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  • Bob Struck
    Bob is a teaching pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in Minnesota. Mild mannered pastor by day, he is a Nordic Track workout junkie and a huge fan of Mystery Science Theatre 3000!

Quotable ...

  • "Saying Yes to happiness often means saying No to yourself." Elizabeth Elliot
  • "Idols are often good things turned into a god thing, which is a bad thing." Mark Driscoll
  • "My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things - that I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Savior." John Newton
  • "I believe in Christianity like I believe the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." C.S. Lewis
  • "If you pray well, you will live well; if you live well, you will die well; and if you die well, all will be well." St. Augustine
  • "As the Lord's Prayer is the Prayer of prayers, and the Ten Commandments are the Laws of law, so the Apostles' Creed is the Creed of creeds." Philip Schaff, Creeds of Christendom
  • "If people like you and me find much that we don't naturally like in the public & corporate side of Christianity all the better for us: it will teach us humility and charity towards simple low-brow people who may be better Christians than ourselves." C.S. Lewis
  • "Adam and Eve were created to be one flesh, to express in bodily form the unity that exists among the persons of the Trinity." Peter Leithart
  • "If anything has been lost from our culture, it is the idea that human beings are privately, personally, individually, ultimately, inexorably accountable to God for their lives." R.C. Sproul
  • "The kindness of the world is far more formidable than its enmity. Many, who were prepared to stem the torrent of its opposition, have yielded with compromising indulgence to its paralyzing kindness." Charles Bridges
  • "Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing." Screwtape to Wormwood
  • "Prayer isn't everything; but everything is done through prayer." -- Armin Gesswein
  • "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." -- C.S. Lewis
  • "Where there is much prayer, there will be much of the Spirit; where there is much of the Spirit, there will be ever-increasing prayer." -- Andrew Murray
  • "The church that multiplies committees and neglects prayer may be fussy, noisy, enterprising, but it labors in vain and spends its strength for nothing. It is possible to excel in mechanics and fail in dynamics. There is an abundance of machinery; what is lacking is power." -- Samuel Chadwick
  • "The church is a Body, not a business. It is an organism, not an organization! It is a family to be loved, not a machine to be engineered, and not a company to be managed." -- Rick Warren
  • "If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else." -- Yogi Berra

July 06, 2009

The Two Loves of God

The apostle Paul taught the Thessalonians their only hope to survive the end times perils was God's electing love:  "But we ought always to thanks God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved..." 2Thessalonians 2:13.

How do you teach the concept of God's sovereign grace in election to a church steeped for a 130 years in pietistic Arminianism (a theological tradition that has either denied, ignored, or redefined election into meaninglessness)?  Here's how I went about it.

Continue reading "The Two Loves of God" »

Posted at 03:42 PM in Men & Women, Theology | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

June 24, 2009

The Feminine Gnostique: How Feminism Denies the Physical

One of the assumptions of classic feminism is the denial of distinctions between male and female.  This is a bold position given the pretty obvious differences in physiology.  What is usually meant is that being a male or female does not predispose one to a certain role like mother or father let alone homemaker or CEO.

By the way, this is why great care is taken to insulate the discussion from the issues of biology and physiology - most often by using the word "gender" instead of "sex" when referring to male and female.  The former is a category of linguistics; the latter a biological one. 

Continue reading "The Feminine Gnostique: How Feminism Denies the Physical" »

Posted at 12:32 PM in Culture, Evangelicalism, Men & Women | | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

June 19, 2009

What Happend to May?

So... why aren't there any posts on APB for May?  After going through surgery for cancer at the end of April I was distracted with recovery I guess.  What energy I did have was focused on only the most vital of duties at Church and home.

Add to that the fact that in the last month and a half no one has actually asked, "Hey - why aren't you writing for your blog?" or said "I sure hope you can start writing soon, I miss it" kinda makes you wonder if it's time better spent elsewhere...

Posted at 07:36 AM in Personal | | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

April 29, 2009

Walking With God, by John Eldredge

The first time I heard of John Eldredge it was for Wild At Heart his book about manhood.  Though I am interested in biblical manhood I didn't read it.  Why?  Unfortunately it came out just after the theological controversy over Open Theism had rankled our denomination in the late 1990s.  It was pointed out to me at this time that the author - though denying he was doing so - entertained many of the concepts of this heresy in his book and I just couldn't see putting up with it.

So when this book, Walking With God, by the same author was handed to me I was reluctant to spend any time on it.  However, on a personal note, I am now dealing with cancer and am being driven to draw nearer to God in the process.  The subtitle to the book: "Talk to Him. Hear from Him. Really" was what I wanted - so I began reading.

Continue reading "Walking With God, by John Eldredge" »

Posted at 11:51 AM in Books, Evangelicalism, Prayer, Religion, Theology, Worship | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

April 23, 2009

The Resurrection of Jesus Ensures Ours!

What is the significance of Christ's resurrection?  It was not simply a surprising development in the ongoing story of Jesus - an event with no abiding significance to His work other than to baffle the religious authorities.

On the contrary, Christ's resurrection is the beating heart of the gospel; the fulfillment of Israel's prophetic hope and - as I hope to show here - the event which ensures the resurrection of every believer!

Continue reading "The Resurrection of Jesus Ensures Ours!" »

Posted at 05:16 AM in Theology | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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