Good morning and welcome to Weekend A La Carte. Be sure to scroll down to read this week’s Reader Recommendations. I think you’ll find some good ones there! And check in again tomorrow for Works & Wonders.
Sales & Deals
Today’s Kindle deals include a wide selection of books. There’s more of the best of Crossway there, along with a large selection of C.S. Lewis, some classics, and more.
Recommended Reading
Kyle Borg writes about Luke 14:26 and the need to raise children who love the Lord even more than they love their parents.
The Bible clearly teaches that the discipleship of children belongs primarily to mom and dad. That’s the ultimate priority of any Christian household. Everything parents can and should provide for their children is subordinate to discipling them to be followers of Jesus.
That’s a significant responsibility. There are many things we can delegate to others: childcare, a measure of schooling according to conscience, and opportunities for others to speak words of guidance and counsel into our children’s lives. What we cannot delegate is the discipleship of our children. That remains the primary responsibility of every Christian parent.
Read: Teach Your Children to Hate You.
I suppose it comes as no great surprise to read that AI has made it almost impossible for universities to assess and evaluate coursework. It seems that every learning institution will need to adapt to the existence of AI by changing the way it tests and evaluates its students.
Universities should go back to traditional exams and in-person presentations to grade students after lecturers complained that AI has made it “close to impossible” to assess coursework, according to an investigation by England’s higher education regulator.
The Office for Students (OfS) said the credibility of degrees from England’s universities was under threat from the prolific use of AI in essays, dissertations and “open book” exams, with students reporting that their peers boasted of using AI undetected by staff.
The regulator warned universities and other higher education institutions that failing to design “valid and reliable measures of students’ knowledge and skills” to combat AI could breach their conditions of registration and lead to sanctions being imposed.
Read: AI has made it ‘close to impossible’ to assess university coursework, regulator says.
Jake Meador says, rightly, that “The easiest group for most of us to belong to is a mob.” That’s because “mobs do not require one to think. They do not require sacrifice. They do not require vulnerability. They do not require patiently tolerating another person, or seeking to understand the person. They simply require one to act—and to act in the same way that everyone else is acting.”
Obviously mobs should be of concern to Christians. So what’s a superior alternative?
Friendship as a form of community is almost entirely opposite to the mob. Mobs do not think or understand; they simply act. But in friendship we learn, through patient observation and conversation, to recognize another person, to understand them, even in some sense to think their thoughts after them. We learn to enjoy shared goods together, and to see the things that delight us in new ways precisely because our friend has taught us how. We sometimes say, “Oh, I wish so-and-so were here to see this,” precisely because we know they would love whatever it is we’re seeing. In friendship, we learn what it means to be human in a deeper way, what it means to share our life and our mind with another.
Read: Mobs and Friends: Encouraging a Culture of Reading in Our Churches.
I enjoyed this feel-good story of a family receiving a care package addressed to a soldier 80 years after it was sent to him.
What started out as an attic renovation of an English mansion has led to a revelation for the family of a Canadian soldier in the Second World War.
Bruce Hutton is anticipating the return of a care package first sent to his father, Lance-Cpl. Ross Hutton, back in 1943.
“I was excited that an 83-year-old package was discovered,” said Hutton from his home in Rocky Mountain House, Alta. “I phoned my son and told him about it. I started crying, so it’s emotional. It brings back memories of Dad.”
The package addressed to Lance-Cpl. Hutton was discovered stashed under some floorboards during the renovation of a mansion near where Hutton served with the Second Battalion Royal Canadian Engineers (2 Bn RCE) in Surrey, England.
Depending on who, what, and where you read, you may have encountered people writing about “the longhouse.” In this long but interesting article, Steven Wedgeworth explains the term’s meaning and origins, and tells why Christians should not use it.
I do not believe that conscientious Christians should use the Longhouse meme or metaphor. Despite whatever justifications or contextual explanations there may be, it is invariably disparaging towards women. It is also easily invoked as a way to distract from and ignore true vices. It certainly does not represent a well-rounded Biblical view of virtue (it was never intended to do so), and for groups like the ACNA, appeals to the Longhouse can actually obscure our most serious problems.
Read: Christians Shouldn’t Invoke “the Longhouse.”
Young people today look lonely to me. I don’t think they do unannounced visits anymore. I don’t think I see a lot of face-to-face laughter and tears, but I do see a lot of looking down at those sad little devices. Almost all communication now is made on those hard, cold, lifeless screens. I’m told that young people rarely even phone each other, that to be phoned is a bit “adult-annoying.” Turning up at someone’s house on your bike would be as culturally appropriate as wearing a bowler hat or eating squirrel.
Worse than that, I hear about the cruelty—so much online anger, lashing out, sarcasm, and abuse. When I was younger, you could generally avoid people who wished you harm. Now they seek you out to savage you on your Instagram or Twitter page.
Campbell Markham comes through with some fairly basic but important instruction on being a good friend.
