In the Margins - 9/1/2026

Things I Read

Paul Twiss, a professor at TMS and the lead pastor of Bethany Bible Church in Thousand Oaks, wrote a short book called Seeing the Goodness of God: Jacob, Joseph, and the Eyes of Faith. Really helpful overview of Genesis 37-50.

Things I Listened To

Caleb Morell and Mark Dever interview Tony Payne about his forthcoming book, Let the Word Dwell Richly. The book is about something we care deeply about: every member Word-ministry. Looking forward to reading it.

Things I Watched

A few weeks ago Ashley was away so I spent a couple days with my parents in Simi Valley. At the same time, my parents were hosting a missionary from France named Florent Varak. We had wonderful conversations around the dinner table, and he recommended this documentary about the gospel coming to the Mouk tribe of Papua New Guinea. Watch, and get some tissues ready.

Things I Thought

At our Training Year retreat last Saturday, I had the opportunity to give a talk overviewing the life of George Muller and draw some lessons from it. He has helped me think about the difference between productivity and fruitfulness. If I act like a machine and aim for maximum productivity, I will burn out. Scripture tells me that fruitfulness, the kind that is real, lasting, and durable, comes from being "like a tree, planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season" (Ps. 1). My first priority, every day, is not to get things done, sermons written, studies prepared, meetings planned, but to abide in Christ, feed my inner man, soak in his Word, and then work out of the overflow of a well-fed soul.

Muller wrote: "The primary business I must attend to every day is to fellowship with the Lord. The first concern is not how much I might serve the Lord, but how my inner man might be nourished. I may share the truth with the unconverted; I may try to encourage believers; I may relieve the distressed; or I may, in other ways, seek to behave as a child of God, yet, not yet being happy in the Lord and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, may result in this work being done in a wrong spirit."

Quotes to Ponder

"I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the word of God, and to meditation on it. . . . What is the food of the inner man? Not prayer, but the word of God; and . . . not the simple reading of the word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts." — George Muller