March 2013 – Jojo Agot

Book Review: TITHING by Douglas Leblanc

Douglas Leblanc’s book called TITHING is one of Thomas Nelson’s Seven Ancient Practices Series. When I first saw the series title in 2011, I thought it was a great idea to get to know the practices of the early church and see how they could be translated into our modern times.

There are seven practices included in this series: Tithing, Sacred Meal, Fasting, Fixed Hour of Prayer, Hallowing of the Sabbath, Observance of the Liturgical Year and Doing a Pilgrimage. The first three disciplines (tithing, sacred meal and fasting) are related to the body, its product and its appetite. The remaining four have something to do with the way we spend our time.

I happen to read Scot McKnight’s book on Fasting in this series. While it did not overwhelm me, it was helpful to me in shaping my understanding about true fasting. Our church has an annual schedule of prayer and fasting every January and every year, I turn to John Piper and Scot McKnight to refresh my mind on biblical fasting.

Continue reading Book Review: TITHING by Douglas Leblanc

Video: I Can See

Steve Green’s I CAN SEE.

The story is about the two disciples on the road to Emmaus and how Jesus met them on the road and expounded the Scriptures to them while they were kept from recognizing him. This story always makes me feel nostalgic and I don’t know why.

Sacred Use of Sacred Words

As pastors, we must devote time to understanding the primary means by which God communicates to his people. We ought to be adept in our understanding of, appreciation for, and facility with words. And yet not just any words. Our competency should be in the sacred use of sacred words.

—Peter R. Schemm Jr. | Themelios

The Unity of the Bible

Graeme Goldsworthy on the unity of the Bible:

The unity of the Bible is matter of biblical revelation, not of empirical investigation. Put simply, I believe that the Bible gives me a single, accurate, and coherent picture of reality principally because Jesus tells me that it does. The unity of the Bible is an article of faith before ever it is arrived at empirically. The empirical discovery of the unity is governed by the presupposition of divine revelation. If I have difficulty in understanding how that unity exists in the face of certain phenomena, or apparent phenomena, that is a problem in my understanding, not in the biblical text.

In Trying to be too Relevant

Living fish may go with the stream at times, but dead fish must always do so. There are plenty of such in all waters: dead souls, so far as the truest life is concerned, and these are always drifting, drifting, drifting as the current takes them. Their first inquiry is — what is customary? God’s law is of small account to them, but the unwritten rules of society have a power over them which they never think of resisting.

—Charles Spurgeon, Flowers from a Puritan’s Garden

Pleasing God

If a man does not [live to] please God, he inevitably brings upon himself sorrow and suffering in this life; he puts a worm and a rottenness in the core of all his joys; he fills his death-pillow with thorns, and he supplies the eternal fire with faggots of flame which shall for ever consume him.

—Charles Spurgeon