I enjoyed this look at the devotional practices of Richard Baxter. I’m already a believer in Christian meditation [https://chrisbowler.com/journal/meditation], but sometimes hearing the experiences of others can be an inspiration to us. > In The Saints’ Everlasting Rest, Baxter states that, because man is a rational creature, we must reason with ourselves. We are to take a truth and mull it over in our minds. He compares it to a balance that sits before us. There is a natural desire to want to…
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2018 is a year where I do not read the entire Bible. Instead, I take one book at a time and read it through 20 times. This year I’ve been making my way through Matthew (currently on the 14th reading) and one thing has stuck out more than everything else. Jesus’s emphasis on faith. Reading that aloud, it’s not shocking. The entire Bible is about faith. But it’s the way Jesus talks about it as recorded by Matthew that gets your attention. At least, it does for this guy with a Reformed theologica…
True rest is available, but it doesn't come from our efforts.
I recently shared my system for using Ulysses for Bible study over on The Sweet Setup. It was a longer piece and one I’m happy about. Not because of my writing, but simply because Ulysses works so well for this purpose. I had been looking for a better option for storing my notes, highlights, and related passages for some time and was quite happy when I started considering the option of using a tool that was not a Bible app. I talk about structure, notes, tags, search and a lot more. If you tak…
John Piper pens a good reminder for us regarding our task lists, our “systems”, and what they mean in the big picture. > By all means, make your list of to-dos for the day. By all means, get as good at that as you can get. Prioritize the list. Get first things first. Make your plan. Do the very best you can. Go ahead and read a book about it. Then walk in the peace and freedom that, when it shatters on the rocks of reality, which it will most days, remember, you’re not being measured by God by…
There are a lot of ways to approach the Bible. But the important part is to find one that works for you and run with it!
Well, it’s been a year. Back in the fall of 2016, I made some big changes for my personal website and my weekly newsletter [https://chrisbowler.com/newsletter]. The biggest was to more intentionally focus on helping Christians fight the good fight. What is that fight? To master our will and hearts and minds and focus them on our reason for living. Our cause for joy. And the person for whom we have reason to celebrate this time of year (and all the year long). My goal is to disciple Christians…
This week’s post has a little different feel to it. Rather than share something I’ve been reading, I wanted to continue with the larger theme for 2017. Most recently, the focus has been on the tools we have at our disposal: study, meditation, and prayer. But today I wanted to get back to the higher level and consider a core purpose of those tools. If our time here is best spent seeking Him [https://chrisbowler.com/journal/seeking], and if our actions play a role [https://chrisbowler.com/journal…