Here are some resources to help you cultivate biblical womanhood:

Blogs

• Girl Talk
• Radical Womanhood
  

Articles

• LIFE article The State of the American Woman
• The Ideal Christian Woman
• Boundless Articles – this webzine has some incredibly practical content when it comes to dating, marriage, singleness, and sexuality

Books

• Feminine Appeal (Carolyn Mahaney) – accessible, practical book on living Titus 2
• Beautiful Woman (Anne Ortlund) – my wife swears by this book as uber practical
• Radical Womanhood - (Carolyn McCulley) – a robust book that addresses feminism, femininity, and
• Jesus and the Feminists (Margaret Kostenberger) – engages feminist readings of Scripture
• What’s the Difference?: Biblical Manhood & Womanhood (Piper) – this free booklet is one of the most helpful resources I know of, especially considering its brevity!
• Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Piper & Grudem) – this volume is highly technical but deals with the finer exegetical and theological points very well and is also available for free online reading.
• God, Marriage, & Family (Kostenberger)

These resources were used for my recent sermon on Biblical Femininity. Resource for manhood here.

Luke Gilkersons kicks off a week long interview with me over the book Fight Clubs: Gospel-centered Disicpleship. Today’s episode focuses on the problem with accountability groups.

The Walk is a book for new and renewed disciples of Jesus. It comes highly recommended. Check out an excerpt here.

The Gospel-Driven Life is a much anticipated, popular level book by theologian Michael Horton.

Read an excerpt here.

HT: JT

I appreciate it when others write about how to help pastors. It’s a rare topic. I really like the four points listed by John Catanzaro in his series “Healthy Pastors.” Please consider these for the pastoral leaders in Austin City Life. It’s a good list to keep in mind for your City Group leaders.

• Understand. The first way to help your pastor is to develop understanding and sensitivity to the stress and demands of a pastor’s work.
• Pray. Secondly, pray for your pastor. A very active prayer ministry to support the pastors in their evangelical work is fundamental to the health of pastors and the church at large.
• Grow. Thirdly, mature in the faith. Grow and work to preserve the work of God in your sphere. Do not contribute to confusion, gossip and bitter attitudes. Get involved in action, service, and financial contribution, which are all vital to the health of the Christian mission of proclaiming Christ in your community and the world.
• Lead. Finally, faith in action is serving others above what you want in support of the ministry of the church. Don’t just get involved in ministry; actively work with the leadership to provide healthy momentum in ministry and to become a personal preacher of the ways of Christ!

Check out the rest of the post here.

Busyness often gets in the way of contentment. Conflict becomes inconvenient. People are reduced to obstacles. Efficiency replaces love as the highest virtue.

Are you driven by work, family, success? Are you more concerned with managing conflict than being sanctified by conflict? How can you begin to care less about results of vocation and more about discipleship through vocation? If we want to imitate Christ, periods of reflection and prayer will be important. Imagine if we became so obsessed with God’s agenda in our conflicts, challenges, and vocations that others appreciate our Christlikeness more than our “work.”

What if we started living backwards, with the wisdom of an 80 year old? I am willing to bet we would live more slowly. That’s what this brief article is about I recently wrote for The High Callling.

Some good friends, Will and Bob, have written some great Gospel-centered Life material. This nine lesson workbook explains and applies the Gospel in a user friendly, thoughtful, and practical way. I got my hands on an early version and was impressed. No doubt the new version is even better!

For samples and more info go here.

We all have multiple opportunities every day to give and receive forgiveness. We all sin against others and are sinned against. We all sin against God, belittling his worth, snubbing his grace. What do we do in these moments, with these sins? Throw out an “I’m Sorry” and carry on? Give ourselves a guilt trip and engage in private penance for three days? How would the gospel guide us into true forgiveness?

