarnate.
This, by bitter experience, thou hast taught me
concerning myself.

'The Lord's Prayer'

Matthew 6:9-13:

Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation,but deliver us from evil.

John Piper:

The most important prayer ("Hallowed be your name.") is that the most important person in the universe (God) do the most important act in the universe (Use your infinite power and wisdom and love to stir up billions of hearts and minds to admire you and prize you above all things.) . ... Ask the Lord to help you make the most important prayer your most common prayer. And the one you desire most to see answered.

Read Piper's entire post.

If you would like to read more about Matthew 6:9-13, I recommend A.W. Pink's book "The Lord's Prayer," which is available online here.

The Trinity

Here's a prayer titled "The Trinity" from "Valley of Vision: A collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions" edited by Arthur Bennett (pages 2-3):

Three in One, One in Three,
God of my salvation,

Heavenly Father, blessed Son, eternal Spirit,
I adore thee as one Being, one Essence,
one God in three distinct Persons,
for bringing sinners to thy knowledge and to they kingdom.
O Father, thou hast loved me and sent Jesus to redeem me;
O Jesus, thou hast loved me and assumed my nature,
shed thine own blood to wash away my sins,
wrought righteousness to cover my unworthiness;
O Holy Spirit, thou hast loved me and entered
my heart, implanted there eternal life,
revealed to me the glories of Jesus.
Three Persons and one God, I bless and praise thee,
for love so unmerited, so unspeakable,
so wondrous, so mighty to save the lost and raise them to glory.
O Father, I thank thee that in fullness of grace
thou hast given me to Jesus, to be his sheep,
jewel, portion;
O Jesus, I thank thee that in fullness of grace
thou hast accepted, espoused, bound me;
O Holy Spirit, I thank thee that in fullness of
grace thou hast
exhibited Jesus as my salvation,
implanted faith within me,
subdued my stubborn heart,
made me one with him for ever.
O Father, thou art enthroned to hear my prayers,
O Jesus, thy hand is outstretched to take my
petitions,
O Holy Spirit, thou art willing to help my
infirmities, to show me my need,
to supply words, to pray within me,
to strengthen me that I faint not in
supplication.
O Triune God, who commandeth the universe,
thou hast commanded me to ask for those
things that concern thy kingdom and my soul.
Let me live and pray as one baptized into the
threefold Name.

The Cross and Criticism

Justin Taylor posts the following excerpts from and provides a link to a complete article titled "The Cross and Criticism":

Ten years ago Alfred Poirier (PCA pastor and Board Chairman for Peacemakers) wrote a great article on The Cross and Criticism for The Journal of Biblical Counseling, and it's now available online. It is very much worth your time to read, digest, and apply.

Some excerpts below, but you'll want to read the whole thing.

Definition:

I'm using criticism in a broad sense as referring to any judgment made about you by another, which declares that you fall short of a particular standard. The standard may be God's or man's. The judgment may be true or false. It may be given gently with a view to correction, or harshly and in a condemnatory fashion. It may be given by a friend or by an enemy. But whatever the case, it is a judgment or criticism about you, that you have fallen short of a standard.

Key Point:

"A believer is one who identifies with all that God affirms and condemns in Christ's crucifixion."

In other words, in Christ's cross I agree with God's judgment of me and I agree with God's justification of me. Both have a radical impact on how we take and give criticism.

Application:

1. Critique yourself.
2. Ask the Lord to give you a desire to be wise instead of a fool.
3. Focus on your crucifixion with Christ.
4. Learn to speak nourishing words to others.

How to give criticism in a godly way:

• I see my brother/sister as one for whom Christ died (1 Cor. 8:11; Heb. 13:1).
• I come as an equal, who also is a sinner (Rom 3:9, 23).
• I prepare my heart lest I speak out of wrong motives (Prov. 16:2; 15:28; 16:23).
• I examine my own life and confess my sin first (Matt 7:3-5).
• I am always patient, in it for the long haul (Eph 4:2; 1 Cor. 13:4).
• My goal is not to condemn by debating points, but to build up through constructive criticism (Eph. 4:29).
• I correct and rebuke my brother gently, in the hope that God will grant him the grace of repentance even as I myself repent only through His grace (2 Tim. 2:24-25).

Never Let the Gospel Get Smaller

John Piper posted the following at the Desiring God Blog:

Here is a simple exhortation that I have been trying to implement in our family:

Seek to see and feel the gospel as bigger as years go by rather than smaller.

Our temptation is to think that the gospel is for beginners and then we go on to greater things. But the real challenge is to see the gospel as the greatest thing—and getting greater all the time.

