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Weekend A La Carte (October 26)

weekend

Today’s Kindle deals include some new books and some classics.

The Porter’s Gate has a new album, Neighbor Songs, that you may enjoy.

(Yesterday on the blog: Protecting Your Children From Predators)

Here Come the Skinny Cows

“Conventional wisdom suggests that a church whose budget is not 100 percent supported by tithes and offerings is not sustainable. We believe, however, that a coming revolution in church economics will necessarily redefine the notion of church stability altogether, as an increasing number of congregations find they are not stable or sustainable by this definition.”

State of Servitude

Marvin Olasky gives his own version of the history of socialism. He’s not a fan.

How the Queen Travels (Video)

She doesn’t (always) travel in quite as much style as you might think.

How Do I Know if I’ve Been Predestined?

Jesse Johnson: “How does a person know if they have been predestined by God for heaven? The shortest answer to the question is also the best: Do you love Jesus? If so, then you have been predestined.”

We Are Not Omni-Anything

“We long for community, and we long to be like God. We want omni-autonomy and omni-presence in our relationships. Omni-autonomy is our desire to be individuals, not bound by another, and wholly separate from others. We want to be like God. Omni-presence is our desire to be everywhere, not bound by place or time, and wholly accessible to others. We want to be like God.”

Who Was Luke?

Here’s an interesting first-person mini-biography of Luke.

Banning Plastic Bags Won’t Save Our Planet

This article from The Globe and Mail helpfully shows how many environmental plans are actually more about optics than actually solving a problem. “We need to be honest about how much consumers can achieve. As with other environmental issues, instead of tackling the big-picture problems to actually reduce the plastic load going into oceans, we focus on relatively minor changes involving consumers, meaning we only ever tinker at the margins.”

Flashback: Be a Living Example of God’s Living Love

Your love needs to extend beyond your comfort zone. The church is to be a community of people who love one another despite differences, who love one another through differences.

It is not the bee’s touching of the flower, which gathers honey—but her abiding for a time upon the flower, which draws out the sweet. It is not he who reads most—but he who meditates most, who will prove the choicest, sweetest, wisest and strongest Christian.

—Thomas Brooks

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    Free Stuff Fridays (Ligonier)

    This week’s Free Stuff Friday is sponsored by Ligonier Ministries, who also sponsored the blog this week.  Yesterday was Reformation Day, when many Protestants celebrate the sixteenth-century recovery of the biblical gospel. It was while Martin Luther was studying the book of Romans that he rediscovered the doctrine of justification by faith alone. So, today…

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    New and Notable Christian Books for October 2024

    As October draws to its close, I wanted to ensure you know about at least some of the most notable books it brought our way. I did not see quite the quantity of new books I have seen in some previous months, but there were still some special ones. For each, I’ve provided the publisher’s…

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