Grace and peace to you, my friends.
Today’s Kindle deals include Voddie Baucham’s It’s Not Like Being Black, which has only been out for a few weeks. You’ll also find several books by Megan Hill such as Sighing on Sunday. On the general market side, The Only Plane in the Sky is probably the most interesting book on 9/11 you’ll ever read.
(Yesterday on the blog: I Used To Dream Big Dreams)
Keith Green, Bill Hybels, and the Loss of Steeples and Bells
This is the only article I’ve ever read that ties together Keith Green and Bill Hybels. “Green himself was an iconoclast. This is a man, after all, who gave tens of thousands of his albums away for free, and refused to charge for his concerts. He practiced what he preached. Yet let me note an irony about those two lines I just quoted. The iconoclastic rejection and removal of the former was often accompanied by the uncritical adoption of the latter. What do I mean by that?”
Did My Negligence Kill My Baby?
John Piper answers a difficult question from a heartbroken mother. “My expected delivery date passed, and I was told to go to the hospital for an induced labor. I delayed that decision, trusting that I would eventually deliver my baby girl without any forced labor needed. A week later, I was told my baby died in the womb.” She wonders whether her negligence killed her baby.
Yes, All Things, in Fact
This article from Kevin DeYoung seems like a good one to follow Piper’s. “As children of our Heavenly Father, divine providence is always for us and never against us. Joseph’s imprisonment seemed pointless, but it makes sense now. Slavery in Egypt makes sense now. Killing the Messiah makes sense now. Whatever difficulty or unknown you may be facing today, it will make sense someday–if not in this life, then certainly in the next.”
How Is God Our Father?
How is God our Father? This article answers. “The name is not a metaphor. Neither is it something we should conceptualize on the basis of what human fathers are like. It is the revealed name, given by God…”
We Can’t Be Friends
Men will benefit from reading (and heeding) this call to friendship.
Rethinking Nostalgic Postpartum Advice
Christine Chappell: “Nostalgic postpartum advice can be problematic when it elevates one mother’s sentimentality over another’s reality. The fact is that not every woman holding a newborn is relishing the situation she’s in. Her invisible pain may be shrouded by painted smiles; her sorrows may be exasperated by secret shame; she can appear to be flourishing while quietly withering in a chaotic or turbulent home.”
Flashback: What Does Prophecy Offer that Scripture Does Not?
What benefit is there in receiving a message that is a) vague, b) needing interpretation and c) potentially wrong when we have much better promises that we know are inerrant and infallible?
There is no such virtue as temperance in spiritual feasting.
—Jonathan Edwards
