Skip to content ↓

A La Carte (September 26)

tuesday

Good morning from Portugal, the final stop in this Worship Round the World journey. I am here for just a few days before heading home at last. (Thankfully, Aileen has been able to join me.)

There is quite an extensive list of Kindle deals today.

(Yesterday on the blog: When You Long to Know the “Why” Behind Your Sorrow)

What Smaller Churches Get Wrong When They Look at Bigger Churches

This is good—a list of things smaller churches can get wrong as they look at larger churches.

Ponytails, Buns, & The Blessing of Small Mercies

“Grief finds its way into even the smallest cracks. Having suffered through bangs and large rim glasses of the 90s, my late wife longed to protect our girls from the world of bowl haircuts. Always possessing an eye for artistic design, April delighted in doing the girls up like Elsa or Belle and in sending them off to school with some new braid that she had picked up from a You Tube tutorial. One needed to only look at my girls’ hair to know that they had a mom that loved them.”

Calvin’s Take on Venerating Relics

Many Protestants are surprised to learn that many Roman Catholics continue to venerate relics. Leonardo De Chirico explains here and tells what Calvin thought of the practice (though I expect you can guess).

What is Natural Law?

You have probably heard the terms “natural law” and “natural theology?” What are they all about? This article explains.

Is God More Wrathful in the Old Testament?

Is God more wrathful in the Old Testament than in the New? If you think that, you probably haven’t read your Bible very carefully.

Never Enough

“Jesus wasn’t joking when he said, ‘Sufficient for the day is its own trouble’ (Matt. 6:34). God’s promises are real and true and trustworthy. Believers stake their lives on them, but they can be hard to remember when the sapping drudgery of each wink of the clock streaks through our consciousness never to be recovered. Believers invest in a future that hovers just beyond our grasp, told over and over that contentment comes from accepting God’s graceful provision for today. But achieving that contentment is hard.”

Flashback: Learning to Be Rich

The temptation to rely on our wealth instead of on God is very real. The God-given response is for you and me: To do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share.

We are not called to be like the world, and the world does not need us to be like the world. We have something better to say because we have someone better to follow.

—Alistair Begg

  • A La Carte Thursday 1

    A La Carte (July 17)

    A La Carte: A misunderstood grief / Saying the same thing as God / Why go to church? / Leviticus and the right hand of fellowship / Piper’s four tests of false teaching / Kindle deals / and more.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (July 16)

    A La Carte: Reading the Bible correctly / Understanding the time / Living wisely in a digital world / We’ll never get tired / You need gospel friends / God’s goodness to you / and more.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (July 15)

    A La Carte: Sharing our struggles / The danger of inaction / “You don’t love your daughter” / A godly sense of humor / Three excuses for not reading your Bible / A closer look at Noah’s ark / and more.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (July 14)

    A La Carte: Distorted doctrine destroys lives / Making sense of bad things / Be the Jonathan / A bridegroom of blood / Administrative sludge / Musical elements / Kindle deals / and more.

  • Prayer

    Spread Too Thin

    With so much to do, we can easily begin to wonder whether prayer is an appropriate use of scarce time. Wouldn’t it be better to give my attention to something that would let me cross something off my to-do list?

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    Weekend A La Carte (July 12)

    A La Carte: Where art thou Rob Bell? / The case against in vitro fertilization / Praying and weeping for those suffering in Texas / Greet each other with a holy hug / The example of Jimmy Swaggart / and more.