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Sunday A La Carte (April 22)

This was another of those weeks where I dug up so many interesting articles and videos that I’ve decided to collect the overflow into a special Sunday edition of A La Carte. I hope you enjoy it!

Portraits of African American Ex-Slaves in the Late 1930s

This is quite a photo gallery. “These portraits of African American men and women from locations in Texas were taken in the late 1930s as part of the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) of the Work Progress Administration (WPA). They are part of a group of 500, together with more than 2,000 first-person accounts of the experience of being a slave. People from Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island are also represented.”

More than Many Sparrows

“It’s a question the Lord has put to me throughout all of my adult life. If there are no children in your future, am I enough for you? If your life never looks successful, am I enough for you? If you always struggle to pay your bills, am I enough for you? If you lose your child, am I enough for you? If you are never healed from physical pain, am I enough for you?”

Does the Bible Forbid Same-Sex Sexual Activity?

The Word Matters podcast is an excellent resource for better understanding tricky Bible passages. In this episode the hosts are joined by Tom Schreiner to discuss Romans 1 and whether or not the Bible forbids all same-sex sexual activity.

Paul Young’s “Lies We Believe About God” Dismantles Precious Truths from Scripture

Randy Alcorn prepared a thorough review of Paul Young’s book Lies We Believe About God. Young is, of course, also the author of The Shack. “Given the book’s popularity, and the subsequent release of the movie by the same title, I’m disappointed and concerned that the countless people influenced by The Shack and many of its more implicit errors will be led into increasingly significant explicit errors by reading Lies We Believe About God.”

Don’t Waste Your Talent

Are you wasting your talent? “God gives us talent so that we can use it to bring glory to His name. There are a million different ways that this can be accomplished, but none of those ways will work if you neglect your talent. If you become lazy or apathetic about the abilities that God has gifted you with, then your talent, meant for His glory, is going to waste”

California Progressives Launch (Another) Attack on Free Speech

David French warns about legislation making its way to law in California. “Assembly Bill 2943 would make it an “unlawful business practice” to engage in ‘a transaction intended to result or that results in the sale or lease of goods or services to any consumer’ that advertise, offer to engage in, or do engage in ‘sexual orientation change efforts with an individual’.”

The Airplane Saddle Is A Standing Seat For Super-Economy Flights

Just when you thought air travel couldn’t get much worse…

Flashback: A Cost To All This Preaching

“I am one of those New Calvinists, I guess, which means I am part of a crowd that values preaching, and expository preaching in particular. Of course I was an Old Calvinist before I was a New one and was raised in a tradition that valued preaching just as highly. For my whole life I’ve been around preachers and preaching…”


  • The Phrase that Altered My Thinking Forever

    This week the blog is sponsored by P&R Publishing and is written by Ralph Cunnington. Years ago, I stumbled repeatedly on an ancient phrase that altered my thinking forever.  Distinct yet inseparable. The first time I encountered this phrase was while studying the Council of Chalcedon’s description of the two natures of Christ. Soon after,…

  • Always Look for the Light

    Always Look for the Light

    For many years there was a little potted plant on our kitchen window sill, though I’ve long since forgotten the variety. Year after year that plant would put out a shoot and from the shoot would emerge a single flower. And I observed that no matter how I turned the pot, the flower would respond.…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (March 18)

    A La Carte: God is good and does good—even in our pain / Dear bride and groom / Sin won’t comfort you / Worthy of the gospel / From self-sufficiency to trusting God’s people / The gods fight for our devotion / and more.

  • Confidence

    God Takes Us Into His Confidence

    Here is another Sunday devotional—a brief thought to orient your heart toward the Lord. God takes the initiative in establishing relationship by reaching out to helpless humanity. He reveals himself to the creatures he has made. But what does it mean for him to provide such revelation of himself? John Calvin began his Institutes by…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    Weekend A La Carte (March 16)

    A La Carte: I believe in the death of Julius Caesar and the resurrection of Jesus Christ / Reasons students and pastors shouldn’t use ChatGPT / A 1.3 gigpixel photo of a supernova / What two raw vegans taught me about sharing Jesus / If we realize we’re undeserving, suddenly the world comes alive /…

  • Ask Pastor John

    Ask Pastor John

    I admit it: I felt a little skeptical about Ask Pastor John. To be fair, I feel skeptical about most books that begin in one medium before making the leap to another. Books based on sermons, for example, can often be pretty disappointing—a powerful sermon at a conference can make a bland chapter in a…