Skip to content ↓

A La Carte (December 16)

monday

Today’s Kindle deals include, among other things, a long list of issues of Matthias Media’s excellent The Briefing magazine.

Logos users will probably want to check out the annual 12 Days of Logos and other Christmas deals.

(Yesterday on the blog: God Alone Can Save: A Prayer)

Every Pastor Needs a Lula Mae Pryor: A Eulogy

What a sweet eulogy! “Lula Mae was one of the few people I’ve known who never seemed like she wished she had a life other than the one she had. She spent decades as the staff person who cleaned the church. She loved it! That is not an embellished assertion. She actually loved it and felt honored to do it. For thirty-one years it was her ministry.”

He Made Them Male and Female

“Although the modern West has lost its boundaries and celebrates a plethora of so-called gender options, how should Christians understand and critique today’s concepts of gender in light of Scripture? We begin with understanding, and not conflating, four categories: sex, gender, norms, and callings.” Christopher Yuan is always worth reading.

Description: AccelerateBooks is hosting another giveaway. This time they’re giving away both the Puritan Paperbacks and Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ Romans set to one winner. It ends Jan. 1st, so don’t miss this!

You’re Not a Healthy Church Unless You Care About Titus 2

“If you don’t care about equipping women to teach other women you’re not a healthy church. Many recent conversations about women in the local church focus on matters of representation or the need for more prominent female voices in the church’s life. Those are important matters. But the main reason your church should care about women discipling women is because God cares about it: it’s in the Bible.”

Where Christmas Trees Come From

Where do all those Christmas trees come from? “Before the 1930s, Christmas trees typically were cut down on an individual’s property or out in the wild. Now, tree farms in all 50 states (yes, Hawaii too) are where most Christmas trees come from, accounting for 98 percent of live Christmas trees brought into homes.”

4 Reasons Christians Should Support Banning Pornography

Joe Carter: “While we may express concern about the nefarious effect of porn our actions reveal what we truly believe. Here are four reasons we Christians should once again seek to rid our country from the poison of pornography.”

1 Simple Step to Encouragement

“I was thinking of writing the next how to book for church. I know there is a useful little course out called six steps to encouragement, though the fact we need a course on this suggests to me that there is something wrong with our discipling and our church culture that we have to teach this and its not simply absorbed through the church culture, but I have a better idea. It’s much simpler, much more streamlined, but I’m not sure you can call it a course, or turn it into a course – it’s called one step to encouragement.”

Flashback: The Visionary Worrywart

Worriers live in the future, and they see that future in minute, gory detail. I cannot say it better than Welch: “Worriers are visionaries minus the optimism.”

I maintain that people—truly born-again, genuinely Christian people—often do not pray simply because they do not feel like it. And the reason they don’t feel like praying is that when they do pray, they tend to say the same old things about the same old things.

—Donald Whitney

  • Training Pastors to Care for Souls

    There are many ways to identify a man who may have what it takes to become a pastor. Unfortunately, too few churches focus on what matters most according to the Bible. This leads to many churches being pastored by unqualified men.

  • A La Carte (August 14)

    Little League games and big league idols / Selfies in the end times / AOC’s illogical case for egg freezing / When did the church begin? / Entrusting your college student to the Lord / 3 things stress reveals / Reviews / and more.

  • A La Carte (August 13)

    The Christian bubble / Your faith muscle needs exercise / Store treasure in clay / Interpersonal conflicts / Bivocational ministry / Your perspective on time / Nolan Ryan / and more.

  • To the Parents Driving Home with an Empty Seat

    To the Parents Driving Home with an Empty Seat

    It’s the season when many parents are making the long journey home, and doing so alone. On the journey there, they had a child in the seat behind them, a child who was making his or her way to college for the first time. But now, as they make the journey back, the seat behind…

  • A La Carte (August 12)

    Do I resent the life God gave me? / Starving in silence / The ruinous hatred of flattery / Beware the new thieves / Are world religions halfway to God? / When God’s plans seem inconsistent with his promises / Woman euthanised against her wishes / and more.

  • A La Carte (August 11)

    Strange OT laws / Pleasure in the (career) death of the woked / Honor thy boomer / Picking your successor? / Peace is better / Defend the doctrine of original sin / Biological war / and more.