Good morning. Grace and peace to you.
Sales & Deals
Today’s Kindle deals include several excellent biographies from Crossway. Each of them is good, but I’m partial to the one on R.C. Sproul. Note that these biographies are typically priced between $22 and $40.
In case you missed it on the weekend, Westminster Books is offering a deep discount on the new graphic novel adaptation of Pilgrim’s Progress.
Recommended Reading
Christianity Under the Progressive Gaze. Kyle Borg: “What interests me more than politics is the apparent cultural strength and growing respectability of progressive Christianity. In fact, a headline in The Guardian boldly declared: ‘A progressive understanding of Christianity won in the US elections.’ In a society where historic Christian convictions — and I don’t just mean Reformed confessionalism but basic creedal Christianity — is often treated with suspicion, if not hostility, some expressions of ‘Christianity’ seem to be enjoying a rather warm reception.”
Counterfeit Providence: Why Christians Must Reject the Conspiratorial Mind. Mitchell Bahnsen explores the conspiratorial mind and explains why it’s so important for Christians to reject it. “None of this requires Christians to become gullible or naive. Psalm 2 describes kings taking counsel together against the Lord, and the crucifixion itself was a conspiracy carried out jointly by religious and governmental authorities. True connivance does occur, and wisdom to discern the truth is necessary in a complex and fallen world. However, we must defend against a totalizing hermeneutic of suspicion, lest it become its own form of faith.”
Wise People Strive To Be Wiser. Justin Huffman discusses a principle that may be obvious, but is also important. “The wise person is always seeking to become wiser still. The truly spiritual person recognizes his or her constant need for spiritual growth.”
The Pro-Life Movement’s Midterm Reckoning. First Things allows everyone to access several free articles per month, and this one from Jonathon Van Maren is worth one of the quota. He considers how the battle against abortion is likely to look very different after the midterm elections. “‘It’s impossible to sugarcoat it,’ Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America wrote in a memo issued on November 3. The 2026 midterm election results ‘are a disaster for the unborn, for their mothers, and for the country as a whole. Democrats are on track to control two of the three pieces they need to legalize taxpayer-funded abortion on demand, up until birth, in all fifty states—something they promise to start pushing as soon as they take office in January.’”
How Evil Works. John Piper helpfully explains how evil works. “At the center of Satan’s purpose is to deceive on earth and to accuse in heaven. If he can deceive you about God and Christ, you will perish. If he can successfully accuse you of unforgiven sin in heaven, you will perish. And Jesus calls him ‘a murderer from the beginning’ (John 8:44). So, the deception and the accusation and the eternal death that results from unforgiven sin is a way of destroying people and opposing God.”
Preaching in Paragraphs. This may be helpful for preachers to read as they let last week’s sermon fade into the past and begin to think about the next one. “Every preacher knows the terror of a blank screen. It is Tuesday morning—or even worse, Saturday afternoon—and the preacher sits and stares at his laptop. He has opened a new document in his word processor, and now the cursor stands idling on the page, patiently blinking. And the words aren’t coming.”
Reader Recommendations
Once a week, I like to ask what you enjoy and recommend. What books, products, videos, sites, or other experiences do you recommend to others who read this blog/newsletter? Let me know, and I’ll share a collection on Saturday. (If you’re reading this via email, you’ll need to visit my site to fill out the form. Go here to read last week’s recommendations.)
Flashback
Fears and Fleeting Faith. Even while he was in the storm, he was above the storm. Even while he was caught up in it, he was controlling it. Even while it happened to him, it happened by and through him.
Let it be a settled principle with us in reading the Bible that when we cannot understand a passage or reconcile it with some other passage, the fault is not in the Book but in ourselves.
—J.C. Ryle
