Author: Nathaniel Williams

Restoring Joy

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[Please enjoy this guest post from my wife Katie.]

We know the feeling of being “on fire” for God.

Much like the burning passion that new lovers feel in the peak of a relationship. Or the deep longing a mother feels to meet the long-awaited-for child in her womb.

But then time passes by. Life happens. The relationship turns to coordinating schedules, making weighty decisions about bills/children/in-laws, and taking care of the mundane responsibilities of life that fail to ignite that deep joy we had once known. New babies — with the added kisses, hugs, and smiles — lead to lots of cleaning, laundry, bills, and carpooling and little to no rest. There may be no set routine (as much as new moms and dads try to establish one), but you find that the element of unpredictable sleep patterns leave little room for a person to experience even a minute amount of joy.

Over time, you find yourself getting frustrated with that individual that you waited for, prayed for, and felt so much stirring passion for. The passion fades.

This can also happen in our relationship with Christ. Continue reading →

How You Can Be Like Jeff Gordon — In A Way That Truly Matters

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Jeff Gordon is retiring. Whether you love him or hate him, odds are he comes to mind when you think about NASCAR. He was the face of the sport for more than 20 years, and many little race fans wanted to be like him.

You probably remember Gordon as the guy who drove the rainbow-colored DuPont car. And for good reason. DuPont shelled out tens of millions of dollars to his team every year.

By Darryl Moran [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
But Gordon didn’t pocket the money and run. He never said, “I got my paycheck, so I’m going to hit the lake this weekend. You guys can take care of the race, right?” Continue reading →

Google Is Not Infallible, But Something Else Is

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Have you ever seen Google make a mistake? I hadn’t. I just assumed that what Google says goes. So when I typed in the location of an important meeting today, I trusted that Google would steer me the right way.

It didn’t.

Where Google said there should be a church was a wooded plot of land. So I kept driving. And driving. And driving. Finally I called the person I was meeting. His instructions? Keep driving. All in all, the actual location of the church was almost eight miles away from where Google told me it was supposed to be. Google was wrong. (And, consequently, I was late.)

By Daniel Ramirez from Honolulu, USA [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsThis rocked my world. I mean, Google tells me when holidays are, how to bake five-star lemon pepper chicken, what my kid’s sickness symptoms mean, what really happened at the end of Inception, and where I can book that hotel for the least amount of money. Google is never wrong.

But this time it was. And it was a potent reminder that there is only one infallible source of truth. Continue reading →

The Gospel > Your Rights

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I’ve been a political junkie ever since middle school. While most kids were watching Nickelodeon or playing football, I was the oddball reading USA Today, watching cable news, and vehemently arguing politics with friends and family.

As an American, I had every right to assert my political opinions. To take a stand. To make my position known. And though I have mellowed in recent years, that itch never went away. As a result, I still liked posting opinion columns on controversial issues to my Facebook.

Then, last spring, I ran across this line in D.A. Carson’s book The Cross and Christian Ministry:

 “How can Christians stand beside the cross and insist on their rights?”

This quote—and the passage in 1 Corinthians 9 it referred to—floored me. I was immediately convicted about my “right” to assert my political views.

You see, when I ardently posted my political views, I was inevitably driving away the friends who disagreed. And their greatest need is not a change in politics. It’s a change in heart, the kind only the gospel can provide.  Continue reading →

The Evidence for the Historical Jesus You Won’t Get on TV: A Review of Craig A. Evans’ ‘Fabricating Jesus’

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Fabricating JesusHave you ever been channel surfing and landed on a cable documentary about the Bible? You can find loads of them out there — such as “Banned from the Bible,” “Biblical Mysteries Explained,” or “Who Was Jesus?”

The majority of these documentaries present a one-sided picture, painted almost exclusively by liberal theologians. And if you take them at face value, they can really shake your faith. I mean, were stories really “banned” from the Bible? Are there natural explanations to all of Jesus’ miracles? Did Jesus simply decide one day to adopt the title Son of God?

There is another side. And Craig A. Evans’ Fabricating Jesus explains it.  Continue reading →

Want to Be Wise? Be a Fool.

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I like learning.

There, I said it. I’m sure that makes me a nerd or something, but I don’t care. I honestly enjoy reading books, watching lectures, listening to NPR… you name it.

With this interest comes some spiritual baggage: I feel like I must prove Christianity to my non-Christian friends. That I must somehow make it reasonable. And, to be sure, there are plenty of brilliant scholars who excel at defending the Christian faith — William Lane Craig, Tim Keller, Alvin Plantinga, etc.

But Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians 3:18-23 were a welcome reminder that in many ways, Christianity will always seem foolish.

But don’t take it from me: Continue reading →

Daniel Akin’s ‘Engaging Exposition’: A Book Review and Summary

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I have preached a handful of times. And though I have far from mastered the craft, I do know this: it is a weighty task. I fear preaching something other than what is taught in God’s Word.

Engaging ExpositionOthers are less concerned. In the concise, practical preaching primer Engaging Exposition, Daniel Akin, Bill Curtis and Stephen Rummage identify this “crisis in twenty-first-century preaching”: many ministers neglect the preaching God’s Word in favor of lesser substitutes.

In response, the authors prescribe one powerful solution: expository preaching, which they define as “Christ centered, text driven, Spirit led preaching that transforms lives.”

To equip you to preach expositionally, the authors dive into the three steps of the expository preaching process: Continue reading →

‘Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands’ by Paul David Tripp: A Review

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Yesterday I wrote that seminary introduced me to the marvelous world of biblical counseling. And when you talk about biblical counseling, you have to talk about Paul David Tripp.

Tripp’s Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands was one of the first books I read about the subject. In this exhaustive primer, Tripp calls his readers to a “daily ministry lifestyle” rooted in Scripture, argues that God has called the church to be ambassadors, and suggests that this work “involves every member of the body of Christ.”

Tripp achieves these goals by presenting the why of biblical counseling (the scriptural and theoretical basis) and the how (via his four-step counseling model, “Love, Know, Speak, Do”). As I read the book, four key emphases stood out. Continue reading →

‘How People Change’ by Paul Tripp and Timothy S. Lane: Review

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One of the joys of seminary has been encountering theological fields that I never knew existed. Case in point: Christian counseling. One of the best introductory books on the topic is Paul David Tripp and Timothy S. Lane’s How People Change.

In it, the authors seek to help readers “grasp the implications of the good news of Jesus Christ for [their] identity and the daily trials and temptations [they] face.” The book effectively achieves this goal. Continue reading →