Good morning from Brazil where I am beginning to make my homeward journey after a successful week recording another episode of Worship Round the World.

Today’s Kindle deals include some high-quality devotional resources.
(Yesterday on the blog: Restful Blissful Ignorance)
Christianity Challenges the (Stoic) Spirit
I’m glad to see this examination of the growing popularity of stoicism. “Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, Cameron Hanes, David Goggins, Jocko Willink. What unites them? They’re gurus of a new self-help philosophy and lifestyle: grind yourself to the bone to achieve greatness.”
Scooby Doo, Oxfam and The Sexular Age
Stephen McAlpline: “Let’s call this The Scooby Doo moment. You know the show that started in the 70s? Crazy kids in a van called The Mystery Machine, with a dog called Scooby Doo (Arf-Arf!)? Always turning up at haunted houses or the like, exposing the evil criminals hiding behind scary ghoul masks, or dressed up as werewolves. I’m sure those kids were all on Scooby snacks.”
The Making Of Andy Stanley: Pastors Son, Turned Renegade Preacher (Video)
Honest Youth Pastor has put together a helpful video on Andy Stanley.
Are Things Getting Worse?
It’s easy to believe that the world is getting worse and worse. But is it really?
Nine Ways I’ve Seen Mark Dever Disciple Men and Raise Up Leaders
“What does Mark Dever do to disciple men and raise up pastors in the context of the local church? Here are nine points that Mark has publicly shared are his practices, with some of my own reflections as someone who has benefitted Mark’s discipling and observed its effects on others.”
Death is not fun
Mark Loughridge says “we often make jokes when we are nervous or don’t know how to react to something serious. We’ve probably all done that. That’s what this is. Our society has lost the ability to be serious about serious things. We have elevated the trivial and trivialised the serious.”
Flashback: On Helping Your Wife Become Like Christ by Identifying Her Every Fault
“At their most unimaginative moments, husbands try to help spouses be like Christ’s perfected bride by identifying their wives’ faults with clinical precision.” But there is a better way.

When a sin is pardoned, it is gone—it is gone out of the books, it is gone out of the memory, it is gone out of existence. —De Witt Talmage

When I was a child, the maps in my Bible got me through many a sermon. I was rarely interested in listening to the preacher, so I would flip to the back pages of the Bible to study the maps there. I would gaze at the contours of the lands of the Middle East. I would observe how Abraham had obeyed God and left his country and his kindred and his father’s house to journey to the land that God would show him. I would study the ancient world as the Patriarchs knew it. Best of all, I would see how God had miraculously delivered his people from their long captivity in Egypt.

Like just about every Bible, mine had a map that traced the route the Israelites followed after they escaped from Egypt and began to make their way toward the Promised Land. The map had a line in blue that began in Egypt and then traveled south for a time toward the bottom of the Sinai Peninsula. Eventually, it bulged north for a short while before dipping south again. Then finally it turned permanently northward and led the way to Jericho before it terminated on the banks of the Jordan.
The route the Israelites followed is far from straight and hardly looks efficient. Instead of taking a direct approach leading straight from Egypt to Canaan, the route appears to wander and meander, to turn this way and then that, to progress for a time and then bog down. It would be easy enough to look at a map like that and assume that it shows confusion or indecision, a lack of planning, and a lack of strong leadership.
Yet we know that all the while the people were following the Lord’s directives. He is the one who would tell them when to pick up and when to settle down, when to go straight, and when to turn to the left or the right. It was under his direction that they forded this river or turned away from that sea, in obedience to his command that they approached this mountain or avoided that plain. And if that’s the case, then the map does not truly wander and meander at all and does not truly show the least confusion or indecision. To the contrary, the map at the back of our Bibles shows the considered and well-thought-out plan of God, the route that existed in his mind long before he called his people to follow it. Their every step was deliberate and their every move was meaningful, for it was all the fulfillment of God’s good and perfect will.
There are times when it does us good to think back to our own lives and to picture them almost like a map—a map that traces our journey from birth to where we are today. And as we look at our lives so far, we can see how we passed through certain kinds of difficulties and avoided many more, how we scaled some mountains of joy but bypassed others. We can see how we turned this way toward success and that way toward failure. Our path through this life has been winding and twisting, rarely perfectly straight and rarely avoiding every hindrance and every stretch of wilderness.
And just like God was leading the Israelites on their journey, we can have every confidence that he has been leading us on ours. Just like every twist and every turn they took was within the wise providence of God, so too every step we’ve taken forward and every step we’ve taken back. He planned that we would approach mountains and valleys, rivers and seas, and he has used them all for his good purposes. And, just like he promised that his people would safely reach the end of their journey, he has promised we will reach ours. For like them, he is leading us to the Promised Land, the land of peace, the land of rest, the land where we most truly long to be.

Good morning. May the Lord be with you and bless you today.

There is another little batch of new Kindle deals for those who may be interested.
Is Work Good?
“Here’s a quick word association test: What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word work? Go ahead and think about it. Regardless of your answer, I’m guessing that few of us would respond with the word good. We don’t tend to think of work as good, but rather as difficult, frustrating, and exhausting.”
Loaves and Casserole Dishes: Will Church Cookbooks Survive?
Do you remember the church cookbook? I enjoyed reading this article from CT where they ask whether it’s likely to survive.
Introducing Eikon 5.2 (Fall 2023)
CBMW has released a new edition of their journal Eikon. This edition focuses on masculinity and features articles from James M. Hamilton Jr., Richard D. Phillips, Kevin DeYoung, Alexander Strauch, and Kyle Claunch. It also offers quite a number of book reviews.
What Happened at ETS 2023?
I don’t go to ETS so always enjoy Denny Burk’s annual roundups of some of what happened there. What happens in the academy eventually finds its way to the pew.
The Goal of Our Instruction
Betty-Anne Van Rees: “When a hurting or struggling soul reaches out for care, they generally have one thing in mind—relief. We empathize. Haven’t we all felt the angst of longing for life to be somehow less difficult than it is? Less conflict, less cruelty, less inner turmoil, less pain, just less suffering. As helpers, it’s easy to get caught up in working toward that relief. What circumstances can we change that will alleviate the struggle? A different job? A new neighborhood or church? Cut ties with that difficult friend? Won’t this help?”
This & Tat in a Christian Bookshop
Paul Levy reflects on an alarming visit to a Christian bookshop. “The issue I think with my visit to the bookshop is the issue of God’s weightiness. The Christian gospel is gloriously simple and joyful and yet it is not light and weightless. God is our Father, yes, but he is also in Heaven. His glory should weigh heavily upon us. The bible is wonderfully clear but there is also a glorious depth to it. We mustn’t be content with a superficial understanding of our faith.”
Flashback: Helpful Things You Can Say to Grieving Parents
It can be awkward to reach out to those who are deep in grief. It can be hard to know what to say and easy to believe that our words are more likely to offend than comfort, to make a situation worse rather than better. We sense that our words ought to be few, but also that the worst thing to say is nothing at all.

A home, and not a grave, is the true ending of our earthly life; we depart, not to be, as we say, ‘dead’, but really to live. —P.B. Power