Sentences

Tony Reinke Alan Jacobs, Writing

Alan Jacobs, Wayfaring: Essays Pleasant and Unpleasant (Eerdmans, 2010), page 3:

I may not be much of a writer, but I do like sentences; indeed I love them, and think about them a lot–shockingly often, really. I am one of the few remaining Americans blessed with the opportunity to walk to and from work each day, and as I walk I am likely to be rolling sentences around in my head. I have even stopped listening to This American Life on my iPod, the better to facilitate concentration. Sometimes, when I want extra time to consider my options–the walk is only about fifteen minutes–I take a detour to Starbucks. I enjoy the coffee, but I’m really just prolonging my commute for the sake of the sentences.

Reading for Pleasure

Tony Reinke .Lit!, Alan Jacobs, Reading

Alan Jacobs, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction (Oxford University, 2011), 17:

For heaven’s sake, don’t turn reading into the intellectual equivalent of eating organic greens, or (shifting the metaphor slightly) some fearfully disciplined appointment with an elliptical trainer of the mind in which you count words or pages the way some people fix their attention on the “calories burned” readout—some assiduous and taxing exercise that allows you to look back on your conquest of Middlemarch with grim satisfaction. How depressing. This kind of thing is not reading at all.

Schreiner’s Sermons on Galatians

Tony Reinke Audio sermon, Galatians, Thomas Schreiner

Tom Schreiner is Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the author of a superb new commentary on Galatians. He also pastors at Clifton Baptist Church in Louisville, KY, where he preached a 21-sermon series through the book of Galatians in 2007.

I found the audio recordings from his sermon series, but they were scattered all around the Internets. Using three different sources I was able to assemble what I think is a complete series [although one message appears to have been recorded outside the local church context (track 9)]. I located the appropriate sermon titles, harmonized the ID3 tags, uploaded the mp3 files to a personal server, and now I offer them to you:

  1. The Gospel: Our Life (1:1–9)
  2. The Supernatural Gospel (1:10–24)
  3. The Freedom Of The Gospel (2:1–10)
  4. Public Church Discipline (2:11–14)
  5. Faith In Christ (2:15–21)
  6. Don’t Be Foolish (3:1)
  7. Faith From First To Last (3:1–9)
  8. Not By Law (3:10–14)
  9. Blessed With Abraham (3:10–14)
  10. Promise, Not Law! (3:15–20)
  11. The Role Of The Law (3:21–26)
  12. Freedom From Ourselves (4:1–11)
  13. Words For A Friend (4:12–20)
  14. Citizens Of The Free City (4:21–5:1)
  15. Faith Alone (5:2–6)
  16. Comfort In Trouble (5:7–12)
  17. True Freedom (5:13–18)
  18. Life In The Flesh And Life In The Spirit (5:19–26)
  19. Bearing Burdens And Examining Your Work (6:1–5)
  20. Keep Sowing To The End (6:6–10)
  21. Our Last Time (6:11–18)

Total time/size: 11.3 hours, 121.2 MB

Faith and Sanctification

Tony Reinke Sanctification, Thomas Schreiner

For the nourishment of my own soul I’ve recently been listening to Thomas Schreiner’s 2007 sermon series through Galatians. The series is very good (and his new commentary on Galatians is superb).

Not surprising, Schreiner sees in Galatians 3:1–3 a very important passage for properly understanding the Christian life.

Here’s the passage:

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Schreiner expounds its importance of this passage nicely in a 6-minute clip taken from his sermon “Faith From First to Last.” I commend this excerpt for your own meditation.

You can listen here: