The Tulip Driven Life

The Spirit Well by Stephen Lawhead is the third book in the Bright Empires Series. Having not read the first two books in this series, I relied on previous posts from the CSFF blog tour to catch up. For background information and plot prior to this book, I refer you to my Dad's posts from the CSFF blog tour here and here . For the plot in this story, here is my Dad's post as well. What I want to focus on is the writing of Lawhead. I do not think I have ever read a work of fiction that utilizes such a wide range of vocabulary. The real genius isn't just using "big" words, but using them skillfully, and I believe Lawhead does so masterfully. Many of the words I admit I was unfamiliar with or knew only vaguely, but he placed them so well that, in context, I could grasp the gist of their meaning. This is how I knew he wasn't just going on thesaurus.com and looking up fancy words to make his vocabulary and writing prowess seem better than it is. He is able t...

The Psalms are songs that we sing but also prayers to God. The Psalms show you how to respond to God when you are happy, sad, angry, facing tragedy, etc. The Psalms are special because they are God's Word given to us to respond to Him.  Most of the Psalms are laments to God. God gives us the Psalm Book full of laments to show us this world is a world of suffering. This world is sick with sin.  Our hymnals and praise songs tend to paint a far rosier, optimistic picture. There is a hypocrisy in church where every one pretends everything is okay, that no one has marriage problems, etc.  We should not get rid of lament songs from our worship.  Yet, the whole book of Psalms is called "praise songs." This is because they always end with David and others trusting God in their trials and tribulations. The laments are to God, indicating that the authors of Psalms know that only God can alleviate their trials and sufferings.  ***When we hurt, we can cry ou...

Reformation Bible College The Formation and History of the PCA Doctrine of the Church By Thomas Booher Sanford, Florida October 2012                                     As Don Clements argues in his book   Historical Roots of the PCA,  it is important that those who are members of a PCA church become familiar with the roots of their denomination. [1]   One can better grasp why a PCA church operates the way it operates when the theological underpinnings along with the detailed and unique church government of the PCA is understood. This understanding will shed light on the intent, structure, and function of the church and worship service itself, yielding a greater worship experience, understanding of God, and love for God during worship for the learned congregant. It will also warn the congregation when a pastor or ruling elder is beginning t...

There is one issue that most Christians decide their vote on: Abortion. I suppose I am one of those types of people too, I mean, voting for someone who is okay with murder isn't very ideal for anyone, is it? No, it's not. And welcome to reality. We live in a non-ideal world, marred with sin and wickedness. In our two-party system, we have two candidates, one who supports abortion openly and freely, and the other who is mostly against it. You can vote for one of them, not vote, or vote third party, but as it stands it will be either Romney or Obama who will be elected President for the next four years.  You don't like the two party system? Fine, I don't either. So don't like it, but for heaven's sake, at least cast a vote that could deter evil. What am I saying? I am saying that less abortion is better than abortion on demand, that less taxes are better than more taxes, that a bit smaller government is better than a bit larger government.  You d...

Thomas Booher                1 Corinthians Study Notes 9/6/12 1 Corinthians 9:19-16:24 1 Cor. 9:19-23: Paul had already declared that there is no longer a distinction between Jew and Gentile in Christ (Acts 15:9; Rom 3:22; 10:12; 1 Cor. 10:32). Yet here Paul makes a distinction for the sake of gospel clarity. Although in Christ we are valued equally, there remains distinctions between those in the body of Christ, such as varying spiritual gifts (Eph. 4:1-16; 1 Cor. 12:12-31). We also learn that God respects cultural differences and sensibilities, insofar as we learn things best through the medium of our own culture. This is why Paul becomes like the culture he is around: to clearly communicate the gospel. Thus, we should utilize the cultural patterns that we find the lost in to our advantage, and we should be sensitive to the consciences of Christians who have more troubled consciences over matters of liberty than ourselves. ...