Ten Quotes: From the Pen of Pastor Paul

Here are ten of my favorite quotes from Daniel Hyde's book, From the Pen of Pastor Paul, which is a series of published sermons on I & II Thessalonians.  

The pastor's heart towards his people leads to the pastor's labors for his people.

God's Word in preaching is not communicated by skits; it is not conveyed through art; it is not taught to us through music; it is not expressed through deeds; but in words.

A preacher must have total confidence, total conviction, and total assurance of his message.

Paul says there is a real presence of God himself in the preaching of the Word.

[Paul] was so motivated by their [the church] need that despite the great risk of persecution and violence, he opened his heart and mouth to give them what they need-the gospel...He was willing to bring this message despite persecution.

When we do not speak as Paul speaks, personally, sincerely, passionately, and even gently, we fail in our duty as pastors.

What does living in light of the Lord's return look like...What does the Christian life look like in this age between Jesus' first and second comings? It looks like a struggle. It looks like a fight. It looks like a battle.

Deep down our theology and life is about having the assurance that we are saved. I don't want you to know what the doctrine of election is, what the doctrine of limited atonement is, what our view of the sacraments are, what our theology of worship is...unless knowing this increases your certainty that you belong to Jesus Christ in body and soul both in life and death. (ellipsis Hyde's)

A false prophet's mission is to shake believers..alarm believers...and deceive believers.

I don't know about you, but my languishing soul needs this [predestination-II Thessalonians 2:13]. I need salvation to be taken out of the whims and wishes of my mind. I need salvation to be taken away from my sin-stained hands. I need salvation to be removed from my stony heart. I need a God who chooses.

And one:

I really enjoyed this short summary of justification and sanctification. Remember this was preached, not written in a scholarly journal with three hundred foot notes. All italics are Hyde's.

Like justification, then sanctification is a part of the complete work of our Lord Jesus Christ as our Mediator and Redeemer. He is a complete Savior and we need to proclaim this whole gospel.  But there are some differences. In justification Christ works for us in his life of obedience and death, while in sanctification in Christ works in us to make us obedient and to die to sin. Justification is outside of us, while sanctification is inside of us. In justification we are passive, while in sanctification we are active. In justification we are recipients of Christ's work, while in sanctification we are participants with Christ's work. In justification Christ works upon dead men, while in sanctification Christ works in and through those who have been made alive.

Quotes From Other Books
Fool's Talk by Os Guinness
The New Pastor's Handbook by Jason Helopoulos
On Being a Pastor by Derek Prime and Alistair Begg
How to Exasperate Your Wife by Douglas Wilson
The Things of Earth by Joe Rigney
A Son for Glory by Toby Sumpter 
Escape from Reason by Francis Schaeffer
Crazy Busy by Kevin DeYoung
Making Gay Okay by Robert Reilly 
Christ Crucified by Donald Macleod
Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God by John Calvin

Book Review: From the Pen of Pastor Paul

From the Pen of Pastor Paul by Daniel R. Hyde
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A wonderful book by Pastor Danny Hyde. This is not a commentary in the strict sense of the word. You will not find chapters on Pauline authorship or the textual issues in these letters. Also this is not a slow, careful verse by verse examination of the text. These are sermons put to paper. Here are several things I enjoyed about the book.

First, it is warm and pastoral. You feel like you are sitting in the pew listening to a pastor bring you the Word of God chapter after chapter. He speaks with passion and directly to the reader. It reminds me of older commentaries, which were basically extended exhortations based on the text. Pastor Hyde is interested in our souls and it shows. This is not as easy to do as it sounds. I have read many sermons put to paper and they does not always work.

Second, several chapters read like mini-pastoral theologies, especially early in the book. I have never read Thessalonians the way it was presented in this book, as Paul pouring out his pastoral soul to the church there. If you are a pastor and find your love for your people growing cold read this book. While I was reading this book I visited one of the families at church. The book changed the way I approached that visit.

Third, Pastor Hyde is straightforward. His goal is to teach and give his congregation meat. Therefore he is clear. The longer I am in the ministry the more I see the need for this. There is a place for in-depth writing or speaking that gets into all the nuances of the text, the Greek, its connections to Roman world, etc. But that place is not in the pulpit. In the pulpit people need a clear Word from God. They need to know what the text says, what it meant for the people who read it, and what it means for them. If they leave impressed, but unchanged then the pastor has wasted his time. Pastor Hyde's chapters are well organized and clear with exhortations to holiness as well as calls to follow Christ. You read them and find yourself examining your walk with Christ.

