Chalmers' Blog

Saturday Snippets (February 18)

As well as reading a lot of books, I also read a ton of articles every week. Here are some of the articles that I’ve read recently and have found interesting, helpful, challenging and encouraging. I hope that they will be the same for you, my dear readers…

Saturday Snippets (February 11)

Endorsements; a few thoughts on an overlooked or overrated few sentences.

A friend of mine is writing a book, more on that in the coming months, and she asked for my thoughts on endorsements. The publisher had asked for between 10-20 endorsements and she had to chose the people and ask them for the endorsement. My friend asked for my advice and it got me thinking, so here we are. Endorsements are either completely overlooked and ignored or they’re overrated and treated like a must in every book. I don’t think that either is particularly helpful.

Baptist Confession of Faith (1689)

Confessions and creeds, in some places within the global church, have been forgotten and that should sadden us. Creeds and confessions are important to help us keep our understanding of theology within the realm of orthodoxy and to help us discern good theology from heresy. Without confessions and creeds the church is more susceptible to walk off into territory of ‘new teachings’ or to be swept up by the latest fad within the Christian Church. Here’s what B. H. Carroll (1843-1914), the first president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary said about the importance and need for creeds and confessions;

Saturday Snippets (February 4)

Apologetics, Dating, Marriage, Sex and Womanhood

Many books are written each year focusing on some of the topics that occupy our society and our emotional energy as Christians. Some book are written for pastors and teachers, some for parents and guardians and so on. However, few books are written to equip and encourage students / young adults in growing in their faith and enabling them to engage with ‘hot topics’ of their day. Christian Focus Publications steps in with their ‘Track:a A Student’s Guide to…‘ series which covers a whole host of different topics. Here I’d like to introduce six short books that will help your students think through topics like missions, social media, apologetics, worldview, womanhood, dating, marriage and sex. Each review will be very short, but enough to give you an idea of the idea and feel for the whole book.

Saturday Snippets (January 28)

Can angels sin?

A few weeks ago I was standing in a local christian bookshop, nearby another customer was asking about a book on angels as she wanted to study the topic with a friend of hers. The saleswoman was trying to think of a new book on angels that had been published and asked me if I knew the author (I’m well-known in the shop as I studied in the Bible College attached to it). I told her the book title and author, but they didn’t have it. Anyway, that got me thinking about a question someone asked me a while ago that’s been sitting in my notes app on my phone and I thought I’d have a stab at it here for you. The question was in two parts; 1) can angels sin? and 2) if they can what’s preventing them from sinning/rebelling again?

Here goes…

A Divine Tapestry

The Bible is a very big book which can be quite daunting for some people, both new Christians and people who have been Christians for a while. Because the Bible is made up of different books, spanning across thousands of years, it isn’t always easy to know where to start reading or what the over arching narrative is. In comes Ryan McGraw with a helpful resource for you.