Good morning. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you today.
Did you know I have a whole section of my site that includes book recommendations across a wide range of topics? You can access it here: Book Recommendations.
Sales & Deals
Today’s Kindle deals include a book on toxic self-love and books about well-known intellectuals, among others.
Recommended Reading
Peace Is Better. Melissa Edgington explains how she has come to see that peace is better than the alternative. “A fiery certainty lives inside most human beings when they’re 25 years old. 25 year olds are the ultimate in confidence that they know the best way to do things, the best way to think, and what is right and wrong. Most 50 year olds have realized that they know less than ever. We’ve seen 25 year old authors write books in which they lay out a philosophy of marriage or dating, only to hear that years later they renounced the whole idea. Many 50 year olds have learned enough to know that they aren’t good enough at marriage to give much advice about it, and if 50 year olds do give marriage advice, it’s generally tempered with a healthy dose of humility. Living a few extra years has a way of humbling us, and that’s a good thing.”
I Take No Pleasure in the (Career) Death of the Woked. Stephen McAlpine writes about the strange demise of Jason Arday’s career in academia. “I do worry about Arday now. It’s time to back off and give him breathing room. This is a man whose whole life has been exposed and held up for ridicule. Does he deserve to be a professor at Cambridge? Undoubtedly no. Does he deserve to be shredded publicly, hilariously and frequently day in and day out? Also undoubtedly no. As a Christian I believe that the level of exposure he experienced is a mere foretaste of the level of exposure we will all face before the Judge of all the earth one day. We should be sobered at the manner in which his life fell apart so quickly and his misdemeanours were revealed so readily. That will be all of us one day!”
Some of the Strangest Old Testament Laws and What They Mean. This is a helpful little roundup of some of the strangest Old Testament laws and a reasonable explanation for each. “Many readers view a number of laws in the Pentateuch as obscure, strange, and sometimes impossible to understand. Specialized vocabulary and ritualistic concepts make them difficult to translate for the ears of modern readers. However, we must take great care to read each law within its given context instead of ignoring or reading our own mindset into the text.”
Picking Your Successor? J.V. Fesko considers pastoral succession and gives his take on why it’s probably best if a pastor does not choose his successor. “I am not saying that if you participate in the selection of your successor that you’ve made a mistake. But I am saying that you should weigh and consider such things very carefully. Beware of the pitfalls, and if you’re motivated by personal concerns, then you should probably take a step back and trust Christ and let the church pick its next pastor on its own. Remember, it’s not your church, it’s Christ’s.”
Honor Thy Boomer. I appreciate what Samuel D. James says in this column at WORLD about the animosity between generations. “Christians have long understood the command to honor our father and mother as essential, and as a cornerstone of the moral law. Yet we also acknowledge what Scripture and nature both reveal: That the relationship between children and their parents changes with time. In other words, parents are entitled to lifelong honor from their children, but not lifelong power over the society.”
Defend the Doctrine of Original Sin Like It’s 1776. This is an interesting article that covers crucial doctrine and American history. “In the heady days of summer 1776, the Declaration of Independence, crafted and signed in Philadelphia, was publicly read in towns and villages across the American colonies. In Massachusetts, the governing authorities ordered that the Declaration be sent to ministers of every denomination and required every minister to read it to the congregants ‘as soon as divine Service is ended, in the afternoon, on the first Lord’s Day after they shall have received it.’”
Book Brief
Thankfully, Annie Jacobsen’s Biological War, a sequel of sorts to her Nuclear War, is not history, but unfortunately, it could be someday. She tells how many nations have developed biological weapons that are terrifying in their potential power to kill millions or even billions of people. She lays out a scenario in which one of these weapons could be unintentionally leaked, yet quickly spread across the world, bringing about mass death and unparalleled destruction. It is fictional, yet based on fact. It is not the cheeriest book you will ever read, but it is surprisingly gripping. (Amazon)
Flashback
The Great Stores of God’s Provision. As we look back on the race we ran, we will see that the God who planned our days, the God whose providence knew the end from the beginning, laid out his provision for us at exactly the points we most needed it, the points we would otherwise have been most likely to be disqualified.
Some preachers use the Bible as the way a drunk uses a lamppost—more for support than for illumination.
—David Helm
