Good morning. Grace and peace to you.
I am giving away a $150 gift card to Westminster Books on Saturday, March 15. The winner will be randomly chosen from anyone who is subscribed to my newsletter by that day. All exiting subscribers are already included.
Today’s Kindle deals include some really good choices from Crossway, all of which are related to missions, whether that involves going or sending. Some of them are on sale for the first time.
Life in the Margins
Zak offers a helpful little reflection: just as the little bits of money that are left over at the end of the month can add up to a substantial amount, the same is true of time. “Sometimes in evangelical culture we can be tempted to think that the one shot we have to really connect with the Lord daily is in our ‘quiet time’ (or devotions or whatever you want to call it). That time is crucial, of course, but what we often fail to realize is that the little moments, the walk-by-the-way moments, add up.”
How Is It Fair for God to Send People Who Never Heard About Jesus to Hell? (Video)
Todd Friel has been visiting campuses to answer students’ toughest questions. He does a really good job with several of them in this video.
5 Reasons Christians Might Suffer and How to Respond to It
There may be many different reasons that God calls Christians to suffer in this life. Eric Ortlund outlines five of them in this article. “There is, of course, an aspect of pain that is undifferentiated—one hurts and suffers and must trust and keep going, and there is not always much more to say. But the Bible does show that suffering meets us in different forms, that we should respond to it in overlapping but sometimes distinct ways, and that God makes promises specific to each.”
The Birds and the Bees, Babies and Me
Karen Swallow Prior writes movingly about being involuntarily childless. “Being in the minority is, by its very nature, hard. Procreation reflects the natural order and is the pattern fulfilled by most creatures and most people. It is the way of the birds and the bees. But not me.” (You will probably need a free account at Christianity Today to read the article.)
What to Learn From the Decline of Young Earth Creationism
A recent study showed that very few people, and even very few evangelicals, hold to young-earth creationism. I don’t fully agree with everything Marc Sims says here, and I am certainly no theistic evolutionist, but I do think he raises some thought-provoking points. I’d say he is a bit too harsh on Ken Ham, as well. Still, there is much to glean from it, and especially thinking about how you come to your position. “I want to argue that the decline in young-earth creationism is a symptom of external cultural pressures (without), but also due to missteps on the part of young-earth advocates (within). If you are happy with the decline of the creationist perspective, the first point is for you. If you are galled by the ascendancy of Intelligent Design, the second point is for you.”
Canada’s Soaring Assisted Suicide Rates
Stephen McAlpine writes about the horrifying reality of Canada’s soaring rates for assisted suicide. “It would seem that the wider Western culture is starting to have reservations too about assisted suicide, and the almost gleeful rampage it is making across our societies. And not simply reservations about the number, but the speed at which this thing has ramped up, and also – alarmingly – the speed at which such deaths are carried out once they are signed off.” (See also Staring Death in the Eye by John Beeson)
Flashback: Showing Mercy in A Feeding Frenzy
…be merciful toward those who are suffering, merciful toward those whose souls are in peril, merciful toward reputations, merciful toward the weak, and merciful toward sinners.
What the destruction of the sun in the natural heavens would be to our physical earth, the destruction of Christianity would be to the moral world. The sun turned into darkness!
—De Witt Talmage
