Skip to content ↓

A La Carte (September 18)

A La Carte Collection cover image

May the Lord be with you and bless you today.

If you’re looking for something good and relatively brief to read, Westminster Books has Dane Ortlund’s The Heart of Jesus discounted in single copies or cases.

Today is a huge day for Kindle deals, and that’s because Zondervan Academic is having a massive one-day sale with tons of their books discounted. There are also a few excellent options from New Growth Press and B&H (which I have put at the very top of the list).

What if No One Prayed for You?

I have often wondered the same question Melissa asks here: what if no one prayed for you? “As a kid who was raised by Christian parents, I have enjoyed the comfort of knowing that people were praying for me my entire life–not just my godly parents, but others in our church. … There’s something so sweet about knowing someone’s storming heaven on my behalf. It’s humbling and brings peace, especially when I’m struggling.”

How to Pray When You Feel Like You Can’t

Also on the subject of prayer, here’s some guidance on praying even when you feel like you can’t.

Is That Person Male or Female?

Alan Shlemon: “Is there a scientific and effective way to discern whether someone is male or female? The answer is yes. There have been established methods for a long time. It’s only with the recent rise of transgender ideology that there has been any substantial pushback to these methods. Here are three ways to determine whether someone is male or female.”

“If One Member Suffers…”

Brad tells how the body of Christ can bear one another’s burdens in a technological age.

10 Ideas for Better Conversations

Ed Welch offers some ideas for better conversations. “The problem is that if asked, most of us would have no plan for how to improve our conversation skills. We have goals for our weight and physical exercise but not for what occupies more time than anything else in our day. If you don’t have ideas on how you can improve your conversation skills, you won’t.”

God Is Good to Forbid Sin

He is, indeed.

Flashback: Not a Matter of Pitch or Tone

Those who struggle to sing may be self-conscious, tempted to stay quiet or to do no more than mumble along. Should they? Not at all, for singing is a matter of the heart before it is a matter of pitch or tone.

Me-ology is the junk food diet we’ve been serving up in our spiritual lives. The healthy alternative we need to immediately start ingesting is theology.

—Jen Oshman

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (September 18)

    A La Carte: What if no one prayed for you? / How to pray when you feel like you can’t / Is that person male or female? / “If one member suffers…” / Ideas for better conversations / Huge Kindle sale / and more.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (September 17)

    A La Carte: Who’s afraid of Romans 1? / You can only be what you can see / Are you a pastor who hurts people? / A holy life is the seed of evangelism / Thinking biblically in all areas of life / and more.

  • Shadow, Stream, and Scattered Beam Apologetics

    This week the blog is sponsored by Zondervan Reflective. This is an excerpt from Thaddeus Williams’ latest book on living out a radically God-centered systematic theology entitled Revering God: How to Marvel at Your Maker (Zondervan Reflective, 2024), featuring stories of Christian thinkers like Michael Horton, Fred Sanders, Joni Eareckson-Tada, John Perkins, Vishal Mangalwadi, and…

  • Did the Angels Laugh

    Did the Angels Laugh?

    You’ve got to hand it to the chief priests and Pharisees: They did their best. They did their level best to keep Jesus in his tomb. After successfully overseeing his execution, they remembered that he had not only predicted his death but also spoken of some kind of resurrection. Wanting to make sure his disciples…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (September 16)

    A La Carte: Why Christians won’t stop singing / Exercising an idle mind / The scars of hope / David’s sin in ordering a census / Is this actually accomplishing anything? / Kindle deals / and more.

  • Tutor

    It Comes with a Personal Tutor

    The promised Spirit has come, and one of the great helps this Helper performs is a kind of tutoring. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth says it well: “Unlike any other book that has ever been written, the Bible is alive; and it comes with a personal tutor—the Holy Spirit, who lives in us.”