Music Video of the Week: Shane and Shane

Shane and Shane - "That's How You Forgive"

Rhett and Link - Complimentary Yo Mama Battle

HT: 22 Words

Just Like Me

This is really cute. Happy Mother's Day on Sunday, Moms!

Why You Should Body Slam Your Kid Every Now and Then

From The Art of Manliness:

Unfortunately, in recent years, horseplay has gotten a bad rap. Parents, concerned about safety and preventing ADHD, limit the amount of rambunctious play their kids take part in. At least 40% of US school districts have eliminated or are considering eliminating recess, because  teachers need more time to cram kids’ heads full of information for standardized tests, because they’re afraid of children getting hurt and the school being held liable, and even because play can apparently encourage violent behavior; according to a principal that banned recess at her elementary school in Cheyenne, a game of tag “progresses easily into slapping and hitting and pushing instead of just touching.” 

But recent research has shown that roughhousing serves an evolutionary purpose and actually provides a myriad of benefits for our progeny.  In their book The Art of Roughhousing, Anthony DeBenedet and Larry Cohen highlight a few of these benefits and the research behind them. Instead of teaching kids to be violent and impulsive, DeBenedet and Cohen boldly claim that roughhousing “makes kids smart, emotionally intelligent, lovable and likable, ethical, physically fit, and joyful.” In short, roughhousing makes your kid awesome. 

Below, we highlight six benefits of roughhousing with your children. The next time your wife gets on to you for riling up the kids, you can tell her: “I’m helping our children develop into healthy, functioning adults, dear!”…right before performing a baby suplex on your daughter.

Read the rest.



 HT: Zach Nielsen

Forgiveness - Matt Chandler Sermon Jam

If you have repented of sin and believed in Christ, these things are true of you. If you are "struggling" against your sin, you are his.

Music Video of the Week: The City Harmonic

The City Harmonic - "Holy (Wedding Day)"

9 Things You Should Know About the Gosnell Infanticide and Murder Trial

Joe Carter at the Gospel Coalition:

Kermit Gosnell, 69, is an abortionist on trial in Pennsylvania for murder and infanticide. Here are 9 things you should know about the Gosnell case:

1. Gosnell was arrested in January 2011, charged with eight counts of murder: one patient who allegedly died under his care after a botched abortion, and seven infants supposedly born alive whose spinal cords Gosnell allegedly severed with scissors. 

2. According to prosecutors in Philadelphia, Gosnell catered to minorities, immigrants, and poor women, and made millions of dollars over 30 years performing illegal and late-term abortions in squalid and barbaric conditions. Gosnell took extra precautions with white women from the suburbs, according to the grand jury report. He allegedly ushered them into a slightly cleaner area because he thought they would be more likely to file a complaint. 

3. Women paid $325 for first-trimester abortions and $1,600 to $3,000 for abortions up to 30 weeks. The clinic took in up to $15,000 a day, said authorities. Although abortions after the 24th week are illegal, Gosnell allegedly aborted and killed babies in the sixth and seventh months of pregnancy and charged more for bigger babies. 

4. According to the grand jury report, the clinic reeked of animal urine and the furniture and blankets were stained with blood. Medical instruments found in the practice had not been properly sterilized. State officials have failed to visit or inspect his abortion clinic since 1993. Prosecutors also claim that Gosnell is not certified in either gynecology or obstetrics. 

5. Prosecutors say that none of Gosnell's staff, including his wife, were licensed nurses or doctors and that a 15-year-old student performed anesthesia with potentially lethal narcotics. 

6. A woman who worked for Gosnell testified that she was called back to a room at his abortion clinic in Philadelphia where the bodies of aborted babies were kept to hear one screaming amid a shelf-full of dead babies. "I can't describe it," says the woman. "It sounded like a little alien." She says the body of the child was about 18 to 24 inches long and was one of the largest babies she had seen delivered during abortion procedures at Gosnell's clinic. 

7. On January 31, 1998, a then 15 year old Robyn Reid sought an abortion from Gosnell's clinic. Once she was in the clinic, though, Reid, an 87-pound teenager at the time, told Gosnell she changed her mind about the abortion. She claims Gosnell got upset, ripped off her clothes, restrained her, and repeatedly told her, "This is the same care that I would give to my own daughter." Reid regained consciousness 12 hours later at her aunt's home, with the abortion having been completed against her will. 

8. Gosnell's arrest and trial have received almost no coverage by the national media. During the early part of the trial ABC, CBS and NBC did not cover the trial at all, yet gave 41 minutes and 26 seconds of air time to the story of Mike Rice, the Rutgers basketball coach who was fired for yelling at his players. 

9. The 3801 Lancaster Film Project is an ongoing documentary series about Kermit Gosnell, the Women's Medical Society, and the cover-up by state and local oversight agencies.

