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A La Carte (December 11)

A La Carte Collection cover image

Good morning. Grace and peace to you.

Today’s Kindle deals include a new selection from Crossway. I’ve also created a list of all the best commentary deals that are part of Eerdmans’ month-long sale.

I am aware that subscribers to the daily newsletter may be having trouble opening links if they are using Avast antivirus. I have reported this to the newsletter service and expect they will fix it soon. As a workaround, you can simply visit my site to access the links without security warnings.

(Yesterday on the blog: Welcome to a Whole New Site)

The Desecration of Man

You’ll want to make time for this long, powerful essay by Carl Trueman. “There can be no greater transgression than that against the sacred. In killing God, we grant ourselves the privilege of becoming gods ourselves. There is surely no greater exhilaration than in being God. And there is no more dramatic way of being God than in waging a holy war against the God-given nature of embodied human personhood.”

Help! I Don’t Like Evangelizing

Daniel Hames offers some help to those who don’t like evangelizing (and perhaps feel pretty guilty about it).

Why the HR Mindset Can’t Condemn Genocide

“In a recent congressional hearing, the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania were asked if calling for the genocide of Jews violated their university’s code of conduct.” You’ve probably heard by now how they replied. Why they replied this way is the subject of Joe Carter’s article.

The Lord Will Keep You From All Evil

The Bible says “The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.” But it doesn’t always feel that way, does it?

When Your Heart Goes Dark: How to Seize Hope in Suffering

Greg Morse looks to Lamentations to teach us how to seize hope in times of suffering and sorrow.

Walking in God’s Strength

Meanwhile, Doug considers the way God has been known to strengthen people in their weakness. “One of the struggles his health gives him is shortness of breath, yet it has never stopped him from preaching. Several times, he has been sitting in the pew waiting to preach, trying to catch his breath, but the minute he stepped into the pulpit, he had all the strength he needed.”

Flashback: When God Doesn’t Zap Away Our Sin

God does not zap away our sin, but gives us a new hatred for it and a new desire to do the hard work of battling it. He does not sovereignly remove it in a moment, but extends grace so we can battle it for a lifetime.

I lay this down as a rule without any exception, that those people who have the most faults themselves are most merciless in their watching of others.

—De Witt Talmage

  • Weekend A La Carte (November 7)

    The Hutterites’ guide to technology / Searching for jobs, Gen Z feels like it’s staring into ‘the void’ / The gospel according to Peter (Thiel) / Scientism and the allure of control / Can science explain sparkling rivers? / What led to Christianity Today’s crisis?

  • I Regret to Inform You That Heaven Tourism Is Back

    I Regret to Inform You That Heaven Tourism Is Back

    I regret to inform you, dear reader, that heaven tourism is back. The genre possibly never went away entirely, but it did at least disappear from the bestseller lists for several years. Sadly, it has returned in Gabe Poirot’s 18 Days in Heaven.

  • A La Carte (November 6)

    Don’t despise the red flags / Your thoughts are shaping your life / Can’t you just love everyone? / Selfies are not the self: forming embodied youth in a disembodied age / Effective altruists and the spreadsheet gospel / 4 Applications for the order of love—from the home to the ends of the earth /…

  • A La Carte (November 5)

    When you feel guilty about your giving / The missing piece in John Mark Comer’s quiet time / A manifesto for phone-free church / The pull of Rome / 4 Misconceptions about spiritual warfare / Slouching toward Narnia / Kindle deals, and more

  • A Daring Suggestion for Netflix

    A Daring Suggestion for Netflix

    Netflix appears to have fallen on hard times and I have some suggestions that I’d like to think would help it: cut the sex, nudity, and profanity, and gain back the viewers it’s long been alienating.

  • A La Carte (November 4)

    Can I love my enemies while addressing wrongs and protecting myself? / Is missions too costly for kids? / Don’t stock the pantry with temptation / Churches face a shortage of worship leaders / AI brought a mathematician to Ecclesiastes / Discerning between godly and worldly grief / Harvest in fearful times / and more.