The Lord bless and keep you today.

Today’s Kindle deals include some good picks from Crossway.
Westminster Books has a new kids’ edition of Pilgrim’s Progress discounted.
The False Philosophy of Cancel Culture
This article from STR makes some interesting observations about cancel culture. “Cancel culture is based on the assumption that power—not truth—is the only way to drive cultural change. Change the group in power, and change the culture. On this view, everything is a power play. Ultimately, group power plays result in the loss of individual freedom and liberty—canceling, in other words.”
Satan’s Agenda for the Christian
Chopo Mwanza wants to ensure Christians don’t fall into two opposite traps when it comes to Satan’s influence in a life.
Why Should Your Local Church Be Geographically Proximate?
I appreciate much of what Stephen David says about attending a church that is close to home. “We’ve encouraged some believers from a distant section of Hyderabad to travel a long distance for the purpose of gathering with us as a church. They were clearly desperate to attend a Biblical church. Simultaneously, we trained a brother as a church planter and sent him out to plant a church in their locality.”
Secularism Proves Christianity’s Influence
Glen Scrivener considers whether Christianity’s influence has begun to wane in Western society. “It’s worth remembering that tides go out, but they also come in. There have been many ‘long, withdrawing roars’ in church history and equally many extraordinary surges. Tides don’t go out forever. But there’s another way to develop the ‘sea of faith’ analogy: the power of the water is in evidence no matter its current level.”
SBJT 25/2
If you’re interested in some theological reading, there’s a new issue of the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology free for the taking. The theme for this issue is angels.
Ten Words for a Broken Society
Bruce Ashford continues his series on the Ten Commandments by considering the fifth and its implications for children and, by implication, citizens. (Though on this note he may fall into the all-too-common trap of spending more time discussing what the commandment doesn’t mean than what it actually does.)
Flashback: Be a Parent Worthy of Honor
How can we who are parents live lives that are worthy of honor? How can we make it easy for our children to honor us now and in the future?

If men were able in the slightest degree to try to move in God’s direction, there would be no need for God to save them. —Martin Luther

I am often asked what churches and individual Christians can do to care for and comfort those who are enduring times of grief. It is a question I am always glad to receive and one I am always glad to attempt to answer. And there is a lot individuals and communities can do to bring comfort—they can pray, they can be present, they can provide meals and other forms of help, they can remember important dates and continue to express care for months or even years into the future. In these ways and so many others, they can help bear the burdens of those they love.
Yet I also feel the need to speak a word to those who are enduring the time of trial and it’s a word of realism. Over the past few years, I have had a lot of grieving people reach out to express a sense of deep loneliness. They sometimes wonder if their friends have failed them or whether their church has neglected to fulfill its duty toward them. And for those who are enduring the trial of grief compounded by the trial of loneliness, I say this: Grief is lonely. Grief is lonely even in community, lonely even when surrounded by loving and helpful people. Grief is lonely when you are the only one grieving and lonely when you are grieving with others. Unfortunately, but unavoidably, it’s just plain lonely.
Thousands of years ago Solomon wrote this proverb: “The heart knows its own bitterness, and no stranger shares its joy” (Proverbs 14:10). What he meant to make us ponder is that no other person can fully know or understand what we are enduring in our sorrows. In fact, we ourselves cannot fully know or understand what we are enduring in our sorrows. We simply don’t have the ability to plumb the depths of our own hearts and then bring expression to what we find there. We don’t have the knowledge, the understanding, the words. And if even we can’t adequately express or even comprehend our grief, how can others? How can they fully comfort us? More realistically, we will need to expect and be content with comfort that is partial and incomplete.
We simply don’t have the ability to plumb the depths of our own hearts and then bring expression to what we find there.Share
But there is hope, because even if other human beings cannot fully understand our sorrow, God most certainly can. In fact, he can understand us at a level we cannot even understand ourselves. He is the high priest who is able to sympathize with our every weakness, the one who willingly receives all of our burdens for the beautiful reason that he cares for us (Hebrews 4:15, 1 Peter 5:7). He is the one who looks on the heart and who knows us better than we know ourselves. What is hidden to us is revealed to him and what is opaque to us is clear to him. His comfort comes at the level of the heart, mediated to the inner man by the Spirit who dwells within.
Yet even then we cannot expect to press on completely healed and whole, for this is neither the time nor the place of ultimate comfort. God has purposes in our grief. He means for us to carry them without being fully healed, to bear them with confident submission, to carry them all the way to the finish line. He means for those griefs to shift our eyes and hearts from here to there, from time to eternity, from this place of sorrows to that place of bliss.
Those who are enduring a time of grief can and should expect to receive comfort from the ones who love them and care for them. Yet it will be like the comfort they themselves have offered to others in the past—loving, caring, and well-intentioned, but necessarily incomplete. Such comfort is to be received gratefully yet also realistically, for our sorrows must ultimately be entrusted to the one who sees, who knows, and who understands all things—the one who has promised that soon enough, when his plans and purposes are complete, he will make all things right.

May the God of love and peace be with you today.

This is quite a deal from Westminster Books: the beautiful 6-volume ESV Reader’s Bible at 80% off!
(Yesterday on the blog: I Knew It!)
Crucial Questions with Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Denny Burk had a telling back-and-forth with Kristin Kobes Du Mez and writes about it here. What I found most interesting was his four-step pathway to deconstructing the traditional Christian teaching on homosexuality. “Evangelicals who deconstruct the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality often adopt a new definition of marriage. I have noticed a pretty consistent progression among those who eventually embrace gay marriage. It goes like this…”
The Supreme Court Case that Could Overturn Roe v. Wade
“Abortion is one of the most contentious and perennial topics in American political discourse. But it’s much more than a political concern—the topic of abortion prompts deep moral and theological questions. What do pastors need to know about the Dobbs case so they can educate and prepare their congregations for the national conversation about abortion that will follow?” David Closson and Tessa Longbons answer at TGC. (See also: Did the Early Church Oppose Abortion?)
Spiritual Swashbuckling: Dealing with Demons
Clint Archer is posting several chapters’ worth of content from a now-out-of-print book he contributed to a number of years ago titled Things that Go Bump in the Church. This chapter looks at demons.
The Monday After
“Sometimes, giving thanks is an act of courage. It is a stake driven into the ground of our suffering. It is a declaration that darkness will not win the day; that it will not win in us. Giving thanks is also a powerful act of defiance in a culture steeped in selfishness. Gratitude forces us to face the darkness and disarm the demons of discontentment and complaint.”
What We Pray in the Dark
Glenna Marshall: “It was 1:30 a.m. Pain seared through my lower back, wrapping itself around my S. I. joints and radiating into the deepest part of my hips. I moved from bed to couch and back, rearranging the pillows a dozen times, applying ice and heat wherever I could. There was no relief. None.”
Why Do We Have The Baptismal Process We Do?
I appreciated Stephen Kneale’s look at his church’s extensive baptism process and his defense of taking this so seriously.
Flashback: 5 Ugly Qualities of the Anti-Elder
There are millions of men who are great teachers and great leaders and great C.E.O.’s, but still completely unsuited to leadership in the church. God’s standards are very, very different.

Grace is forgiveness of sin, not approval of it. —Jared Wilson