As you can see, we’ve finally updated our blog’s layout.  There are still some minor tweaks to be made but in the end it will look pretty much like this.

This site design, as well as the cover art and interior layout of the Kingdom book, is all the work of Katie Ferrari, Sensus Divinitatis Publishing’s Creative Director.  Great job Katie!

As we prepare for the full release of  The Kingdom Has Drawn Near: Studies In The Gospel Jesus Preached, I have been thinking of some ways to promote the book and give you an idea of what it’s about.  In the coming days we will post snippets to whet your appetite.  In the meantime though, there is no better way to see what the emphasis of this book is than to check out the Wordle we generated a short time ago:

Here are some interesting links seen on SD News in the past few days.

• 8 Ways Twitter Can Benefit the Christian – Nathan Bingham put a lot of effort and research into this one.  There’s been a lot of debate about how useful Twitter can be to Christians, and how we should use it.  Nathan provides some wise, practical insight.
• Scripture – The Evangelical View – A very helpful PDF on the doctrine of inerrancy.
• The Youngest Evangelicals – The Rise Of Post-Slacker Christianity – Interesting post, written by a Gen-Xer, about the contrast between GenX evangelicals (slackers?) and GenY evangelicals (earnest and eager).
• Chesterton and Lewis For Beginners – The author suggests a few books that serve as a starting point for each author.  I found this helpful because both authors were so prolific, and one can easily get overwhelmed when starting out.
• Watermelon Green – A gem by Doug Wilson.

My digital friend, Bruce Green, has reviewed Sensus Divinitatis’ first book, “The Kingdom Has Drawn Near: Studies In The Gospel Jesus Preached”.  He calls it “a winsome and articulate scriptural defense of the idea that the Kingdom of God referred to in the Bible is a present reality”, and as one who heard the sermons live and worked through the publishing process, I cannot agree more.

Thanks Bruce!

We have added some new features to Sensus Divinitatis News.  Users now have the ability to fill out a simple profile form with full name, location, some URLs, and your Flickr username if you have one.  You can check out mine here.  I’m playing around with the idea of adding last.fm and Twitter support.  If you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments section.

On a technical note, SD News is officially out of beta.  Signups are open to the public, and the response has been solid.  In the last two weeks we have seen 200% growth in traffic, and our RSS readership has expanded significantly.  Thanks to everyone who has participated and used the site.  Please feel free to contact me with suggestions, at any time.

Thanks again!

Here are some of the more interesting links that have shown up on SD News in the past few days.

• catechizeMe Christian Q&A – Sort of like internet flashcards for the catechisms.  Very cool interface.
• Calvinism and Art – Classic lecture by Abraham Kuyper on the intersection between Calvinism and art.  Very thought-forming.
• 100 Christian Apologists – A fairly exhaustive list of 100 influential Christian apologists, past and present.
• Baptism: For Households or Believers Only? – MP3s of a debate between Dr. James White and William Shishko, pastor of the OPC in Franklin Square, NY.
• Pastor Ben Miller’s Recommended Reading List – Our very own Ben Miller’s recommended readings in theology and Christian living in general.

This passage pretty well sums up the thrust of The Kingdom Has Drawn Near, and hearing these sermons in person caused a paradigm shift in my thinking.

But – have you thought of this? – Adam would also have loved God just by being a great gardener! I get excited thinking about this. As Adam went out into Eden every day and tended the garden and cultivated it, he was putting on display in his work the same enthusiasm, diligence, and creativity with which the Creator himself engages creation. Adam put on display, as the “lord” of Eden, the glory of how God loves and tends and engages his creation. More than this, Adam also showed the glory of God, and his love for God, by displaying in his work ethic how one made in the image of God works when he is under the smile of God. Adam enjoyed gardening because God was smiling upon him, and the way he gardened reflected the joy of his heart in the joy of God.

We must see that loving God as Jesus commanded does not mean retreating from any sphere of human life and endeavor. It means rather that we bring the glory of God into every sphere of human life. In every part of human life, we learn how to display God by our thankfulness to him, by rejoicing in his gifts, by our delight in him, by being able to say when we do this or that that we “feel his pleasure,” by our righteousness in playing by the rules (for example, in the sphere of athletics). We bring the goodness and equity of God into these spheres, and thus show forth in them his glory. As redeemed people of God, we have a reason to do everything! We have a reason for business, economics, art, athletics, education, artisanship, science, medicine, law, politics, sex, family life, charitable giving, and charitable service. Why? Because for us who love God, every one of these spheres of human life is a theater for serving him and delighting in him. Could anything be less restrictive? Could anything be less stifling?

Far from being a burden, the commands of God are meant to bring us life.  Pastor Ben Miller, in The Kingdom Has Drawn Near, illuminates:

I remember wrestling as a younger man with the whole “problem” of authority. I have concluded over the course of my life that I do have a problem with authority. I don’t like submission. I don’t like someone telling me what to do; and it frightens me sometimes to think about Jesus telling me what to do, because I imagine a gigantic code of laws – like the IRS code – that I must somehow figure out and put into practice, and it sounds as if I’m going to be shriveled and stifled. Do you ever think like this? If we think this way, it shows how little we really understand the commandments of Jesus. Far from shriveling and stifling life, Jesus’ commands are the portal to the rich, full, blessed life for which you and I were created. The law of Jesus is an expression to us of the loving, renovating grace of our God.