Where is the Salt?

"God intends us to penetrate the world. Christian salt has no business to remain snugly in elegant little ecclesiastical salt cellars; our place is to be rubbed into the secular community, as salt is rubbed into meat, to stop it going bad. And when society does go bad, we Christian tend to throw up our hands in pious horror and reproach the non-Christian world; but should we not reproach ourselves? One can hardly blame unsalted meat from going bad. It cannot do anything else. The real question to ask is: where is the salt?"

- John Stott, The Message of the Sermon On The Mount, p.65


Here is another great book on the Sermon on the Mount: The Sermon on the Mount, The Character of a Disciple, by Dan Doriani. Dr. Doriani used to teach New Testament at Covenant Seminary. He is a GREAT Bible teacher.

Christians and Politics

Phil Johnson writes a good post here on Christianity and politics. Here is an excerpt:

Let me say this in closing: If you are a pastor, a church leader, or someone who disciples others and the question of who wins the American presidential election this year would alter your shepherding strategy, then you don't have a very sound game plan. Whether our next president is John McCain, Barack Obama, or Ralph Nader, or even (by some quirk of history) Hillary Clinton, it's highly unlikely that we'll find ourselves under a more hostile or more volatile political regime than Nero's Rome, which is where Paul ministered. Under those circumstances, Paul did exactly what we need to do: he preached the gospel in every possible venue. And the church flourished.

Read the rest.

More Stuff Christians Like

Stuff Christians Like - #232 - This one hit a little too close to home.

The Magical Power of Denim

This Is Funny

Stuff Christians Like Post # 206 - Putting the Devil On Notice.  Prodigal John writes:

Have you ever heard someone do this? This might be more of a Southern Baptist thing, but I personally find it to be delightful. Here's how it typically sounds in a prayer:

"Lord we just pray for your strength Lord. We just lift you up Lord. We just praise you. And devil, ohhh devil, we put you on notice. No longer will you have control over our annual bake sale. The mistakes we made last year and the fights we had at the peach pie table have been forgiven and forgotten. We put you on notice devil."

Whenever I hear something like that I start to think about the devil. He's at home, sitting in a chair by a never ending fire of sulfur and sorrow eating a deviled egg. He's reading Harry Potter or the Da Vinci Code or New Earth when someone knocks at his door. He gets up, opens the door and sees a delivery man standing there. "Uh, Mr. Devil. Just wanted to let you know, that you've been put on notice. Mary Smith says you better stay away from the bake sale this year." He shrugs, walks back over to his chair and turns on some MTV.

That's what I imagine in my head anyway.