Finally, I appreciated all the quotes from other men, including Chrysostom, Aquinas, Calvin, Spurgeon, Stott, Bruce, etc. By doing this he introduces his readers to these great men and also adds depth to the writing.

I had a few complaints here and there. But this book is well worth your time whether you are studying Thessalonians or not, especially if you are a pastor.

I was given this book freely in exchange for an unbiased review.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Discovering Church Planting

Discovering Church Planting: An Introduction to the Whats, Whys, and Hows of Global Church Planting by J.D. Payne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was okay, but honestly had way more information than was necessary. I am the founding pastor of a church plant that is now almost ten years old. There is not much in this book that would have helped me ten years ago. It felt like overkill for most situations. The best chapters were the ones on ecclesiology, discipleship and caring for one's family. It might be more helpful for those in global situations.

While church planting does bring challenges that a pastor does not find when he goes to an established church, I believe books like this make it more complicated than it needs to be.

View all my reviews

Book Review: He Is There and He Is Not Silent

He Is There and He Is Not Silent by Francis A. Schaeffer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

For a long time I have felt that presuppositional apologetics and classic apologetics, when done and held rightly, can be mutually supporting. Presuppositions feed facts. But facts, the way the world is, feed our presuppositions as well. While Schaeffer does not use this exact terminology that is part of the lesson I learned from this book.

I found this book more difficult than Escape from Reason and for some reason I skipped The God Who is There, which I will have to pick up. Schaeffer outlines how the failure to have an infinite personal God who speaks leads inevitably to meaninglessness. But more than that he shows how an infinite personal God who created this world and who speaks is the only option that matches the facts of how the world actually is. The key fits the lock and only this key fits the lock.

A couple of other thoughts. Schaeffer writes with a high level of empathy for the modern man in the book. Modern man is alienated, living in a meaningless world with no way of knowing what is true and what is false, what is good and what is evil, what is real and what is imaginary. Schaeffer had an answer for this lostness. But he does not just have an answer he truly loves those he speaks to.

Second, Schaeffer (along with Os Guinness) has made less afraid of questions. Schaeffer noted that at L'Abri no question was off limits. Anything could be asked and there was answer for it from the Bible and the Christian worldview. A lot of times men steeped in presuppositional apologetics, like myself, simply say to objections, "Well you just need to believe." Yes they do, but they also need answers. And Christianity has those answers.

View all my reviews

Ten Quotes: Fool's Talk by Os Guinness

Here are ten of my favorite quotes from Os Guinness' excellent book on apologetics Fool's Talk:

Almost all our witnessing and Christian communication assumes that people are open to what we have to say, or at least are interested, if not in need of what we are saying. Yet most people quite simply are not open, not interested and not needy, and in much of the advanced modern world fewer people are open today than even a generation ago. Indeed, many are more hostile, and their hostility is greater than the Western church has faced for centuries. 

As with almost everything worthwhile in life, there is rarely just one day to do it. The same is true of persuasion. There is no single right way it should be done. There is no one-size-fits-all approach that will work with everyone. To be sure, there are some ways that are not Christian and some that not effective, but there is no single way that alone is Christian. 

Sin must always end in justifying itself by framing God. God is in the dock [the one who stands accused]. To excuse ourselves, we have to accuse him. In short, sin frames God falsely.

In strong contrast to secularism, the Christian view is both this-worldly and other-worldly. It has a healthy appreciation of this world, but sees it always within an equally strong appreciation of another world that throws this present world into a different light, redeeming its worst features and confirming forever its highlights. And in strong contrast to the Eastern views, the Christian view has a solid appreciation of the created reality that we know and we may trust-even though there is another world that is needed to make this world what it should be.

Because of the cross and the resurrection there is always a way out.

Unbelief manufactures not only idols but illusions.

Only humans it seems, have the capacity to live as something other than what they are. [Guinness quoting N.T. Wright]

When it comes to belief and unbelief, we need to remember that, while no thoughts are unthinkable and no argument is unarguable, some thoughts can be thought but not lived...When we are talking of unbelief, there will always be unintended consequences. Unbelieving beliefs will be truly adequate because unbelieving knowledge is never fully adequate and not finally true. 

The gospel makes better sense of what simply is because the way God sees reality is the truth of what is. 

 Indeed, it is now difficult to think of what might actually constitute a crisis of faith for the Christians revisionists [liberal Christians]. Revisionist faith has so lost its authority that it has become compatible with anything and everything, and so means nothing.

