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Looking for a great read?

10/30/2018

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For our Sunday adult Bible studies at Brookside Baptist Church, we’re privileged every now and then to sit under the teaching of Dr. David Saxon, a Maranatha Baptist University professor with advanced degrees in church history. His lectures on great Christians of the past have inspired a number of us to seek out the books he recommends – five-star books from Here I Stand (about Martin Luther) to The Anabaptist Story (about the Radical Reformation). And his charming wife Jamie has added more to our Must Read lists, particularly with her glowing recommendations of the writings of British biographer Faith Cook.
 
But learning about these courageous people and their eras made me want to put it all in historical context. Dr. Saxon suggested The Story of Christianity by Justo L. Gonzalez – and I can add my enthusiastic endorsement to this recommendation.    
 
I recently finished Volume 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation. In it, Dr. Gonzalez takes the reader from Christianity’s early days in 1st century Palestine through the upheavals of the Renaissance, then crosses the Atlantic to describe the early days of colonial Christianity.  Every step of the way, he presents Christianity's theological and ecclesiastic development in the context of major events in world history.
 
What’s more, Dr. Gonzalez does it all in highly readable and compelling language. In fact, while I was reading it, I often woke up at 2 or 3 a.m. and, instead of turning over to slumber on, got up to read another chapter or two.
 
These middle-of-the-night reading binges have actually become a recurring problem with all of the books the Saxons have recommended. Right now, it’s To the Golden Shore, the story of 19th century missionary Adoniram Judson, that’s keeping me up at night.
 
One of these days I’m going to have to pick up some boring modern novel in order to get a good night’s sleep. But first, I really need to get ahold of Volume 2: The Story of Christianity, and maybe Fearless Pilgrim, Faith Cook’s reputedly stellar biography of John Bunyan, and then perhaps her books on Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, and on various hymn writers …  

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No wonder he was screaming

10/25/2018

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​Edvard Munch’s most famous painting was pretty ghastly, if you ask me. Memorable, arresting, haunting, yes indeedy, but in the end, just plain ugly. 
 
Entitled “The Scream,” it's reportedly a self-portrait Munch created during an “unstable” period of his life. No kidding.
 
What was his problem, exactly?
 
Maybe this quote gives us a clue:
 
“From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.”
 
Or this one:
 
“To die is as if one’s eyes had been put out and one cannot see anything anymore. Perhaps it is like being shut in a cellar. One is abandoned by all. They have slammed the door and are gone. One does not see anything and notices only the damp smell of putrefaction.”
 
I guess one can understand how he might have found that prospect terrifying.
 
Fortunately, there’s no need for any of us living today to be confused about eternity or to fear death. I have it on infallible authority that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and that anyone who repents and trusts in Him will spend all eternity in glory with Him. If you doubt it, please don’t wait another day to examine the evidence. This will get you started.
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What should the simple folk do?

10/20/2018

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The 1967 movie Camelot is one of my all-time favorites -- great story, wonderful acting, and oh, the music! I spent much of my childhood playing Lerner and Loewe’s original Broadway score on the piano, neglecting the exercises so meticulously prescribed by my piano teacher. Today, over a half century later, I still sing these numbers to myself regularly, forgetting not a word or a note or the raw emotion in every line.  
 
Lately, the song “What Do the Simple Folk Do?” has been haunting me. In case you’re not familiar with it, it’s sung by Queen Guinevere and King Arthur (Vanessa Redgrave and Richard Harris in the movie; Julie Andrews and Richard Burton on Broadway). The catalyst is Guinevere’s secret love for Sir Lancelot du Lac, and Arthur’s unspoken knowledge of their affair.
 
Alone together, both of them heartsick but not speaking of the cause, Guinevere asks Arthur in song:
 
What do the simple folk do
To help them escape when they're blue?
The shepherd who is ailing, the milkmaid who is glum,
The cobbler who is wailing from nailing his thumb?
When they're beset and besieged –
The folk not noblessly obliged –
However do they manage to shed their weary lot?
Oh, what do simple folk do we do not?

 
Arthur offers her several solutions: They whistle. They sing. They dance a fiery dance. Arthur and Guinevere try each one, but find no relief. He has only one more solution to offer: “They sit around and wonder what royal folk would do.”
 
