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A La Carte (July 27)

wednesday

The Lord be with you and bless you today.

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The Pilgrim’s Progress

Derek Thomas has written a brief guide to Pilgrim’s Progress. “Many, like C.H. Spurgeon, may boast of having read Pilgrim’s Progress many times, but what might a first-time reader expect?”

Consider Yourself Dead to Sin

“We have already given too much of our lives doing things godless people do. It is time we consider ourselves dead to sin (Romans 6:11).” Doug considers how and why.

Counting Down

“All the rumors are true: time speeds up. I still feel like I used to feel thirty years ago. I don’t know where the time went. I hang around people a generation below me and I think I’m the same age as them, although they never make the same mistake with me.”

20 Jazz Masterpieces You Should Hear

If you’re new to jazz (or still trying to appreciate it, as I am) you may benefit from this introduction by William Edgar.

What Questions Do You Have about Your Faith?

Lauren Whitman considers the kinds of questions we may have about our faith.

Even the Darkness

Meredith Beatty: “It doesn’t matter how you find your way into darkness. You may be suffering with chronic pain. You may have succumbed to the same sin over and over and now realize you’ve backed yourself into a dark corner with no conceivable way out. You may just be under a heavy cloud of despair, unsure where it’s come from. Whatever it is, wherever it’s come from, you can take courage that God sees your situation from a different perspective.”

Flashback: A Few Humble Suggestions for Reformed Worship Services

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.

The world has always measured greatness by the standard a person receives, not by what he gives. But Jesus radically reverses our fallen logic.

—Matt Smethurst

  • AI Systematic Theology

    AI Is Coming For Your Systematic Theology

    AI-generated fake theology books are flooding Amazon with fabricated authors and questionable doctrine. Let me explain the threat and tell you how to distinguish the real from the fake.

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    A La Carte (April 27)

    Collective awe / Sabbath, Lord’s Day, My Day / 11 blessings of growing older / Ordinary growth / It might be good that your church isn’t growing / Searching for a sign / Stupid human tricks / and more.

  • Works & Wonders

    Works & Wonders (April 26)

    Uplifting bits and pieces for Sunday: Growing luminous / A $1,200 pen / 250 years of Americana / A house in a church / Reclaimed by nature / Chip wagons / and more.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    Weekend A La Carte (April 25)

    This weekend’s A La Carte covers Thomas Kinkade’s hidden legacy, Gen Z and real experiences, John Mark Comer in The Atlantic, Carl Trueman on the trans war, eugenics and AI, LLM sycophancy, and more.

  • Shooting Up

    Shooting Up

    Jonathan Tepper grew up watching his missionary parents transform the lives of heroin addicts in Madrid. Though he has wandered from the faith, his memoir may be the most Christian book you read this year.