A La Carte (September 30)

Sales & Deals

Today’s Kindle deals include some great choices like Brian Hedges’ Watchfulness and Alistair Begg’s study of Ecclesiastes. I’ve also added some especially good books that have been on sale through September, but will go off sale at midnight.

Recommended Reading

Entering Middle Age: Six Things Worth Thinking About. Daniel Eng offers some guidance for middle age. “Somewhere in your late thirties, the future stops looking infinite. The questions you ask yourself change. It’s no longer, ‘What will I become?’ It turns into, ‘What do I do with the years I have left?’ The following isn’t advice from someone who has it all figured out. They are things that I’m thinking about as I follow Jesus in middle age. I’m offering it to fellow travelers on the same journey.”

Why Does Life Seem to Move Faster as We Get Older? Speaking of middle age, have you ever wondered why life seems to move faster as we get older? Brad Hambrick explains the phenomenon and offers counsel on slowing down and aging well.

12 Reasons to Go to Church on Rainy Sundays. We often encounter rainy days—sometimes literal and sometimes figurative—that give us the option to skip church. This brief article looks to history to offer a list of 12 reasons to go anyway.

Is It Worth Going to Church When I Can’t Even Be in the Service? In a way, this article harmonizes nicely with the previous one. “Should I even bother going to church when I’m not going to be in the service most of the time? In the disorienting, frustrating blur of fresh motherhood, this is a crucial question. First, your baby always needs to eat and/or nap during the service. Then, he becomes mobile and wants to practice walking rather than sitting in the pew. Next, he learns a word and wants to shout it repeatedly at top volume. This leads to months—or years, if you have multiple children—of wondering, Will I ever sit through a whole service again?”

The Americans Having the Most Sex. There have been lots of headlines in recent years about the decline in sex. Yet in this article at The Atlantic, Brad Wilcox and Grant Bailey explain that this is not universal. “In the popular imagination, religious faith and a thriving sex life don’t tend to go together. Movies, books, and TV shows depict religious couples as sexually inhibited or dysfunctional. For example, in Caro Claire Burke’s best-selling novel, Yesteryear—soon to be a movie starring Anne Hathaway—a Scripture-quoting tradwife puts up a good front for Instagram but is privately miserable with her husband, who not only is passive but also struggles to perform in the bedroom. But the data tell a different story.”

Steve Lawson’s Latest Book Is Too Soon. I appreciate what Mark Jones says here about Steve Lawson’s newly published book Mercy in the Wilderness: How I Fell & What I Found. “Perhaps there will come a time when Lawson has something important to teach the church through his experience based upon true repentance. But as a pastor, I worry that time has not yet come. And, in my own opinion, I’d prefer he stay silent and serve quietly in his local church by stacking chairs and helping the needy. If such a confession must be written, would it not be more powerful coming from a decade of quietly serving and reflecting? Or would he be forgotten by then and so lack an audience?”

Flashback

The Sins of the Elderly and the Sins of Youth. I was alarmed to see that a man can proceed so far in life and ministry and still grow careless, or entitled, or whatever combination of factors led first to desires, then to actions, and then to consequences.