Skip to content ↓

A La Carte (November 17)

thursday

Good morning. Grace and peace to you.

(Yesterday on the blog: Let’s Hear It For the Failures)

Measure Your Heart of Thanksgiving

“I don’t know what your Thanksgiving season looks like. I sincerely hope you find thankfulness a happy overflow of God’s blessings this year. I hope your home fills with joy and laughter. But there are times in every person’s life when thanksgiving is an act of trust, when the measure with which we are measured tries our hearts.”

American Church, Don’t Listen to Eric Metaxas

This review engages with Eric Metaxas’ latest book. This is quite a group of people Metaxas calls out! “Metaxas doesn’t hesitate to call out pastors he judges to be weak, timid, cowardly, or so ‘theologically fussy’ (44) that they don’t join his movement. Men like Tim Keller, Alistair Begg, John Piper, and John MacArthur are not Bonhoeffer-ish enough for Metaxas (11, 44).”

Where did Satan come from? (Video)

Guy Richard (sort of) answers in this short video. (I say “sort of” because he perhaps discusses the origins of evil a bit more than of Satan.)

The Current State of Complementarity

John Piper discusses the current state of complementarity by discussing two statements: Nashville and Danvers. “Danvers confronts women who intend to be pastors, while Nashville confronts women who intend to be men. Danvers confronts men who are unwilling to lead their wives; Nashville confronts men who can’t lead their wives because they don’t have one — they are ‘married’ to men.”

The Serious Business Of Laughing At Myself

“If I can’t embrace my own smallness, my own humiliations, and my total dependence on the God who made me, then my pride has grown out of control. That’s a serious problem. And sometimes the solution is as simple as having a good, long laugh at my own little self.” Quite right.

The Gospel Never Does Nothing

What’s the one thing the gospel never does? Nothing.

Flashback: 3 Parenting Myths We Are All Tempted To Believe

“Our job is to discharge faithfully the duties God has given to us, leaving the results in God’s hands. Our goal is not ‘successful’ parenting per se, but faithful parenting.” This is a sweet, liberating truth.

The pastor doesn’t know what interventions to provide for a distressed soul until he first listens to that soul.

—Harold Senkbeil

  • The Quest for More

    The Quest for More

    Somewhere deep inside, each one of us longs for more. We want more money, more authority, more followers, more of whatever it is that we find especially desirable or especially validating. “Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied,” says the Sage, “and never satisfied are the eyes of man” (Proverbs 27:20). We live within a vicious…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (February 26)

    A La Carte: IVF is not pro-family / You’re not a machine / We need you to write / A shard, a sharpener, and sin / Wandering / Defining “nation” / Journaling Bibles / and more.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (February 25)

    A La Carte: John Piper on AI sermons / David and Jonathan / You are a burden / Don’t preach a commentary / Why I complain / many Kindle deals / and more.

  • Are you a Hedgehog or a Rhino?

    The truth is that we all have some work to do. Healthy disagreement will draw all of us beyond our natural strengths. It will require stretching into new (often uncomfortable) territory.

  • Only Ever Better

    Only Ever Better

    I’m sure you’ve had the same kind of experience I’ve had—the experience of bumping into someone you haven’t seen for many years. Maybe it is at a conference, maybe at a wedding, or maybe through pure serendipity. Yet now you’re face to face and you realize that even while you’re enjoying a conversation with that…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (February 24)

    A La Carte: The wounds of fatherhood / No need to fear, ever / How we treat the human body / Therapy culture / The challenge of masculinity / Kindle deals / and more.