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A La Carte (December 2)

As you’d expect for Cyber Monday, there are lots of Kindle deals available today.

Because I’m in Africa and have spotty internet plus an intense schedule, I’ve not been able to put the time into gathering other Cyber Monday deals. I’ll just refer you to the Black Friday page and suggest that most who had deals on Friday will also have deals on Monday.

Is God Going to Wipe Out the Ocean?

Revelation 21:1 seems to indicate that God will one day eliminate the ocean. This article discusses whether or not this is a correct interpretation of the text.

Is It OK to Confess That Jesus Descended into Hell?

“If your church has ever recited the Apostles’ Creed, you’re probably familiar with that awkward feeling you get when you come to the part that says ‘he descended into hell.’ Numerous questions come to mind.”

Is Surrogacy Just Like Adoption (Video)

There are key differences. “The surrogacy process is complex and confusing. The ideas around surrogacy vs adoption have become a hot issue recently. While there are many surrogacy pros and cons, surrogacy should be explored based on the impact it has on children and not just the benefits to the parents. If someone said to you that surrogacy is like adoption, how would you respond? This video explores the problems with surrogacy and reviews why surrogacy is different from adoption.”

Bring your church family together with quick and easy communication between Sundays. Church Social gives members a secure place online to view a member directory and get organized with a calendar, schedules, and more. Administrators can also track membership records, create reports and share information.

Everyday Christmas

“So another Christmas season is upon us. The Christmas machine seemed to crank up earlier than ever this year – Christmas decorations, movies, trees and ads started bombarding us before the leaves even changed color. It’s all so … much. If you sense some weariness in those words, you’re right. The Christmas industry gets bigger and broader with every passing year, and every year it becomes harder and harder to focus on what the Advent (or ‘coming’) of Jesus really means.”

Sehnsucht

You’ll enjoy reading this one.

Humility, Not Hubris, Leads to Greatness

“When many Christians go to work, they enter an arena of constant striving—for more pay, more power, more Twitter followers. Now that I work in a corporate bureaucracy, this striving is systematized.”

A Day of Stress or a Day of Rest?

“Until a couple of years ago, the terms ‘Sabbath’ and ‘Lord’s Day’ stressed me out. I would either hear them used to make me feel bad about eating lunch at a restaurant on Sundays, supposedly against the instruction of the Puritans who I loved, or used to denounce the legalistic Sabbatarianism of the Puritans. The former was from Reformed acquaintances I didn’t know very well and felt shunned by, the inheritors of Puritan theology. The latter came from Baptist friends who I trusted but now felt pressured by to criticize the Puritans on something I hadn’t studied yet.”

Flashback: The Counter-Cultural Vocation of Homemaking

Even while she has always been personally confident of her choice, she has faced outside criticism. She has felt out-of-place. She has felt judged. But I, her husband, and we, her children, honor and love her.

Christ’s body is not a stage for my performance.

—Michael Horton

  • Talent

    Great Gifts but Little Faithfulness

    God does not distribute his gifts equally among all his children. Rather, to some he gives much and to others he gives little. Some are given great opportunities while others are given minimal opportunities, and some are given massive wealth while others are given paltry wealth or even straight-out poverty. Some have towering intellects while…

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    A La Carte (October 14)

    A La Carte: Yesterday and today and forevermore / Elisabeth Elliot, the valiant / Deconstructing one’s faith / Is theology really that important / I talk with Paul Tripp / Kindle and commentary deals / and more.

  • Meditation

    Coming Away Cold

    We live at a time in which we are constantly inundated with information. We live much of our lives within the glow of digital devices that are constantly beeping, buzzing, and flashing to tell us there is new information available to be had—text messages, emails, tweets, headlines.

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    Weekend A La Carte (October 12)

    A La Carte: When the trees fall / No little people, no little places / Empty nesting / Revisionist history / I asked the Lord that I might grow / and more.

  • Free Stuff Fridays (MBTS)

    This week’s Free Stuff Fridays is sponsored by Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. For the Church Institute is a free online platform from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary designed to provide free and accessible theological training to equip, encourage, and edify local churches. Courses may be taken as a self-paced individual or as a group within your…

  • Daily Doctrine

    A Daily Diet of Doctrine

    A while back I realized I needed to brush up on some of these and began to organize a system of spaced repetition—a way to encounter these doctrines on a regular basis, thus reinforcing them and keeping them fresh in my mind. And it was right then…