Welcome to 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.
Sales & Deals
Today’s Kindle deals include several volumes of the Gospel According to the OT series. You’ll also find Michael Kruger’s Bully Pulpit and some other noteworthy books. There’s a good list of general market titles too!
Logos users will want to be sure to grab this month’s free book, Piercing Heaven, which is pretty much a no-brainer if you ask me. Scroll down that page to find some more great prices. You’ll find more good pricing in the Monthly Sale (e.g., 30% off Piper books, 30% off Eerdmans commentaries).
Westminster Books has a great deal on my latest book—God’s Great Big Global Church. The prices get as low as 50% off, so be sure to check it out.
Recommended Reading
The Life God Didn’t Let You Live. Katie Laitkep focuses on a crucial but overlooked aspect of God’s providence. “Have you ever considered how many times God has prevented something from interrupting His purposes for your life because He was watching over you? The problem is, from our perspective, we often only see the interruptions and inconveniences, the delays but not God’s deliverance. This is one reason why we study Scripture—because it shows us that the God of the heavens has His hand over the whole story, even when His people can only see the part that’s in front of them.”
Millennials Tried Being Angry. It Didn’t Work. Samuel James considers the reality that some of pop culture’s recent smash hits are merely fun and uplifting rather than the calls for activism that have marked the past few years. “A decade after our phones and hashtags felt like a revolution in our pocket, many of us just feel alone. The world is not better, but we’re worse. Trying to make meaningful connection feels for many like trying to communicate with an alien. Right now, the stories we gravitate toward are not stories about overcoming the regime, but somehow finding one another.”
Creating Passive Parenting Wins. “Perhaps you’re familiar with the concept of passive income. Passive income produces financial benefits long after the work is complete. Two examples would be a book that sells years after its publication or a musician’s album that does the same.” I appreciate the comparison to some of the wins we may experience as parents.
AI, Ghostwriting, and the Ethics of Book Writing. Randy Alcorn draws an apt comparison between ghostwriters and AI. “For all the years I’ve been writing I’ve known ‘content creators’ who research and write on behalf of celebrities or pastors, without their names being recognized as the author. This is a moral problem for both the celebrity and the ghostwriter. If people put their own name to what they didn’t write, my belief is that it is simply lying.”
He’s Not Nice, but He Is Good. “I’m concerned that some of us are under the misapprehension that we would have just loved C.S. Lewis if only we, too, could have haunted the hallowed halls of Oxford while he and his cronies rolled around like a tweedy academic crew of roadmen. This is unfortunate, but I totally get it. I want to believe, too, that I could hang with Jack.” Zack Grafman explains that, while we may think we’d love to be friends with C.S. Lewis, he may not have turned out to be the best of friends.
John Stott’s Dream Church. Read about John Stott’s dream church, and you will probably realize that it comes pretty close to describing your dream church as well. “In 1974, on the 150th anniversary of the dedication of All Souls Church in London, John Stott shared his dream for the church, focusing on five elements of faithfulness that would be for the glory of God and the good of the world. Riffing on Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech directed to the injustices of American society, Stott painted an inspiring picture of the church at its best.”
Book Reviews
I not only love to review books, but I also love to read other people’s reviews of books. Here are a few I have come across recently:
- Rebecca McLaughlin has a thorough look at Freya India’s Girls®. “Gen-Z girls have grown up in the middle of a really bad emergency. Their only hope is Jesus. Girls® can help us understand what they’ve been through. But it’s down to those of us who know the Great Physician to reach out to these young women with his message of forgiveness, life, and love. If we do that, we might just be surprised by how plentiful the harvest is.”
- Writing for Modern Reformation, Arie Van Weelden reviews If You Will Diligently Listen by Michael W. Sciarra, a book about hearing God’s voice in Scripture. “The church today finds itself amidst a revived trend of advocating for hearing God speaking to his people apart from his word,” Van Weelden writes, and prescribes this book as a helpful corrective.
- Meanwhile, Zak Mellgren writes for parents when he reviews The Biggest Story Holy Bible for Kids. He includes one wise caution as well.
Flashback
On Caring for the Property of Others. We always do well to pray that God would reveal what we need to know to be perfectly conformed to the image of his Son, to pray that he would let us see ourselves through his eyes, to instruct us inwardly or outwardly.
Men are opposed to God in their sin, and God is opposed to men in His holiness.
—J.I. Packer
