A La Carte (July 27)

Good morning. Grace and peace to you. I trust you enjoyed worshipping the Lord with his people yesterday. What a blessing and privilege he gives us!

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Sales & Deals

Today’s Kindle deals include books that should be of interest to parents. They include Disciplines of a Godly Family, Parenting with Words of Grace, and Paul Tripp’s simply named Parenting.

Recommended Reading

A Liturgy With a Pause—for the Killing. George Sinclair, who serves a church that is part of the Anglican Network in Canada, writes about a tragic development within Anglicanism. “Picture this scene: A person is sitting in a room. A member of the clergy is with them, offering them communion, with the classic formulation: ‘The body of Christ (given for you). The blood of Christ (shed for you).’ Some other prayers are said. A few moments later, a nurse or doctor administers a lethal injection, killing the person. Is this a scene from some disturbing dystopian movie? Sadly, no—it is the disturbing reality of the state of the Anglican Church of Canada.

How to Reconcile Modern-day Morality with a Bloodthirsty Desire for Vengeance. I found this article really interesting. Stephen Jones explains how The Odyssey had to borrow some Christian morality in order to make it palatable to modern Western audiences. “The morality of the 8th Century BC, as it is reflected in Homer’s poem, is far from palatable to a modern-day western audience. Sure, a modern day movie hero can seek revenge, but he cannot behave in the way Odysseus does in the poem. Odysseus wreaks vengeance on a large number of characters who betrayed him during his decade-long absence, but he does not merely kill them, Odysseus savagely mutilates and tortures them to death. This treatment is equally poured out on men and women.”

The Odyssey? Speaking of The Odyssey, Nathan Eshelman writes the article I wish I had thought to write. “Everyone’s talking about how close to the original story is Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. A Black Helen of Troy! E. Page’s male character! Massive speculation under the name of artistic license. It’s all being discussed. Did you know there are less than 100 ancient manuscript fragments of Homer’s Odyssey in existence? There’s not one complete ancient copy of the text. Not one.”

Burning Bibles to the Glory of God. Jordan Gerard writes about a time when Bibles were burned and God received the glory. There’s a lesson to learn: “God is sovereign over all things, even the plans of those who set themselves against His purposes. Time and again throughout history, He has taken the very efforts meant to harm His cause and turned them into the means of its increase, heaping coals upon the heads of those who thought themselves victorious.”

“Christianity Is Not Credible.” Mark Talbot: “Suppose someone declares, ‘Christianity is not credible.’ What do they mean and how should we respond to that claim? They probably mean that Christianity isn’t worthy of belief. They know there are lots of Christians, but their point is that there shouldn’t be because Christianity isn’t worthy of belief. In claiming that Christianity isn’t worthy of belief, they usually mean that Christianity isn’t even worth considering as a way of life and belief. How should we Christians respond to this claim?”

It’s Hard to Grow Up. Melissa Edgington reflects on the difficulty of growing up. “Growing up is a cooperative work between God and us. He brings us to the phase or circumstance that will shape us in the ways we need to be shaped, and we hang on for dear life as He teaches us how to be more like Jesus. A few days, months, years later, we find that we’re comfortably resting in the mold when He presents a new one–a whole new shape, a new function, a new understanding, a deeper trust, a leap of faith, a more intimate relationship with the God of the Universe. He will mold us in this way until we die. It’s one of the most beautiful things about being a child of God: we never, ever stop growing up, because He never, ever quits making us more like Jesus.”

Your Recommendations

Once a week, I like to ask what you recommend. What books, products, videos, sites, or experiences do you recommend to others who read this blog/newsletter? Let me know, and I’ll share a collection on Saturday. (If you’re reading this via email, you’ll need to visit my site to fill out the form. Go here to read last week’s recommendations.)

Flashback

A Few Humble Suggestions for Reformed Worship Services. Today I want to offer a few humble suggestions to pastors or others involved in planning services that may serve to add an element of freshness to a service, but without adding elements that are desperate, distracting, or flat-out ridiculous.