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A La Carte (August 10)

friday

Yesterday my family made the long drive from Toronto to Louisville, and today we will get my son settled at Boyce College (which, of course, is at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary). We dread saying goodbye to him, but couldn’t be happier for the opportunity he has here. Take good care of him, Louisville!

(Yesterday on the blog: Sex on the Silver Screen: Reader Follow-up)

How the Shared Family Computer Protected us From our Worst Selves

This is a fascinating one. “Long before phone addiction panic gripped the masses and before screen time became a facet of our wellness and digital detoxes, there was one good and wise piece of technology that served our families. Maybe it was in the family room or in the kitchen. It could have been a Mac or PC. Chances are it had a totally mesmerizing screensaver. It was the shared family desktop.”

These Docile Foxes May Hold Some of the Genetic Keys to Domestication

For some reason I found this story rather interesting. It talks about foxes and the keys to understanding domestication.

A Bored Generation?

Derek Thomas: “Ours is the first generation of Christians that has seriously asked the question, how much time can I spend on entertaining myself? In all the reading I have done in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, I have never once come across this question in any serious fashion.”

We are Not In Eden

We all have the deep longing to be elsewhere. “I pride myself in my theology of this broken world and how it impacts everything. I disdain triumphalism. I always want a healthy dose of realism when we talk about anything that seems to imply that somehow we can get Eden or perfection or curse-free living now. I just forget all of that when bugs or unwelcome animals are in the picture.”

4 Reasons You Should Preach through 1 & 2 Chronicles

I have been enjoying this series from 9Marks. “When you preach through this book, you and your church should be more convinced of the clarity of Scripture as the author reminds the reader to turn from sin, put their hope in the promised Messiah, and to seek God with all their heart while waiting for God’s plan to unfold.”

Willow Creek Elders and Pastor Heather Larson Resign over Bill Hybels

Consider this a follow-up to the stories I shared in yesterday’s A La Carte. “Lead pastor Heather Larson announced that she was resigning immediately. The church’s elder board announced that its members would also step down in an orderly fashion by the end of 2018.”

The Roots of Samoans’ Rise to Football Greatness

“This is a sports story that began with a sugar plantation and a Mormon temple. As the Kahuku Sugar Plantation fired up its boilers in 1890 and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) built a temple in nearby La`ie in 1919, the area attracted an array of proletarian wayfarers, including Samoans, Tongans and Mormons from Utah’s Great Basin. Driven by different agendas, plantation managers, and Mormon elders saw sport as a way to shape those they recruited to work and worship. “

Flashback: He (and They) Must Not Be a Novice

Authority comes with humility and humility comes with time.

Authority comes with humility and humility comes with time. Facts come easy, but character comes hard.

To walk into the unknown with a God of unqualified power and unfailing goodness is safer than a known way.

—D.A. Carson

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    The Reward They Longed for They Received

    Jesus, who knew what was in the heart of men, warned of the hypocrisy of those whose prayer life is only ever public. “When you pray,” he said, “you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen…

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    Planted in the Word

    There are a lot of Bible study guides out there. However, the need is not nearly saturated because there are also a lot of Bible readers, many of whom study the Word carefully and repeatedly throughout their Christian lives. For that reason, we cannot have too many guides to assist in reading, understanding, and applying…

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