Good morning, my friends. Thanks for reading today’s A La Carte. I’ll be back tomorrow with a weekend edition that features some longer content and think pieces, then on Sunday with Works & Wonders, which shares delightful bits and pieces that are just right for a Sunday morning.
Sales & Deals
Today’s Kindle deals include several books for parents and families. There’s also a bit of Piper, a bit of church history, and more besides all that.
Recommended Reading
Advice for Parents of New College Students. I think Matt Hall’s advice for parents of new college students is particularly helpful (and having taken three children to college, I feel like I’ve got some authority in the matter). “There’s plenty out there for all we’re supposed to do for the years, months, and weeks leading up to dropping them off to college. Yes, start that 529 savings account early. But my experience is that while a lot of parents are prepared for the lead up to ‘launch,’ few have given much thought to what happens after.”
Who Gets to Define a Woman? Katie Laitkep gets a bit of an assist from Mary Kassian as she considers a distinctly modern question: What is a woman, and who gets to define one? “While our culture is busy offering its answers (or avoiding the question), a generation of girls is listening. They’re learning what it means to be a woman in classrooms and locker rooms, in the books and the shows they stream, carrying competing voices everywhere they go. In a thousand subtle ways, they’re absorbing stories about where identity comes from, and they’re being fed lies that who they are is theirs to decide.”
Shepherd’s Notes Commentary Set. Understand the Bible like never before, book by book. Shepherd’s Notes commentaries include helpful insights and study tools for every book of the Bible in a concise and easy-to-understand format. Written with church members and those called to ministry in mind, this commentary series is an ideal resource for anyone who wants to teach the Bible to others. (Sponsored)
What to Do When Authors We Love Sin. Phil Gaudreau was tasked with tidying up his church’s library, and it led to an extended meditation on authors who discredit themselves through sin. “The whole episode made me wonder what would be in Jesus’ library, if He had one. … Perhaps the better question is this: when we build our libraries, whether personal or church, are we better off trying to protect ourselves from flawed voices, or giving ourselves space to recognize that God can even work through sinful and broken people, including some of the Biblical heroes we read about in Scriptures?”
Cause and Effect or Coincidence? Stephen Jones points out how secular scientists are rather inconsistent in assigning matters to cause and effect or coincidence. “We have a vastly inflated view of humanity’s power, and a vastly deflated view of God’s power. Human arrogance is at the heart of this, we seek the faintest traces of human fingerprints on the most minute of contributions to the vast changes that are sweeping this world’s environment, yet we blind ourselves to the many and evident signatures our God has scrolled across this world declaring his undisputed authorship.”
Gently Walk Her Home. This is a moving piece from Kristin Couch. “A godly marriage is a rare jewel forged from selfless love. An exquisite and sturdy gem formed in time as the wife graciously submits to her husband as unto the Lord—yes—but also as the husband loves his wife and leads her into Christlikeness, living with his bride in an understanding way, showing honor to her as the weaker vessel, that his prayers might not be hindered.”
Can My Silence Cost Souls? John Piper takes on a question that is really two questions. But essentially, he answers this: If we fail to share the gospel with others, will our silence cost souls? In the background, of course, is our knowledge that God has already predestined those who are his.
The Funnies
My friend Chris Martin maintains a Substack called The Funnies, and every Saturday he shares a few fun and silly things he found on the Internet—something I see as a modern equivalent to the comics pages that used to be in every newspaper. I asked him to share a couple with you.
Flashback
Glorifying God and Glorifying Mountains. It is fitting that we acknowledge the majesty of a great mountain and it is good that we profess the glory of our great God. We glorify him when we simply acknowledge who he is and what he has done.
We are spiritually impotent without the assistance of a merciful God. We may dislike giving our attention to God’s wrath and justice, but until we incline ourselves to these aspects of God’s nature, we will never appreciate what has been wrought for us by grace.
—R.C. Sproul
