Aaron Armstrong's Blog, page 40
December 7, 2018
Links I like (12/07)
Michael Kelley:
Imagine, for a moment, what life would be like without a word. Imagine walking into a new school without a class schedule, a map, or an idea where the cafeteria is located. Imagine starting a new job when your manager didn’t explain fully the expectations of the role or how you can be successful or that on Fridays everyone wears sweatpants to the office. Imagine moving to a new city and having no one to tell you which part of town to...
December 6, 2018
How do you avoid being cranky in corporate worship?
If there’s one thing I have a hard time with, it’s church music. This has been, more or less, an ongoing struggle for me for 13+ years. Across the board, In years past, I haven’t always handled it well. Probably led with a bit too much, ummmm… persnicketiness in all honesty.
From a certain point of view, I still am. I have a strong distaste for most of what passes as worship in our age, especially in that I find too little of it to truly be oriented toward worship of our Lord and Savior, Je...
December 4, 2018
Nerdy Christmas gift ideas
It’s once again the time of year where some of us are thinking about how to avoid hearing the worst Christmas songs in the world while we also think about what a loved one might enjoy as a Christmas gift. And because the former is perhaps the easier of the two, I wanted to offer some help on the latter. So, here are a few gift ideas for the (theologically or otherwise) nerdy guy or girl in your life.
A Witty Theologians Journal. These are part of a new line of products available at LifeWay f...
December 3, 2018
What got us hooked on reading?
How did each of us get hooked on reading? Was there a specific book that made us say, “Man, I love reading,” or was it just an ever-present reality? Find out on reading testimony day on Table of (mal)Contents.
Listen to a late Friday afternoon recording where we discuss:
How we got hooked on books;How we became (or avoided becoming) reading apostates; Aaron defines “trash novels” and goes full Canadian; Just how trashy Harlequin romance novels really are; andBarnabas issues a challenge to Aa...November 30, 2018
Links I like (11/30)
Eric Geiger:
Beware the person of a single book and beware of issue Christians. We must not be Christians who make one thing our main thing, unless that one thing is the gospel of Jesus which then impacts how we view everything. The gospel must impact how we view everything and there are issues that will be extremely important, but those issues cannot handle the weight of being the single thing or the main thing in a church. Tim Keller wrote, “Because the g...
November 29, 2018
A difficult tension
I’m writing a Bible study connected to Sanctity of Human Life Sunday (and I’m bordering on being late). This has been a tough one for me, and not just because of the topic itself.
The passage that I’m addressing in the study, Psalm 10, is a beast. The first verse is an echo of the human heart whenever we’re confronted with injustice—”Where are you, God? What are you doing?” It’s the question we cannot help but ask, not just those of us who have been born again, but all of us who are image b...
November 28, 2018
“One Big Story” (A short sermon)
The Bible is something greater
—it is one big story.
A while back, I had the privilege of visiting Cedarhome Baptist Church in Stanford, Washington. I was there to do a couple of things:
To train leaders on how to use The Gospel Project; andTo share their story of how God has been at work among them as they focused on the Bible as one big story.As we prepared for the trip, they kindly asked if I would preach that Sunday’s message. Today, I wanted to share that with you. You can listen to hit...
November 27, 2018
What I like about Logos 8
I am grateful for the embarrassment of riches I have available to me when it comes to Bible study tools. These are resources I rely on whenever I write Bible studies, sermons, blog posts, and books. Simply put, if I didn’t have these tools, I couldn’t do my job (or fulfill my ministry) nearly as effectively.
But what I don’t have is a lot of physical resources. As an apartment dweller, I have very limited space, so a large personal library isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Instead, I have v...
November 26, 2018
We talked to Leif Enger about Leif Enger (and other stuff too)
This is one of the greatest professional failures of my life, missing that.
Barnabas Piper
You’ve heard us all talk about his books a lot. You’ve heard Barnabas admit that he has a semi-idolatrous man-crush on him. And a couple weeks back, it happened:
Acclaimed novelist Leif Enger joined us on the show.
In the studio in Nashville.
And Barnabas wasn’t there to be a part of it. (He was off on a work trip to Colorado, and still has trouble sleeping at night.)
In our conversation, we talked abo...
November 23, 2018
Links I like (11/23)
I am so thankful I get to share stories like this as part of my job:
This Thanksgiving, I’m Thankful for Difficult PeopleChris Pappalardo:
Our blindness to our own sin, however, does more than merely hamper our sanctification. It also kills thanksgiving. The more we latch on to the difficulties other people bring into our lives, the less likely we are to thank God for those people. We might still try thanking God for them...
