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Weekend A La Carte (January 31)

A La Carte Collection cover image

I’m grateful to Reformed Free Publishing for sponsoring the blog this week. Be sure to look at their new book Grace House. Sponsors play a key role in supporting this site, so I am grateful for each one.

Today’s Kindle deals include a really good collection as Saturdays go. My Seasons of Sorrow is back on the list, as are lots of other titles that may interest you.

(Yesterday on the blog: Books to Help Parents With Tech)

Recovering the Mind of Christ: Why the Church Must Prioritize Theological Maturity

Modern Reformation addresses the need for theological maturity. “If pastors continue to neglect the theological maturity of their congregations, they not only weaken their people, but they risk the distortion of the gospel. The church must recover the biblical view that theological maturity is essential to discipleship, worship, and witness.”

When Peter Walked the Stormy Sea

If it has been a while since you’ve read a poem, why not read Esther Roth’s new one? I really enjoyed it!

What Is Excommunication?

“For those who are familiar with the language of excommunication, the term is rarely heard neutrally. It provokes a reaction, often shaped by prior experience rather than careful reflection. For some, it conjures images of spiritual tyranny and ecclesiastical overreach. For others, it feels like an embarrassing relic of the past, incompatible with modern sensibilities.” But, as Kyle explains, both of those reactions are mistaken.

Discipleship in a Sexualized Culture

There’s no doubt that we live in an overtly sexualized culture and that this culture presses in on our families. With that being the case, here “are three actions that Christians can take today as disciples and disciple-makers who firmly resist sexual sin: delay, define, and defend.”

Why Motherhood Can Feel Impossible

“If I had to tell young mothers one thing today it would be this: your work is holy work, raising up sons and daughters of God, and whether you have worn the same sweatpants for a week and the bookshelves are a mess and the dishes aren’t getting done, and whether your kids are crying and you can’t follow all the Perfect Rules for Parenting, just be faithful and love your children and accept that there is grace. You’re doing a good job. God is proud of you. Keep moving one day at a time and this period will flower into something new.”

Giving All Like Jesus

Vance Christie relates a true, sweet story meant to encourage us in our giving to the Lord’s work.

Flashback: What the Father Gives, We Must Receive

What the Father gives, it falls to us to receive, and to receive with faith—faith that God means for us to receive it and faith that God has a purpose in it, even if that purpose is not now clearly visible to our eye. 

Whenever God means to use a man for big things, he breaks him into little pieces first.

—C.H. Spurgeon


  • A La Carte (November 9)

    Christianity under the progressive gaze / Why Christians must reject the conspiratorial mind / Wise people strive to be wiser / The pro-life movement’s midterm reckoning / How evil works / Preaching in paragraphs / Kindle deals / and more.

  • Works and Wonders November 8

    Works & Wonders (November 8)

    This week’s Works & Wonders: the power of God, Nikon’s microscope photos, three Come, Thou Founts, a brain-injured musical genius, and Prepare Him Room live.

  • Weekend A La Carte (November 7)

    The Hutterites’ guide to technology / Searching for jobs, Gen Z feels like it’s staring into ‘the void’ / The gospel according to Peter (Thiel) / Scientism and the allure of control / Can science explain sparkling rivers? / What led to Christianity Today’s crisis?

  • I Regret to Inform You That Heaven Tourism Is Back

    I Regret to Inform You That Heaven Tourism Is Back

    I regret to inform you, dear reader, that heaven tourism is back. The genre possibly never went away entirely, but it did at least disappear from the bestseller lists for several years. Sadly, it has returned in Gabe Poirot’s 18 Days in Heaven.

  • A La Carte (November 6)

    Don’t despise the red flags / Your thoughts are shaping your life / Can’t you just love everyone? / Selfies are not the self: forming embodied youth in a disembodied age / Effective altruists and the spreadsheet gospel / 4 Applications for the order of love—from the home to the ends of the earth /…