Good morning. Grace and peace to you.
Today’s Kindle deals include four really good books on the Psalms. My top pick is the first volume of Christopher Ash’s commentary (which yesterday was marked at $40 and is now much less). It has never been on sale before. You’ll also find Winfree Brisley’s study on Psalms along with Dane Ortlund’s devotional.
The Definition of Parenting
Paul Tripp says some deeply challenging things about parenting here. “If we forget who we are and what we need, it becomes easier to parent our children without mercy. But God uses the needs of our children to expose how needy we are as their parents, so that we would do all that we do toward them with sympathetic and understanding hearts. God is working on us through our children, so that he can work through us for our children.”
5 Ways to Care for Divorced People in Your Church
You almost certainly have some divorced people in your church, and the article offers specific guidance on caring for them. “Loss of any kind can be lonely and isolating, but divorce is particularly complex and messy. It’s a death with no closure. There are no meal trains, flowers, or encouraging cards. Instead, my grief kept company with anger, stress, and shame.”
What is Coram Deo?
Coram Deo is a Latin phrase meaning “before the face of God.” It is often associated with John Calvin and other Reformers who summoned the Christian to live all of life in God’s presence. The Coram Deo Pastors Conference was created to remind pastors of our great God, to recharge preachers to teach with clarity and conviction, and to reinvigorate the weary soul for a life of ministry faithfulness before the face of God. (Sponsored)
Sacred Bones? Why Roman Catholicism Needs Relics
Leonardo De Chirico explains why Roman Catholicism so often relies upon relics. “The blood of Saint Januarius in Naples. The tongue of Saint Anthony in Padua. The head of John the Baptist in Rome. The tail of the donkey ridden by Jesus in Genoa… Welcome to the imaginative world of Roman Catholic relics. Many Catholic churches hold relics of various kinds and origins that have been venerated for fifteen centuries.”
The Thing Under the Thing
While I don’t think this article addresses the presence of all sins, I do think it describes the presence of many of the sins in our lives. “Let me ask you something. Is there something you do that you hate? Or something you don’t do that you know you should? Is there a gap between who you wish you were and who you actually are? Maybe it’s anger. Anxiety. Porn. People-pleasing. Conflict avoidance. Procrastination. Emotional distance. Stoicism. Control.”
Pagan Shadows Over the Crescent Moon
Hopefully, the beginning of a new month means that you have access to your free WORLD articles. (Without subscribing, you get three per month.) This article by A.S. Ibrahim would be worth using for one of them. “Islam is a works-based religious system. Because everything depends on human effort and mandatory duties to earn Allah’s favor, Islamic rituals are non-negotiable—viewed as divinely ordained paths not to assured salvation, but to a hoped-for rescue from hellfire, with no guarantee of final destiny.”
Iran After the Ayatollah
I am not well-versed in geopolitics, so I went looking for some articles to help me understand the situation in Iran. This article from CT was helpful and should be available to everyone (though you may need a free account to read it). “Nearly all Americans will rejoice if the ayatollah’s regime falls—and rightly so. Almost any alternative government will be less oppressive. This government has retained complete power across nearly five decades through murder, torture, incarceration, corruption, and suppression of public conversation. The recent mass protests evince the regime’s unpopularity among Iranians too, not only for its tyranny but also due to a stagnant economy and adversarial relations with much of the world.” (I’m assuming Albert Mohler will cover it today as well in The Briefing.)
Flashback: When God Unfolds His Will in Pieces
We proceed through life with a page of directions that includes just the next step or two, not with a booklet of instructions that displays the completed whole.
The anxious Christian hurts more than himself; he hurts the faith of those who know him and the good name of his Lord who has promised to supply all his needs.
—Maltbie Davenport Babcock
