Recently I’ve very much enjoyed Driscoll’s series on Ruth at Mars Hill. Some things I particularly liked was the use of video to produce a interactive bible reading, Dricoll’s own special way of bringing the story to life and helping us to understand 3000 year old events in today’s culture, and his emphasis on God’s redeeming grace in the life of Ruth, Naomi and Boaz. Also they made a nice desktop background to accompany the series. You can see all the series here…

Recently I have been quite disappointed on this subject… I don’t like having to shave, it’s just a hassle, but I find that before too long I look like a hobo with a ginger beard. But when I leave it, the beard never quite matches my expectations, it’s either ginger, or patchy, whatever it just doesn’t look cool.

Anyway, I’m hoping that one day it may be something like this…

If you’re in Brighton this weekend why not check out the World Beard and Moustache Championship 2007 to see these guys and other weirdos…

It was commented at the EMA that all of Vaughan Roberts’ books have no more than 3 words in their titles… I paused for a moment, reading and counting through the titles in my head – it was true. Interesting but somewhat irrelevant fact… shouldn’t judge a book by the length of its title!

Anyway, sometimes when I hear Vaughan speak I find him a bit dry, a bit too conservative in his style and sometimes content. But his writing is altogether different, it’s much more accessible, concise, easy to read and take in, and of course like his preaching thoroughly sound, true and Biblical. I haven’t read all of his books yet, need to read his Bible overviews at some point, but True Worship and Distinctives (2nd Christian book I read I believe, after John Dickson’s ‘Hanging in there’) were both excellent.

His latest book which I’ve just read is called ‘Battles Christians Face’ looking at 8 issues, or battles that Christians face in life. From the start it’s clear that this isn’t some kind of self-help book, a certain solution to win the battles, or a ground-breaking new perspective on the issues. No, rather Roberts sets out a Biblical example of the battle in question, takes us through that example looking at what we can learn about us and about God in these situations.

Roberts takes us through the issues with a related Bible text, looking at; Image (Col 3), Lust (David & Bathsheba), Guilt (Psalm 32), Doubt (Doubting Thomas), Depression (Psalm 42 & 43), Pride (Mark 9), Homosexuality (Matt 19 and 1Cor 6) and Keeping Spiritually Fresh (Luke 7).

I love Roberts’ simplicity and honesty, his realism and gentle approach to hard issues. There’s no great detail here, it’s a small book, so he gets straight to the point, but there’s enough here to give us both a firm biblical grounding and some practical application. There’s also a challenge here, where we feel we don’t struggle with the issue Vaughan bring God’s word to rebuke us – are we proud of our humility? do we judge others for their struggles?

Well worth a read – currently £7 along with some more reviews at the Good Book Company

On the Desiring God blog there’s a link to an excerpt from a John Piper sermon that says “we don’t need to contextualize the gospel”. My first thoughts, initially are to say rubbish… look at Paul in Acts 17, read Driscoll’s ‘Radical Reformission’. But Piper has a universal gospel presentation from Romans 5… the context is that we’re human beings, made by God, descendants of Adam. Have a look, I thought it was interesting…

Joshua Harris has kissed Facebook goodbye, a good thing I feel. I’m not sure how anyone who isn’t a student-bum has time for things like Facebook! Anyway, upon leaving he did go out with these last words…

“Enjoy Facebook. And if you’re a godly single man, receive it as a gift from God to assist you in nonchalantly building a friendship with a godly Christian woman. I’m serious, men! If you’re mature enough to pursue marriage, Facebook should be ‘Courtbook’ for you. Don’t just sit there, get on the ball and go ‘poke’ a godly girl.”

So naturally I added this quote to my Facebook profile. Fortunately (for the ‘godly girls’) I’ve never really understood the point of ‘poking’, just seems silly, along with those stupid superpokes, giving people drinks, throwing sheep, pirate arrrs, aquariums and other such rubbish. I want Joshua Harris to know that ‘Facebook is not the problem (the applications are)’… grrr…