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Weekend A La Carte (July 21)

Weekend A La Carte

I have pretty much finished filming EPIC: Scotland and am now enjoying a few days of vacation with my family in Scotland. The Isle of Skye is just as beautiful as I had been told!

(Yesterday on the blog: How and Why I Choose Which Books to Read and Review)

Build Your Boats For Foul Weather

This article applies foremost to Christian institutions in one part of the world, but the principle applies much wider than that! “That’s a general rule: always build a boat for foul weather. Hope for fair, but build for foul.”

5 Reasons Studying Greek Is Worth the Pain

I, for one, have never regretted the Greek I studied (but do regret not studying more). “I well remember sitting at my desk in grad school, cramming vocabulary into my head like a duck willingly stuffing its body for foie gras. At that desk I said to myself, This is boring and hard and I really don’t like it I need sugar or TV or a TV program about sugar. But now I can’t imagine my life without Greek. Is Greek worth the pain? Yes, yes, five times yes.”

The Doctrine of the Standing or Falling Soul

“Let’s meditate deeply on the truth of our justification by faith alone in Christ alone. Let us fight to protect this most precious doctrine from all of the malicious attacks that the evil one seeks to level against it through the sophistries of false teachers. That is a hill worth dying on.”

How You Might Break the Third Commandment In Church

With some commandments it’s easy to see how we break them; others require a little more introspection.

Dumb Things Pro-Abortionists Say

Where to start? Gene Veith: “Abortion cannot really be defended by appeals to morality or logic. So pro-abortion arguments are mostly based on emotion, unsupported ‘rights’ talk, euphemism, and statements that just don’t make any sense.”

The Edges of the Earth Close In

Here’s a new poem you may enjoy. Why aren’t more people writing poetry?

The Wonderful Accessibility of the Word

Erik Raymond: “The Bible often gets a bad rap. Being an ancient book there are cultural, historical, and theological hurdles to mount when we decide to study it. But, we should not take this to mean that the Bible is inaccessible. God has spoken through his written Word in such a way that we might understand who he is and what he wants us to do.”

Flashback: Wanting It Enough

I want to be really godly, but not as much as I want to be kind of godly…I want to achieve the goal a little bit less than I want to put in the effort necessary to have it.

Yielding to God’s will can be hard. And sometimes, it really hurts. But it always brings peace.

—John Perkins

  • 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…