Hello from China where I’m spending a couple of days while transiting to the Philippines. It struck me today: It took Hudson Taylor 165 days to get from England to Shanghai. It took me 14 hours. What a world!
Today’s Kindle deals mostly include the NIV Application Commentary set, which has all of its volumes marked down.
(Yesterday on the blog: Rejoice in the Wife of Your Youth (and Not-So-Youth))
Prayer and Comfort in Sachsenhausen
George van Popta: “This is the story of my paternal grandfather’s last year on earth. He was a man of unwavering faith despite suffering arrest, incarceration, indignity, illness, and death. He was active in the Dutch resistance movement against Nazism and encouraged fellow prisoners in the various jails and camps in which he was held. Here is the story of his resistance, arrest, incarceration, and death in the Nazi concentration camp Sachsenhausen.”
Marks of a Spirit-Filled Mother-in-Law
“Over time, a family with four sons develops a unique tone, a guy culture with a certain decibel level and a distinct way of doing life. As a mother of some now-married sons, it has been a joy to welcome other women into this circle — women who love my sons well and also have opened their hearts to me.”
10 Things You Should Know About the Ten Commandments
Kevin DeYoung provides a brief roundup of things you ought to know about the Ten Commandments.
Remembering Grant Osborne
I was sorry to hear of the recent death of Grant Osborne. “We were deeply saddened to learn of Grant Osborne’s passing on the morning of November 4. His faith and wisdom gave his scholarship a wonderful richness. We are thankful to have played a small part in his great legacy. Elliot Ritzema, who edited a number of his New Testament commentaries, shares his thoughts on Grant Osborne’s life and work.”
Sanctification in Motherhood
“Unlike hard and difficult jobs I’ve had before, motherhood is all consuming. It consumes energy, time, emotions, wisdom, and everything else. It’s a 24/7 job, without any breaks, holidays, or vacations. It challenges us in our weakest areas. It reveals our insufficiencies. It shows us just how much we don’t know and how incapable we really are. And, it seems to spotlight sin in our heart, magnifying it so that we see the depths of our sin in ways we’ve never noticed before.”
Why Sex is the Best Argument For Creation
This is a pretty good argument. “Sex is the perfect example of inconceivable irreducible complexity and design. But, according to evolutionary theory, all of it ultimately happened by chance. Sex just came to be through a series of random processes, over long periods of time, without any overarching purpose. Ok – so how did that happen?”
When Marriage Looks Different Than You Imagined
I enjoyed this reflection on marriage. “My husband has worked away for most of our marriage. By this I mean he is not home at night for supper, he can’t tuck our kids into bed, and I don’t get the opportunity to make his lunch. He is often living in a work camp or a hotel. A rough, conservative estimate would say that he and I have spent as many nights apart as we have together in our 9 years of marriage.”
Flashback: 3 Things To Consider Before That Next Big Sin
John Owen has a challenge for you. Before that next big sin you are pondering, he wants you to simply consider three things.
A man can have enough of the world to sink him, but he can never have enough to satisfy him.
—Thomas Brooks
