True Accountability

Helpful post here from Tim Challies summarizing what good accountability is and isn't.

"Sometimes I wonder what we love more, raising up our celebrities or tearing them back down."

A needed word from Tim Challies.

Accidental Pharisees - A Review

Tim Challies:

The key to enjoying Accidental Pharisees and benefiting from it is this: look for yourself in it before looking for other people. Let the book challenge you before you begin to think about all those other groups and their misplaced passion. If you only see applications for others, you are either reading it wrong or you are Jesus. 

Some will inevitably accuse Osborne of writing a call for complacency. I don’t see it that way as all. Some will dislike his tone. I don’t blame them since in certain places he tips over into anger or sarcasm. He overstates his case, deliberately I’m sure, and doesn’t always say things the way you might want him to. At times he seems to fall into the very thing he hates—allowing the Bible’s black letters to speak louder than the red, or the red to speak louder than the black. He is not as quick to appreciate radical Christianity as he is to critique it. He is better at diagnosing the problem than proposing the cure. 

But you should read Accidental Pharisees anyway. Take a deep breath, be humble, and listen. I guarantee you will find at least one or two things that apply to you, to your church, to your passion. It will do you good.

Read the rest.  

Vacating The Internet

Tim Challies reflects on a week away from technology. I think his practices here would be wise for many of us.

Based on a week away, and other experiences through a summer that was at times busy and at times very relaxing, I’ve determined that I need to make some adjustments and course corrections in my use of digital technologies in general and the Internet in particular. Here are some of them:

• I am planning on making Sundays a day in which I do not check email and do not surf the Internet. I see this as a way that I can remind myself every week that the real world needs to take precedence over the digital world.
• Realizing that I have fallen into unhealthy patterns with my phone, I made email more difficult to access, burying it in a folder off the first page of apps. I plan to use my phone for email only when I absolutely need to find some information.
• I am using my computer to check email less often and to respond to fewer messages. This includes emails where all I would respond with is a one-word answer, thus wasting someone else’s time, and emails that really serve no purpose. I am attempting to batch process email just a couple of times a day instead of allowing it to remain open at all times.
• I am hoping to build into my life some regular self-audit times, to tighten up where I’ve gotten to relaxed and to see if I am still taking my devices under control.

Read the rest.

Get Tim's book on rightly handling technology in today's world in light of God's word.

"I wonder how many beautiful moments we miss because we are afraid we will miss them."

Good insight here from Tim Challies:

I wonder how many beautiful moments we miss because we are afraid we will miss them. Instead of living fully in the moment, enjoying the music or the sunrise or the games with our children, we fall into this strange habit of recording it all. We experience the sunrise through the lens of an iPhone instead of just basking in it, we tinker with focus and angles recording quality instead of just enjoying the music. When all is said and done, we’ve recorded an experience that we missed out on, and the replay is just never as good.

Read the rest.


Books by Tim Challies:
The Next Story: Life and Faith after the Digital Explosion
The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment
Sexual Detox: A Guide for Guys Who Are Sick of Porn

Does The Tithe Apply To Christians Today?

Tim Challies with some good thoughts:

So what do we do with the tithe? Does God tell us today that we need to continue giving 10%? Well, that isn’t ever expressed clearly in the New Testament. The tithe is never reaffirmed and it is never canceled. But what is clear is that all of the New Testament laws were not lowered but heightened after Christ. The Old Testament warned against adultery; Jesus warned against a lustful glance. The Old Testament warned against murder; Jesus warned against even a hate-filled thought. Those Old Testament laws were a starting point to a much greater kind of obedience. Out of obedience to Christ and because of what Christ has done, the stakes have all been raised.

This makes it sound to me like that 10% is a mere starting point. Because there is not a clear command we need to use wisdom and we need to heed conscience, but I can’t imagine any way that Christ would have lowered the bar. In an age of law, 10% was simple obedience. In this age of grace, priceless grace, how could we say, “I now have freedom in Christ to give nothing,” or “I have freedom in Christ to give what’s left at the end of the month or what’s left in my pocket at the end of the week.” So I would encourage you to think of 10% as a kind of baseline and go from there.

Read the rest.

