Good morning. I apologize if you’ve had trouble accessing my site the past couple of days. It has been under a sustained bot attack and it seems to have exceeded my support team’s ability to handle it. I’m trying some other options and hope to have it resolved soon. I’ve had to keep today’s A La Carte simple because I’ve had only a few scattered moments where the site’s admin area has been accessible.
Sales & Deals
Today’s Kindle deals include books from New Growth Press and other publishers.
Yesterday I shared an article about Prime Day deals. You’ll find lots of good deals on Print books, Kindle books, commentaries, and so on. Pretty much all of those deals should still be valid today.
Recommended Reading
The Phoebe Hoax. Denny Burk: “Never has more been made of so little than what egalitarians make of Paul’s mention of Phoebe in Romans 16:1-2. This is no disrespect to Phoebe, who clearly was a faithful Christian woman from the environs of Corinth. But egalitarians have fabricated an entire mythology around this woman that is not justified by what Paul actually says about her.” He explains what the Bible actually says and what we can fairly extrapolate from it.
Where Should Complementarians Draw the Line? Speaking of that issue, Steve Lambert tries to consider where complementarians should draw the line. “What roles in church leadership are open to women? Every church in our day faces this perennial question and will, at some point, need to find an answer on which they are willing to stand. They will need to decide whether they take a traditional complementarian position—holding that the Bible reserves certain roles in church leadership for men—or an egalitarian position—holding that all roles in the church are open to women and men. Likewise, denominational bodies will also need to navigate disagreements between their constituent churches on this issue and decide where they stand.”
What to Do When They Walk Away. “I was talking with a man about faith. I don’t remember exactly how the conversation started, but somewhere in the middle of it I could see that he needed Jesus. So I did what seemed right in the moment—I held out a Bible and said, ‘You need this. You need Jesus.’ He took it from my hands, looked at it, and then he threw it violently to the ground.” This article considers what to do when people reject the truth we offer.
I Know God Is Good… but Is He Also Kind? Matt Collier recounts an especially tragic time and explains how and why he went searching for evidence of God’s kindness. “Like so many who encounter traumatic loss, I naturally responded with questions. I didn’t doubt the core goodness of God. My struggle related to God’s kindness: ‘Lord, I know you are good, but right now, it just doesn’t seem like you are kind.’ An anniversary trip. So quick and yet so agonizing. A young family. Lives derailed. It all just seemed so unnecessary, so cruel, so unkind.”
I Thought Healing Would Look Different. Kirsten Black: “Before I experienced loss, I assumed healing was much like that of a broken bone; the limb is injured and immobile for a season, full of pain and agony, but eventually it returns to its full function. What I realize now is that losing a child is more like an amputation than a broken bone. The limb is gone and one must learn to function altogether differently.”
Loaves, Fish, and Un-Self-Conscious Little Boys. Michael Kelley tells what all Christians can learn from un-self-conscious little boys.
Flashback
The Most Dangerous Thing a Christian Can Do. They didn’t mean to leave the church, but inadvertently allowed their lives and lifestyles to hinder their attendance. Church got displaced by other priorities until it became little more than an afterthought. They became unintentional deconstructionists.
God’s mercy to us is the cause of our mercy to others. Or, put another way, when we show mercy to others, we prove that we have indeed received mercy from God.
—Jonathan Landry Cruse
