The Tulip Driven Life

By: Thomas Booher An Excerpt from Chapter 3 of Saving Damascas   Petra looked over his  shoulder at the three men. One of them, a heavier set man who was facing Petra, glanced up, smiled, then continued his chummy conversation. Petra was startled by what he saw. He wasn’t sure how he missed it initially (probably because he was more concerned about his current predicament than his surroundings), but the three men were dressed more neatly, and differently, than anyone he had ever seen in Emerton. While their garb wasn’t extravagant, it was colorful, and appeared to be clean, even brand new. What’s more, the material seemed to be made of something comfortable, like silk. And the colors, well, it wasn’t the drab grey or brown that virtually everyone else wore. The elderly men all wore cloaks, which was rare due to the general lack of money but not completely unheard of. These cloaks, however, were hoodless. Petra had never seen a hoodless cloak. The heavyset ...

By: Thomas Fletcher Booher I have been a Calvinist for about four and a half years now. I grew up in a little PCA church, and have a Dad who graduated from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Despite this, I wasn't reformed, because neither the church nor my Father taught me Calvinism. The Christian school I went to was not Calvinistic, it was your typical say a prayer to get saved type of Christian school. I was influenced by them, but got just enough from my church and Dad to know that was a suspicious way of evangelizing and discipling. In short, it wasn't until I heard a sermon by Paul Washer (The Shocking Youth Message) in my first semester of college that I became a Calvinist and specifically understood the issues of the Christian school that I graduated from. I was angry, righteously and probably somewhat unrighteously as well. I went on the charge on Facebook against the Christian school I went to from K-5 through high school. I talked with th...

I am listing these, not in order of most impacting or important, but chronologically. To say which was most important would be far too difficult, they have all been invaluable to me. 1.) THE Shocking Youth Message (Paul Washer)  I know several Calvinists who became Calvinists directly from this sermon preached by Paul Washer to 5,000 youth back in 2002. If sermons can be considered classics, this one will be when we look back 15 years from now and see young Calvinists teeming across America proclaiming the true gospel and denouncing the Charles Finney, Billy Graham decisionism that has plagued this nation for nearly two centuries. If you come out of the non-Calvinist, Baptist youth group setting like I did, and if you went to Christian school, this message will especially resonate with you. I had never heard preaching like this when I first heard it. I didn't know there was such a thing. It is an hour long, and I listened to it three times, back to back, i...