The Best of the Best Around the Christian Net: This Week’s Top 5

Linking you to the top 5 Christian blog posts of the week—posts that provide robust, rich, and relevant insights for living.

The Top 100

Michael Hyatt tells us what Christian books sold best in 2010. Read all about it at The 100 Bestselling Christian Books of 2010. 

Seeing through a Glass Darkly

Ed Welch of CCEF has a very helpful, practical, insightful post about how depression distorts our perspective. See his thoughts at Depression’s Odd Filter.

Knowing God

Over at Between Two Worlds, Justin Taylor shares a brief but significant post about Devotion and Doctrine.

Biblical Counseling Today

Collin Hansen and the good folks at The Gospel Coalition invited me to share the following post that links you to the best of the best in modern biblical counseling. Read about it at The Top Ten Trends in Biblical Counseling.

6 E-Book Trends

I rarely include two posts from the same blogger in the same week, but here’s an exception. Michael Hyatt has an interesting post about Six E-book Trends to Watch. The post also includes a great Yogi Berra quote: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

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Which post impacted you the most? Why? What blog posts have you enjoyed this week that you want to share with others?

Tags: Ed Welch, Justin Taylor, Michael Hyatt, The Best of the Best

The Best of the Best Around the Christian Net: This Week’s Top 5

Linking you to the top 5 Christian blog posts of the week—posts that provide robust, rich, and relevant insights for living.

The Personal Ministry of the Word and the Pulpit Ministry of the Word

What is the relationship between biblical counseling and biblical preaching? Great question and Ed Welch provides a compelling answer in How Biblical Counseling Affects Preaching.

Living Nativity

Pastor Steve Viars ponders The Beauty of Serving Together in his post about meaningful service in the Body of Christ as members unite to build and “be” a living nativity scene. As the Apostle Paul said, we are epistles written on the heart…

Declining Interest in Marriage?

Jim Daley, President of Focus on the Family writes a guest article for Christianity Today in response to the recent Pew Survey of Americans’ view of marriage. Read his view in Marriage in Obsolescence.

What Is Justification?

Collin Hansen of the Gospel Coalition posts a long, detailed blog on the recently completed Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) meeting just completed in Atlanta. The keynote addresses and responses focused on the issue of the nature of justification. For an excellent summary of the discussion, read Hansen’s post: Justification: A Debate Long Overdue.

Justification, Take Two

Mike Wittmer pens a briefer yet still important and compelling post about the same ETS meeting. For his take on the controversy, read Wright at ETS.

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Which post impacted you the most? Why? What blog posts have you enjoyed this week that you want to share with others?

Tags: CCEF, Gospel Coalition, Justification, N. T. Wright, The Best of the Best

This Week’s Top Five: The Best of the Best Around the Christian Net (9/17/10)

The Big Idea: The Best of the Best Around the Christian Net links you to the top five Christian blog posts of the week—posts that provide robust, rich, and relevant insights for living.

15 Books to Understand Our Times

Pastor Tullian Tchividjian writes that the Bible makes clear that Christians must be people of double listening—listening both to the questions of the world and to the answers of the Word. We’re to be good interpreters not only of Scripture but also of culture. God wants us to be like the men of Issachar, “who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32). In Unriddling Our Times, he recommends the top 15 books for understanding our culture from a biblical perspective.

Is Hoarding in the Bible?

Ed Welch of the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation (CCEF) profitably helps us to think through timely issues using the timeless wisdom of God’s Word. In Hoarding: First Steps on a Complicated Problem, he does just that. Can you find “hoarding” in your typical Bible concordance? No. But can you find biblical principles that relate to this growing problem? Ed does and you’ll find that valuable not only for this issue, but also for teaching you how to think through any issue from a biblical worldview.

Five Ways to Change Your Ways

Rick Thomas at Counseling Solutions faithfully offers blog posts and resources articles for your personal life and ministry. For example, in Five Ways to Change Your Ways, he encourages us to encourage one another. We change when we have people in our lives loving and bold enough to confront us.

Bitterness and Restoration

What impact does bitterness have on the biblical restoration process? Brad Hambrick provides a brief but thought-provoking post Does Bitterness Reverse the Restoration Process? In it, he suggests that whenever we apply the Scriptures, we must interpret three things: God’s Word, the person, and the situation.

Advice for an Informed Mind and a Loving Heart

Justin Taylor collates over a dozen blog posts that offer Advice for Seminarians, Theology Students, and Young Pastors. Even if you don’t fit in one of these categories, this blog post is for you. It links you to blog posts designed to keep your heart pure and on fire for God while also keeping your mind deep in God’s Word.

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Of The Best of the Best Around the Christian Net, which post impacted you the most? Why? What blog posts have you enjoyed this week that you want to share with others?

Tags: Brad Hambrick, Ed Welch, Justin Taylor, Rick Thomas, The Best of the Best, Tullian Tchividjian

Biblical Counseling: Is It Just for Spiritual Problems?

My friend, Ed Welch, at the excellent CCEF site posted a very helpful blog this week: Biblical Counseling: Is It Just for Spiritual Problems?

In his post, Ed begins to answer that question, and the answer is surely worth ready. Even more worth reading is Ed’s list of what other people say about biblical counseling. These stereotypes each deserve to be addressed. Here’s Ed’s list, in his own words.

As I try to listen to what others say about biblical counseling I can identify two categories of critique.

1. There are weaknesses in our actual counseling approach.

a. Biblical counseling is good for spiritual problems but not clinical ones.

b. Biblical counseling is good for sin but not for suffering, victimization or other problems from our pasts.

c. Biblical counseling has hurt me. Some people have been misunderstood or treated harshly by people who identified themselves as biblical counselors.

2. There are weaknesses in our position on modern psychology.

a. Biblical counseling avoids secular research to its detriment.

b. Biblical counseling is naïve in that it has been influenced by secular material but we deny that influence.

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How would you address each of these stereotypes about biblical counseling?

Tags: Biblical Counseling, CCEF, Ed Welch

The Best of the Best Around the Net (4/18/10)

One of my passions is bridge-building, connecting, and highlighting other ministries and ministry resources—so that the Body of Christ is built up and Christ is magnified (Ephesians 4:15-16). My weekly post, The Best of the Best Around the Net, links you to blog posts that provide robust, rich, and relevant insights for living. Check out the following links you can trust.

An Obituary for the Emerging Church

Anthony Bradley at World Magazine pens a commentary on the end of the emergent church movement: Farewell Emerging Church, 1989-2010.

Our Attitude Toward Homosexuality

Ed Welch at the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation (CCEF) shares a candid, probing, biblical, personal response to the question of our attitude and God’s perspective of homosexuality.

New Christian Book Review Site

The folks at The Gospel Coalition have launched a new Christian book review site, called, of course, TGC Reviews. Several new reviews are posted every week. I’m reviewing pastoral ministry and biblical counseling/discipleship books for them. You can read my first review: The Biblical Counseling Movement by David Powlison.

Failure, The Last Taboo?

David Murray’s post at The Gospel Coalition on Failure is a needed look at an often-neglected topic.

Join the Conversation

Of The Best of the Best Around the Net, which post impacted you the most? Why?

What blog posts have you enjoyed this week that you want to share with others?

Tags: Best of the Best, CCEF, David Powlison, Ed Welch, Gospel Coalition

The Best of the Best Around the Net

One of my passions is bridge-building, connecting, and highlighting other ministries and ministry resources—so that the Body of Christ is built up and Christ is magnified (Ephesians 4:15-16). My weekly post, The Best of the Best Around the Net, links you to blog posts that provide robust, rich, and relevant insights for living. Check out the following links you can trust.

Strategic Discipleship

Over at Church Matters, the blog site for 9Marks Ministry, Pastor Deepak Reju has posted a very helpful blog on “Picking Fruit Off of a Tree.” He explores practical principles for discipling leaders.

Scandalous

John Bird over at Discerning Reader reviews D. A. Carson’s Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus. “In his inimitable style, Carson returns us to where we must forever dwell theologically: Christ’s cross and resurrection.” Read the rest of John’s review here.

6 Views on Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity

I normally don’t post about my own post, however, this really isn’t “my” post. I’ve updated a post where I link you to six different views on McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity. If you’re interested in what to make of this book, visit here.

What Is the Character of God and Why Does It Matter to Me?

Ed Welch of the CCEF has a very practical blog where he asks, “Is God Picky?”. How we see God is the most important thing about us.

Ingredients of Successful Blogs

Michael Hyatt is the leading Christian thinker about Web 2.0, social networking, blogging, ministry-based-marketing, etc. In this post, he invites a guest blogger to discuss “The Third Ingredient of a Successful Blog”. Also find the links to the first two posts in the series. What good does it do if you write a great blog, but nobody reads it? Or, put another way, “If a blog is written in the woods, does anyone see it?”

Join the Conversation

Of my Best of the Best Around the Net, which post impacted you the most? Why?

What blog posts have you read this week that you want to share with others?

Tags: Best of the Net, Carson, CCEF, Discerning Reader, Ed Welch