Christian Living

Repetition aids memory; meditation internalizes. That’s why the psalmist was confident that a steady diet of Scripture would keep him from sin (Ps. 119:11). Elderly people tend to get forgetful, and they also tend to lose certain inhibitions that once would have kept private thoughts from being advertised. Observe this phenomenon and take it to heart. Your mother warned you not to make faces, lest your face would get stuck that way. And she was right. If you smile (or frown) a lot today, your octogenarian face will show it, like it or not.

^{Editor’s Note: The following is reprinted with permission from the book Why Am I So Angry? For more information about the book, please contact Iron Sharpeneth Iron Publications.}

by Debi Pryde

^{Editor’s Note: The following chapter is reprinted with permission from the book What Is Modesty? For more information about the book, please contact Iron Sharpeneth Iron Publications.}

I meet weekly with a group of eight to ten men for prayer. One of the men is twenty-five and already successful in the corporate world. The pressures he faces and the demands on his time are enormous. His forty-year-old boss is in the hospital. For the last fifteen years, he has gone on little sleep and popped stimulants to try to stay on top of everything in his department. He will be a basket case for the workplace for the rest of his life—if he gets out of the hospital alive.

During the middle of the sixteenth century, there was intense debate about music in the church. Several issues were on the table:

Are people hearing the gospel from us? It is God’s plan for people to hear the gospel from our lips. Romans 10:14 says, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” (KJV). Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:47, John 20:21, and Acts 1:8 teach that each believer is to be a “preacher,” proclaiming the “good news” of the Lord’s salvation.

^{Note: This article is reprinted with permission from As I See It, a monthly electronic magazine compiled and edited by Doug Kutilek. AISI is sent free to all who request it by writing to the editor at [email protected].}

“The Wines of the Bible: an Examination and Refutation of the Unfermented Wine Theory. By the Rev. A. M. Wilson. Hamilton, Adams & Co.

Author Tim Challies has embarked on a “blog tour” to promote the release of his new book, The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment. A blogger on the tour will pose a question about discernment, and Tim will address the question and the comments that readers might have.

The questions SI posed to Tim are as follows, accompanied by his responses.

by Pastor Dan Miller

^{Editor’s Note: This article was reprinted with permission from Dan Miller’s book Spiritual Reflections.}

“Who said anything about safe?”

Have you ever been reading and had a line jump off the page, grab you by the nose hairs, and refuse to let go until your body fairly tingles and your eyes nearly water with its meaning? That was my experience when I first read Mr. Beaver’s classic retort to Susan in C. S. Lewis’ fictional series, The Chronicles of Narnia (Book 2: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, p. 86).

Read Part 1.

^{Author’s Note: Again, this section and series should not be viewed as an exhaustive treatment of the topic. These are mostly pastoral observations based on 17 years of local church ministry and on a desire to see hurting people grow to be spiritually producing, mentally stable, and emotionally strong disciples of Jesus of Nazareth—all the while remaining Baptist!}