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A La Carte (August 19)

thursday

Good morning. May the Lord bless and keep you throughout this day.

There’s a small but still good list of Kindle deals today.

(Yesterday on the blog: We Are Never Without Beauty)

Do You Know Where You’re At?

Sylvia Schroeder reflects on her father-in-law’s confusion. “‘I don’t know where we’re at,’ Phil’s dad used to say from the front seat of his handicapped van. In his later days my father-in-law, sweet and intelligent seemed to live in an anxious state of lost. He leaned far forward against the taut seatbelt, and peered with squinted eyes at the road ahead. The road he’d traveled many times had not changed. Then he turned toward his son, my husband at the wheel. ‘I have no idea where we’re at. Do you know where we’re at?’”

Where We Draw the Line

Alistair Begg: “For centuries in the West, and perhaps particularly in the United States, Christians have enjoyed being in the rooms where things happen. But now the wind of society is less at our backs and more in our faces. For the first time, perhaps, we need to learn how to live well in Babylon.”

Deepfakes and the Degradation of Truth

Jason Thacker looks at what I’m sure will soon prove to be an extremely important issue: deepfakes and the degradation of truth.

The Take Trap

Samuel James coins and explains a term: the take trap. “A take trap is a situation in which the perceived benefits of forming an opinion on something quickly and sharing that opinion outweigh both the learnedness of the opinion and even the heartfelt sense of the opinion’s importance.”

Unsatisfying Endings

“We’ve all experienced the disappointment—you come to the end of a good book, or you reach the conclusion of a great series, or you sit somewhat sorrowfully as the credits begin to roll. There is something inherently disappointing with endings. Okay, so there are occasions they are immensely satisfying—but more often than not that satisfaction does not last. When matters draw to a close, we are strangely left wanting. Why is that?”

A New and Quiet Type of Suffering

This article looks at transgenderism from an important perspective–the perspective of the parents.

Flashback: There Is No Better Life

God is glorified in your holiness, not in your sin. Do you grow in holiness so that God can be glorified? God is glorified in your selfless deeds, not your selfish ones. Do you love and serve others?

Before a sin, Satan tempts you to believe repentance will be easy. After a sin, Satan tempts you to believe repentance is impossible.

—Garrett Kell

  • It Begins and Ends with Speaking

    It Begins and Ends with Speaking

    Part of the joy of reading biography is having the opportunity to learn about a person who lived before us. An exceptional biography makes us feel as if we have actually come to know its subject, so that we rejoice in that person’s triumphs, grieve over his failures, and weep at his death.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    Weekend A La Carte (April 20)

    A La Carte: Living counterculturally during election season / Borrowing a death / The many ministries of godly women / When we lose loved ones and have regrets / Ethnicity and race and the colorblindness question / The case for children’s worship services / and more.

  • The Anxious Generation

    The Great Rewiring of Childhood

    I know I’m getting old and all that, and I’m aware this means that I’ll be tempted to look unfavorably at people who are younger than myself. I know I’ll be tempted to consider what people were like when I was young and to stand in judgment of what people are like today. Yet even…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (April 19)

    A La Carte: The gateway drug to post-Christian paganism / You and I probably would have been nazis / Be doers of my preference / God can work through anyone and everything / the Bible does not say God is trans / Kindle deals / and more.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (April 18)

    A La Carte: Good cop bad cop in the home / What was Paul’s thorn in the flesh? / The sacrifices of virtual church / A neglected discipleship tool / A NT passage that’s older than the NT / Quite … able to communicate / and more.

  • a One-Talent Christian

    It’s Okay To Be a Two-Talent Christian

    It is for good reason that we have both the concept and the word average. To be average is to be typical, to be—when measured against points of comparison—rather unremarkable. It’s a truism that most of us are, in most ways, average. The average one of us is of average ability, has average looks, will…