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A La Carte (July 2)

friday

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Logos users will want to check out the great commentary sale they’ve got going on right now. (And, while you’re at it, maybe grab their free and nearly-free books.)

There are a couple of good Kindle deals today, including a relatively new title from Nancy Guthrie.

My Life as a Christian Under a Communist Regime

Zhang San reflects on living the Christian life under a communist regime. “It may surprise you, but from my perspective the main suffering for Chinese Christians is not physical persecution or lack of religious liberty but bad theology, though the reason behind bad theology is the lack of freedom.”

Critical Race Theory: Civil Rights Upside Down

Greg Koukl has a long article about CRT which is meant to be “not so much a critique of CRT as it is a clarification of its basic elements, a comparison between it and the ethics of the civil rights movement of the ’60s, and a caution regarding its totalitarian tendencies.”

IS YOUR WEBSITE SENDING THE RIGHT MESSAGE TO PEOPLE WHO VISIT?

Your website is most often the first impression people have of your church, ministry, or business. What are people seeing when they visit yours? Mere Agency knows how to build sites that make the right impression. They’ve done it for hundreds of organizations of all shapes and sizes and can do it for you. (Sponsored Link)

The Unbelief in My Belief

Glenna Marshall considers those little opportunities we get (and often fail to take) to share the gospel. “You are just a messenger of a good, good message. You can share it with hope instead of fear when you entrust every conversation to the Lord. His ways will not be thwarted by stammering or awkward silences.”

The Spleen, Once Regarded as Vestigial, Now Recognized as a Critically Important Organ

At AiG is a long and interesting article about the spleen, which was once regarded as vestigial and useless…until scientists looked a little closer. The article aptly shows the difference between looking at the body as evolved versus looking at it as designed.

Dust

T. M. Suffield: “There’s a feeling that comes with long difficult work that ends in forming something that you made. It’s hard to find the right words for it, but the nearest I can think of is transcendence. That incredible effort can be turned into something new, that speaks of you as its maker and bears your stamp on its every surface. That blood, sweat, and tears can be poured into a place until you have a form. As I write it is yet unfinished, but the shell is taking on warmth and life. Bricks are becoming a dwelling.”

Poena Cullei: The Worst Roman Punishment

I find articles like this one helpful in better understanding the context in which the Old Testament was written and the early church began.

Flashback: When Failure Saves and Success Destroys

Here’s something I’ve learned through 40 years of success and failure: God’s care for us may be better expressed in allowing us to fail than permitting us to succeed.

Though our innocency will not secure us from troubles, yet it will greatly support and comfort us under our troubles.

—Matthew Henry

  • Weekend A La Carte (June 13)

    Egg freezing is a booming business / Talk to the A.I. me / Is aging becoming optional? / Feminism and the Fall / The lie of living your truth / Moving on from the Christian Nationalism moment / and more.

  • An Ideal Resource For Your Family Devotions

    An Ideal Resource For Your Family Devotions

    There is a lot I miss from the days when our children were young. High on the list is family devotions. Nick once described our family as having a “Spartan-like commitment” to them, though I remember as much failure as success and as many misses as hits. Still, there’s no doubt that over the 26…

  • A La Carte (June 12)

    The curious case of extra resurrections / Are kids too expensive? / Why hot takes are the enemy of conviction / Piper on preaching outrage / A daily rhythm of prayer / Forgetting and pursuing / A La Quiz / The funnies / and more.

  • A La Carte (June 11)

    We lost the baby / The Bible is cessationist (and wondrous!) / Thinking about Eastern Orthodoxy: a primer for evangelicals / Virtue signalling in the church / What is God’s providence? / Restlessness / Kindle deals / and more.

  • Conform

    You Can Conform to Christ Even if You Don’t Conform to Me

    One of the aspects of the Christian faith that I find particularly perplexing is the freedom God gives his people to obey him in different or even opposite ways, so that one person’s obedience is another person’s disobedience. Even as two people take the same action, one might be obeying him and the other disobeying…

  • A La Carte (June 10)

    Does prayer make a difference? / Portrait of an abortionist / Pushing back against the black tax / Bring your whole self to work / Blessed are the weak / When service isn’t a transaction / A pastoral analogy / Bill C-9 will soon be law in Canada / and more.