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A La Carte (October 26)

friday

The streak of Kindle deals ran out today. We’ll hope for better things over the weekend and into next week.

(Yesterday on the blog: EPIC Ecuador: Not Just Any Dam)

Reagan’s Challenge to His Dying Atheist Father-In-Law

Isn’t this an interesting little bit of history… “From the letter it’s clear that Reagan has been doing some reading about God, sharing with his father-in-law arguments that probably came from C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity and Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict.”

Your Church is Not a Restaurant

Trevin Wax: “In a consumer-oriented society, the default orientation for church attenders is to see their local congregation as a dispenser of religious goods and services. I say ‘default’ not because it’s inevitable that everyone who goes to church perceives their congregation this way, but because without serious and sustained effort to have a more biblical approach people will naturally gravitate toward a view of the church that is influenced by a consumerist imagination.”

How Christians Pursue Unity on Social Media

This is an important one for today. “It seems to me that the rise of social media has pushed people from a place of freedom of speech to duty of opinion. In other words, we’ve moved from the privilege of enjoying freedom of speech to being compelled to give our opinion on every matter, sometimes several times a day. The sheer volume of opinions and re-sharing of opinions has led to pain and divisiveness.”

Want a Whole New Body? Ask This Flatworm How (Video)

“Planarians are tiny googly-eyed flatworms with an uncanny ability: They can regrow their entire bodies, even a new head. So how do they do it?” How strange.

Cape Town’s Slave Ship Secret

Here’s an interesting article about a new discovery. “The project set out to find the São José based on archival documents of the Dutch East India Company (which governed the Cape Colony until 1795) found in the Western Cape Archives and Records Service. These documents told the story of a Portuguese slave ship with 512 Mozambican slaves destined for Brazil that sank on 27 December 1794 in Camps Bay on the Cape Peninsula. Boshoff and his team started diving the area in search of the wreck, but found nothing.”

This gallery contains some amazing photos of God’s creation.

What Is the Apocrypha? (Video)

Dr. Robert Plummer tells about the Apocrypha in this new episode of Honest Answers.

Flashback: Things Christians Just Don’t Get To Do

As a Christian you do not get to have a pet sin, a peccadillo, a sin you refuse to confront through the power of the Holy Spirit. Every sin, no matter how small or precious it seems, is to be confronted and destroyed.

Jesus does what legalism can never do: he gives us a new heart and a new spirit.

—Tim Chester

  • weekend 3

    Weekend A La Carte (May 23)

    Work will always matter / The rise of techno-feudalism / The gospel according to Karl Marx / The challenge of Eastern Orthodoxy / My manifesto on AI and religion / Steve McQueen, born again, set free / Cornfield baptism / 5 things most people don’t know about writing books

  • Authority

    How Men Can Use Their Authority Well

    There are few topics that have proven trickier to navigate than the topic of authority. We know we need authority to function as families, churches, and nations, yet there is something deep within our sinful humanity that causes us to rebel against it wherever it exists. We both want it and despise it. 

  • fri 3

    A La Carte (May 22)

    The ancient world had no word for child abuse / What I wish I had learned in theological college / Pray to the Lord of the harvest / What God is healing while not healing my health problems / Are you willing to show up? / Artificial preaching / Sales and deals / and more.

  • thurs 3

    A La Carte (May 21)

    One step becomes a three-day walk / Tolkien, foolishness, and the ordinary means of grace / The staggering beauty and burden of church life / Denominational health / Three truths to combat your news anxiety / Don’t do the Devil’s work for him / and more.

  • The Most Neglected Element of Worship

    The Most Neglected Element of Worship

    There are some elements of public worship that receive a great deal of attention. These elements are taught, practiced, rehearsed, and perfected until they are as good as they can be. In most churches, this includes the music, of course, and often the preaching. Why do these receive so much attention?

  • wed 3

    A La Carte (May 20)

    The pastor who refuses to back down / The missionary with Ebola / Why we don’t trust pastors / Rushing our quiet times / The other side of seminary / The remedy, the problem, and the church / Why we need to interpret the Bible / Kindle deals / and more.