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Explore May 2013

  • Giveaways / Free Stuff Fridays Collection cover image

    Free Stuff Fridays

    This week’s Free Stuff Fridays is sponsored by CBD Reformed. As they always do, they’ve put together a great prize package. There will be 5 winners this week and each of the winners will receive the following 3 books: Here’s a description of Tough Topics, a book I’m looking forward to reading: “Will there be…

  • Articles Collection cover image

    The Purposes of the Heart

    I want to do the right things. I want to do the right things for the right reasons. In fact, I want to do the best things for the best reasons, the highest things for the highest reasons. Sometimes I know I do this. Sometimes I know I don’t. Most of the time I’m just…

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    A La Carte (5/31)

    Two Kinds of Funeral – Gene Veith reflects on two funerals he went to and the differences between them. “Our culture does not know how to handle death. We insulate ourselves from it. The dying pass away out of sight. We are terrified of death. And so we sentimentalize it.” The New Purpose of Marriage…

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    Read a Puritan Classic With Me!

    I announced last week that I’ll soon begin reading Thomas Brooks’ classic work Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices. I’d love for you to read this book with me as part of the Reading Classics Together program. In their book Meet the Puritans, Joel Beeke and Randall Pederson say, “This book offers sorely needed lessons on…

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    A La Carte (5/30)

    Reformed Expository Commentaries – The Reformed Expository Commentary set is my favorite commentary set. I use the volumes for both sermon preparation and devotion. To mark the release of the newest volume (Philippians) Westminster Books has all of them on sale at 50% off (52% off if you buy the whole OT or NT). You…

  • Christ In the Chaos

    As a co-founder of Cruciform Press, I like to provide occasional updates on news and tell you about our most recent titles. We recently released Christ in the Chaos: How the Gospel Changes Motherhood, by Kimm Crandall. If you ask what makes a woman a good mother, you will get a lot of different answers.…

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    If Preaching Was Like Playing

    I went to the Blue Jay game last week. The Rays were in town and I like to go and cheer/jeer for my buddy Ben who plays for the bad guys. “You stink! And thanks for the tickets!” Don’t mention it to him, but at the end of the game he represented the winning run…and…

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    A La Carte (5/29)

    Five Lies Sin Tells Me – Stephen Altrogge offers up five lies that sin tells us. Why Coffee Is Called Joe – I learned this a few days ago when listening to a biography of FDR. Why is coffee called Joe? Now you’ll know… A Grassroots Movement in My Church – Kevin DeYoung: “At a…

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    Rid of My Disgrace

    I wish this book had not been written, or more properly, I wish there was no need for this book to be written. I wish there was no such monstrosity in the world as sexual assault. Yet the ugly truth is that sexual assault not only exists, but is all too common. The statistics are…

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    A La Carte (5/28)

    Firestorm – Here’s a fascinating site: “The photograph of the Holmes family hiding from a violent bushfire in Tasmania was shared around the world. But what became of them? In a unique multimedia project, the family speak exclusively to the Guardian about the day their community was devastated, and the new breed of bushfire that…

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    The Circle Maker

    I didn’t know what The Circle Maker was about until I began to read it. Neither did I know anything about Mark Batterson, its author. I knew the book only as a Christian bestseller and its author only as a name that often appears in my inbox as people ask if I know anything about…

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    A La Carte (5/27)

    Last Inspection – “The soldier bent to his work, careful as a diamond cutter. He carried no weapon or rucksack, just a small plastic ruler, which he used to align a name plate, just so, atop the breast pocket of an Army dress blue jacket, size 39R.” Here is the precise ritual of dressing America’s…

  • Hymn Stories: I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say

    Horatius Bonar was born in 1808 in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of a ruling elder in the Church of Scotland. After a relatively uneventful upbringing, Bonar entered into the ministry himself, becoming pastor of the North Parish in the rural town of Kelso. Not long after he entered the ministry there was a disruption in…

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    Weekend A La Carte (5/25)

    Forgive Us These Faults – Much has been said of late about “respectable sins,” to borrow Jerry Bridges’ phrase. Here Tim Keller looks to John Newton and describes a list of sins that we prefer to think are mere “foibles.” Texas Bible – This is kind of silly and kind of helpful. This Chrome extension…

  • Giveaways / Free Stuff Fridays Collection cover image

    Free Stuff Fridays

    This week’s Free Stuff Fridays is sponsored by Ligonier Ministries. Ligonier is giving away five great prizes today–prizes based around their newest teaching series. There will be one grand prize winner and four other winners. Here’s what they will win: Grand Prize Winner The grand prize winner will receive DVDs of each of these four…

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    Tim Bosma and Evil’s Smile

    We are regularly exposed to tragedy. Sometimes these are tragedies played out on a television screen thousands or tens of thousands of miles away and other times they are tragedies in our neighborhoods or our local churches. Strangely, some tragedies on the far side of the world make indelible impressions upon us while tragedies next…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (5/24)

    Censorious or Pastoral? – “In 1932 Martyn Lloyd-Jones spent the summer preaching in Toronto. One day he had lunch with T. T. Shields, a prominent pastor in town known for his public critique of theological liberalism. At one point Shields asked Lloyd-Jones if he read a certain author who shared that passion.” This led to…

  • Reading Classics Together Collection cover image

    Reading the Next Classic Together

    It was back in 2007 that I had an idea that genuinely changed my life. I wanted to read some of the classics of the Christian faith, but I knew that without some measure of accountability I would never have the self-discipline to make it happen. I realized that this accountability could come by reading…