Here are some weekend reads for you from Crossway author blogs and articles that caught our attention this week. Enjoy!
And a few especially for our pastor-readers:
A brief video from Brad Green on what he’s exploring in The Gospel and the Mind:
If you missed Justin Holcomb’s DG Live Interview with David Mathis, you can listen in below as they discuss Rid of My Disgrace: Hope and Healing for Victims of Sexual Assault. Justin counsels on how the gospel of God’s grace heals and restores those disgraced by sexual assault. In particular, at the 47:01 mark he gives a list of things to say and not say as a friend to those hurt by this sin.
Redemption: An Interview with Mike Wilkerson
Mike Wilkerson (author of Redemption) sees that many addictions stem from past abuse. The scars of abuse turn to addictions as a means of coping with the pain. Though these addictions begin as an attempt to break free, they result in utter slavery.
“Sin is deceitful,” Wilkerson says in a recent interview. “It results in spiritual blindness.” That blindness is how slavery to sin and addiction begins and continues. We lie to ourselves, believing that God is the liar and that the consequences of our addictions are God’s malicious attempt to hurt us and take away our freedom.
Wilkerson reminds us that God abounds in love and mercy. The consequences of our sin are not God’s punishment, but rather the very pain from which he wants us to be free. “I would want anyone who’s reading this book, anybody who’s wrestling with the darkness of the wounds of abuse and addiction, to be drawn to this God who abounds in steadfast love,” Wilkerson says.
Listen to the full interview, and check out Redemption.
The following excerpt is modified from No Other Gospel by Josh Moody. Read the intro and first chapter, or learn how to get the full book via Crossway Impact. (See the full list of free books for June.)
“To them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you” (Galatians 2:5)
Make pure gospel doctrine your purpose. The gospel is not the ABCs of the Christian faith; it is the A to Z. Christ is the Alpha and Omega.
Doctrine is not just for professors and pastors; it is the truth of the gospel for which every Christian must be concerned. Paul says that the whole purpose of this is so that the truth of the gospel might remain with us, and we are to have that purpose for ourselves, our church, our neighborhoods, and the world. Our purpose is not to have a happy life; our purpose is the furthering of the gospel. Our purpose is not “Now that I’ve become a Christian, I can slip into cruise control”; our purpose is to go deeper with God in doctrine.
Be set free from the slavery of a wasted life. If my life is about getting a paycheck, and cleaning the car, and tidying up the yard, and going to family weddings, then just put me out of my misery. You’ve got to have a bigger vision for your life than that. To live, you have to have something worth dying for. The great question is not “What do I want people to say about me at my funeral?” The great question is “What is there to do that I’m willing to give my life’s blood for so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved?”
Get up early. Stay up late. Pray like heaven and hell depend on it. Christianity is not just about singing nice hymns and preaching pretty sermons. I don’t do ministry so that I can sit in leather armchairs in a boardroom. I’m in ministry to maintain the truth of the gospel. Don’t make a career of ministry. You seminarians, you full-time Christian workers, don’t waste your life with career moves. Don’t give your life to ministry; give your life to Christ and the truth of his gospel.
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