And one:

Questions and needs do not create faith. No one believes because of questions and needs. Rather, the effect of questions and needs is to make people disbelieve. They no longer believe whatever it was that they believed before, because what they used to believe no longer answered their questions. 

Quotes From Other Books
The New Pastor's Handbook by Jason Helopoulos
On Being a Pastor by Derek Prime and Alistair Begg
How to Exasperate Your Wife by Douglas Wilson
The Things of Earth by Joe Rigney
A Son for Glory by Toby Sumpter 
Escape from Reason by Francis Schaeffer
Crazy Busy by Kevin DeYoung
Making Gay Okay by Robert Reilly 
Christ Crucified by Donald Macleod
Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God by John Calvin

Ten Quotes: God Rest Ye Merry by Douglas Wilson

Just in time for Advent and Christmas here are ten quotes from Douglas Wilson's book God Rest Ye Merry. 

Bethlehem was the opening gambit in the last campaign of a long war. 

Our good God, our overflowing God, our God of yes and amen, has always been able to promise far more than we are able to believe. I am not here speaking of unbelief, or of hard hearts, which is another problem. I am speaking here of true and sincere faith, a God-given faith, but one which is still infinite, and which God loves to bury under an avalanche of promises. We serve and worship the God who overwhelms, who delights to overwhelm. 

The one who took the position of a servant was given authority over all.

Mary overcame in the way women are called to conquer-by giving birth to conquerors, or by giving birth to daughters who will give birth to conquerors. And this explains how the Magnificat [Luke 1:46-55] can have been composed by a woman and still be so gloriously militant. Godly child-bearing is militant. 

Man in his sinful condition does not want to be saved. That is part of what it means to be a sinner. This means that man wants, by various strategies, to put himself out of God's reach.

We are told to clothe ourselves with humility and tender mercies. When Jesus told His disciples to follow Him, the cross is certainly in view. But we do not just follow him to the cross-we must also follow Him to the manger. We must become little children. 

There is a vast difference between narrow partisanship and a broad political worldview. Many Christians in their attempts to keep the former out of their spiritual lives, have also found themselves excluding the latter. This is a drastic mistake. In doing this, they have found themselves without a consistent biblical worldview at all--because all worldviews are inescapably political. If you are resolved to be apolitical, you are resolved to abandon the world, to write it off.

The sun has risen. Christ has come. He is the king. The light covers the world. A return to heathen midnight is an impossibility. Those who walk in darkness now are doing so in a world diffused with light. This is hard to do--you have to remain blind, or hide in root cellars. There are ways to stay out of the sunlight, but they are difficult to accomplish.  

We should strive over time to have our celebration of Easter far surpass the glory of Christmas...and we shouldn't try to fix this by reducing what we do at Christmas.

"Penitential" seasons can be put to a genuinely good use if they are a time when serious, once-for-all mortification of particular sins occurs-if real sins and real bad habits are uprooted from your life.  

And One:

From the very start, from the very beginning, the life of Jesus presented a potent threat to the status quo. This threat was not the result of Herod's paranoia--Herod knew what many Christians do not. The birth of this child meant that the old way of ruling mankind was doomed. The transition from the old way of rule to the new way of rule was not going to be simple or easy, but it was going to happen.

Quotes From Other Books
The New Pastor's Handbook by Jason Helopoulos
On Being a Pastor by Derek Prime and Alistair Begg
How to Exasperate Your Wife by Douglas Wilson
The Things of Earth by Joe Rigney
A Son for Glory by Toby Sumpter 
Escape from Reason by Francis Schaeffer
Crazy Busy by Kevin DeYoung
Making Gay Okay by Robert Reilly 
Christ Crucified by Donald Macleod
Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God by John Calvin

Ten Quotes: The New Pastor's Handbook by Jason Helopoulos

I was pleasantly surprised by Jason Helopoulos book, The New Pastor's Handbook. As I read, I was encouraged and convicted in numerous areas. The book fills a niche in our culture by having short chapters, tons of practical advice, covering a lot of topics, and focusing on new pastors, thus avoiding repetition of more well known works, such as John Piper's Brothers, We are Not Professionals. Here are ten of my favorite quotes from the book.

As undershepherds of his great flock, we care for his sheep by feeding them the Word; it is the very core and heartbeat of the calling on our lives. 

There will be weeks, months, and perhaps even years when the average church planter wonders what he has gotten into; in those moments perseverance matters a great deal. It can be the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful church plant. [The book has a chapter on church planting which was helpful for me as a church planter. P.J.]