Top Content
Here are the links readers clicked the most this week:
- Beer, Beef and Player’s Navy Cut
- On Spouses Sitting Together in Church
- Husbands, Pray for Your Wives
- The Hutterites’ Guide to Technology
- Your Thoughts Are Shaping Your Life
And here are the articles on my site they read the most:
Reader Recommendations
I like to solicit recommendations for things readers are reading, listening to, watching, eating, or otherwise experiencing. Here’s what you sent along:
(But first, thanks to Deanne who wrote “I am just loving these Saturday recommendations. It has sure expanded my reading and listening. I look forward to it every week. Thank you for all who share.”)
Lisa just finished rereading W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage. “It is an excellent fictional explication of the philosophy of existentialism played out by the protagonist Philip Carey. The astute Christian reader will see just what an empty philosophy it is.”
Seth has been slowly reading through Nick Needham’s 2,000 Years of Christ’s Power. “I highly recommend them for any believer to gain a bigger picture understanding of how Christ has grown His church over the years.” (TC: I very much agree!)
Erika recommends the free online courses offered by Dallas Theological Seminary. “I am currently taking one on the Nicene Creed. While it’s not the same as enrolling and taking a semester-long class, I’m learning at a deeper level than I expected, even after 45 years of following the Lord.”
Melinda and her friends started a classics book club 10 years ago and read only books written before 1900. Among the more obscure ones they “have absolutely loved” are Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White, and Anthony Trollope’s He Knew He Was Right. For kids, she recommends Jonathan Rogers’s Wilderking Trilogy, which begins with The Bark of the Bog Owl.
Erin is reading Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and has “been riveted by his real-life account of an expedition to climb Mt. Everest. While I personally think people who want to do this are slightly insane, it makes for a fascinating read.”
Bill and his wife recently saw Fjord, “a powerful film based on a true story about a Romanian evangelical family who moves to Norway and is persecuted for their conservative religious beliefs.”
Kristin calls The Loveliness of Christ “a small, leather bound gem.” It is a book of quotes pulled from Samuel Rutherford’s letters.
Greg says, “Not a ‘Christian’ thing at all, but my family plays GeoSports every morning. We live in different cities (and even different countries) but every morning we share our scores via iMessage with one another and laugh about what we got or didn’t get! Even my uncles and cousins are starting to join in on the fun.”
Sylvie recommends Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth’s Choosing Gratitude: Your Journey to Joy.
Susan has been listening to “Come Find His Rest” from Sing! 2025. It “makes me weep with joy that the peace of humble rest is available from Jesus whose arms are open wide.”
Blake recommends J.I. Packer’s Knowing God, “especially the sections on our spiritual adoption and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.”
Philip recommends “Man in a Hurry,” an episode of The Andy Griffith Show (season 3, episode 16) “about a big city businessman whose car breaks down in Mayberry. He gets frustrated with the slow pace and convictions of the small town but is gradually charmed by them. Includes a hymn.”
Keegan recommends Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings, book 1 of the Stormlight Archive. “The novel is well written, epic in scale, and carries powerful themes of servant leadership and bravery. It’s a long book, but I’m enjoying listening to the audiobook during my daily commute. The narrator (Michael Kramer) is excellent. Would highly recommend for Tolkien fans!”
Ann recommends Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren’s How to Read a Book and Scrolling Ourselves to Death, edited by Brett McCracken and Ivan Mesa.
Maria has been enjoying Charles Spurgeon’s Christ’s Incarnation: The Foundation of Christianity through the free Monergism app. “It has been really encouraging and refreshing to meditate on the meaning of Christ’s incarnation and what that means to us as Christians.”
Christie recommends Andrew Murray’s Waiting on God, “a relatively short but deeply profound book that reminds us of our utter dependence on God and the need to wait well on Him.”
Matthew recommends the Fighter Verses Songs from Truth78. “These are 180+ songs of ESV Bible selections put to music. They are great for car rides, background music in the house, and in the evening to fall asleep to.”
Pam recommends Elisabeth Elliot’s Made for the Journey (previously titled These Strange Ashes). “Anyone who is in missions work should read this book about her first year as a missionary in the jungles of Ecuador. By the end of the year, she had nothing to show for her work in language translation and felt like a failure; however, she learned valuable lessons about God’s sovereignty.”
Jacob has “been very blessed by the ministry of Andrew and Bethany Case, especially their high-quality free Biblical Hebrew YouTube lessons, Aleph with Beth.”
Ruth recommends Mark W. Graham’s 30 Key Moments in the History of Christianity. “Graham’s book is a fascinating account of the spread of Christianity during the first millennium. The book is both inspiring and an easy, engaging read. Each of its 30 short chapters follows a helpful format: the Background, the Moment(s), and the Mathema (what we can learn).”
Flashback
The Spiritual Gift Inventory I Believe In. Instead of assessing your own strengths, assess your church’s needs. Instead of focusing on the gifts God may have given you, focus on the gifts that God may want your church to have. Where you spot a need, consider meeting it.
What matters supremely is not the fact that I know God, but the fact that He knows me.
—J.I. Packer
