Take Up and Read: Wednesday Edition

Coal is close to the heart of many West Virginians. Since  I make my home in West Virginia this photo gallery of coal operations around the world was interesting.
 
Here is Pastor Voddie Baucham on his invitation to Elephant Room 2, why he declined, the subsequent fallout and how race can push out orthodoxy.We need men like Pastor Baucham because he can confront black pastors who are heretics without race clouding the discussion.

In 2005 Peter Enns wrote a book that toed the line about Biblical inerrancy. Many felt the book opened the door to the Bible being fallible, though this may not have been Enns' intention. This eventually led to him leaving Westminster Seminary. Now he has written a book claiming that evolution and Christianity can coexist. (All you "there is no slippery slope" people need to take note.) Peter Leithart, who is a friend of Enns, takes him to task here and here.  (Call it Peter vs. Peter brought to you by Peter.) The view that the early chapters in Genesis are not historical has gained considerable traction in "evangelical" circles lately. Tremper Longman is another man who has denied that Adam was a historical figure. This battle is not going away any time soon. I am grateful for Peter Leithart and the CRE (my denomination) which hold strongly to six-day creation. 

Kevin DeYoung on why we should still have an evening service. Our church currently has only one per month. But DeYoung's points are worth thinking about. One question he doesn't address is "why has the church dropped the evening service?"  The answer to this will tell us something how thinking in the church has shifted in last couple of decades. Has it dropped because our society has changed so much that getting to church twice on Sunday is now almost impossible?It is a logistical shift with people living further away from the place they worship?  Or has it dropped because we have substituted discussion groups for preaching?  Or has it dropped because we have become a lazier society that doesn't really want to show up at church twice in one day? It would be interesting to know why people stopped coming to the evening service and why churches stopped having them.

Here and here are some wonderful quotes from Doug Wilson's lectures at the Desiring God Pastor's Conference. He is my favorite teacher/pastor on the home and pastoral ministry.