This Week’s Top Five Christian Blog Posts

The Big Idea: Providing the best of the best around the Net. Links to the top five Christian blog posts of the week—posts that provide robust, rich, and relevant insights for living. 

We Are One

Every pastor and every church member needs to read this post. Pastor Tullian Tchividjian of Coral Ridge explains why his church has “gone blended.” That is, rather than divide his congregation between contemporary praise music and traditional church hymns, Coral Ridge has decided that it is a theological, Gospel issue to use both types of music. Read his compelling reasons in We Are One

The Bible Is Not About You

Justin Taylor links us to, summarizes, and comments on Tim Keller’s sermon that The Bible Is Basically Not About You. It’s all about Him. 

The Archer and the Arrow

Discerning Reader is a premier Christian book review site.  This week Tim Challies reviews an important new book on preaching—The Archer and the Arrow

32 Minutes of Holy Encouragement

Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile blogs daily at Pure Church. He loves highlighting other pastors as in this post on 32 Minutes of Holy Encouragement. In it he links to Pastor Ligion Duncan’s sermon “Every Dream Lost. Every Dream Fulfilled.” Of it, Pastor Thabiti says, “It’s riveting from start to finish, filled with hope for all of us who have, are, or will experience deep loss in God’s providence.” 

Bob Newhart Counseling 

Justin Taylor’s Between Two Worlds Blog has a great guest post by biblical counselor David Powlison. It starts with the classic Bob Newhart Stop It! Video. Then Dr. Powlison explains several features of robust biblical counseling in The Riches of Biblical Counseling

Join the Conversation

Of The Best of the Best Around the Net, which post impacted you the most? Why? What blog posts have you enjoyed this week that you want to share with others?

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  1. StandFirm said:

    This week I had a challenging conversation with a dear friend of mine, a self-professing atheist. While he remains steadfast in his “faith”, during our chat I was struck with the radical idea that he was simply a latent Christian. Given the timing of the Holy Week, I felt compelled to put my thoughts to paper. Here goes: Are Atheist’s Latent Christians? Nearly everyone on this planet acknowledges some measurement of good and evil (positive and negative, opposite forces, yin and yang, or whatever you choose to call it). It’s a timeless, universal concept providing the underpinnings for arguably a more divisive discussion of moral absolutes—palpable, unquestionable forces at play that let us know what is right or wrong, regardless of whether or not we choose to abide or even acknowledge them. Is this God at work? Those who subscribe to atheism—broadly defined as “lacking theistic belief”—think not, as they tend to cleave to self-awareness, self-performance, and a general sense of goodness as the yardstick of morality (being a good neighbor, good steward of the earth, good natured, a good person, and so on). But it begs the question, “If there is no God, where does this moral authority come from?” Atheists may contend that it is an evolutionary byproduct of selective choice inculcated over the years to ensure the success of the human race. Others may conclude it spawned from a desire for power and control through legalism and governmental laws. Regardless of what you believe is the origin of moral authority, the fact remains (by any measure) we all fall well short of the mark. History clearly demonstrates—through unabated wars, political strife, abject poverty, systemic greed, corporate corruption, and ethnic cleansing, (to name just a few)—that moral authority, while prevalent and understood, is not universally expressed, or innately practiced and therefore its source must run deeper. Christians believe moral authority is a directive from God, established at the time of creation of man. Such notions are richly recorded in early Judeo-Christian teachings (and many other faiths and creeds). But the burden of living a perfectly moral, sin free life is all but impossible, painfully exhausting, and (at worst) enslaving. In an attempt to achieve some measure of goodness, we unwittingly become judges of others and slaves to ourselves and the false idols we embrace (relationships, money, power, influence). So how good is good enough? The truth is that our sinful nature prevents us from answering that cryptic question; simply because in our quest for the moral high ground we will always want more…more everything. And yet, whether we believe in God or not, we all have an internal moral compass. So what is keeping us from attaining so-called enlightenment or what the Jews call shalom (or peace)? An atheist may conclude that more self-cultivation, awareness, and meditation (all excellent tools of the mind) alone hold the answer. But like many of us, including Christians, it may just be that what atheists are really seeking is freedom—freedom from themselves and the performance driven reality of the human experience. After all, we will never achieve perfection no matter how much we bathe ourselves in self-righteousness, moralism, and good behavior. Christians offer up the one truth as the answer, that God in the form of Jesus Christ walked and lived among us to teach us the true workings of righteousness and that He sacrificed himself to forever free us from our moral ineptitude (original sin); thereby providing everlasting life to those who believe in Him. Until we put our faith in God and accept that it is by His grace alone that we have salvation, perhaps we are all but atheists of one stripe or another. And maybe all atheists are just latent Christians waiting to discover the one truth.

    April 22, 2011
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