The Gospel gets bigger when, in your heart,

• grace gets bigger;
• Christ gets greater;
• his death gets more wonderful;
• his resurrection gets more astonishing;
• the work of the Spirit gets mightier;
• the power of the gospel gets more pervasive;
• its global extent gets wider;
• your own sin gets uglier;
• the devil gets more evil;
• the gospel's roots in eternity go deeper;
• its connections with everything in the Bible and in the world get stronger;
• and the magnitude of its celebration in eternity gets louder.

So keep this in mind: Never let the gospel get smaller in your heart.

Pray that it won’t. Read solid books on it. Sing about it. Tell someone about it who is ignorant or unsure about it.

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel.... For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)

The Valley of Vision

Here's a prayer titled "The Valley of Vision" from "Valley of Vision: A collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions" edited by Arthur Bennett (pages xxiv-xxv):

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,

Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights; hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up, that to be low is to be high, that the broken heart is the healed heart, that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit, that the repenting soul is the victorious soul, that to have nothing is to possess all, that to bear the cross is to wear the crown, that to give is to receive, that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells, and the deeper the wells the brighter thy stars shine; let me find thy light in my darkness, thy life in my death, thy joy in my sorrow, thy grace in my sin, thy riches in my poverty, thy glory in my valley.

Sovereign Grace Ministries produced a music CD with the same title containing songs inspired by prayers in the book. The first song on the CD is based on this first prayer in the book. I highly recommend purchasing the Valley of Vision, the music CD and the book.

AGES Christian Library Series Vol. 1-20 Bundle

If you're looking for an affordable Christian e-library, you may want to consider purchasing the AGES Christian Library Series Vol. 1-20 Bundle.

The price at $219.95 for download may seem expensive at first, but it's well worth it considering all the works the library series contains. For example, eight volumes of the 20 in the library have the following works, which alone are worth the entire price of the library:

• Vol. 6 - Charles H. Spurgeon Collection. Spurgeon is among the most read and beloved writers in Christian history. This collection combines over 3,000 sermons from Spurgeon's years at the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit and the Park Street Pulpit, as well as The Treasury of David and many other writings.
• Vol. 7 - John Calvin Collection. All 22 volumes of John Calvin's Commentaries can be found here, as well as many sermons and Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, History of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin, and much more.
• Vol. 8 - Arthur Pink Collection. Pink was virtually unknown in his day, but is now one of our most popular authors. Arthur Pink was a native of Great Britain but pastored mainly in the United States during the early 20th century, ever striving to advance Puritan thought in a time of struggle for evangelism. The Arthur Pink Collection is the most complete compilation of Pink's works.
• Vol. 9 - John Owen Collection. Owen wrote and sermonized extensively during the 19th century on the subjects of Justification, Baptism, The Holy Trinity, Sin and Grace. This collection includes Owen's seven volume Commentary on Hebrews, as well as 16 other writings.
• Vol. 10 - Jonathan Edwards-Timothy Dwight Collection. Jonathan Edwards is generally regarded as one of the greatest minds in Christian thought, and one of our most requested authors. His grandson, Timothy Dwight, is also highly regarded and considered by many to be easier to read than Edwards. The Jonathan Edwards-Timothy Dwight Collection combines the Complete Works of Jonathan Edwards with Dwight's System of Theology.
• Vol. 14 - Benjamin B. Warfield Collection. This collection of systematic theology on Calvinism, Perfectionism, Christology, and other subjects by B. B. Warfield is a valuable addition to any library.
• Vol. 17 - Systematic Theologies. This collection features eight centuries of structured systematic theology from authors such as Aquinas, Boyce, Calvin, Dabney, Dagg, Finney, Hodge, Mullins, Shedd, Strong, and Torrey.
• Vol. 19 - John Bunyan Collection. Pilgrim's Progress, The Holy War, and over 70 works by and about John Bunyan - one of history's best known authors - make up this collection.

Each volume above costs $14.95 for download if purchased from AGES. When considering the price for individual volumes or the entire library, also consider that Logos (which I also recommend because it offers many other features with its library system) is currently charging the following for collections similar to the AGES volumes above:

• Calvin, Spurgeon and ISBE for $194.95
• A. W. Pink Collection (40 titles) for $249.95
• The Works of John Owen (17 Vols.) for $299.95
• The Works of Jonathan Edwards (2 Vols.) for $119.95
• B. B. Warfield Collection (20 Vols.) for $299.95
• Works of John Bunyan (61 titles) for $79.95

If you're looking for quality PDF files of the works above -- and much, much more -- you can't go wrong with AGES. Logos is also good, but you can see it is a bit more expensive.

Tabletalk

The subject for the March 2009 Tabletalk magazine is authority.

"Tabletalk magazine exists to help explain important, biblical doctrines and events while encouraging people toward holy living. Each issue features articles from well-known and respected scholars, regular columns ... and insightful daily Bible studies," states Ligonier Ministries' Web site.

