Chalmers' Blog

“Pick up your suit, deny your hoodie and follow me”?

Can a church have such a thing as an unbiblical culture? It sure can! Look around the world, both past and present, and you’ll find churches whose doors are only opened to you if you’re a certain colour, social class, background or if you’re sticking to a certain dress code. Sure, it isn’t true of every middle class church, but there can be an unbiblical culture that is alive in middle-class churches.

Gospel Smugness

Sharing the gospel is a must for every Christian. Evangelism is a command that Jesus gave the apostles and all of His people must engage in. But the way we evangelise is massively important. There are many books out there on the important of evangelism and some on the ‘how to’ of evangelism too. What I like about this book is that Blake Long takes a slightly different approach.

Planting, Assurance, Dementia and an Invitation…

This blog is read by a wide range of people, many of whom I don’t know. Among my followers there are pastors, doctors, construction workers, cleaners, office workers, parents, pensioners and everyone in-between. I love the fact that my readership is so diverse, but it also means that sometimes I need to do shorter reviews of books from a wide variety of topics to be useful for everyone. Here is another bath of good books, on four very very different topics…

Saturday Snippets (January 8)

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…

The Blessed Curse

‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ you’ve probably heard that before right? It’s normally a saying that is thrown around during times of hardship, but not so hard that we feel crushed. Christians can easily fall into the trap where we think that we should live pain and suffering free lives. However, not only does the Bible never promise us that, such a life would also rob us of an opportunity to learn. Let me explain…

Stories, Both New and Old

Stories carry weight. Story can stir someone to action and bring tears to the driest of eyes. Stories resonate with the listener and can inform and educate them at the same time. Listening to, or reading, stories has been one of the most encouraging things in my Christian Life. Stories of people from today, and years ago, who have served the Lord in tremendous ways. Here are a few stories that I’ve read recently that I’d like to recommend.

Saturday Snippets (January 1)

My Best 10 of 2021…

Over the course of 2021 I read a total of 166 books. Most of those had been sent to me by publishers to give an honest review, some of them were authors who wanted my thoughts and some of them were pre-published books for my input and endorsement. Roughly 8 years ago I started reading a minimum of 5 books a month, I’ve written a bit about that here, and that’s how this blog actually came about. I share reviews of all kinds of Christian books, and not only the ones that I like. I intentionally review books that aren’t necessary great and books that I flat out disagree with (these less regularly). I do this because I want to help my readers know the following;

What’s good
What’s bad
What’s to be avoided

Adam, the Holy Spirit and the Incarnation

Theology is important, that point cannot be stressed enough. Too many Christians go through life thinking that they don’t need to invest time in learning theology and digging into doctrines that are in the Bible. That is simply naive. To study theology, whether at an academic level or at home on the couch with a cup of coffee, is an immense privilege and an important endeavour for every Christian. I’ve studied theology in an academic setting for 8 years, I’ve been a Christian for a bit longer than that and I’m still just getting to grips with how fast and amazing theology is. Everyone is a theologian, I’ve written about that here, but the key question is; do you want to be a good or a bad theologian? Here are a few resources to help…

Sexual Sin and the Promises of God

Sexual sin is not new, it is not an enemy that is only just showing it’s ugly head. Sexual sin has plagues humanity from the beginning of time, only made more accessible now to children of horrifically young ages. So, what hope is there? What can the Christian do to arm themselves in the fight to be pure in heart?