Skip to content ↓

Weekend A La Carte (October 12)

I’ve been blessed to spend the past few days in Hawaii to speak at the Pacific Church Leadership Conference. What a joy it has been to spend time with brothers and sisters from all across the region (and with Alistair Begg who is decidedly not from the region).

Today’s Kindle deals include a couple of classics and a few newer works.

(Yesterday on the blog: To the Young Man Who Has Been Asked To Preach for the First Time)

7 Reasons Tom Schreiner (Tentatively) Holds to Amillennialism

Justin Taylor tells why Tom Schreiner holds to an amillennial view of the end times, even if it is with some hesitation. “It would be hard to find a more gracious and humble commentator than Tom Schreiner. This is especially true when it comes to the controversy of what Revelation 20 teaches on the millennium.”

How Should We Describe David’s Sin With Bathsheba?

Here’s a very level-headed view on a hot topic this week: Whether David’s sin with Bathsheba amounted to rape.

Mapping America’s Fall Foliage

Here’s a great little map showing America’s fall foliage. (Being in Hawaii this week, I haven’t seen a bit of it!)

Ethiopia’s Evangelical Prime Minister Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Christianity Today reports. “Less than two years since taking office, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has helped Ethiopia achieve the kind of peace and reconciliation once deemed impossible, including resolving a border conflict with its East African neighbor Eritrea.”

A Better Tone

Joel Belz: “Not since the Civil War, some thoughtful observers are saying, has our nation been so divided. Never so polarized. Never with so many of its citizens set so bitterly against each other.” Whether that’s true or not, it’s clear that there is a lot of division at the moment.

Beto O’Rourke’s Plan to Destroy Churches

“On Thursday, during a CNN town hall devoted to LGBTQ issues, Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke was asked, ‘Do you think religious institutions like colleges, churches, charities—should they lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage?’ ‘Yes,’ O’Rourke said without hesitation, drawing applause from the Los Angeles audience.”

Why We Need Bible-Oriented—Not Entertainment-Oriented—Preachers

“Earnestness is the demeanor that corresponds to the weight of the subject matter of preaching. The opposite of earnest is not joyful but trivial, flippant, frivolous, chipper.” John Piper explains.

Flashback: 7 Things Your Church Needs From You

Commit to get to know people not like you. There is no reason you shouldn’t be able to say that some of your best and closest relationships are with people who are very different from you.

The knowledge of God, and the remembrance of his all-seeing presence, are the most powerful means against hypocrisy.

—Richard Baxter

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    Weekend A La Carte (May 24)

    A La Carte: When the music stops / Not every meal is a steak dinner / I don’t know where the streams are / The wonder of forgiveness / Authentic preaching in the age of AI / and more.

  • You Me and G3

    You, Me, and G3

    I have fond memories of the early years of the G3 Conference. When G3 held its debut event in 2013, I was one of the invited speakers and it quickly became a tradition. For eight years I fell into the comfortable pattern of making an annual trip to Atlanta. I would almost always speak in…

  • A La Carte Friday 2

    A La Carte (May 23)

    A La Carte: Pornography and the threat of men / When there’s no time to pray / When ball becomes Baal / Six answers to the problem of evil / 7 secular sermons / and more.

  • A La Carte Thursday 1

    A La Carte (May 22)

    A La Carte: Kevin DeYoung reviews John Mark Comer / Kay Arthur (1933-2025) / Overcoming fear in the waiting room / Be drunk with love? / Church grandpas and grandmas / Do you see God? / and more.

  • AI

    AI Makes Me Doubt Everything

    Most technological innovations take place slowly and then all at once. We first begin to hear about them as distant possibilities, then receive the first hints that they are drawing near, and then one day we realize they are all around us.