I am in Grand Rapids today, at the Author Lounge here at Zondervan. I’m surrounded by hundreds of copies of my book, each of which is awaiting a signature. Strange stuff, this. It’s a rather odd feeling to be surrounded by copies of your own book. Uncomfortable.

Slander - In this rather emotional interview, Rob Bell says that other Christians have slandered him. It always amazes me how quickly the criminal becomes the victim—how the person who sins so quickly tried to deflect the attention away from himself.

Why Canadians Shop in the US - I enjoyed this article since I’m a Canadian who lives near to the US border and who has been known (occasionally) to do some shopping over there.

Economics - Calvin & Hobbes on America’s economic issues.

Publishers Weekly - Publishers Weekly offers a review of my book. “As we ‘approach a frontier,’ Challies cautions readers to consider potential behavioral changes before they are written into our history. While he does not draw definitive conclusions, the questions he poses will give readers necessary pause and help them to take a careful look at technology's place in their lives.”

Hard to Measure - John Knight: “In the pile of papers I referenced yesterday were some old test scores.  Since Paul attends public schools, they assess his educational progress as mandated by various federal and state bodies. The things they want to measure, he can't do.  His scores on reading, reading comprehension, math, math concepts and the like were as low as you can score and still be breathing.”

God is more interested in our holiness than in our comfort. He more greatly delights in the integrity and purity of his church than in the material well-being of its members. He shows himself more clearly to men and women who enjoy him and obey him than to men and women whose horizons revolve around good jobs, nice houses, and reasonable health. He is far more committed to building a corporate "temple' in which his Spirit dwells than he is in preserving our reputations. He is more vitally disposed to display his grace than to flatter our intelligence. He is more concerned for justice than for our ease. He is more deeply committed to stretching our faith than our popularity. He prefers that his people live in disciplined gratitude and holy joy rather than in pushy self-reliance and glitzy happiness. He wants us to pursue daily death, not self-fulfillment, for the latter leaders to death, while the former leads to life. —D.A. Carson

Have you ever noticed that the sins you hate most may just be the sins closest to your heart? I hate the sin of envy, and I think I hate it so much because it is so often very near to me, just waiting to strike, to cause me to mourn when I ought to rejoice, or to rejoice when I ought to mourn. “Rejoice with those who rejoice,” Scripture tells me. It is rarely that easy. I wish it was that easy.

I recently began reading Assist Me To Proclaim, John Tyson’s biography of Charles Wesley, and was challenged with these words:

Charles had a meekness and unfeigned humility about him that was remarkable and attractive. His sermon editor observed, “His most striking excellence was humility; it extended to his talents as well as virtues; he not only acknowledged and pointed out but delighted in the superiority of another.”

To delight in the superiority of another. There is humility. There is envy slaughtered and laid to rest. I think I envy this lack of envy.

In his book The Call Os Guinness says this:

Traditionally envy was regarded as the second worst and second most prevalent of the seven deadly sins. Like pride, it is a sin of the spirit, not of the flesh, and thus a "cold" and highly "respectable" sin, in contrast to the "warm" and openly "disreputable" sins of the flesh, such as gluttony. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that it is the one vice that its perpetrators never enjoy and rarely confess.

It was Aquinas who provided a famous definition of envy when he suggested it is "sorrow at another's good." Guinness says:

Envy enters when, seeing someone else's happiness or success, we feel ourselves called into question. Then, out of the hurt of our wounded self-esteem, we seek to bring the other person down to our level by word or deed. They belittle us by their success, we feel; we should bring them down to their deserved level, envy helps us feel. Full-blown envy, in short, is dejection plus disparagement plus destruction.

Today I’m making the final pre-order push for The Next Story: Life and Faith After the Digital Explosion. I know I’ve mentioned it a few times already, so bear with me. I want to tell you about it again simply because it gives you an opportunity to get the book at a really good discount.

Along the way I’ve mentioned the special e-book deal we worked out. For every 200 people who order the book for Kindle, the ebook price will fall by $1 (and, since you aren’t actually charged until release day, that price will apply even to those who pre-ordered it at a higher price). The price has already fallen from $9.99 to $6.99 and I’m pretty sure we can get it down to $5.99 by the end of this week when we need to set the final price. That price will apply to all e-reading platforms (iBooks, Nook, Kindle, etc).

On April 11 the price will return to $9.99. So don’t dawdle: go ahead and pre-order it for Kindle.

If you would rather read it in printed format you can pre-order it from Westminster Books and Amazon. I recommend Westminster since if you order from Westminster Books you will receive a signed copy of the book. And, you know, signed copies are fun. But to get your copy signed, you need to order today.

Still Not Convinced?

You can learn a lot more about the book, download a sample chapter, read the endorsements, read a review, etc, by clicking here.

Embarking on a short tour of the afterlife is all the rage, it seems. Don Piper got it started with 90 Minutes in Heaven, a really bad book that sold millions of copies. Then there was 23 Minutes in Hell, another bestseller and another awful book. And now hot on their heels comes Heaven Is For Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back. It’s currently sitting atop the New York Times list of bestsellers and has over a half million copies in print. I wonder if I'm the only one who finds it a mite suspicious that now that these books are selling like proverbial hotcakes, more and more people find that God wants them to tell their stories of heaven and hell. Probably not.

Heaven Is For Real is written by pastor Todd Burpo and it tells the story of his son Colton who, at age 4, visited heaven. His visit came while he was on the operating table after suffering a burst appendix. He told his parents his story several months later and his parents then waited 6 or 7 years to record it in a book. That book has shot to the top of the charts, resulting in many of you sending me emails to ask, "Have you read it?" So I went ahead and read it. Because that's the kind of guy I am.

You will probably not be surprised to learn that this is not a good book. What I want to do here is offer a very brief review and then I want to tell you why you can legitimately dismiss this book and all the others like it, because I think that's where many of us feel the tension--what gives me the right to dismiss another person's experience?

I've already given you the broad outline. Colton dies (or something close to it) and visits heaven for an unknown period of time. He returns to his body and over the months and years that follow tells his parents about his time in heaven. He tells about spending time with Jesus, about meeting the sister he never knew he had, about fluttering around with wings, about the pearly gates, and on and on. Along the way you'll get descriptions of Todd's various afflictions and you'll read the fine details of Colton's battles with constipation and the great relief he experienced passing gas. Riveting stuff, this.

Every one of Colton's experiences, or very nearly every one, follows a pattern. He tells his father some little detail. His father experiences a gasp or feels his heart skip a beat. “I could hardly breathe. My mind was reeling. My head was spinning.” A Scripture verse comes to dad's mind that validates the experience. Colton gets bored and runs off. Repeat.