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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

  • Free Stuff Fridays (21Five)

    This week the blog is sponsored by 21Five, a new Canadian Christian bookstore. In recent years, many Christian bookstores across Canada have closed their physical and online doors. This is disappointing for believers, as many of the best products come from abroad and can be costly or complicated for Canadians to bring home. There are…

  • New and Notable Books

    New and Notable Christian Books for April 2024

    It is surprisingly difficult to find a list of Christian books that have been released in any given month—especially if you want that list to be filtered by books released through particular publishers. That’s one of the reasons why I close each month by coming up with my list of New and Notable books. I…

  • A La Carte Friday 2

    A La Carte (April 26)

    A La Carte: The parable of Kanye West / Biden’s new regulation reinforces transgender “orthodoxy” / 12 wonderful responsibilities God has given to women / Slow happiness / What I wish the church would understand about disability / Discerning true repentance from fake / Book and Kindle deals / and more.

  • A La Carte Thursday 1

    A La Carte (April 25)

    A La Carte: For everything there is a seasoning / Influencer culture is toxic for teenagers / The death of attention and loss of our ability to listen / Evangelism in ordinary life / On using wine in communion / And more.

  • Optimistic Denominationalism

    Optimistic Denominationalism

    It is one of the realities of the Christian faith that people love to criticize—the reality that there are a host of different denominations and a multitude of different expressions of Christian worship. We hear it from skeptics: If Christianity is true and if it really changes people, then why can’t you get along? We…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (April 24)

    A La Carte: Growing in hospitality / What happens when the governing authorities are the wrongdoers? / Transgender meds for kids? / 100 facets to the diamond of Christ / Spiritual mothers point us to Christ / and more.