Aaron Armstrong's Blog, page 64

Growth takes time

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If you’re like me, you’ve undoubtedly been frustrated when you’ve not seen your growth in godliness proceed at a quick enough pace. It seems to take a long time to become Christlike, doesn’t it? Is there any way this can go faster?

According to J.C. Ryle, the answer is no:

Gradual growth in grace, growth in knowledge, growth in faith, growth in love, growth in holiness, growth in humility, growth in spiritual-mindedness—all this I see clearly taught and urged in Scripture, and clearly exempl...

Links I like (11/09)

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What does Jesus say to those with doubts?

Steve Mathewson:

But what exactly is faith that leads to eternal life? First, it’s worth noting that the words believe or belief and faith in the New Testament all translate from the same word. So, to believe is to have faith, and to have faith is to believe. Faith or belief is a trust and dependence on the Lord Jesus Christ, the One who died for our sins and rose to life. It might help to think for a moment about the following three aspects of faith...

The most loving thing you can do for people far from God

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We’ve been going through the book of 1 John for the last several weeks at our church. It’s been both a blessing and a near-constant challenge. A blessing because there is so much good news in this epistle—some of the most striking words I’ve read in Scripture are here, including:

“Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth” (1 John 3:18). “The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8). “We love because he first loved us” (...

Links I like (11/07)

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FBC Sutherland Springs and the Tears of Jesus

Michael Kelley:

The tears of Jesus are meaningful. But the other thing that was meaningful to me was what Jesus didn’t say. He makes no effort to justify Himself. He doesn’t bother to give Mary a lesson on the importance of sacrifice for the sake of God. He doesn’t launch into a theological treatise about what is really important in the universe. And He doesn’t make some pithy statement about how everything will be OK in heaven someday. He simply...

What I read in October

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I am always consuming books, whether they’re physical, digital or audio. Every month, I like to share a breakdown of everything I read, including the books I abandoned. I do this because it gives me an opportunity to introduce you to books you might not have had an opportunity to read while practicing the art of writing concise book reviews.

In October, I read 10 books to completion and started a couple of others that have yet to complete. Here’s what I read:

Watership Down by Richard Adams...

There is no Christian life without it

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Few men in all of history were used as mightily by God in the spread of the gospel in America and England as George Whitefield. A peer and one-time partner of John and Charles Wesley, the English Methodist was a pioneer of open-air preaching, proclaiming God’s offer of salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus to more than 25,000 people at once. Said to have preached some 18,000 sermons, more than 3,000 were on one subject. Imagine that: what could have been so captivating that h...

Weekend reading (11/04)

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How to Critique Secular Psychology

David Murray:

I’ve been told a number of times now that if I really want to promote a more biblical, historical, and confessional understanding of the sufficiency of Scripture that I have to prove my bona fides by critiquing secular models of psychology. So, at the risk of writing the least-read blog posts in history, in the coming weeks I plan to analyze the delights of Freudianism, behaviorism, Rogerian therapy, existential therapy, gestalt therapy, and s...

How Reading Writers is changing in its next season

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A while back, Reading Writers entered its second season, and then went on an unexpected hiatus due to a number of factors:

Scheduling conflicts for me Scheduling conflicts with guests

I currently have 4-5 episodes in the queue to complete my editing work on, and then will be getting them ready to launch. After that, I’m going to shake things up. The name isn’t going to change, but the format will a little. After these previously recorded episodes are released, I’m switching to a co-hosted...

Links I like (11/02)

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Never on Pause

Nana Dolce:

The woman moved easily from polite conversation to a hard-hitting question: “Can you tell me how you worship?” I answered her with an explanation of the gospel. She weighed my words in silence until I mentioned Jesus as God. Her rebuttal was swift and pointed. She dismissed the deity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity as deceptive falsehoods. I gave this fellow mom the respect of my ear, while I looked for opportunities to turn the conversation toward the pr...

What am I reading right now?

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Because it’s fun for me, I usually try to keep a few different kinds of books on the go at any given time. As much as possible, I’ll have one thought provoking read, another practical one, another just for fun book going all the time. Whenever I enter a busy season, as I’m in right now, it’s challenging to maintain this rhythm. Often, the just for fun is what becomes most alluring. Even so, I still try. So here’s a look at what I’ve got going now and what’s coming up very soon:

Good to Grea...