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A La Carte (November 12)

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May the Lord be with you and bless you today.

There’s a slightly eclectic mix of Kindle deals today for those who are interested.

On sale at Westminster Books this week is an excellent new daily devotional from Alistair Begg.

Brothers Indeed

I very much enjoyed this dispatch from afar.

The Middle Years

Melissa often makes me laugh. “The middle years, where any guess about my age is likely to be wrong one way or the other, depending on ridiculous things like how much water I’ve been drinking or how much I spent on my current anti-aging moisturizer.”

The Grief of Finite Joy

“Somehow my oldest child is a freshman in high school. As I’ve experienced those where-did-the-time-go emotions that come with such minor milestones, I’ve started to feel a deep, preemptive loss.”

Public Health After Christendom

This is quite an interesting look at how public health is likely to change in a post-Christian era. “It is my contention that public health should be recognized for what it has become, not what it set out to be.”

How to Spot a Personality Cult

Mark Hampton: “In the modern West the church has an issue with its public image. With the rise of digital media and heightened technophilia, the image we often present to the world is not Christ but ourselves. We build up mini-celebrities in Jesus’s name, calling for the world to follow along. At times, whether Jesus is actually glorified can become negligible.”

Should I Choose a Church for Its Pastor?

Mark Dever says that “if you are looking for a good church, the role of the preacher of God’s Word is the most important thing to consider. I don’t care how friendly you think the church members are. I don’t care how good you think the music is. Those things can change. But the congregation’s commitment to the centrality of the Word coming from the front, from the preacher, the one specially gifted by God and called to that ministry, is the most important thing you can look for in a church.”

Flashback: Four Categories to “Act the Miracle”

So much of the Christian life comes down to the matter of identity. At heart, who are we? Who or what has the right to define us? What is our deepest identity?

Spiritual work is taxing work, and men are loath to do it. Praying, true praying, costs an outlay of serious attention and of time, which flesh and blood do not relish.

—E.M. Bounds

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