We have come to the end of June and, with it, the end of the first half of 2026. Is it just me, or does time seem to pass faster as you get older? Because, wow, 2026 has gone by quickly so far!
Sales & Deals
Today’s Kindle deals include several volumes in P&R’s Great Thinkers series. And if those aren’t of tremendous interest, you’ll find more options beyond them.
Recommended Reading
The Quiet Crisis of Prayerless Orthodoxy. Alistair Chalmers is concerned about prayerless orthodoxy, and rightly so. “A church may have accurate doctrine on paper and yet lack spiritual vitality in practice. A pastor may preach true sermons and yet minister with little felt dependence on God. A Christian may win theological arguments and yet rarely cry, ‘Lord, help me.’ A seminary student may parse Greek verbs and yet struggle to pray with childlike trust. The issue is not whether we know truth. The issue is whether truth has brought us to our knees.”
You Were Not Born Gay. Kendall Lankford explains why the “born this way” slogan is so deadly. “It does not merely excuse sin. It closes the door to the very remedy Christ came to provide. The Gospel offers something infinitely better than affirmation. It offers redemption. It offers cleansing. It offers forgiveness. It offers transformation. It offers a new heart. It offers a new identity. It offers a new life.”
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God’s Gift to You Is Real Life. Simona Gorton tells why God’s gift to you is real life. “We’ve all had moments of standing at the sink and wondering why we’re washing yet another load of dishes. The spinning of the hamster wheel is almost palpable. Created as eternal souls in physical bodies, we carry within us a tension between the tangible life of clothing and sustenance and the unseen things that meet our deepest needs as humans. Generations of the church have often fallen off on one side or the other by elevating physical reality or denigrating it. But what if we reframed our vision to see God actually furthering His kingdom through the ordinary stuff of life?”
Why Old People Cry. This poignant article is written from a non-Christian perspective, but captures some of the Solomonic sorrow and futility of life. Roger Rosenblatt says, “Whatever happened to your life long ago, whatever carousel you were on, reminds you of yourself, who also happened long ago. So you’re tearing up for all that is gone, all that monumental past, vast and variegated. These days, I have so much past behind and within me, it’s as if it bubbles over.”
How Not to Be a Functional Atheist on Your Vacation. Zak Mellgren wants to help you gain the most from your vacation, and that means you’ll need to guard yourself against inadvertently behaving like a functional atheist. “The greatest joys you can experience on a vacation will be found by receiving gifts with an awareness of the Giver. I hope these little tips help you shepherd your own heart and the hearts of those in your family as you step outside your normal routine to create memories and find rest.”
The Sick Fruit of our Speech in an Age of Platforming. Meanwhile, Kyle Strobel is concerned about the sick fruit of our speech in this age of platforming. “I’ve been reflecting on this lately because of a trend I’ve seen for many years in Christian publishing and platforms: The folks who give vent to the boldness of their tongues are often seen as the most insightful and prophetic.” (This article is marked as being for paid subscribers, but as far as I can tell, you should be able to see the whole thing nonetheless.)
Extra
I like to write book reviews, but I also like to read them. Here are a few that you may enjoy:
- Writing for The Gospel Coalition, Andrew Spencer reviews Honoring Dependent Parents: Biblical Decision-Making for Adult Children, one of a spate of new books dealing with children’s responsibilities toward their parents. “Caring for needy parents is a way of serving Jesus and should be done in an attempt to push back the effects of sin while fulfilling God’s command to honor a parent who, by our world’s standards, may not seem worthy of honor.”
- Writing for Mere Orthodoxy, Daniel Williams evaluates J.D. Vance’s conversion memoir, Communion. “JD Vance’s new faith memoir, Communion, has been almost universally panned. Rarely has a bestselling author of any political stripe published a book that instantly generates so much negative press from both the left and the right.”
- Writing for his own blog, Justin Myko Agpangan shares his enthusiasm for Michael Reeves’ Preaching: A God-Centred Vision. “This book is short but gold. It has 92 readable pages, but don’t allow the brevity of the book to fool you into thinking that this book has nothing to offer.”
Flashback
Satan Can Stage a Quiet Revival Too. We should be no more encouraged to see people being “revived” into the Roman Catholic Church than into Mormonism or straight back into atheism. There are many roads to hell and more often than not they pass through churches, faiths, and creeds rather than bypassing them altogether.
We are more sure to arise out of our graves than out of our beds.
—Thomas Watson
