The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you today.
Last week, I mentioned a gift card giveaway. The winner of that card has been notified. I plan to have another giveaway soon, so stay tuned.
Sales & Deals
Today’s Kindle deals include several volumes from P&R’s helpful series on the great thinkers. You’ll find some other options as well.
Recommended Reading
Don’t Draw the Wrong Lessons from the Latest Evangelical Scandal. I’m glad Casey McCall wrote this, as I was trying to formulate some similar thoughts, and now I don’t have to. “Maybe it’s best to resist this urge to weigh in confidently on theological causation. Perhaps not every occasion of public sin can be traced back causally to a doctrinal aberration. Maybe erroneous theological error does not lead inevitably to ministry-disqualifying sin. While I’m perfectly willing to admit that doctrinal error always results in negative consequences, I don’t think retroactively drawing lines of causation from theological aberration to scandal constitutes virtuous reasoning.”
The Blessing of Being Forgotten. There’s a story here that I want to be true since it’s so illustrative: A pastor who commissioned a statue of himself outside his church, but today no one can even remember who he was. “Now, I wasn’t there when the statue was commissioned, and I acknowledge my ignorance of the pastor’s motivation. However, it’s not hard to speculate what goes through a person’s heart and mind when they have a statue of themselves built. They want to be remembered. Or to put it another way, they are afraid of being forgotten.”
If Your Chatbot Offers Prayer, Shut It Down. I found this excerpt the most helpful part of this article: “The goal of writing a sermon is not merely to have a sermon. It is to become the kind of person who could write that sermon, the person who muddled through those texts and sought that insight and can offer an informed and well-considered answer to the tangential question some congregant will inevitably ask. It is to become the kind of person who—away from the pulpit, at a deathbed, or on the phone well past midnight—will know the right, kind, and faithful thing to say.”
Have Tongues Ceased? A Reformed Answer for Christians Leaving the Charismatic Movement. Anthony Faggiano writes for those who have come to Reformed theology from charismatic churches (or who are considering doing so) and helps them understand why Reformed Christians (mostly) believe the gift of tongues has ceased.
Consider the Small Town. Cities matter a great deal, of course, but Melissa expresses some of the joys of living in a small town. “There are so many God-given opportunities to truly be involved in people’s lives in a small town, and a lot of it happens in the bleachers at ballgames and during a chance meeting at the local grocery store. God is doing great things here, where the fields are almost ready for wheat harvest, and where the spiritual fields are also ripe. If our Savior’s life on this earth is any indication, the small and lowly places are some of the spots most likely to experience a special move of God.”
Thinking Christianly about Complex Topics. “One of the hazards of intellectual Christian discourse is to anoint ourselves as the amateur evaluators of ‘the Christian viewpoint’ on everything—science, economics, geopolitics, how governments ought to be run, aesthetics, agriculture and whatever other fields of human discourse arise.” Joel Arnold explains how to avoid the hazard.
The Lists
I found several articles yesterday that are written in the always-popular list format.
- 10 Reasons to Pray by Nathan Busenitz compiles some good reasons other Christians have offered.
- 10 Theses on Suffering by Paul Schlehlein provides a brief but well-rounded Christian perspective on suffering.
- 18 Thoughts on Christian Funerals by Stephen Kneale offers some thoughts on meaningful funerals.
Book Releases
New Christian books tend to be released on Tuesdays. Here are some that are available as of today.
- Strong in the Lord: A 30-Day Devotional on the Armor of God, edited by Winfree Brisley. “Rooted in the apostle Paul’s teaching from Ephesians 6:10–18, this 30-day devotional invites readers to discover lasting strength by putting on the armor of God.”
- Cradled: Christ’s Care for Postpartum Moms by Annie Vanderheiden. “Annie offers gospel hope to new moms in a disorienting season.”
- Psalms 1–72 (The Pillar Old Testament Commentary (POTC)) by Duane A. Garrett. This is the debut volume in the POTC, which will complement the excellent PNTC series. (Joshua will follow later in the year.)
Flashback
What Does a Discerning Person Do? The primary way a discerning person can serve the church is to be a student of the Word and to use his understanding of Scripture to distinguish between what is true and what is erroneous.
Moralism says to unbelievers, “Be what you are not.” Christianity says to believers, “Be what you are.”
—Alistair Begg
