Good morning. Grace and peace to you.
Westminster Books is hosting a “New and Coming Soon” sale on books that may be of interest to you.
Today’s Kindle deals include a selection of interesting titles by Crossway and other publishers. The highlights are Andrew Wilson’s excellent God of All Things and the multiauthored The Love of God.
How to Get People to be Friends With Machines in Three Easy Steps
Samuel James considers Meta’s new AI friends. “Modern life has been building a plausibility structure for AI friends for a long time. What real difference is there between the virtual friend we cannot see and touch, and the human friend we are too busy/’me-time’/income-chasing to see and touch? How alien do AI friend bots really feel to most people? Not very much. And how could they?”
The Internet Perpetuates Our Spiritual Dementia
Nathan Finn: “Spiritual dementia is incompatible with Christian faithfulness. As both a church historian and a pastor, I’m increasingly convinced that life in the digital age compounds the potential for losing our theological and ethical memory.”
Comfort When We Least Expect It
Stephanie O’Donnell explains how God sometimes brings us comfort when we least expect it.
Return to Light
Here’s a lesson drawn from history. “Perhaps we should all light candles to remind ourselves what is possible when we are not vigilant, and what is the reality in too many places around the world today.”
Protect Joy in a Doom-and-Gloom News Cycle
“The fruit of the Spirit is the fundamental hallmark of a transformed life with Christ. But when we consume news haphazardly, we often spiral into distinctly joyless, impatient, ungentle, and not peaceful modes of doom and gloom. We can even justify our anger and anxiety in the name of being clear-eyed about our culture’s not-so-great trajectory.”
Do You See the Holy Spirit?
Sinclair Ferguson: “for all the repetition of the mantra that the Holy Spirit is no longer ‘the forgotten person of the Godhead,’ it is questionable whether we enjoy richer, more intimate communion with the Spirit himself. So, the lingering question (at least for me) remains this: Who is the Holy Spirit? How can I think what Spirit dwells within me?”
Flashback: As He Reaches Toward Us, We Reach Toward Him
While God genuinely pursues us, we must also pursue him. Even as he begins the relationship, we must foster it.
The body and the soul are such near neighbors that they often catch each other’s diseases.
—De Witt Talmage
