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Latest in Tabletalk Magazine

  • Tell Us Your Stories

    from Collin Hansen Aug 23, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    Collin Hansen has a word for older believers. Asking you to overlook the pride of younger Christians, he asks you to do us one big favor: tell us your stories. "Your stories give us the perspective we haven’t yet gained with experience. We don’t yet understand how much we don’t know. Our youthful bluster masks insecurity. We stand tall against withering attacks from our peers, but we’ve hardly been tested. We fear that when harder times come our faith will prove ephemeral. But your stories gird us against these doubts. So look underneath our confident exterior. You’ll find that younger Christians actually want to hear from older believers about how God demonstrated His faithfulness in their generation." Keep reading to find how stories have influenced Collin, how they have led him to praise God for what he has done in the past, and how they have encouraged him to ask God to do great things in the future. Keep Reading

  • The Crown of Thorns Club

    from Chris Donato Aug 18, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    In this article, Tabletalk's senior associate editor Chris Donato asks "When was the last time you went to a private social club?" He goes on to say, "If you think that kind of thing is for the elite members of our society alone, guess again. The Yellow Pages are filled with lists of social clubs in which anyone in the neighborhood can become a member. They meet mainly on Sunday mornings — but don’t be foolish enough to wait for an invitation. Unfortunately, like most other clubs, this one is designed to keep certain people in and other people out. You will find in it a decidedly internalized and individualized faith, complete with its own set of man-made regulations. You will find in it a group of folks who act as if they are enjoying life to the fullest, no matter where they are or what they are doing. And what do they do? They do exactly what they wish to do. In this Sunday club, then, it comes as no surprise that God Is He Who Exists for Me." Read on to find how Chris calls each of us to live with the reality that we exist for God, not the other way around. Keep Reading

  • The 10th Century: Resources to Assist Your August Tabletalk Study

    from Karisa Schlehr Aug 09, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    The August 2010 issue of Tabletalk continues our ongoing series on the history of the church by presenting highlights from the tenth century, including its historical, theological, and practical ramifications. Here is a list of helpful resources highlighting church history and eschatology that will complement your study through Tabletalk this month. Keep Reading

  • No Place for Heresy

    from C. FitzSimons Allison Aug 09, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    One of the dominant patterns in church history is that of corruption and reform. In his article from this month's issue of Tabletalk, C. Fitzsimmons Allison begins with tenth century corruption and reform and eventually the necessary reform to that reform. Looking at this pattern through the years leading to the Reformation, Allison asks "What, then, is the lesson for today, when the churches are tragically divided and the Christian message is being corrupted by scandals and accommodations to an increasingly corrupt society?" Ultimately, he suggests, the answer will begin with the centrality of the gospel. "One’s life follows one’s heart. What the heart desires and believes the will will choose and the mind will justify. Hence, starting at behavior is not as effective as starting with the gospel story, the teaching, and the doctrine that speaks to the heart." Keep Reading

  • Setting the Stage: The First Millennium

    from R.C. Sproul Aug 06, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    "Volumes have been written giving detailed analyses of the extraordinary things that occurred in the first thousand years of church history, events that influenced everything that came after them." In this brief article R.C. Sproul distills those volumes into just a few words, setting the stage for an examination of the tenth century, the period of time that is the particular focus of the August edition of Tabletalk. Sproul points to five dimensions of activity that were particularly important in the first millennium of church history: the rise of the papacy, the innovations of pope Gregory the Great, the rise of the monastic movement, the great ecumenical councils of Nicea and Chalcedon and the life and ministry of Augustine of Hippo. He draws an unmistakable contrast between the vitality of the early church and the darkness that marked it by the end. Already by the close of the first millennium of church history "the church was already groping in the darkness and biblical soteriology had declined to such a degree that the gospel was rapidly becoming obscured, even becoming almost totally eclipsed until it was recovered in the sixteenth century Reformation." Keep Reading

  • Daily Confession, Enduring Reform

    from Tim Challies Aug 03, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    In this introductory article to the August edition of Tabletalk, Burk Parsons writes about confession and the Roman Catholic sacrament of penance. "Although historically Rome has taught the necessity of both private and public confession of sin, many Catholics have been persuaded that only when they confess their sins to their priests, are absolved, and do penance that they really possess the forgiveness of God." Parsons then introduces us to Simeon, a tenth-century Christian who called the church to more than mere outward performance. "Through the centuries the Lord has continued to sustain and reform His church by raising up faithful men to proclaim His gospel and to call His people to live coram Deo, before His face, in genuine repentance, humble confession, and authentic faith leading to a life wholeheartedly devoted to God." Keep Reading

  • Forgive Us Our Trespasses

    from Philip Ryken Jul 29, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    We need daily pardon and daily protection as well as daily provision. So after Jesus taught us to pray, “give us today our daily bread,” He also taught us to pray, “and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matt. 6:12–13). Keep Reading

  • Church Growth and the Sovereignty of God

    from Burk Parsons Jul 27, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    It seems that every time I meet a pastor from another church, he asks me the common, unsolicited, ecclesiastical question of the twenty-first-century: “How big is your church?” Most pastors are usually a bit confounded when I respond: “I don’t know.” It’s only when I am pressed for an answer that I provide him with the number of families in our congregation. But if I am in a good mood I may simply explain that our church consists of people of every color and language and is as big as the world-wide church of Christ. It is my hope that in some, small way I might help other pastors obtain a better perspective on the size, growth, and health of the church, locally and globally. Keep Reading

  • Mere Coincidence?

    from Keith Mathison Jul 21, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    One of the most interesting stories ever published was a novella called The Wreck of the Titan, or Futility by Morgan Robertson. Robertson tells the story of the sinking of a large luxury liner named the Titan. The Titan in Robertson’s book was the largest ship in existence at the time: over eight hundred feet in length with a passenger and crew capacity of three thousand. It had numerous watertight bulkheads and was considered unsinkable. It carried the minimum number of lifeboats required by law, but far short of the number needed for three thousand people. While carrying many wealthy passengers across the North Atlantic on a cold April night, the Titan struck an iceberg at 24 knots just before midnight about ninety-five miles south of Greenland. The iceberg tore a gash in the ship’s starboard side, which flooded the watertight compartments. The unsinkable ship sank. Because the Titan did not have enough lifeboats, more than half of her passengers died in the icy waters. Keep Reading

  • Beauty & the Gospel

    from Terry Yount Jul 18, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine

    In the modern era, beauty is unavoidably tied to the simplistic concept of “prettiness,” like that found in greeting card poems or velvet paintings of lighthouses. In truth, beauty is far more. Beauty reveals the gamut of human experience. True beauty is an ally of the gospel in that it parallels the human dilemma. In reality, a rose is beautiful, but it also has thorns. When we investigate further, beauty reveals itself somewhere between the opposing forces of darkness and light, major and minor, protagonist and antagonist. Beauty can be appreciated often when seen in contrast with its counterpart — depravity. The honest painter, musician, or writer, gripped by the contrast between good and evil, is unafraid to portray both. In fact, the struggle between darkness and light is often the place artists do their finest work. Keep Reading
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