Good morning, my friends. The God of love and peace be with you today.
Sales & Deals
Today’s Kindle deals include Paul Tripp & Timothy Lane’s excellent Relationships: A Mess Worth Making, R.C. Sproul’s Growing in Holiness (which I don’t think I’ve seen on sale before), and Jonathan Landry Cruse’s What Happens When We Worship, among others.
If you’d like to celebrate Advent with Spurgeon, Westminster Books has a deal on a new devotional book that may be of interest to you. If that’s not quite right for you, there’s lots of other resources in the Advent Sale.
Recommended Reading
A New Serpent in the Garden of Africa. “Just as the serpent led Adam and Eve into idolatry by reinterpreting God’s good word, so prosperity and word-of-faith preachers are today proclaiming a false and idolatrous gospel. But unlike Adam, African preachers are refusing to stay mute. Recognizing the need for faithful interpretation of Scripture, they have drawn up a statement to help pastors stand against the idolatrous assumptions and teachings of the prosperity gospel and word-of-faith theology.” Dieudonné Tamfu writes from an African perspective and describes the importance of the recent Africa Statement on the Prosperity Gospel and Word of Faith Theology.
On Naming the Dead. Andrew Roycroft explains why it’s important that we not merely remember the dead, but name them. “The park bench copperplate, the trinkets and human ephemera that we treasure more than diamonds, the ongoing dedication of certain pieces of music truly matter, and keep back the dimming power of death for a time. Recently, in the wake of my friend’s death, I have been seeking to honour him by reading his favourite authors, enjoying afresh what I know he enjoyed and feeling a continued sense of fraternity and fellowship through these authors who meant so much to him.”
Why Your Favorite Worship Song’s Grammar Matters. Porter C. Taylor explains why grammar matters when it comes to worship songs, and why the Psalms model the kind of worship that serves us best. “What if the worship wars have been fighting the wrong battle? What if contemporary worship music supplies a necessary register too often missing from our musical praise before our Creator? The question we should ask of our worship songs is not simply whether they make accurate statements about God. We should also ask what they enable the gathered church to say and do before God.”
Nelson’s Complete Book of Bible Maps and Charts is out in a fourth edition, updated with new high-resolution photography to go with its full-color maps, timelines, and charts for every book of the Bible. (Sponsored)
3 Reasons You Should Not Date While Watching Porn. I don’t think I am the only one who has been asked this question many times over: Should I refrain from dating until I am free from porn? Jacob Valk answers in the affirmative and offers three good reasons.
Would You Forgive Me of My Narcissism? John Beeson explains why narcissism may not just be a problem that others have. “The most discussed personality disorder of our day is narcissism. A brief foray into Google Trends (always a fun rabbit hole to go down) shows that through the early 2000s, narcissism was searched about as often as some of the more well-known personality disorders. In 2015, that number began to rise and by 2022, it rocketed way above any other psychiatric disorder search. That aligns with my own experience as it is now a regular occurrence for me to hear a counselee accuse someone else of narcissism.”
Christianity Today and the Sin of Centrism. Nicholas McDonald read the news about Christianity Today‘s recent struggles and “the whole thing got me thinking about centrism in general, and why, by itself, trying to be ‘centrist’ falls short of what it means to do Christian ethics.”
Videos Worth Watching
Here are a few brief videos that caught my attention this week:
John Piper on Christian Nationalism. Speaking at a student Q&A, John Piper offers his take on Christian nationalism.
The Mission Field Is Outgrowing Us. Radical explains how the mission field is outgrowing us and what that means for Christians.
How Fast Food Got So Eye-Wateringly Expensive. This one has no spiritual value, but does answer a question many have been wondering!
Flashback
Keep a Close Watch on Yourself! The sin was so unnecessary, so avoidable. But it became possible, it became inevitable, when they failed to keep a close watch on their behavior, on their life, on themselves.
When your eyes are fixed on the horizon of eternity, it affects your vision for motherhood. We need to have eyes to see a view of God that is so big and so glorious that it transforms our perspective of motherhood.
—Gloria Furman