Ministry, like baseball, is quite simple. It is nothing more than loving Christ, loving his people, and loving the Word. That is it.

As we seek to love his people, we bring this Word to bear on their souls for the glory of God. We have no greater gift to offer those under our care, for nothing can minister to them like the Word of God.

Apart from knowledge of the Word, we have no competence in the ministry.

It is a foolish pastor who forsakes shepherding his own family in the name of shepherding the church.

Our calling is a holy calling. If holiness does not mark us, then we should not be surprised when it does not mark our churches. There are few things more important in the life of the church than the holiness of its pastors.

A faithful pastor will build his ministry on the Word, prayer, and the sacraments. He will not deviate to gimmicks or the latest fads.

Administration creep occurs subtly and easily. We can go through a day of ministry answering emails, returning phone calls, and organizing policies with very little personal ministry taking place. A week can pass in this way, and all of the sudden we realize we have devoted more time to administration than to studying the Word of God, praying, and meeting with people. Our pervasive administrative duties have encroached on our time and taken over.

We need fewer aspiring conference speakers and more faithful pastors committed to their local churches. 

And One:

I try to remind myself of two things every day before I pursue the pastoral work set before me. First, I labor by the financial tithes of God's people. Therefore, I must strive to honor their sacrifice. Second, I remind myself that I fight in battle every day...(Col. 1:25-26). That is my task. I am engaged vocationally in holy warfare every day. Since no day in the pastorate approaches triviality, I am not allowed to "go through the motions." 

Quotes from Other Books
On Being a Pastor by Derek Prime and Alistair Begg
How to Exasperate Your Wife by Douglas Wilson
The Things of Earth by Joe Rigney
A Son for Glory by Toby Sumpter 
Escape from Reason by Francis Schaeffer
Crazy Busy by Kevin DeYoung
Making Gay Okay by Robert Reilly 
Christ Crucified by Donald Macleod
Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God by John Calvin

Book Review: The New Pastor's Handbook

The New Pastor's Handbook: Help and Encouragement for the First Years of Ministry by Jason Helopoulos
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is not Bridges' Christian Ministry, Baxter's Reformed Pastor or Piper's Brothers We are Not Professionals. But what it aims to do it does very, very well: introducing new pastors or pastors to be to the nuts and bolts of pastoral ministry from candidating to hospital visitation.

Several things set this book apart.
First, the chapters are short. Thus the book is accessible.

Second, he covers a large amount of ground without getting bogged down. It is a flyover, but a good one.

Third, he is realistic, but encouraging. I get the sense that the author has been in a lot of different church situations. He has a realistic perspective on ministry. But he does not make it sound like drudgery.

Finally, he is clear and practical without being too specific.

This is an excellent book for any new pastor or ministerial student.

I was provided this book free of charge for review by Bakerbooks. I was not obligated to provide a positive review.


View all my reviews

Book Review: A Justice Primer

A Justice Primer by Douglas Wilson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An excellent overview of what Biblical justice should look like, including discussions of things like witnesses, jurisdiction, authority, church discipline, sexual abuse, internet mobs, evidence, character of witnesses, due process, motives, anonymous witnesses, and taking a Christian brother to court.

It is not scholarly, but more like a lengthy sermon on what Biblical justice looks like with applications to the 21st century. Pastors, elders, deacons, fathers, and mothers could all benefit greatly from the wisdom in this book.

View all my reviews

Book Review: How to Exasperate Your Wife

How To Exasperate Your Wife and Other Short Essays for Men by Douglas Wilson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A short, great book for men who have a twisted view of headship, which means most of us. His chapter on tenderness was excellent as was the sexuality catechism as the back. I am not sure why he included the essays on sex in heaven. They were fine essays, but felt a bit out of place. Other than that the book is wonderful.

View all my reviews

Book Review: What is Repentance

What Is Repentance? by R.C. Sproul
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My favorite so fair in this series. His discussion of Psalm 51 is great. In particular I like that he did not think "take not your Holy Spirit from me" was a reference to David's kingly anointing. It is short and leaves a lot unanswered, but it heads the right direction.

View all my reviews

Book Review: What Is a Reformed Church?

