Serving Him, of course.

The Essential Edwards Collection, Half Off (!)

Update: links fixed!

Some of you out there may remember the Essential Edwards Collection (Moody, 2010).  Doug Sweeney and I wrote it for Moody Books in order to make Jonathan Edwards and his treasure trove of theology and godly living accessible to a wide audience.

Nobody wants to read the blog of the guy who flogs his books, but I wanted to let interested folks know that Westminster Books is right now selling all five volumes for a 50% discount from the cover price ($44.95).  From today, Tuesday July 27th, through Monday, August 2nd, they will sell the books for $22.50, the equivalent of one free book relative to the current Amazon price.  We are thrilled at this feature and the opportunity it presents for folks to get the books on the cheap.  In fact, I’m so stirred, I’m thinking of writing a blog essay entitled “Jonathan Edwards on Free Books and Discount Opportunities.”

I include some basic info about the books below, including a couple of just-now-published videos that Sweeney and I shot to promote the books.

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The promotion:

–WTS Books is featuring the set online for a week starting Tuesday, July 27th, through August 2nd, a Monday

–They are selling it at 50% discount (!) ($22.50)

The …

Great Books: Josh Moody’s “No Other Gospel”

Without a doubt, one of the preachers I most look up to and learn from is Josh Moody of College Church in Wheaton, Illinois.  Josh is a humble man with an outsize résumé–BA from Cambridge, PhD from Cambridge (in none other than Jonathan Edwards), missionary to Georgia (the country, not the Dawgs) and Azerbaijan, husband to Rochelle and father of three adorable children.

If you are a looking for examples of the modern pastor-theologian, you should look directly and sustainedly at Dr. Moody’s ministry.  He reminds me of Jeffrey Epstein, the “Doctor,” due to the intelligence, crispness of expression, and soaring view of God found in his preaching.  College Church is a historic church (Kent Hughes formerly pastored it) and it just celebrated its 150th anniversary.  It is in the hands of a faithful expositor of God’s Word, one whose preaching reminds me of the speakers and leaders one finds in such organizations as Together for the Gospel and The Gospel Coalition.  If you have not listened to Josh’s sermons, do so immediately (and here’s his website).  Here’s what Josh says about his passion:

My passion is the gospel.  By that I don’t mean the cheap, cheesy, man-centered gospel that tells you that heaven can be won …

The Endless Evangelical Quest for Ultimate Transformation

A few days back, CJ Mahaney posted on Kevin DeYoung’s message from the “Next” conference in May 2010 in Baltimore, Maryland.  CJ lauded Kevin’s call for “plodding visionaries” and listed several points from Kevin’s talk that developed his understanding of this term.

This term and the idea behind it caught in my filter, as the kids say nowadays.  I don’t know how it strikes you, but that term seems to me to nicely sum up biblical Christian living as a “missional” believer.  This isn’t necessarily the line of thinking that sells the most books, but it captures, I think, both the Christocentric idealism and the conscionable realism of the biblical authors.  I want to look into this below (and would commend Hunter’s To Change the World, which has stimulated my thinking).  This will be a bit lengthy–I’m warning you up front.  Adjust your goggles; set phasers to stun.

There is a need for this kind of thinking and communication in our day among young people.  Twentysomethings are notoriously and historically idealistic, of course.  This isn’t new to our day.  But it’s interesting to survey the culture at present.  Idealism–even an unnuanced idealism–is alive and well.  This despite a twentieth century marked by devastating wars, political corruption, the overturning of …