There are a lot of authors in the Christian world, but not nearly as many writers. There are a lot of people who publish books, but few who have a level of mastery over the English language. There are a lot of people who can say what’s true, but not very many who say it beautifully.

Seth Lewis is one of those rare authors who can truly write. I have been reading his blog for a number of years and have admired his ability to write both poetry and prose that is interesting, compelling, and full of beauty. I was thrilled, then, to learn that he has now also written a book, Dream Small: The Secret Power of the Ordinary Christian Life.
Dream Small takes as its starting point the fact that most of us enlist our dreams and ambitions in the direction of self-aggrandizement. We dream big in the sense that we dream of changing the whole world. And if we fail to do so, if we fail to achieve fame, fortune, or power, we then tend to believe we have failed to live a life of significance.
“The world around you will constantly encourage you to follow your dreams,” says Lewis. “That’s not bad advice as far as it goes, but I’m asking you to pause first, and take the time to ask an important question that often gets overlooked: just where, exactly, are your dreams leading you? Before you follow your dreams, you need to aim them. And what will you aim them at? The default assumption which says that bigger dreams will always turn out better is simply not true. Where will you find better dreams?”
That’s exactly what his book is about. It’s about dreaming better dreams and then working to achieve them. This means he has to set humanity in its proper context as wonderfully significant to God, yet also infinitesimal by comparison to God. He has to explain how the gospel redeems us and directs us toward the good of others and the glory of God. He has to show that God’s values are very different from the world’s and, therefore, often very different from our own. He has to show that by dreaming small we can accumulate achievements that God deems great.

You are here for a purpose. You were carefully crafted with a perfect plan in mind. You are a character in the greatest story ever told, and your life, and your actions, and your decisions—even today—can send shockwaves into eternity. Maybe the role God has for you is big and public. Maybe it is quiet, behind the scenes, where hardly anyone will notice. Don’t worry about that. You can invest in loving God and loving the people he loves from wherever you are, and the best ways to do that have always been the closest, most ordinary, most overlooked and under-appreciated ways, like humble service to humble people and time spent with God and all the little ways we can remind each other of God’s truth and God’s love and the big story he made us to be part of.

To dream small, he explains, is not to miss out on God’s plan for our lives, but to find it, to take hold of it, and to live it out. It’s to live a life of the highest significance to the God whose ways are so very different from our own.
A few years ago the Christian world saw a whole crop of books that dealt with being ordinary—a natural reaction, I think, to books like Radical and Do Hard Things which meant to shake people out of their spiritual complacency. These books achieved their purpose, but may have also discouraged some who tried to be radical and some who tried to do hard things, but who in the end found themselves still living very ordinary lives. Dream Small offers an important correction. It shows beautifully that the most significant Christian life is also the most ordinary Christian life.

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We are still in Unalaska. Yesterday’s flight was canceled due to volcanic ash in the air along the route. That’s a first for me!

If you have the free ONE Audiobooks app, you’ll be able to listen to Stephen McAlpine’s excellent Being the Bad Guys this month (for free).
Meanwhile Westminster Books has the new Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament on sale this week. Do you need it? Probably not. Will it look amazing on your bookshelf? Definitely. (Also take a look at their Reformation Day sale.)
The Future of Manufactured Children
Carl Trueman considers the concerning future of manufactured children. “Krisiloff and his team are working on producing human embryos from genetic material that is not connected in origin to an egg or a sperm. Indeed, the article begins with a quotation from a Japanese biologist, Katsuhiko Hayashi, who believes that it will be possible to make human eggs from skin cells within a decade.”
Beginning to think about Generative AI
While Trueman is thinking about reproductive technology, T.M. Suffield is thinking about artificial intelligence. “As I write, Christianity Today have just published an article extolling the use of ChatGPT for Pastors in their preparation for preaching and Bible studies. It has gone viral for all of the wrong reasons.”
Book Offer: What Is Reformed Theology?
Many people today say theology doesn’t matter. But theology is the knowledge of God, and nothing could be more important in life. That’s why R.C. Sproul founded Ligonier Ministries: to make theology accessible for everyone. If you’ve never contacted Ligonier before, they’d love for you to request a free paperback copy of What Is Reformed Theology? by Dr. Sproul. (Sponsored Link)
Is My Dad One of the Characters Mentioned in Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”?
Shane Rosenthal goes in search of an answer to an unusual question.
Leadership in the Church: Managers, Midian, and Moses
Joe Holland: “For better or worse (probably worse), we do live in a managerial culture. This has a hammer-and-nail effect on pastoral leadership: when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When you’re expected to be a manager, everything looks like…”
Total consistency is impossible – Jesus says so!
“I am quite big on consistency. I like to believe that I think both logically and consistently (no doubt other opinions on how I think are available). Consistency really does matter to me and I find it hard to settle when there are nagging points of inconsistency in my frame of understanding.” Yet what if total consistency isn’t possible?
Can We Limit God By Our Free Will?
Can we limit God by our free will? Many people say we can…
Flashback: Do You Have the Faith to be Faithful?
Fill yourself with the Word. Be a man or woman of the Word. Devote yourself to Scripture. As you do this, your faith will grow, and as your faith grows, so too will your faithfulness.

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. —A.W. Tozer

I want to remind you that my devotional book Understanding and Trusting Our Great God (which is the second volume in the Words from the Wise series) is releasing soon. It’s now available for pre-order!

Westminster Books is having a sale on some of their favorite books from the past 20 years. There’s something there for everyone!
There are a couple of good Kindle deals available as well.
Appeal for Religious Liberty to a Culture Embracing Pride Month
“I’m appealing to non-Christian friends. I want you to see that religion is core to who Christians are. Yes, we still want to be good neighbors. No, we’re not trying to manipulate American society for our own ends. But we cannot compromise our convictions. We believe America can still be a place that welcomes a plurality of ideas into the public square. It can be a place where tolerance is still maintained.”
Don’t Fall Into Ditches When It Comes to Preaching
“I’ve seen the danger of falling into one of two ditches when it comes to preaching. We do well to avoid both.” Darryl explains what they are.
Good Book Guides Giveaway: Enter for the Chance to Win 59 Bible Studies
Enter for a chance to win a set of 59 Bible studies from The Good Book Company, written by trusted teachers like Tim Keller, Ligon Duncan, Eric Mason, and more. (Sponsored Link)
A call for evangelism, and why it might be missing in the West
It’s a valid question: why are so many Christians so passive when it comes to evangelism?
The End of Exodus
Mitch explains why the deliverance from Egypt is not the climax of the book of Exodus. Something else is…
What If I Don’t Know When I Believed in Christ?
“I spiraled into a season of doubting my salvation in Christ. This severe doubt led me to sit in my pastor’s office where I heard an analogy from Spurgeon that continues to comfort me. And if you struggle with doubt and assurance, I trust this will aid you as it did me.”
If You Care About Spiritual Abuse, Watch Your Language
Trevin raises some very important points here. “If we really care about spiritual abuse, then we must push back against the dilution of the meaning of serious words. Otherwise, we create unhelpful expectations for life together in the church and the world.”
Flashback: The Lost Spiritual Discipline
In his classic work Holy Helps for a Godly Life, Richard Rogers draws out a spiritual discipline that has largely been lost and neglected in recent years—the discipline of watchfulness.

Our culture tells us that the problem is outside us and the solution is inside us. The gospel tells us that the problem is inside us and the solution is outside us. —Dane Ortlund