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A La Carte (March 22)

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Amazon is having a “Big Spring Sale.” There are tons of products on sale, of course, but my interest is always primarily in books. You’ll find Kindle devices with a moderate discount. And, as you filter for books, you can find a few interesting picks. As for Kindle deals, today you’ll find a key volume in Nick Needham’s outstanding church history series.

Meanwhile, Westminster Books has a sale on a new book by Melissa Kruger called Parenting with Hope.

Being Human on World Down Syndrome Day

This was a fitting reflection for yesterday’s World Down Syndrome Day. “I am concerned that amidst this standard discourse about Down Syndrome, so heavily determined by abortion-related policy, that other more generative lines of inquiry are often precluded. For example, we might ask, if people with Down Syndrome are just as human as you and I, how should we contemplate the mystery of what it means to be a human being?” (See also this video by the child of someone whose blog I often link to.)

Performative Offense

Samuel James considers Coldplay and Taylor Swift and their examples of performative offense. “We live in an era where the combination of authenticity and vice means that we are seeing some examples of performative offense. Performative offense is what happens when people indulge in vice less out of a sincere desire to indulge it, and more out of a desire to sell their image in the public square.”

The Introvert

“We live in a noisy world, do we not? Deafening, in fact. A chaotic culture with throngs of people highly uncomfortable with silence. It is considered prestigious to fill up one’s time indiscriminately, often to the neglect of one’s soul.”

The Church of England and Cost-Free Righteousness

Carl Trueman looks at a recent report from the Church of England and tells how it indicates their desire for a cost-free righteousness. “The irony of the report, of course, is that it criticizes Western imperialism, of which it sees missionaries as tools, and yet does so on the basis of the latest Western imperialist ideology: cultural relativism and the notion that claims to truth are really instrumental to power.”

Preachers, Aspire to Be Relentlessly Interesting

Trevin Wax encourages preachers to be relentlessly interesting (even if this means they need to preach a little shorter). “There’s no reason for solid, biblical preaching to bore people. Crafting a sermon well, with intention, and being passionate in your delivery so your tone reflects the seriousness of the substance, isn’t something new. This has been and remains a perennial concern of Christian exegetes.”

On Nostalgia

We can often look to the past as the good old days and conveniently set aside what was terrible back then. “But something is profoundly wrong with today. This is perhaps only ‘different wrong’ to the past but that doesn’t make it less wrong. The past was better in those respects that critics of modernity criticise even if not in lots of others. It’s not sepia-tinted to suggest so, and we should be able to do so in every age until the kingdom is fully unveiled. Which is to say let’s be wary of nostalgia, but let’s be wary of lazy critiques of it too.”

Flashback: On Being the Main Character in Your Own Sermon

I pray that Christ would be so present and so visible that people would fail to think of me at all.

Good advice may help us in daily direction; the Good News concerning Jesus Christ saves us from sin’s guilt and tyranny over our lives and the fear of death. It’s Good News because it does not depend on us.

—Michael Horton

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    A La Carte (November 5)

    A La Carte: Why women use pornography / I want God’s wrath on my enemy / Looking at photos with my mum / 10 things you should know about your conscience / I love being a pastor / and more.

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    This week the blog is sponsored by P&R Publishing. In the newest release by Leland Ryken, A Treasury of Nature, he joins great works of poetry, hymnody, prose, and art with accessible literary analysis. As Ryken says in the Introduction to his book: “The overall goal of this anthology is to enable nature to be…

  • Four Years After Our Hardest Day

    Four Years After Our Hardest Day

    Yesterday marked four years since Nick went to heaven. I find myself calling him “Nicky” more often now—a name I hadn’t used for him since he was a child. I wonder if it reflects that in some ways he is becoming dearer to my heart and younger to my mind. After all, I keep aging…

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    A La Carte (November 4)

    A La Carte: A reassured heart / Alistair Begg with biblical wisdom for voting / Unveiling the true nature of grumbling / Kevin DeYoung on double predestination / Kindle deals / and more.

  • Educated, Free, Wealthy, and Privileged

    We are an educated people with high standards of literacy. We are a free people who enjoy religious liberty. We are a wealthy people with unlimited access to a nearly infinite quantity of Bibles. We are a privileged people who may not realize how blessed we are.

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    Weekend A La Carte (November 2)

    A La Carte: Coldplay’s prayer in Melbourne / Zombies, Heath Lambert, and gatekeeping biblical counseling / Keep the Feast (a new song) / Stop playing the numbers game / Squandering security / and more.