For your morning amusement, here is a COVID Risk Chart that breaks it all down for you.
Today’s Kindle deals include at least a couple of books I’ve never seen on sale before. Also, several commentary series are on sale, though not at bargain basement prices. Still, you can get good discounts on volumes of the NICOT, NICNT, PCNT, and NIGTC.
(Yesterday on the blog: Respectable Sins of the Reformed World)
Praying Together — No Laughing Matter
Wes Bredenhof has a good one on husbands and wives (and those who will soon be husbands and wives) praying together. “There are three good reasons why a young couple should be praying together before marriage, and even before their engagement.”
We are Contributors, Not Consumers
“We are connoisseurs of religion. Like a wine critic who judges the balance, depth, complexity, and finish of a vintage, we swirl our experience of a church in our glass and judge its balance of ministries, the depth of its teaching, the complexity of its offerings, and how it makes us feel at its finish. We are consumers. Very well-trained consumers.”
How Coronavirus Is Ushering in a New Era of Concerts (Video)
The Wall Street Journal examines how the pandemic is ushering in a new era of concerts and online activities.
Thinking Theologically About Racial Tensions: The Image of God
Here’s the second part of Kevin DeYoung’s series about race and racial tensions. “There is not a white nature, black nature, Asian nature, or Hispanic nature. There is a human nature. Any notions to the contrary only reinforce the sort of racialized ideas we are trying to overcome. When we start with black or white instead of the image of God, we shut each other out of our shared humanity, conducting ourselves as if we can hardly speak to one another, learn from one another, or love one another across the racial divide.”
White Fragility Talks Down to Black People
While I was on vacation I read White Fragility, one of the bestselling books of the year. Having done so, I find myself agreeing with many of this reviewer’s concerns and critiques. “DiAngelo’s outlook rests upon a depiction of Black people as endlessly delicate poster children within this self-gratifying fantasy about how white America needs to think—or, better, stop thinking. Her answer to white fragility, in other words, entails an elaborate and pitilessly dehumanizing condescension toward Black people. The sad truth is that anyone falling under the sway of this blinkered, self-satisfied, punitive stunt of a primer has been taught, by a well-intentioned but tragically misguided pastor, how to be racist in a whole new way.”
10 Things You Should Know about Prayer
Here from Don Whitney are 10 things you should know about prayer. Sometimes it’s good to go back to the basics!
Can We Sin in Our Sleep?
I’ve known quite a few people who have struggled with guilt and shame over things they have dreamed. Should they have felt that way? Garrett Kell offers some wise counsel about dreams in this article at DG.
Flashback: A Sober Warning from the Earliest Christians
Where tolerance once called for respect despite disagreement, today it calls for far more. We are considered tolerant only when we advocate and celebrate new understandings of marriage, sexuality, and gender.
True unity, like all good gifts, is from above, bestowed rather than contrived, a blessing far more than an achievement.
—Derek Kidner
