This weeks Free Stuff Fridays is sponsored by Zondervan Reflective. They are giving away book bundles to three winners. Each winner will receive:
One (1) hardcover copy of Pilgrim Prayers by Tim Challies. Estimated retail value $26.99.
One (1) hardcover copy of Seasons of Sorrow by Tim Challies. Estimated retail value $26.99.
One (1) hardcover copy of 2084 by John Lennox. Estimated retail value $19.99.
One (1) softcover copy of What It Means to Be Protestantby Gavin Ortlund. Estimated retail value $22.99.
Tim Challies—author of Seasons of Sorrow—invites you into a treasure trove of devotional poetry from our spiritual forebearers.
This curated collection of 50 poems, which Challies has found over years of combing through volumes of poetry new and old, will offer you new language to express both joy and sorrow, praise and lament in any season of life.
Throughout Pilgrim Prayers, you’ll discover the poetic riches expressed through devotional prayers that celebrate the acts of God and marvel at his ways. This collection is designed for daily devotions and mediations and can be used for addressing specific topics in church gatherings or on special occasions.
Each entry has an introduction reflecting on the prayer by Challies, helpful explanations of any difficult phrases or words, related Scriptures for study, and a question for application and reflection.
These prayers, devotional gems of past generations, will bless a new generation of Christians as they seek to grow in love and obedience to the Lord.
An honest look at grief and fears, faith and hope. Combining personal narrative, sound theology, and beautiful writing, this is a book for anyone who has loved and lost.
On November 3, 2020, Tim and Aileen Challies received the shocking news that their son Nick had died. A twenty-year-old student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, he had been participating in a school activity with his fiancée, sister, and friends, when he fell unconscious and collapsed to the ground.
Neither students nor a passing doctor nor paramedics were able to revive him. His parents received the news at their home in Toronto and immediately departed for Louisville to be together as a family. While on the plane, Tim, an author and blogger, began to process his loss through writing.
In Seasons of Sorrow, Tim shares real-time reflections from the first year of grief—through the seasons from fall to summer—introducing readers to what he describes as the “ministry of sorrow.”
Seasons of Sorrow will benefit both those that are working through sorrow or those comforting others:
- See how God is sovereign over loss and that he is good in loss
- Discover how you can pass through times of grief while keeping your faith
- Learn how biblical doctrine can work itself out even in life’s most difficult situations
- Understand how it is possible to love God more after loss than you loved him before
Will technology change what it means to be human?
You don’t have to be a computer scientist to have discerning conversations about artificial intelligence and technology. We all wonder where we’re headed. Even now, technological innovations and machine learning have a daily impact on our lives, and many of us see good reasons to dread the future. Are we doomed to the surveillance society imagined in George Orwell’s 1984?
Mathematician and philosopher John Lennox believes that there are credible answers to the daunting questions that AI poses, and he shows that Christianity has some very serious, sensible, evidence-based responses about the nature of our quest for superintelligence.
2084 will introduce you to a kaleidoscope of ideas:
- The key developments in technological enhancement, bioengineering, and, in particular, artificial intelligence.
- The agreements and disagreements that scientists and experts have about the future of AI.
- The key insights that Christianity and Scripture have about the nature of human beings, the soul, our moral sense, our future, and what separates us from machines.
In straight-forward language, you’ll get a better understanding of the current capacity of AI, its potential benefits and dangers, the facts and the fiction, as well as possible future implications.
The questions posed by AI are open to all of us, daunting as they might be. And they demand answers. 2084 is written to challenge and ignite the curiosity of all readers. No matter your worldview, Lennox provides clear information and credible answers that will bring you real hope for the future of humanity.
These days many evangelicals are exploring the more sacramental, liturgical, and historically-conscious church traditions, including Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. This hunger for historical rootedness is a welcome phenomenon–but unfortunately, many assume that this need can only be met outside of Protestant contexts.
In What it Means to Be Protestant, Gavin Ortlund draws from both his scholarly work in church history and his personal experience in ecumenical engagement to offer a powerful defense of the Protestant tradition. Retrieving classical Protestant texts and arguments, he exposes how many of the contemporary objections leveled against Protestants are rooted in caricature. Ultimately, he shows that historic Protestantism offers the best pathway to catholicity and historical rootedness for Christians today.
In his characteristically charitable and irenic style, Ortlund demonstrates that the 16th century Reformation represented a genuine renewal of the gospel. This does not entail that Protestantism is without faults. But because it is built upon the principle of semper reformanda (always reforming), Protestantism is capable of reforming itself according to Scripture as the ultimate authority. This scholarly and yet accessible book breaks new ground in ecumenical theology and will be a staple text in the field for many years to come.