Pondering Norway's Darkest Hour

Tim Challies:

Jesus told us offer the world around us a testimony of love. But he also knew that this would not convince everyone. Far from it. “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” The logic goes like this: People hate Christ; therefore people hate those who love Christ and who seek to be like him. People will express this hatred by unfairly grouping true Christians with those who look nothing like Christians. On some level, then, people are eager to see Christ in Anders Behring Breivik because it gives them an opportunity to further their rebellion against the God they fear and the Saviour they hate.

Do not be offended when Christians are unfairly portrayed. Do not be surprised. The world hated Christ and the world will hate those who follow Christ, who act like Christ. The world falsely portrayed Christ and the world will falsely portray those who follow him. Our task is to live in the ways Christ told us to live; the results we leave to his good and sovereign will. Do not be surprised when you are lumped into the same camp as Anders Behring Breivik or Timothy McVeigh. But do expect that in time this kind of event will be used against us and will be used to curtail our freedom to worship.

Read the rest.

What We Learned from the Rob Bell Madness

Tim Challies with wise words here:

The Power of Social Media - Those of us who use social media need to understand that it gives us immense power. That does not apply only to just those of us who have popular blogs, but to all of us who use Facebook or Twitter or any other form of social media. Few of us have much power alone, but as a network we wield a great deal of influence. In this case, it was enough to create the news, enough to create a bestseller and enough to cause many people to reaffirm their commitment to a doctrine. Be aware of the power you have through something so simple as a Twitter or Facebook account!

The Power of Leaders - There are new rules and new responsibilities when it comes to leadership in a digital age—an age in which news travels with unparalleled speed. No one foresaw that John Piper’s quick tweet “Farewell Rob Bell” would prove the catalyst for a great firestorm. Christian leaders need to understand the power of social media and recommit time and again to choosing their words carefully. The books of Proverbs and James and all they have to say about the power of words remain steady guides.

The Temptations of Social Media - In an age of fast-paced news cycles, we need to be very careful that we do not neglect our responsibility to think carefully and prayerfully before we respond to controversy. The faster the pace, the greater the temptation becomes to emphasize immediacy over thoughtfulness. I look to myself as one who has too often failed in this regard. Where there are fast news cycles, instant communication and large audiences you will face constant temptation.

The Power of the Reformed - Whatever this New Calvinism is or is becoming, it has become sufficiently cohesive that it now wields a lot of influence. Our influence online and through social media is far greater than our influence in the real world I think, but since news now travels at the speed of light through social media channels, we have the ability to speak and to speak loudly. The world is watching us.

We Can Be Used - We need to be aware that publishers will try this again. Other publishers watched this situation play out and they are going to try to do the same thing. Our challenge is to find a way to respond well but to respond in such a way that we do not end up exacerbating a problem even while we seek to solve it. In the case of Love Wins we caused many people to buy and read a book even while seeking to tell them that it was unbiblical. I would like to think that there is a better way, though at this point I do not know what it could be.

Read the rest.  

Internet Infidelity

Walt Mueller:

The Anthony Weiner drama continues to unfold. While some are saying the story needs to simply go away, I disagree. It's a story that needs to stay, be deconstructed, and be pondered as it's really a story about the convergence of fallen human nature, new technologies, and issues we all must face and address in our own lives. It's a story about things here now and a story about the shape of things to come. How we respond to this story today will shape whether or not these same issues are even story-worthy in the future.

His conclusion:

Let me pass on a couple of recommendations. First, I would recommend Dave Carder's book, Torn Asunder. And, I would recommend it to everybody. Okay, I know. . . the subtitle says it's about "recovering from an extramarital affair." But books like these are helpful for us all. I find it to be very helpful to learn as much as a I can about dangerous roads people have traveled as an exercise that God uses in my life for preventive purposes. You learn some great guidelines for what to do and what not to do.

Second, I would grapple with, ponder, and enlist some technology-use strategies recommended by Tim Challies in his book The Next Story. Tim writes, "Be visible; be accountable; be real; be mature. And always distrust yourself. It may sound harsh, but be willing to doubt your motives, your heart."

My name's not Anthony Weiner. But he and I suffer from the same disease. We all do. Which is why we need to stay away from the matches.

Read the whole thing.

