Westminster Books is offering a great deal on Paul Tripp’s Everyday Gospel, a 365-day devotional. The Everyday Gospel Bible (which integrates the text and devotionals) is also deeply discounted.
Today’s Kindle deals include Melissa Dougherty’s very recent book Happy Lies (which is well worth reading). Darby Strickland’s Is it Abuse? is an important work, as is Lou Priolo’s Pleasing People. There are many others besides these.
(Yesterday on the blog: The Times When You Are Most Vulnerable)
Seeing Yourself the Way Someone Else Does Is Not a Personality, It’s a Virtue
You may have seen the results of a new study that seems to show “younger Americans are losing the interest and possibly the capacity to see themselves the way other people see them.” Samuel James looks at it and shows how it exposes a much deeper problem and greater concern.
How Much Church Can I Miss to Serve?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone address what John Piper considers here: How much church can I miss for the sake of serving (in the church nursery, for example)? “Both are beautiful. Both are worthy. God is pleased with both. But they’re not the same. And doing one does not accomplish all that the other does.”
Gentleness Is a Force to Be Reckoned With
“What comes to mind when you think of gentleness? My guess is you tend to think more passivity than activity. To be gentle is to hold back, to restrain, to avoid conflict, to turn the other cheek…right? Those qualities do, indeed, capture some of what it means to be gentle but it’s not a wholistic picture of what gentleness is. Because when we look at gentleness in the Bible, it’s actually a powerful and active force for restorative good.” That’s an interesting way to think about it!
I Miss the Pews: Why Uncomfortable Togetherness Mattered
I enjoyed this celebration of the venerable church pew and lament for its loss, at least in the majority of churches. “I’m not necessarily advocating for a pew revival. I’m not demonizing comfy solo chairs. Pews won’t save us. Neither will longer, slightly awkward greeting times, physical hymnals rather than screens, or a more stripped-down worship band. But we should reflect on how these changes are symptomatic of a larger shift in our approach to church in an affluent consumer culture.”
Why Extraordinary Results in the Church Have Always Depended on Ordinary Means
This is a really solid article on the essential importance of the ordinary means of grace. “As we examined our assumptions more deeply, we discovered something even more troubling. Much of what we had labeled as “ministry” was, in truth, built on the belief that entertainment was more effective than evangelism. That innovation was more urgent than faithfulness. That novelty was more compelling than God’s ordinary means of grace.”
Teaching Children (And Adults) to Read Is God’s Work
I think you’ll enjoy reading this article, which both tells and shows how teaching people to read is God’s work.
Flashback: I Used To Dream Big Dreams
I don’t need to be concerned with what God has given others, nor be resentful of what he has kept from me, but to simply trust his wisdom in both the giving and the withholding.
Of all the doctrines of the Bible none is so offensive to human nature as the doctrine of God’s sovereignty.
—J.C. Ryle
