A La Carte (July 23)

Sales & Deals

Today’s Kindle deals include a bunch of good options like Medders’ Humble Calvinism, Piper’s Living in the Light, Darling’s The Dignity Revolution, and more.

Westminster Books has a deal on new releases by their faculty members. They’ve also got a restock sale on Christopher Ash’s epic commentary on the Psalms.

Recommended Reading

My Infertility Didn’t End With a Pregnancy. Glenna Marshall writes movingly about infertility. “There have been times when, as a writer and a Bible teacher, I’ve been asked to meet with this young woman or to email that young woman to give some advice and hope to them regarding their infertility. The truth is, no woman wants to hear from me on this. She doesn’t want my advice. I am her worst nightmare. I am the one the doctors warned her she was unlikely to be. I never conceived. Not once in more than two decades. My infertility didn’t end in a pregnancy. It never ended at all.”

What Your Social Media Feed Is Teaching You About Love (And Why It Is Not the Whole Truth). Janice Singh covers the concerning trend of cutting off people who drain you or you otherwise deem troublesome. “I noticed a pattern recently. My social media feed was filled with advice targeted at women my age, and the messaging was remarkably consistent: Protect your peace. Walk away from draining people. Choose yourself. Cut off what no longer serves you.” On that note, the Wall Street Journal’s Are Therapists to Blame for the Rise of Adults Cutting Off Their Parents? addresses similar matters. ( Gift Link).

Missions Exists Because Worship Does. You may be familiar with John Piper’s line that missions exists because worship doesn’t. Alex Kocman turns it around to show that missions also exists because worship does. “When God’s people faithfully and fearfully worship the triune God in spirit and in truth, walking in obedience out of gratitude for his all-sufficient grace, the natural overflow is joy carried to the nations.”

Church Branding Isn’t Church Planting. “When we started church planting, we were taught to differentiate ourselves from other churches. Every church has the Great Commandment and the Great Commission—why does your church need to exist? We were taught to craft a vision statement to highlight the uniqueness of the church we were planting.” Writing for New Churches, Mason Ballard challenges this and does so convincingly.

For Such a Time as This: Faithful Where You Are. Mindy Kroesche: “Many of us who have walked with Jesus for a while know, at least intellectually, that God’s calling doesn’t necessarily mean something big and splashy. It doesn’t require becoming a missionary, working for a ministry, or writing books—or even blog posts—that point people to Jesus. Those are callings from God, for sure. But for most of us, God’s calling on our lives looks much different. Whether you’re a student, an employee, a parent, retired, or walking through suffering, God’s calling isn’t first about your title or your platform. It’s about faithfully representing Christ wherever He has placed you.”

Jesus and the “R-Word”. Cody Watson writes about the “r-word” and considers whether Christians should use it. “On one side is the ever-growing list of words and phrases that are considered politically incorrect and are labeled as either ignorant or, in the extreme, hate speech.” Yet “many have decided that if one side wants to regulate language, they will intentionally say whatever is most offensive.” Then he says, “Scripture offers a better way. It neither gives us an ever-growing list of forbidden words nor grants us a license to use language carelessly. It goes deeper. It confronts the heart from which our words flow.”

Headlines

Here are some headlines from Christian news outlets.

A New President for Moody. Moody is a major Christian organization, so it would be good to pray for its new President, Rick Melson. The Christian Post reports that “Rick Melson has been elected the new president of Moody Bible Institute, months after his predecessor announced plans to step down. In a press release provided to The Christian Post on Tuesday, MBI announced that Melson, current president of Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri, has been elected by Moody’s board of trustees.”

The Pro-Life Movement’s Widening Division. Christianity Today reports on a growing division within the pro-life movement—a division over whether mothers should be held responsible for abortions or only doctors. “Now that the majority of abortions are self-induced through abortion pills, can we really consider women victims rather than perpetrators of their crimes? And since courts have blocked other attempts to keep abortion pills out of pro-life states, is a law that threatens women with homicide charges the only way to bring abortion rates down, as some abortion abolitionists argue?” ( Gift Link)

Flashback

I Am Under the Unerring Care of God. Whatever circumstances we may encounter in life, whatever difficulties may befall us, whatever suffering we may have to pass through, we can have the highest confidence that none of it has come apart from the knowledge and the will of God.