Good morning. May the Lord bless and keep you today.

Westminster Books has a couple of deals you should know about this week. The first is on the John Piper preaching bundle while the second is on a new children’s book.
There’s a nice collection of reference works in today’s list of Kindle deals.
Clinging to God and Grammar
Carl Trueman: “In times past, progressive politicians described those they despised as clinging to ‘God and guns.’ I suspect that we are not too far from a time when they will insult those they deplore for clinging to God and grammar. That might sound an odd claim, but the days are coming rapidly to an end when it was morally acceptable to think that language, among its many functions, had a positive relation to reality. Today, dictionaries and grammars look set to become relics of a bygone age of evil oppression.”
Ten Truths About a Liar
“Is Satan capable of inception? Does he whisper temptations in our ear? Is Satan’s authority, power, and relationship to unbelievers the same or different from Christians? These are all valid and, frankly, somewhat haunting questions. I am not left emotionally unmoved by the many destroyed marriages and ministries around me Satan has devoured. I trust your experience is comparable.”
The Influence Game
Janie B. Cheaney writes about some of the trappings of online fame.
What Lewis Had Wrong about Hell
Bob McKelvey writes about Lewis’ The Great Divorce and says that “What Lewis communicates about anthropology in these vignettes is unsurpassed. Sadly, what he conveys about theology proper is appalling.”
Smartphones and Fallen Natures
Doug Eaton: “There are so many benefits to today’s technology that it is hard to overestimate, but that does not mean there are no negative consequences involved, especially when we combine it with our sinful nature.”
Heart Medicine
Kristin shares another little anecdote from her childhood while drawing a lesson from it.
Flashback: How to Pray Like a Pastor
Personally, I pray for one of these traits each day, using the bullet points as a guide. Perhaps you will find it helpful to do something similar.

How sweet is rest, after fatigue! How sweet will Heaven be, when our toilsome journey is ended. —George Whitefield

Good morning. Grace and peace to you.

(Yesterday on the blog: Let’s Hear It For the Failures)
Measure Your Heart of Thanksgiving
“I don’t know what your Thanksgiving season looks like. I sincerely hope you find thankfulness a happy overflow of God’s blessings this year. I hope your home fills with joy and laughter. But there are times in every person’s life when thanksgiving is an act of trust, when the measure with which we are measured tries our hearts.”
American Church, Don’t Listen to Eric Metaxas
This review engages with Eric Metaxas’ latest book. This is quite a group of people Metaxas calls out! “Metaxas doesn’t hesitate to call out pastors he judges to be weak, timid, cowardly, or so ‘theologically fussy’ (44) that they don’t join his movement. Men like Tim Keller, Alistair Begg, John Piper, and John MacArthur are not Bonhoeffer-ish enough for Metaxas (11, 44).”
Where did Satan come from? (Video)
Guy Richard (sort of) answers in this short video. (I say “sort of” because he perhaps discusses the origins of evil a bit more than of Satan.)
The Current State of Complementarity
John Piper discusses the current state of complementarity by discussing two statements: Nashville and Danvers. “Danvers confronts women who intend to be pastors, while Nashville confronts women who intend to be men. Danvers confronts men who are unwilling to lead their wives; Nashville confronts men who can’t lead their wives because they don’t have one — they are ‘married’ to men.”
The Serious Business Of Laughing At Myself
“If I can’t embrace my own smallness, my own humiliations, and my total dependence on the God who made me, then my pride has grown out of control. That’s a serious problem. And sometimes the solution is as simple as having a good, long laugh at my own little self.” Quite right.
The Gospel Never Does Nothing
What’s the one thing the gospel never does? Nothing.
Flashback: 3 Parenting Myths We Are All Tempted To Believe
“Our job is to discharge faithfully the duties God has given to us, leaving the results in God’s hands. Our goal is not ‘successful’ parenting per se, but faithful parenting.” This is a sweet, liberating truth.

The pastor doesn’t know what interventions to provide for a distressed soul until he first listens to that soul. —Harold Senkbeil

Grace and peace to you on this fine day.

(Yesterday on the blog: A Year of Sorrow, a Year of Gratitude, a Year of Grace)
Does It Really Matter Whether Adam Was the First Man?
Michael Reeves: “The simple aim of this article is to show that, far from being a peripheral matter for fussy literalists, it is biblically and theologically necessary for Christians to believe in Adam as a historical person who fathered the entire human race.”
Can a Christian Believe in Evolution?
Gregg Allison says there are two different forms of theistic evolution, then asks “Does either version of theistic evolution fit with Scripture? To answer, we need to look at church history and historical Christian doctrine.”
7 Questions about the Septuagint
If you’ve ever wondered what the Septuagint is all about and why it matters, this may help.
Abortion Is Unjust Discrimination
Alan Shlemon: “Abortion-choice advocates consider their view morally superior. They believe they are defending a woman’s right to control her body. What they don’t realize, though, is that their position leads to an act of unjust discrimination.”
The Purpose of Suffering
Sylvia Schroeder has a good article about suffering and the purpose behind it. “Almost three years had passed, since our daughter’s illness, but the pain hadn’t lifted. It wrapped around me like a lead blanket. Peter, Jesus’ disciple and I were buds.”
This Old House
“Is it just me, or is our house falling apart? That’s a rhetorical question—of course it isn’t just me. ‘Falling apart’ has become a rising chorus on both ends of the political spectrum and everywhere in between. I’ve never seen it this bad is a continuing refrain. From my perspective of 70-plus years, the 1970s may have been objectively worse, but seeds sown then appear to be reseeding and reinventing themselves now. How do we understand it?”
Lift Up Your Head
“After Halloween comes Christmas—the light of the world entered the darkness, and at Easter, overcame it once and for all.”
Flashback: Why It Matters that We Call the Final Book of the Bible Revelation, not Revelations
The difference is subtle—a single “s.” Yet that little letter, in its own way, changes the very nature of the book. It matters.

God…invites us into a spiritual family of misfits and outcasts. He welcomes us into a home that’s rarely what we want yet just what we need. —Collin Hansen & Jonathan Leeman