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A La Carte (December 2)

As you’d expect for Cyber Monday, there are lots of Kindle deals available today.

Because I’m in Africa and have spotty internet plus an intense schedule, I’ve not been able to put the time into gathering other Cyber Monday deals. I’ll just refer you to the Black Friday page and suggest that most who had deals on Friday will also have deals on Monday.

Is God Going to Wipe Out the Ocean?

Revelation 21:1 seems to indicate that God will one day eliminate the ocean. This article discusses whether or not this is a correct interpretation of the text.

Is It OK to Confess That Jesus Descended into Hell?

“If your church has ever recited the Apostles’ Creed, you’re probably familiar with that awkward feeling you get when you come to the part that says ‘he descended into hell.’ Numerous questions come to mind.”

Is Surrogacy Just Like Adoption (Video)

There are key differences. “The surrogacy process is complex and confusing. The ideas around surrogacy vs adoption have become a hot issue recently. While there are many surrogacy pros and cons, surrogacy should be explored based on the impact it has on children and not just the benefits to the parents. If someone said to you that surrogacy is like adoption, how would you respond? This video explores the problems with surrogacy and reviews why surrogacy is different from adoption.”

Bring your church family together with quick and easy communication between Sundays. Church Social gives members a secure place online to view a member directory and get organized with a calendar, schedules, and more. Administrators can also track membership records, create reports and share information.

Everyday Christmas

“So another Christmas season is upon us. The Christmas machine seemed to crank up earlier than ever this year – Christmas decorations, movies, trees and ads started bombarding us before the leaves even changed color. It’s all so … much. If you sense some weariness in those words, you’re right. The Christmas industry gets bigger and broader with every passing year, and every year it becomes harder and harder to focus on what the Advent (or ‘coming’) of Jesus really means.”

Sehnsucht

You’ll enjoy reading this one.

Humility, Not Hubris, Leads to Greatness

“When many Christians go to work, they enter an arena of constant striving—for more pay, more power, more Twitter followers. Now that I work in a corporate bureaucracy, this striving is systematized.”

A Day of Stress or a Day of Rest?

“Until a couple of years ago, the terms ‘Sabbath’ and ‘Lord’s Day’ stressed me out. I would either hear them used to make me feel bad about eating lunch at a restaurant on Sundays, supposedly against the instruction of the Puritans who I loved, or used to denounce the legalistic Sabbatarianism of the Puritans. The former was from Reformed acquaintances I didn’t know very well and felt shunned by, the inheritors of Puritan theology. The latter came from Baptist friends who I trusted but now felt pressured by to criticize the Puritans on something I hadn’t studied yet.”

Flashback: The Counter-Cultural Vocation of Homemaking

Even while she has always been personally confident of her choice, she has faced outside criticism. She has felt out-of-place. She has felt judged. But I, her husband, and we, her children, honor and love her.

Christ’s body is not a stage for my performance.

—Michael Horton

  • Free Stuff Fridays (Boyce College/D3)

    Pastors and Parents are always on the lookout for good discipleship resources for teens. You just might be the person who wins these items for free through the D3/Boyce College Giveaway.

  • Mothering Against Futility

    The Futility of Motherhood

    Life is made up of so much that gives the appearance of being futile. There are so many tasks and responsibilities that we intellectually know to be important but emotionally feel to be fruitless. And if everyone struggles with this to varying degrees, I have it on good authority that mothers are prone to struggle…

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    A La Carte (January 31)

    A La Carte: Dune and female moral authority / Three lies that separate spouses / Sin makes you stupid / Can a fallen pastor be restored? / Evaluating Trump’s first week of executive actions / A future for the family / Book and Kindle deals / and more.

  • New and Notable Christian Books for January 2025

    As you know, I like to do my best to sort through the new Christian books that are released each month to see what stands out as being not only new, but also particularly notable. I received quite a number of books in January and narrowed the list down to the ones below. I have…

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    A La Carte (January 30)

    A La Carte: Small injustices / Is it necessary to be a church member? / How to make friends at college / My letter about a transgender teacher / Prayerless theologians / Deepening fellowship / Kindle deals / and more.

  • Throw Out the Buoys

    Throw Out the Buoys!

    When I was young, my family owned a cottage on a lake. From a young age, I loved to head out in our little motorboat so I could explore that lake and the others that were connected to it. I could easily make a day out of slipping into little inlets to see where they…