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Weekend A La Carte (February 15)

A La Carte Collection cover image

I’m grateful to B&H for sponsoring the blog this week to tell you about their new Church History Handbook. It’s a beautiful and informative book so be sure to give it a look!

Today’s Kindle deals include a few commentaries and other good books.

(Yesterday on the blog: Keep Calm and Stay Friends)

The Power of One Bitter Thought

Even one bitter thought can have great power. “A weed starts off very small, just like any other plant. It may seem harmless in the beginning but if a weed is never properly dealt with, it has potential to destroy a whole garden. A bitter thought starts the same.”

Here Is Love, Vast as the Ocean (Everlasting Praise)

The Gettys and Sandra McCracken have just released a rewritten and lengthened adaptation of “Here Is Love, Vast as the Ocean.” I think you’ll enjoy it!

The Reluctant Polemicist

I really appreciate what Kyle Borg says here about polemics. “One of the most embarrassing moments of my life happened when I was a new seminary student. I had scheduled lunch with one of my professors, excited to talk theology and ask about preaching. As I got into his car and was buckling up, he said in his strong Scottish accent, ‘Kyle, I’ve seen how you interact on social media. If there were a degree for being argumentative, you’d be at the top of the class.’ I wanted to run, but the car was already moving, and I was stuck.”

Strange Familiarity

“Suffering disrupts the normal. We feel disruption even in the small things like taking care of your children becoming taking care of their gravesite. The route toward their grave replaces the once familiar route to their school or sports field. Seeing their friends and the ones they are close to swaps with passing by the names of the other headstones that are now the ones close to your kiddo.”

Jubilee: Much More and Much Better Than a Holy Year

Leonardo De Chirico has written an e-book on the Roman Catholic year of Jubilee. It is available as a free download from Gospel-Centered Discipleship. I was glad to write a brief foreword for it.

Advice on Resisting Temptation

Casey shares “two insights that have helped me immensely in my own battle with temptation.” They are helpful insights.

Flashback: Procrastination Is a Failure to Love

…on those hard days when I face a list of many tasks, or on those days when I know I have to accomplish my least-favorite tasks, I challenge myself to simply love. To do is to love, to procrastinate is to fail to love.

The gospel is not wishful thinking. It’s not just optimistic or sentimental uplift. It’s the announcement of a fact.

—Michael Horton

  • Works & Wonders June 14

    Works & Wonders: Bowing the knee or shaking the fist, 39 years to translate the Bible, And Can It Be, How to understand a trillIon, Landsat images, and World Cup covers.

  • Weekend A La Carte (June 13)

    Egg freezing is a booming business / Talk to the A.I. me / Is aging becoming optional? / Feminism and the Fall / The lie of living your truth / Moving on from the Christian Nationalism moment / and more.

  • An Ideal Resource For Your Family Devotions

    An Ideal Resource For Your Family Devotions

    There is a lot I miss from the days when our children were young. High on the list is family devotions. Nick once described our family as having a “Spartan-like commitment” to them, though I remember as much failure as success and as many misses as hits. Still, there’s no doubt that over the 26…

  • A La Carte (June 12)

    The curious case of extra resurrections / Are kids too expensive? / Why hot takes are the enemy of conviction / Piper on preaching outrage / A daily rhythm of prayer / Forgetting and pursuing / A La Quiz / The funnies / and more.

  • A La Carte (June 11)

    We lost the baby / The Bible is cessationist (and wondrous!) / Thinking about Eastern Orthodoxy: a primer for evangelicals / Virtue signalling in the church / What is God’s providence? / Restlessness / Kindle deals / and more.

  • Conform

    You Can Conform to Christ Even if You Don’t Conform to Me

    One of the aspects of the Christian faith that I find particularly perplexing is the freedom God gives his people to obey him in different or even opposite ways, so that one person’s obedience is another person’s disobedience. Even as two people take the same action, one might be obeying him and the other disobeying…