Good morning. Thank you for reading A La Carte, where I help you break free from the algorithm by carefully curating news, articles, and information that is of interest to people just like you. I hope you enjoy today’s collection, and I hope you’ll think about adding some of your recommendations below.
Sales & Deals
Today’s Kindle deals include a pair of high-quality, reader-friendly commentaries from Richard Phillips. They are ideal for devotional reading or sermon preparation. You’ll also find other books like Don’t Follow Your Heart, The Opt-Out Family, and so on. On the general market side, there’s an especially strong collection today.
Recommended Reading
I Think I Ruined My Children. Vanessa Le formats this article in a really interesting way, alternating between two voices: Fear and faith. “Voice of Fear: I think I ruined my children today. I reacted in anger and impatience when I should have been calm. I suppose that milk on the floor and on the chair and on the underside of the table should be a given when you’re a mom, but I couldn’t handle it today. I acted like a little child myself as I yelled and threatened and cried and ran out of the room. I know my children were watching as I did all the things I am telling them not to do. I’m afraid they will follow my actions, not my words, and will grow up to be impatient and selfish.”
What Songs Do You Sing? I appreciate Tim Suffield’s call for new songs here, but more than that, new songs that are written on a local level. “The dominance of this small number of powerful church-come-recording-outfits is a challenge, as is the theology that is often imported uncontested by singing their songs; this latter challenge is compounded by the fact that algorithms now give us new worship music rather than it being curated at the conferences people learned the songs through. The challenge I’m most interested in is that I wonder if it’s meant less desire to write songs locally.”
The Kind of Praise You May Be Neglecting. Katie Laitkep is concerned that there may be a kind of praise you are neglecting, even though the Lord is deserving of it. “It’s good to celebrate the gifts in our lives because they’re all from God. It’s good to give thanks for what He’s done, to daily and seasonally list these things and let them be a reason our hearts praise the Lord. But there’s a deeper kind of praise we’re invited to participate in every single day, and if I’m honest, it’s one I’m not as good at. If you printed out every word I’ve thought, spoken, or written over the last six months, from January through June, I’m embarrassed to consider how often I was prompted to praise God because He gave me what I wanted in the moment—and how seldom I praised Him simply because He is worthy.”
Unraveling the IVF Confusion. Megan Almon does a good job unraveling some of the confusion surrounding IVF. “As a pro-life apologist, I fielded questions about in vitro fertilization (IVF) occasionally for years, most often in private conversations following a pro-life training event. Since 2024, however, I am openly asked about IVF at every pro-life event. The IVF ethical suitcase—biblical foundations, individual intents, procedures, and consequences—must be unpacked. The stakes are high, because when it comes to this technology, tiny image-bearers can be both the joyful products and the tragic victims, which leads us to the quintessential question: ‘Just because we can, should we?’”
Five Myths That Keep You From Reading the Institutes. It would be a shame if you skipped out on reading Calvin’s Institutes just because you believed myths about it. Anthony Faggiano dispels five of them in this article.
When Christians Get the Yips. Cody Watson borrows a helpful illustration from the world of sports. “In the Christian life, many of us know exactly what we are called to do. We may have done it a thousand times. Yet fear still creeps in. I’ve led people to Christ, preached hundreds of sermons, shared the gospel in thousands of conversations, read my Bible over and over, and spent years studying the Christian life. None of that has made me immune to fear.”
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.)
Flashback
The Wonder of the Human Face. We long and pray for the day when we will finally see the greatest of all wonders—the human face of our uncreated God, the eager face of the Savior who has been awaiting us, the smiling face of the Christ who has saved us.
I cannot think of why any thinking Christian would not want to study theology.
—D.A. Carson
