Mike Leake

16 May by Mike Leake

Proverbs for Christian Blogging: Am I Sowing Discord?

10 comments

A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord; therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in a moment he will be broken beyond healing. There are six things that the LORD hates, [...]

14 May by Mike Leake

The Danger of Assuming

14 comments

“Dear, can you find my face-wash?  It’s in a small bottle with a fuchsia colored lid on the dresser,” my wife lovingly requests. I hurriedly look through a conglomeration of numerous bottles that I am totally unfamiliar with.  I am only vaguely familiar with fuchsia.  I know it isn’t blue, so I quickly eliminate everything [...]

9 May by Mike Leake

Turning “Helps” Into Idolatry

6 comments

Does God wound thy spirit, does he make it sick, and dost thou seek to unlawful means for help?  Dost thou go to thy company, to music, to good cheer, to relieve thee?  Oh this provokes God against thee!…those that in trouble of conscience seek for carnal helps, by their vain tampering only render their [...]

4 May by Mike Leake

Enjoying What Christ Purchased

11 comments

There is a phrase that I use quite frequently in my preaching, writing, and praying before services.  In some form or fashion I often say that the Christian life is a quest to enjoy what Christ has already purchased.  I doubt that the phrase is original with me (so little is original with me—that’s why [...]

30 April by Mike Leake

Proverbs for Christian Blogging: Don’t Pick a Fight That Isn’t Yours

17 comments

“Do not contend with a man for no reason, when he has done you no harm” –Proverbs 3:30 In other words don’t pick fights that aren’t yours.  That sounds reasonable enough but it kind of begs a question: what fight is mine? Consider this example.  I attend The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  I have a vested interest in [...]

25 April by Mike Leake

They Never Told Me That…

14 comments

A desperate Charles Spurgeon went hopping from church to church to come to understand how he must be saved.  But instead as he tells it: One man preached Divine sovereignty, but what was that sublime truth to a poor sinner who wished to know what he must do to be saved.  There was another admirable [...]

18 April by Mike Leake

Don’t Starve the Sheep to Fight the Wolves

22 comments

“Men may try; but they will try in vain, when they attempt to convert the weapons for defending against infidelity, into bread to feed God’s hungry children.”  -(Ichabod Spencer, Pastors Sketches, 59) In the context of this quote Spencer is lamenting the overabundance of speculations about faith and the continual labor to defend and explain [...]

16 April by Mike Leake

Amens on Monday

12 comments

“Carron-shore.  My last.  Some tears; yet I fear some like the messenger, not the message; and I fear I am so vain as to love that love.  Lord, let it not be so.  Perish my honor, but let thine be exalted forever.”  -Robert M. McCheyne I am at times so shallow in my aims and [...]

11 April by Mike Leake

The Root of Angry and Divisive Calvinists: Part Seven

13 comments

This will be the last installment in this series.  Hopefully it has been helpful. One of the greatest critiques that has come to this series is the title.  Why in the world would I have titled this Angry and Divisive Calvinists if the real issue is not about Calvinism?  Why bother with the potential vitriol [...]

10 April by Mike Leake

The Root of Angry and Divisive Calvinists: Part Six

10 comments

You probably have a “Mark” in your life.  We want to be living in the epilogue and not in the beginning of the story.  Here is how to help the “Marks” in your life.  If “Mark” is not a Calvinist but is carrying some other doctrine in an angry and divisive manner I think the [...]

9 April by Mike Leake

The Root of Angry and Divisive Calvinists Part 5

11 comments

Epilogue: What Continued Happening to Mark Angry and divisive Mark is no more.  Next month Mark will be returning to Podunk Baptist Church.  This time as a new man.  He still has his beard, he still holds to much the same doctrine, but he holds it differently. It had been eight years since his disaster [...]

4 April by Mike Leake

The Root of Angry and Divisive Calvinists: Part 4

24 comments

“Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that ‘all of us possess knowledge.”  This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”  If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.  But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.”  1 Corinthians 8:1-3 Concerning the question [...]

2 April by Mike Leake

The Root of Angry and Divisive Calvinists: Part 3

25 comments

If it wasn’t seminary (or any other new found education) that caused mark to become angry and divisive what happened to Mark, then? Probably the same thing that happened to students in Newton’s day when he said: I do not mention this as the necessary fault of the institution, but as the frequent effect of [...]

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