What Is a Reformed Church? by Stephen Smallman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A short (28 pages) introduction to the key aspects of a reformed church. Smallman lists six distinct themes in reformed churches: Submission to Scripture, God's sovereignty, the Covenant, the law of God, the Church (government and sacraments), and the Kingdom of God. Not all these were equally well stated. Also I felt his church government section was too narrow. But he is clear overall and thus the book would be helpful for a new convert or someone just coming into a reformed church. In particular the emphasis on God's Word as the foundation for all was helpful.

View all my reviews

Ten Quotes: How to Exasperate Your Wife by Doug Wilson

Here are ten of my favorite quotes from Douglas Wilson's book How to Exasperate Your Wife. 

A man who ditches the actual wife of his youth is thereby revealing that he abandoned another woman (Wisdom) some time before. 

If her [the wife's] wishes are routinely disregarded, this means that her husband has failed to invest her with his authority, and has failed to act as an example for the rest of the household. A sure indicator of an unhappy household is the ignoring of Mom, and the head of that home is an abdicating father.

No one person is absolute. And this why those husbands who think that headship means their wives should never offer a contrary view are wrong. This is why husbands who think their wives cannot require certain things of them are wrong. This is why husbands who believe that their wives have no court of appeal outside the marriage are wrong.  

 Few forms of behavior are less respectable than that of demanding respect. 

A man who gives love receives respect.

A man who is not strong enough to be tender is not strong at all...We tend to think that a man who yells and blusters and intimidates has an excess of strength. We think he has a surplus. But biblically understood, he is actually a covenant wimp.

A nation defended by her women is a nation no longer worth defending. When women are placed in the front line of defense, every Christian man should walk away from the cause of that nation as being beneath contempt.

The basic question here is whether law operates in the context of grace, or whether grace operates in the surrounding context of law. If the former, then marriage is delight upon delight. If the latter, then it is one conflict after another. In these two different marriages, the objective standards may be exactly the same, but they are played in different keys.  

The progression towards adultery moves like this-simmering discontent, open discontent, open desire in other directions, which is lust, and then lust acted out, with infidelity as the result. Now a man might be able to convince himself that he is not being unfaithful in the first two stages-he is not being aroused, and he is not actively seeking that kind of gratification. His problem doesn't appear to him to be overtly sexual at all. But that's a set up. Don't feed the kind of discontent that will, later on, feed something else. 

What is biblical masculinity? It is the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility.

And one:

What is the confessional issue of our time? The confessional issue of our time is human sexuality, biblically defined.  

Book Review: The Biggest Story by Kevin DeYoung

The Biggest Story: How the Snake Crusher Brings Us Back to the Garden by Kevin DeYoung
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A unique book for introducing children to the big picture of Scripture. I have not read any book like it. DeYoung moves from the garden to the major events in the history of Israel to Jesus to Heaven. He does all this in a book that can be read in one sitting and is packed with wonderful illustrations.

Some of my friends have disagreed with parts of it. But I am not sure I agree with any book in its entirety, especially one interpreting Scripture. DeYoung emphasizes Israel's failings. I wish he had put more time into those who were faithful in Israel. He mentions them, but then reminds us that they were sinners too. He emphasis on God's faithfulness is excellent. But at times this comes at the expense of faithful men and women throughout the history of God's people. To prove God is faithful one does not have to minimize the faithfulness of his people. DeYoung also leaves out creation, which is odd.

Still it is a great read because of its length, illustrations, the emphasis on God keeping his promises, and the way it gives kids the big picture of the Bible.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die

Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die by John Piper
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was looking for a short book about the atonement to put on a book rack. Piper's book will fit that need. However, it is not perfect. As one reviewer said, there is a lot of overlap between the chapters. He is repetitive. Second and more glaring, though typical for Piper, he does not really bring the Old Testament into it. There is no big picture of Jesus as fulfilling the covenant or Jesus as Israel. This might be because he was trying to get at what the atonement achieved instead of what caused it. But at the least one of the reasons Christ came to die was to fulfill Scripture. This is not mentioned explicitly. His failure to incorporate OT themes and the covenant makes this book weaker. He could have taken ten of his reasons out added more OT themes and made the book a lot more robust. Still as a basic lay introduction to Christ's work it is good.

View all my reviews

Book Review: What is Baptism

What Is Baptism? by R.C. Sproul
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A solid, but brief introduction to baptism with short sections on the covenant, the meaning of baptism, the mode, and infant baptism. Typical Sproul, clear without being too specific, gets his point across without being mean to those who disagree. A good little booklet to hand out to new believers.

