It’s that slow, unusual week between Christmas and New Year—a week I tend to keep things simple. So it’s likely to be pretty much just A La Carte articles this week…
The Dangerous Love of Ease
Greg Morse: “As Christians living in the West, one temptation we face (often being unaware that we face it) is the temptation to become comfortable, cozy, content, altogether uninterested in anything that might threaten the repose we’ve constructed for ourselves. We live as Bilbo Baggins in the Shire of church history, largely tucked away from its many dangers and discomforts.”
Jonathan Edwards & Smallpox
“As the world weathers the coronavirus and eagerly awaits the development of a vaccine, Christians have a unique opportunity to demonstrate unwavering faith to an upheaved world. Although it may seem like we live in unprecedented times, we may be encouraged to look back through the pages of the church history and know that we are not the first to face such circumstances. Jonathan Edwards’s tragic death provides a timely opportunity to reflect on what it means to live and die faithfully in these troubling times.”
Top 10 YouTubes of 2020
On the fun side, Denny Burk has rounded up his top 10 YouTubes of the year.
We Are Literally Broken By Our Hyperbole
This is a UK-centric article, but the point is international and important—hyperbole can be harmful to unity.
Physics and Free Will
“Determinism is an unavoidable conclusion if you start with the assumption that the world is only a place of natural causes and processes. However, if you start with the evidence, it’s another matter altogether.”
How to Speak the Truth in Love
“When I counsel someone to speak the truth in love, what exactly am I calling them to do?” Susan Heck explains.
Flashback: The Half-Trained Dog
We train ourselves for a while, but then grow weary when those last vestiges of the sin refuse to die, or when we realize that sin has much deeper and stronger roots than we had expected, or when we realize that we actually kind of like our sin. We end up half-trained, good enough Christians.
You cannot imagine what a great deal of good it will do to resist the very next temptation.
—Jeremiah Burroughs