Here's a list of the feature articles and authors for the March issue:

• The Divine Foundation of Authority by Dr. R.C. Sproul
• Family Authority: Living in Light of God's Righteous Call, A Wife's Perspective by Denise Sproul
• Knowing His Voice: The authority of Christ's church by John R. Muether
• The Authority of the State by Cal Thomas

There are several other good articles in the magazine (e.g., under the standing column titles of Pastor's Perspective, Pro Ecclesia: For the Church, Generation to Generation, Tolle Lege: Take Up and Read, Seek Ye First, and Truth and Consequences), as well as daily devotional readings based on Galatians.

Tabletalk is an excellent magazine. I highly recommend people check out Ligonier Ministries and subscribe to Tabletalk.

E-books

The recent release of the Kindle 2.0 e-reader has some people talking about the future of electronic books (e-books) and others talking about how regular books will never be replaced. John Siracusa's essay on e-books (The once and future e-book: on reading in the digital age), which Justin Taylor on the Between Two Worlds blog page said is the best thing he's read on the subject. In his essay, Siracusa lists several virtues of e-books and follows up with the following for those still not convinced:

If you remain unconvinced, here's one final exercise, in the grand tradition of a particular family of Internet analogies. Take all of your arguments against the inevitability of e-books and substitute the word "horse" for "book" and the word "car" for "e-book." Here are a few examples to whet your appetite for the (really)
inevitable debate in the discussion section at the end of this article.

"Books will never go away." True!

Horses have not gone away either.

"Books have advantages over e-books that will never be overcome." True! Horses can travel over rough terrain that no car can navigate. Paved roads don't go everywhere, nor should they.

"Books provide sensory/sentimental/sensual experiences that e-books can't match." True! Cars just can't match the experience of caring for and riding a horse: the smells, the textures, the sensations, the companionship with another living
being.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Did you ride a horse to work today? I didn't. I'm sure plenty of people swore they would never ride in or operate a "horseless carriage"—and they never did! And then they died.

Although I don't have an e-reader, I have many e-books on my computer, and I will say that I appreciate theme for many reasons. Here are just a few:

1. Space saver. I only have so much space in my house for books, and all the books I would like regular access to won't fit in my house. The availability of larger internal hard drives and external hard drives, which are about the size of one book, allow storage of hundreds of thousands of books.

2. Legibility. Many great books I want to read are published at a small font. Having those same books in digital form usually allows me to tailor the size of the text as large as I need to make it easier to read.

3. Note taking. Instead of retyping long quotes that I want to save for future reference, I can simply select the text, copy it, and file it in my software program of choice.

There are many other benefits, but those are the three that readily come to mind.

J.C. Ryle's "Expository Thoughts on the Gospels"

If you consult commentaries when you read through the four Gospels, you should refer to "Expository Thoughts on the Gospels" by John Charles Ryle. You can get the four-volume hardback edition or read for free at the Grace Gems Web site. His magnum opus, "Holiness" is also highly recommended.

Here's J. C. Ryle on Mark 8:34-38:

We learn, for one thing, from these verses, the absolute necessity of self-denial, if we would be Christ's disciples, and be saved. What says our Lord? "Whoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me."

Salvation is undoubtedly all of grace. It is offered freely in the Gospel to the chief of sinners, without money and without price. "By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God -- not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephes. 2:8, 9.) But all who accept this great salvation, must prove the reality of their faith by carrying the cross after Christ. They must not think to enter heaven without trouble, pain, suffering, and conflict on earth. They must be content to take up the cross of DOCTRINE, and the cross of PRACTICE--the cross of holding a faith which the world despises, and the cross of living a life which the world ridicules as too strict, and righteous overmuch. They must be willing to crucify the flesh, to mortify the deeds of the body, to fight daily with the devil, to come out from the world and to lose their lives, if needful, for Christ's sake and the Gospel's. These are hard sayings, but they admit of no evasion. The words of our Lord are plain and unmistakable. If we will not carry the cross, we shall never wear the crown.

Let us not be deterred from Christ's service by fear of the cross. Heavy as that cross may seem, Jesus will give us grace to bear it. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Phil. 4:13.) Thousands and tens of thousands have borne it before us, and have found Christ's yoke easy, and Christ's burden light. No good thing on earth was ever attained without trouble. We cannot surely expect that without trouble we can enter the kingdom of God. Let us go forward boldly, and allow no difficulty to keep us back. The cross by the way is but for a few years. The glory at the end is for evermore.

Let us often ask ourselves whether our Christianity costs us anything? Does it entail any sacrifice? Has it the true stamp of heaven? Does it carry with it any cross? If not, we may well tremble and be afraid. We have everything to learn. A religion which costs nothing, is worth nothing. It will do us no good in the life that now is. It will lead to no salvation in the life to come.