View all my reviews

Book Review: 50 Crucial Questions about Manhood and Womanhood

50 Crucial Questions About Manhood and Womanhood by John Piper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A great introduction to most of the main issues surrounding feminism and the church's capitulation to it. The answers are not comprehensive, but they are good and will point the reader in the right direction. The great benefit of this short book is the amount of ground the authors cover. I am not sure any reader will agree with everything. But most readers will learn something and even where they disagree will find their views challenged. It would be a good book to put on a book table or to hand to someone who is curious about the key teachings in Scripture on male female roles in the church and in the home.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Why Do We Baptize Infants?

Why Do We Baptize Infants? by Bryan Chapell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A short, but clear introduction to infant baptism that shows the covenant background to the sacrament and why the New Testament does not deviate from that the Old Testament as regards children and their status. A good little pamphlet to hand out to new Christians or to those new to Reformed theology.

View all my reviews

Ten Quotes: On Being a Pastor by Derek Prime and Alistair Begg

Here are ten of my favorite quotes from the excellent book on ministry, On Being a Pastor. 

Service, not dominion is a minister's calling. 

When our tongues let us down, it is because we have not first watched over our hearts and thoughts.

As shepherds and teachers we should stand out as those who love what is good (Titus 1:8). Our approach to life is to be essentially positive. We know that we live in God's world, and that all his gifts are good; it is man's abuse of God's gifts that is the problem, not the gifts themselves. Whether it is a matter of sport, or what is on television, we are to love what is good and to set an example in this respect.

A principle temptation in the ministry is to be carried along by its sheer busyness to the neglect of prayer.

The principal part of our pastoral care [prayer] is unseen by those who benefit from it, since it is exercised in secret

Throughout the book the authors emphasize that prayer is the primary form of pastoral care we exercise over the flock.

The mark of a good teacher is that what is difficult and complicated becomes simple to understand.

After expounding truth, it is vital to apply is so that the hearers go away with an awareness of what the verse or passage has to say to them in their immediate situation and how they may be doers of God's Word.

All for whom we care should be aware that we are in the same battle, and that we speak not as professional Christians but as members with them of God's family. Just as it is of immeasurable comfort to know that our Great High Priest was tested in every way as we are-although He, uniquely without sin-it is an encouragement to the flock to know that undershepherds are made of the same stuff as themselves. 

We all need something of interest, totally distinct from our work, to which we can turn our minds for rest and relaxation.

This last quote comes from their chapter titled Family and Leisure.  It was a well-balanced and helpful section of the book. I found it interesting that Derek Prime, who ministered in England, got four consecutive weeks of vacation or as they call it over there "holiday."

We [pastors] should be outstanding for conveying our convictions without heat or animosity.

And one:

The trials of ministry require two virtues in particular: patience and self-control. 

Ten Quotes: The Things of Earth by Joe Rigney

Here are ten quotes from Joe Rigney's great book, The Things of Earth. All italics are his.  At the bottom you can find other books in my "Ten Quotes" series.

Creaturely limitations are not defects to be overcome. 

A right heart, a holy heart consists in valuing and treasuring things appropriately.

The loss of good gifts, whether willingly given up in the cause of love or painfully taken in some tragedy, is a test of where our ultimate treasure truly lies.

A mind set on the things above [Colossians 3:1-4:6) spends an awful lot of time thinking about things on the earth. Family, neighbors, church, job, earthly responsibilities-the person governed by heavenly things intentionally and deliberately considers and engages them. The heavenly mind-set is profoundly earthly, but it is fundamentally oriented by the glory of Christ.

Idolatry begins with with  a false separation of gift and giver.

Demons love to depict God as miserly.

Biblical self-denial is always the giving up a lesser, legitimate joy for the sake of a greater one. 

Biblical self-denial is glad-hearted...[it] cannot be gloomy. [Rigney then quotes II Corinthians 12:15 where Paul says, "I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls."]

Open handed generosity flows from glad-hearted reception.

We ought not to give reluctantly. We ought not to give under compulsion. We ought to give cheerfully, gladly, willingly. There is a qualitative element to our giving that must be present. The absence of this quality ruins the gift.

And one:

Death takes away our earthly delights, and then resurrection restores them in spades. Nothing good will ever be finally lost. It not just that all the best joys here point  to joys there, but that many of the best joys will actually be there, only glorified, transfigured and heightened beyond our imagination.  

A Son for Glory by Toby Sumpter 

Escape from Reason by Francis Schaeffer

Crazy Busy by Kevin DeYoung

Making Gay Okay by Robert Reilly 

Christ Crucified by Donald Macleod

Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God by John Calvin