Skip to content ↓

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

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (July 14)

    A La Carte: Distorted doctrine destroys lives / Making sense of bad things / Be the Jonathan / A bridegroom of blood / Administrative sludge / Musical elements / Kindle deals / and more.

  • Prayer

    Spread Too Thin

    With so much to do, we can easily begin to wonder whether prayer is an appropriate use of scarce time. Wouldn’t it be better to give my attention to something that would let me cross something off my to-do list?

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    Weekend A La Carte (July 12)

    A La Carte: Where art thou Rob Bell? / The case against in vitro fertilization / Praying and weeping for those suffering in Texas / Greet each other with a holy hug / The example of Jimmy Swaggart / and more.

  • Thriving Marriage

    Thriving Marriage

    I have often wondered about the best time to write a book about marriage. When a couple is young, there is so much about marriage they have not yet experienced. They can still impart wisdom and teach lessons, of course, but there is so much of marriage that remains unknown to them. Yet when a…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (July 11)

    A La Carte: Falling out of repentance / Tattoos as confession / The Epstein List and secret sins / Teaching generosity / Lessons from a former youth pastor / Bedbugs in the bowels of the city.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (July 10)

    A La Carte: Questions for a maturing marriage / The lesbian seagulls that weren’t / But mommy, why? / A time to be tired / The modern rise of Stoicism / and more.