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Weekend A La Carte (October 25)

A La Carte Collection cover image

I’m grateful to Ligonier Ministries for sponsoring the blog this week. Sponsors play a key role in keeping this site going and I am grateful for each and every one.

If you’ve never read Meet the Puritans, it’s now available in a second edition. As you might expect, it’s on sale at WTS Books.

Today’s Kindle deals include quite a selection of good books. You’ll find something worth considering, I’m sure!

(Yesterday on the blog: The Benefit of Boring Television)

Goodbye “Big Eva,” Hello “Gig Eva”

Here’s an interesting article by Carl Trueman. “The era of Big Eva seems to have run its course. The conservative Protestant scene in the U.S. is no longer dominated by a few big-name celebrities or by a handful of large conferences. While those large conferences still exist and are often well-attended, they do not grip the popular evangelical imagination as they once did. They seem on the whole to have settled into the role that they should always have held…”

Why Does Pop Culture Feel So ‘Blah’ Right Now?

Brett McCracken considers why pop culture feels so “blah” right now. “For understandable reasons, everyday folks are leery of entertainment’s agenda because so much of it feels like preaching more than entertaining. We’re exhausted by this. And when artists can’t find motivation to create work that’s deeper or wider than politics, cultural stagnation naturally results.”

When You Don’t Want to go to Church

Scott Hurst tells you how you should respond (and why you should respond that way) when you don’t want to go to church.

7 Ways Not To Respond When People Leave Our Churches

Here are seven ways you should not respond when people leave your church, even if you want to.

Digital Hirelings

“A digital hireling is an individual who has set himself up online with self-promoting interest. Like the evil shepherds of Ezekiel’s day, the digital hireling feeds himself, doesn’t truly care about the sick, weak, or injured, doesn’t seek the lost and wandering, and deals harshly with the sheep. The digital hireling opportunistically sets up himself or herself up for self-aggrandizement and financial gain. Most digital hirelings have never spent one day of their lives shepherding the flock of Jesus.”

A Sketch of the Premillennial, Pretribulational Rapture of the Saints

I do not find the premil, pretrib position especially compelling. However, many people I admire do! If you don’t know what it’s all about, this sketch may help you better understand it.

Flashback: The Influenced Will Be Like the Influencer

Jesus calls each of us to follow him. And wrapped up in the call to follow him is the call to follow those who are like him. We imitate Jesus by imitating people who are like Jesus.

The only thing that the church can provide to the world that is truly unique is the gospel.

—Michael Horton

  • 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 /…