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A La Carte (1/5)

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I’m generally a good dad when it comes to helping my kids understand how to manage their finances. But where it all breaks down is when they want to buy something that I wanted as a kid, but could never have. Such was the situation when my son saved up to buy one of the Lego trains. He overspent, but I just couldn’t find it in me to stop him. I’m bad that way.

Sheep – David Murray writes about the biblical metaphor of sheep. “I pastored for 12 years in the Scottish Highlands. During that time, I was surrounded by sheep: sheep on the roads, sheep on the mountains, sheep on the beeches, sheep in my yard. O, yes, and sometimes sheep in the shepherds’ fields. My study on the Isle of Lewis was 12 inches away from a field full of sheep. Sometimes at night I would look up from my computer and see many pairs of luminous green eyes staring at me through my window! I got to know sheep pretty well. What did I learn?”

Are You a Nice Christian? – Bill Mounce writes about Christian niceness.

Iranian Christians – Josh Harris writes about more than 70 Iranian Christians who were arrested over Christmas.

Ngram Viewer – This is an interesting tool from Google. It allows you to chart the number of times a word or phrase is used in a huge number of Google Books stretching from 1500-2000. By typing in challies (couldn’t resist) I found that my grandfather once wrote a book titled The Doctrine of Unjustified Enrichment in the Law of the Province of Quebec. Sounds like a page turner!

The Good of Affluence – Douglas Wilson has penned an interesting look at technology and why he is not afraid of it.

The Golden Voice – A video that’s just going viral.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTysXITBCmk?fs=1&hl=en_US

Believe not half you hear; repeat not half you believe; when you hear an evil report, halve it, then quarter it, and say nothing about the rest.

—C.H. Spurgeon

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    A La Carte (November 21)

    A La Carte: Lessons from Trump’s and Harris’s social media campaigns / What is my spiritual gift? / The messages we receive / 10 mistakes I’ve made in preaching / Big Kindle and book sales / and more.

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    Yesterday Abby and Nathan welcomed their first child into the world: Finnegan Safir Nicholas Elfarrah. Because they live just minutes away, Aileen and I were able to be there shortly after his birth to rejoice with them and to meet our first grandchild. We are thrilled beyond measure. And he is cute beyond belief. They…

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    A La Carte (November 20)

    A La Carte: Pray till you pray / Do children need to consent to puberty? / Pleading for Sodom / A thought experiment / 10 mistakes when reading the Bible / Kindle deals / and more.

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    A La Carte (November 19)

    A La Carte: Good night, my son / The longing for justice following sexual assault / Daughter of encouragement / Mistakes I made as a theological student / The dangers of disordered love / Kindle deals / and more.

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    What Grieves the Heart of God?

    What pleases God? What delights his heart? And what displeases God? What grieves his heart? If asked, I think most of us would assume that if we ever grieve the heart of God it will be through denying the gospel or committing a grave moral scandal. Or if we do so as a local church,…