John Piper on the Courage to Go to Prison

J.D. Greear:

The following thoughts come from a recent conversation I had with John Piper during the Advance Conference. I believe I am reflecting Piper’s words accurately, even though they are recorded here from my memory of the conversation, not verbatim. 

“I sometimes think of John the Baptist’s death, how absurd it must have seemed,” Piper began. “Can you imagine it? The guard opens the door and says, ‘John, come here and kneel.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because a middle school girl danced and asked for your head.’ What a pitiful way to go! John the Baptist was probably kneeling there, about to die, thinking, ‘Really, Lord? I go out like this? Killed because of a middle school girl and her dancing?’”  

“And, of course, the real reason that John was killed—the reason he had been imprisoned in the first place—was because he had called out King Herod’s sexual immorality. You can hear today’s critics: ‘That’s just what you get, John, for poking your head into politics.’ But Jesus wasn’t ashamed of John’s sacrifice. He thought it was a noble act of courage that led to his death. In fact, when people told Jesus about the execution, Jesus called John the Baptist the greatest prophet who ever lived.” 

Here is a pressing question for my generation: is the courage of John the Baptist at work in us, or will we falter when the question comes to us? It reminded me of what Veronica remarked to me recently: that the day may come when I may be forced to choose between the size of our church—which I love, of course, we love reaching people—and faithfulness to the gospel. I mentioned this to Piper, and he responded: 

“That’s not exactly it. Take homosexuality, for example. The only time I’ve seen Tim Keller depressed was over this issue in our culture. 20% of the people in our society will always think that homosexual behavior is wrong. But Keller thinks we’ve essentially lost the other 80%. Now, that doesn’t mean that your church is going to shrink. The 20%, after all, will always be looking for someone with the courage to speak the truth. The more homosexual behavior is praised in our society, the more that 20% will flock to your church.”  

“You won’t have to choose between faithfulness and a big churchper se. But you might have to choose between faithfulness and your personal freedom. What I mean is, you will have to decide whether or not you’re prepared to go to prison. I’m not exaggerating. So, in a roundabout way, I guess your wife is right… because, after all, how big of a church can you have in prison?”

Music Video of the Week: Shai Linne

OK, not really a "music video," but still a really good song, from his new album, which comes out tomorrow.

Shai Linne - "Hypostatic Union"

How Tim Keller Made Peace with the Wrath of God

Many godly, sincere people have trouble coming to terms with the concept of the wrath of God. I'm not talking about those who seek to deny that God is wrathful and rip the idea of substitutionary atonement from the Bible. I'm talking about people who clearly see it in Scripture, but struggle to reconcile that idea with the idea that God is also a God of love. They want to submit to God's Word, but they struggle with the emotions and logical conclusions they think they must draw.

This post on Tim Keller's experience might be helpful to those kinds of people.

Because [a cup of poison] was the method of execution for many people,…the Hebrew prophets came to use the cup as a metaphor for the wrath of God on human evil…. For example…Isaiah 54: “You will drink the cup of His fury and stagger.” So the reason why [Christian martyrs] who died for what they believed in didn’t die the way Jesus is dying—didn’t fall to the ground, didn’t find this horror coming down—was that they didn’t face the cup. They didn’t face the justice of God against all human wickedness and evil, which was just about to come down on [Jesus]…. 

It was in the Garden of Gethsemane that I came finally to grips—I made my peace, as it were—with the wrath of God. Now, it might shock some of you that…a preaching minister was struggling with the very idea of a God of wrath, a God who sends people to Hell…. And then it was studying the Garden of Gethsemane when I finally came to peace with it because I realized this: The reason why people get rid of the idea of Hell and wrath is because they want a loving God…. They say, “I can’t believe in Hell and wrath because I want a more loving God.” And I came to realize in the Garden of Gethsemane that if you get rid of the idea of Hell and wrath, you have a less loving God. 

Because if there is no wrath by God on sin, and there is no such thing as Hell, not only does that actually make what happened to Jesus inexplicable—Jesus staggering the way He is, asking God, “Is there any other way?” [and] sweating blood means that He was wimpier than hundreds of His followers, if there was nothing like [God’s wrath]—but…the main thing is, if you don’t believe in the wrath and Hell, it trivializes what He’s done…. If you get rid of a God who has wrath and Hell, you’ve got a god who loves us in general, but that’s not as loving as the God of the Bible, the God of Jesus Christ, who loves us with a costly love. 

Look what it cost. Look what He did. Look what He was taking. You get rid of wrath and Hell, He’s not taking anything close to this. And therefore, what you’ve done is you’ve just turned His incredible act of love into just something very trivial, very small…. 

And by the way, if the anticipation of these sufferings—if the very taste of these sufferings—sent the Son of God into shock, what must it have been to drink them to the bottom?