Skip to content ↓

A La Carte (June 11)

tuesday

I didn’t find any new and interesting Kindle deals, so will try again tomorrow.

You may be interested in downloading the new issue of Reformed Perspective magazine.

(Yesterday on the blog: What Is a Family, Anyway?)

For Pastors Only (But You Can Eavesdrop)

“Can you think of the name of a fellow pastor you would secretly enjoy seeing fail in ministry? A person who, in your darkest, most deliciously evil moments, you would enjoy seeing exposed in tomorrow’s paper for having an affair, extorting money or reading their church had split apart? If you’re going to be honest, you can. We all can.” Yikes!

Going Halfline

It’s a point that I cannot stress enough, and it’s one that I think should be far more common, prevalent, and pressing than it is today. Silicon Valley is constantly in the process of manipulating your brain chemistry to suit its ends. Deliberately and directly. Tech companies spend untold millions of dollars engineering ways to alter your mind. The way online life changes the way you think is not an accident; it is the result of a very conscious and nefarious decision by powerful corporations to monetize the malleability of our psychological selves.”

Is God Equally Active in Salvation and Reprobation? (Video)

I’m glad it was Robert Godfrey who was asked this one, and not me!

There’s good advice here. “I’m always in favor of buying books, but we have to be careful what we read. This is not a diatribe against new books; rather, it’s a warning against bad books. The words we take in end up shaping our thoughts and habits. Let’s make sure that we are not being shaped by books that we will soon be forgotten.”

What Lay Elders Need to Know

Bradley Larson has counsel and encouragement for the lay elder in these four things he wishes he could have told himself before he became one.

A World Map or Literal Place Names

Here’s a map of the world with the names of the countries replaced by their literal translations.

Husbands, 8 Admonitions to Love Your Wife

William Boekestein: “When God says, ‘Husbands, love your wives,’ he speaks of the woman as a complex being. He calls every man to love his whole wife just as every man loves his whole self. This means that a husband must do all he can to understand his wife’s world. What follows are eight admonitions to love our wives with respect to their various facets.”

Flashback: How the Church Submits to Jesus Christ

The church submits obediently, willingly, confidently, actively, and completely. So must we all in any relationship in which God calls us to acknowledge authority and to arrange ourselves accordingly.

To desire revival… and at the same time to neglect (personal) prayer and devotion is to wish one way and walk another.

—A.W. Tozer

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (July 16)

    A La Carte: Reading the Bible correctly / Understanding the time / Living wisely in a digital world / We’ll never get tired / You need gospel friends / God’s goodness to you / and more.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (July 15)

    A La Carte: Sharing our struggles / The danger of inaction / “You don’t love your daughter” / A godly sense of humor / Three excuses for not reading your Bible / A closer look at Noah’s ark / and more.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (July 14)

    A La Carte: Distorted doctrine destroys lives / Making sense of bad things / Be the Jonathan / A bridegroom of blood / Administrative sludge / Musical elements / Kindle deals / and more.

  • Prayer

    Spread Too Thin

    With so much to do, we can easily begin to wonder whether prayer is an appropriate use of scarce time. Wouldn’t it be better to give my attention to something that would let me cross something off my to-do list?

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    Weekend A La Carte (July 12)

    A La Carte: Where art thou Rob Bell? / The case against in vitro fertilization / Praying and weeping for those suffering in Texas / Greet each other with a holy hug / The example of Jimmy Swaggart / and more.

  • Thriving Marriage

    Thriving Marriage

    I have often wondered about the best time to write a book about marriage. When a couple is young, there is so much about marriage they have not yet experienced. They can still impart wisdom and teach lessons, of course, but there is so much of marriage that remains unknown to them. Yet when a…