Matthew 18 and The Internet

Tim Challies:

Through my years of blogging (I’m coming up on 8 years of it now) I’ve often written critiques of books and even some people or the things they’ve done or the words they’ve said. In many ways this blog simply reflects the thinking I’ve done about issues that arise within the church. I do not really know what I think or what I believe until I write about it, and I tend to share my thinking through the blog. And when I write about people or their books, it is nearly inevitable that someone sends me an email or leaves a comment saying, “Did you follow the procedure laid out in Matthew 18?” This is sometimes a kind suggestion and sometimes a harsh rebuke. But either way, it almost always seems to come. This was true when I wrote critical reviews of 90 Minutes in Heaven and The Shack. It was true when I shared some concerns about men whose ministry I respect. In each case, people suggested that I ought to follow Matthew 18 and speak to the men themselves before publicly critiquing them.

Read the rest.  

Owning Your Social Media Habit

Tim Challies:

Social media: can’t live with it, can’t live without it. Or that’s how it feels. Facebook, Twitter, blogs—I think most of us have a bit of a love/hate relationship with them. While we enjoy the benefits they bring to us, we also see how they seek to dominate our lives. Many of us now live much of life through the lens of our social media, as if we haven’t actually experienced something until we’ve tweeted it or blogged about it or posted pictures of it on Facebook. It’s a strange phenomenon. And it’s a phenomenon that can quickly and easily dominate our lives.

The big question I ask in my book The Next Story is this: do you own your technology or does your technology own you? It’s an important question and one we would all do well to wrestle with when it comes to our social media. So let’s talk about how we can own our social media habits.

Read the rest.  

Men, Please Read This

Tim Challies:

A few days ago I received an email from a reader of this site, a woman who was responding to some of the articles I’ve written on the subject of pornography. She shared a poem, a bit of free verse she had written in the midst of her husband’s addiction. I wish I could say it was the only email I’ve received from such a woman. Sadly it’s not; not by a long shot. That same day I received another email from another woman looking for resources for dealing with the wife’s response to a husband’s sin (rather a gap in the available literature right now, I think).

Anyway, I thought I would share this poem. It’s a little bit graphic, but only so far as it needs to be. I think it’s particularly heartbreaking in drawing out the clear connection between pornography and violence. And it’s just a realistic look at how so many men are damaging and destroying their wives and families. It’s reality.

So here it is, “I Looked For Love in Your Eyes.”

I saved my best for you.
Other girls may have given themselves away,
But I believed in the dream.
A husband, a wife, united as one forever.

Nervous, first time, needing assurance of your love,
I looked for it in your eyes
Mere inches from mine.
But what I saw made my soul run and hide.

Gone was the tenderness I’d come to know
I saw a stranger, cold and hard
Distant, evil, revolting.
I looked for love in your eyes
And my soul wept.

Who am I that you cannot make love to me?
Why do I feel as if I’m not even here?
I don’t matter.
I’m a prop in a filthy play.
Not an object of tender devotion.

Where are you?

Years pass
But the hardness in your eyes does not.
You think I’m cold
But how can I warm to eyes that are making hate to someone else
Instead of making love to me?

I know where you are.
I’ve seen the pictures.
I know now what it takes to turn you on.
Women…people like me
Tortured, humiliated, hated, used
Discarded.
Images burned into your brain.
How could you think they would not show in your eyes?

Did you ever imagine,
The first time you picked up a dirty picture
That you were dooming all intimacy between us
Shipwrecking your marriage
Breaking the heart of a wife you wouldn’t meet for many years?

If it stopped here, I could bear it.
But you brought the evil into our home
And our little boys found it.
Six and eight years old.
I heard them laughing, I found them ogling.

Hands bound, mouth gagged.
Fisheye photo, contorting reality
Distorting the woman into exaggerated breasts.
The haunted eyes, windows of a tormented soul
Warped by the lens into the background,
Because souls don’t matter, only bodies do
To men who consume them.

Little boys
My little boys
Laughing and ogling the sexual torture
Of a woman, a woman like me.
Someone like me.

An image burned into their brains.

Will their wives’ souls have to run and hide like mine does?
When does it end?

I can tell you this. It has not ended in your soul.
It has eaten you up. It is cancer.
Do you think you can feed on a diet of hatred
And come out of your locked room to love?

You say the words, but love has no meaning in your mouth
When hatred rules in your heart.
Your cruelty has eaten up every vestige of the man
I thought I was marrying.
Did you ever dream it would so consume you
That your wife and children would live in fear of your rage?

That is what you have become
Feeding your soul on poison.

I’ve never used porn.
But it has devastated my marriage, my family, my world.

