Leaders Make Choices

It should be a matter of concern that we live in a world where the very values that seem increasingly to dominate our society—extended adolescence and the love of choice combined with the dislike of the responsibility of making choices—are those that will erode the very qualities that make good leaders: maturity and a willingness to make the hard decisions.

Carl Trueman, Fools Rush in Where Monkeys Fear to Tread, p. 39

Handling Criticism

Every critic, however ill-informed, represents a point of view which is likely not limited to just him.

-- Wordsmithy, Doug Wilson

Pleasing versus Doing

I thought of the men I know and have known—pastors, teachers, seminary presidents, ministry executives, missionaries, evangelists—and I thought that the greatest thing they could do at any moment in their life is to please God. No amount of fruitfulness, obedience, productivity, or over-the-top performance could trump simply pleasing God. So, I sat beside the bed of my wife of thirty years as she lay there finishing well and pleasing God.

--Disciple, Bill Clem

Sanctification as Life

This life, therefore, is
not righteousness, but growth in righteousness,
not health, but healing,
not being, but becoming,
not rest, but exercise.

We are not yet what we shall be,
but we are growing toward it.

The process is not yet finished,
but it is going on.

This is not the end,
but it is the road.

All does not yet gleam in glory,
but all is being purified.

—Martin Luther, “Defense and Explanation of All the Articles,” in Luther’s Works, Volume 32: Career of the Reformer II, ed. George W. Forell & Helmut T. Lehman (Fortress, 1958), p. 24.

HT: Justin Taylor

Procrastination is a Worship Problem

…a habit of procrastination indicates a worship problem: an unwillingness to do the work that God has appointed for us, or an inability to discern what he has given us and what he has not. The procrastinator loves to hoard her time for herself rather than work diligently in it on the errands and tasks God gives her. She would rather blame the chaos outside of her than the chaos in her heart.

–Staci Eastin in The Organized Heart: A Woman’s Guide to Conquering Chaos (Cruciform Press, 2011)
HT: Pure Church

Is Paul unclear?

Of this he is [Simeon speaking of himself in 3rd person] sure, that there is not a decided Calvinist or Arminian in the world who equally approves of the whole of Scripture . . . who, if he had been in the company of St. Paul whilst he was writing his Epistles, would not have recommended him to alter one or other of his expressions.

But the author would not wish one of them altered; he finds as much satisfaction in one class of passages as another; and employs the one, he believes, as freely as the other. Where the inspired Writers speak in unqualified terms, he thinks himself at liberty to do the same; judging that they needed no instruction from him how to propagate the truth. He is content to sit as a learner at the feet of the holy Apostles and has no ambition to teach them how they ought to have spoken.

Charles Simeon, cited in H.C.G. Moule, Charles Simeon (London: InterVarsity, 1948), 79.

HT: JP

Preach What's True

You are required to believe, to preach, and to teach what the Bible says is true, not what you want the Bible to say is true.

—R.C. Sproul, Chosen by God, 12