It strikes me that this song is really a profound analysis of very common human behaviors – for these are among the things most of us do to try to mend our hearts, to bury our troubles, to silence our consciences.  
 
We mask our sadness with happy music.
 
Steep our fears in frenetic exercise, wild dancing, morning-to-night activity.
 
Saturate ourselves with ultimately futile obsessions, from celebrity worship to non-stop pursuit of entertainment, education, art, travel, clothes, home-decorating. 
 
Anything to avoid being alone with our thoughts. And with the truth.
 
No wonder none of it works for long. A guilty conscience simply cannot be silenced. 
 
I find it interesting that Lerner and Loewe failed to offer one more possible cure for heartache in this song, the one cure that is both foolproof and permanent: turning from sin and to the Lord, asking Him for forgiveness, and consulting His word for the keys to eternal peace and joy.
 
Just think: If Guinevere, Arthur and Lancelot had done that, there could actually have been a happy ending to this tragic tale. And Camelot might have survived for more than "one brief shining moment." 
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The most sensational "trans" story of all

10/11/2018

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The news media’s love affair with everything “trans” continues. From transsexual, transgender and transwoman to transman, transvestite and transvestic fetishist, all are considered objects of celebration, the outworking of unprecedented courage and fidelity to self.  
 
But hold on, Fourth Estate! You’ve totally overlooked the one form of trans-ism that transcends the material, transforming the heart of every man, woman, boy or girl who embraces it: the transspiritualism of the born-again Christian.
 
Consider: When a new Christian repents, trusts in Christ and is therefore “born again through the word of God which lives and abides forever” (1 Peter 1:23), the Holy Spirit not only saves him for all eternity, but also changes him immediately into a new creature in Christ – a new creature whose goal in life is to become more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ.
 
So where are the cheering journalists? Where are the TV documentaries and sit-coms and reality shows celebrating the transspiritist?
 
They’re nowhere to be found, of course. Why is that?
 
It can’t be that there’s a shortage of subjects. There are tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of born-again Christians living in the U.S. at this very moment, and most are eager to share what God has done in their lives.
 
Could it be that you can’t see such a heart-and-soul metamorphosis at a glance, and so have no before-and-after photo ops? Ah, but observe your transspiritists a little longer, reporters, and ask witnesses to comment on their lives. You’ll learn that their characters have been utterly transformed – that his rage has been replaced by peace, her selfishness by self-sacrifice, their self-righteous judgmentalism by compassion, his tight-fistedness by an unearthly generosity.
 
Not that it happens overnight. Just as it takes some time to change bodies and wardrobes, it takes the rest of each heaven-bound transspiritist’s life for the Lord to accomplish His objectives in his or her life. But there are landmarks along the way, as one stronghold after another falls to the power of the Holy Spirit. And anyone who has experienced these changes will be happy to tell you all about them.
 
Alas, thanks at least in part to the mass media, this trans-group has remained little more than a misunderstood and much maligned minority. Come on, journalists – the scoop awaits you! I’d be delighted to share my experience with the first ten reporters who call or write, and to refer you to many others with even more dramatic stories.
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"Swept Away by Fear"

10/4/2018

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Ferdinand Bol, "Angel Appearing to Elijah," c. 1644
The Lord used Chris Carrillo once again this past Sunday to deliver powerful truths to the folks at Care-age of Brookfield, gathered together for the monthly Christian Music Hour. In a message entitled “Swept Away by Fear,” Chris shared some profound insights into the prophet Elijah’s plunge from godly victory into paralyzing fear, as reported in 1 Kings 17-19. The reason for Elijah’s fall? The wicked Jezebel had announced her murderous plans for him; he panicked and took his eyes off the Lord.
 
In this penetrating message, Chris makes five key observations about Elijah’s failure and divine deliverance – observations that have application today in the life of virtually every Christian. I hope you’ll take the time to listen, and to share this message with fellow believers who seem to be suffering the consequences of living by sight rather than by faith. 
(If you’re reading this via email, please click on the title above to be taken to the audio.)
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    Kitty
    Foth-Regner

    I'm a follower of Jesus Christ, a freelance copywriter, a nursing-home volunteer, and the author of books both in-process and published -- including Heaven Without Her. 

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