It’s Hard to Forgive

Jesus set up the paradigm of 77 times (Matthew 18), which was his way of saying always forgive. But forgiving and asking for forgiveness can be so hard. A lot of us tell ourselves we forgive someone without even telling that person! What we really do is avoid conflict and sweep the offense under the rug, where the lump gets bigger over time until we trip over it and blow up in anger or shut down in despair. However, Gospel progress in conflict with others will always result in a maturing of a relationship, not in slipping back into neutral or a “keep the peace” mode.

It’s Better to Forgive than Forget

Contrary to the popular saying, the gospel does not call us to “forgive and forget.” Forgiving and forgetting, is code for cheap sorrys and faking a bad memory. The reality is that sin is really hard to forget, especially when you are sinned against. Funny, you’d think our sins against others would be more memorable! All too often, when I sin against my wife, resolve to be more sensitive and kind-hearted, I end up forgetting how I offended her and repeat the offense a few weeks later! Why? Because I forgot! True forgiveness stands taller in the presence of sin. Grace shines brighter in the darkness of offense. But don’t misread me here. We should neither minimize not maximize sin, throw out cheap sorrys or berate one another with our memories. However, without the memory of sin, there is no need for forgiveness. The trick is to remember our sins, not others sins!

Forgiving One Another

The gospel calls us to press into grace by pressing into our sin. Instead of disregarding sin against another, we confess it, both to God and to the other, and tell them why we were so mean, impatient, or unkind. We ask for their forgiveness, for wounding them unnecessarily, for putting our desires above their dignity. We press into our sin in confession and repentance, but don’t stop there. We move on through into forgiveness and grace, genuinely forgiving and being forgiven, refusing to harbor resentment. Forgiving again and again with each memory. As we forgive, we absorb the cost of the offense, as Jesus absorbed the infinite cost of our sin, and communicate his grace to others. But how can we do this? Sometimes it is so hard. Tim Lane, author of Relationships: A Mess Worth Making, offers a few principles on how to absorb the cost of an offense and to live in true forgiveness:

• Choose not bring up the offense again or use it against others. The only reason to raise the offense with the offender is for the purpose of reconciliation, not vengeance. It’s not about forgetting; it’s about forgiving, reconciling, loving.
• Choose not bring the offense up to others in gossip, or malign others because of it. Where you have forgiven, rest in Christ’s forgiveness and perfect love. Resolve not to use conflict against others, but rather, to use it for others by offering grace and Christ-centered forgiveness.
• Choose not bring the offense up to yourself and dwell on it. Resolve not to replay the videotape of your own sin or others to relive every detail. Press into grace so that you don’t make the other person pay for what he or she has done.

Next time you are offended or offend, try pressing into sin  (confession and repentance) and pressing into grace (forgiveness and reconciliation). When we do, we lift Jesus up above our demands, the cross over our sin, and we can move into more grace-based, maturing relationships that display the sufficiency and beauty of Christ for everyday life. Take a minute to think of how you could apply these principles towards a situation, sin or person today. Enjoy grace and true forgiveness.

If you obey, why do you obey God? Out of duty, in hope of reward, because your momma told you to? How we answer this question is utmost importance. If our answer is sub-biblical, we run the danger of misconstruing the gospel. If our answer is unbiblical, our discipleship will be fraught with angst with the grave possibility of abandoning Christian faith.

Given the gravity of this question, we should slightly tweak it to form a second question: “Why Should we obey God?” Answering this question is equally important. We need to honestly reflect on personal motivations for our obedience, as well as biblical motivations. The disparity between the two will prove quite illuminating in discerning how to regain Christian joy and hope in everyday struggles of doubt, despair, sin, and indifference to God.

So why do you obey…and why should we obey?

There has been a remarkable response to last week’s sermon on the Gospel & Anger. Here are a few resources that can help you gain greater understanding, wisdom, and grace to cultivate a life of peace-making and love instead of anger and conflict.

• War of Words: Getting to the Heart of our Communication Struggles
• Uprooting Anger
• Anger: Escaping the Maze
• Anger: The Image of Satan & The Gospel and Anger (sermon manuscript)