Was it worth it?

How (And How Not) To Use Facebook for Ministry

Tim Challies with a helpful post on FB and ministry.

Here is my favorite quote:  "Don’t Play Farmville. Just don’t. It’s stupid and it will make you stupid."

Life - A Review

Tim Challies reviews BBC's "Life".  His conclusion:

Overall, Life is yet another fantastic series and one that will take you face-to-face with some of God’s most remarkable creatures. The Bible tells us that it is the fool who says in his heart that there is no God. And this means that it is only the fool who could watch Life and not catch glimpses of the Creator. Watch it and praise God for his artistry.

Read the rest.

I can't wait to get it. I love watching these with my kids and talking about the creativity of God.  You can get yours here.

Another iPad Review

Tim Challies lends his voice to the chorus of iPad reviews.

How To Read A Book Effectively

Blogger and bibliophile, Tim Challies writes on how he goes about reading a book for maximum effectiveness. 

Challies on Reading

Tim Challies:

More than any other question that comes in via email, I'm asked this one: "How do you read so much?" While granting that I do read a lot, I think it bears mention that there are lots of people who read as much as I do or a lot more. The difference is that I write about what I'm reading, so you're more aware of it than you are with most of these voracious readers.

Every year or so I sit down to write out a few thoughts on reading. I'm doing so again today, offering a few thoughts on how you can read more and read better. This is adapted from a list I created a couple of years ago. Actually, what I'll do is write today about how to read more and read more widely and then tomorrow we'll work on reading better.

Read the rest of his helpful thoughts.  

How Pornography Effects the Brain

Scott Sterner:

I just read this review by Tim Challies on a new book that deals with how pornography effects the brain. It is both terrifying and fascinating. Sexual addiction is epidemic in our culture. We need a wake-up call and this book may help in that endeavor. For the full review go here. Below is a clip:

I read recently of a researcher who wanted to study the effects of pornography on young adult males. He carefully built the structure for the study, determining how he would compare young men who had experienced pornography with a control group comprised of those who had never come into contact it. Tragically this researcher had to cancel his study. He found that he was unable to put together a control group; he could not find young men who had not discovered pornography. The experiment was impossible to conduct.

That is the kind of society we live in today, a society that is absolutely overwhelmed with pornography. The lure of porn is almost irresistible, particularly to young men. If the devil wanted to find a way of destroying young men, of impacting the ability for men to relate properly to women, of disrupting families and hardening hearts, he could hardly do better than this.

Much has been written in recent years about pornography. But new to store shelves is a book that is different from all the others, at least all of the other books targeted at a Christian audience. William Struthers’ Wired for Intimacy looks not primarily to the heart but to the brain. He shows how the male brain is hard-wired for intimacy and relationships and how pornography affects the male brain. He says “Men seem to be wired in such a way that pornography hijacks the proper functioning of their brains and has a long-lasting effect on their thoughts and lives. … When we better understand the devastating spiritual, psychological, social and biological reality of how pornography violates our unique position in God’s creation, we will be better able to minister to hose who have been wounded by it.

A Review - A New Kind of Christianity by Brian McLaren

Tim Challies reviews Brian McLaren's new book, A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith.  He writes:

Here, in A New Kind of Christianity it’s as if McLaren is screaming “I hate God!” at the top of his lungs. And swarms of Christians are looking at him with admiration and saying, “See how that guy loves God?” I don’t know what McLaren could do to make the situation more clear. In fact, his book is nearly indistinguishable from many of the de-conversion narratives that are all the rage today. Compare it with Bart Ehrman’s God’s Problem and you’ll see many of the same arguments and the same misgivings; you’ll find, though, that Ehrman is at least more honest. He at least has the integrity to walk away from faith altogether rather than reinventing God in his own image.

McLaren says he would prefer atheism over belief in the God so many of us see in Scripture. Well, he is not far off. This new kind of Extreme Makeover: God Edition Christianity is no Christianity at all. It is not a faith made in the image of Jesus Christ, but a faith made in the image of a man who despises God and who is hell-bent on dragging others along with him as he becomes his own god.

Read the rest.

The Trellis and the Vine - A Review

The Trellis and the Vine has been getting much hype lately on the Christian blogs that I read.  Tim Challies reviews it here with his usual clarity.  Sounds like it deserves the hype.  Can't wait to get my own copy.