Reminder: I am giving away a $150 gift card for Westminster Books at the end of this week. It will be given at random to someone who subscribes to my newsletter.
Today’s Kindle deals include Dave Harvey’s The Clay Pot Conspiracy, which is discounted for the first time. You’ll also find Jim Newheiser’s book about the need for boundaries and The Christian Counselor’s Medical Desk Reference.
Logos users, we’re down to the final choices and deepest discounts for March Matchups. There is still time to have your say when it comes to the winner.
The Last Reformed Blogger
If I’m honest, it feels a bit awkward to share this, but it seemed right to do so nevertheless. The Gospel Coalition asked if they could write a longform profile of me, focusing on the early days of the New Calvinism. You can read it at the link.
The Forgotten Spiritual Discipline: Introspection
“Mike McKinley encourages pastors and all Christians to remember the spiritual discipline of introspection, since even those closest to us cannot see the condition of our heart. McKinley highlights three aspects of the Puritan approach to introspection: first, it must be guided by Scripture; second, it should look for graces as well as sins; and third, it should be an integral aspect of preaching God’s Word.”
How Hollywood Ruined Men for Dating
Guest writing for Aaron Renn, Joseph Holmes explains how modern Hollywood movies ruined dating for men—or at least contributed to the difficulty of it. “If men are cowards today about dating, I think we overlook one major reason why: Hollywood. As a male culture critic, I can attest to the fact that Hollywood has consistently lied to men about romance. And when those lies fall apart, it leads to disillusionment and confusion. Part of fixing dating is understanding how men got lied to and telling a better story to those men.”
Just One Childhood
Melissa reminds parents that their children will have just one childhood and that it falls to them to value that fact. “In the middle of the mess of life, we are stewarding human beings’ childhoods, and that matters so much more than we sometimes remember when we’re tired and feeling cranky and wishing for this or that. God has called us to something holy here, in our kids’ littleness.”
Uncertain Terms: A Guide to Modern Roman Catholic Missions
Writing from Rome, Reid Karr explains how the Roman Catholic Church views missions and why Evangelicals need to continue to reach out to their Catholic neighbors. “Evangelicals share an almost identical vocabulary with Roman Catholics and so the temptation is to assume that those words carry with them the same, or similar enough, theological meaning. Evangelicals must put in the work to understand what is meant by certain terms, such as sin, salvation, Christ, cross, and mission. The words may be the same, but the theological meaning that undergirds them are vastly different, and lead to very different gospels.”
Not That Neighbor
I enjoyed Sandra Jantzi’s account of the way the Lord called her to love her neighbors—neighbors who were especially difficult to love, yet also especially needful of it.
Flashback: Never Read a Bible Verse (and Never Listen To a Sermon Clip)
If we want to properly understand any given verse of the Bible, we need to set it within its wider context. After all, words spoken to a single prophet in ancient Israel have a very different context than words spoken to an entire congregation in New Testament Rome.
No man ever perished and went to hell from the foot of the cross. If you can do nothing else, lie down at the foot of the cross.
—J.C. Ryle
