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

(Yesterday on the blog: The Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of Space)
The Parachurch in Light of the Church
Jared Wilson: “My new friend fumbled around for an answer. It turned out he was more of a ‘freelancer.’ He had a very clear idea about how his work would benefit the Church with a capital C, the universal church. But he was less clear on how it served any particular body. And therein lies an important matter for the future viability of many parachurch models and the churches they aim to support.”
The Gold Mine in the Local Church
This article encourages you to look for the gold mine that can be found in the local church.
Small Acts of Faithfulness
“Why am I so concerned about personal success?’ I crave accolades for my teaching, mentoring, writing, even my ministry in the church. I long for and expect God to use me in big ways. But what I’m realizing is that God is not interested in what we think of as success. In fact, he most often loves to use weak, obscure people to accomplish his purposes.”
The Liturgy Of Social Media
What is the liturgy of social media, how does it form us. That’s the question this article answers.
Hell and the Lake of Fire?
George Sinclair says, “I was part of the Anglican Church of Canada for many years. This sometimes led me into some odd and surprising conversations. Once I was at a day-long ‘teaching’ event. During one of the breaks, a fellow sought me out in conversation. Given some of the things I had said in our small discussion group, he suspected that I was, in his language, a fundamentalist.”
Why You Should Preach the “Family Gospel”
Kendra Dahl: “My parents endured several years of suffering as I wandered away from my faith. My feelings towards God ranged from ambivalence to hostility as I questioned everything I’d been taught to accept as true. But even as they prayed for me and spoke the truth to me, calling me to repentance and faith, they also did something else. They made sure I knew I could always come home.”
Flashback: War, Women, and Wealth
God, through his Word, calls us to find our reputation and protection in him, to be strong in him even if that makes us weak in the eyes of the world.

‘Fear NOT.’ There is no qualification, no exception, no modification; it is as plain a command as, ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ —Frances Ridley Havergal

I will be on a holiday blogging schedule this week, which means there will be only A La Carte posts. Normalcy will resume next week!

Today’s Kindle deals are headlined by some titles from Crossway.
(Yesterday on the blog: When I Get to the End of the Way)
What if I Don’t Want to Rejoice?
“Humans are natural rejoicers. Not only do we love rejoicing but we do so all the more with others. And yet, there are many times we simply do not want to rejoice. Though the Bible tells us to ‘rejoice in the Lord always,’ we find ourselves doing the exact opposite. How are we supposed to rejoice when life gets rough?”
Canada’s conversion therapy ban commits six secular sins
This is an interesting look at Canada’s Bill C-4 and the sins it commits. “Canada’s Bill C-4 bans ‘conversion therapy.’ But the bill is bad. How bad is the bill? It’s so bad that it, for lack of a better word, sins. It sins against democracy, freedom, truth, reason, and other goods. (Consider these secular sins that may or may not include sins against God.) Bill C-4 sins so badly that, if there were a fiery pit for bad bills, it should be thrown into it.”
The Evil of Earthly-Mindedness
“If one characteristic could describe the Puritan movement as a whole—apart from their personal piety—I believe it would be the Puritans’ ability to penetrate both heart and mind. Their knack for bringing conviction to the stubborn, hope to the hopeless, and relief to the weary and heavy-laden ought to serve as the gold standard for any who aspire to the ministry of the Word. Oh, that gospel minsters in the modern day would speak to the heart as the Puritans did in theirs!”
Love Undeserved & Unsought
This is a deeply personal article from Andrew Kerr.
Top Ten YouTubes of 2021
Here is one that is just for fun. Every year Denny Burk rounds up this top-ten YouTubes of the year that was.
There are no real unprecedented times
I’d tend to agree that we are a little bit too free to describe our times and circumstances as “unprecedented.”
Flashback: The Beautiful Ordinary
… all across the world, thousands of ordinary pastors will preach ordinary sermons to ordinary people, and through these sermons they will communicate the most powerful, extraordinary news of all.

The beginnings of mercy are encouragements to us to pray for the completing of it. —Matthew Henry

I admit it: I felt a little skeptical about Ask Pastor John. To be fair, I feel skeptical about most books that begin in one medium before making the leap to another. Books based on sermons, for example, can often be pretty disappointing—a powerful sermon at a conference can make a bland chapter in a book. Yet once I got into this book, once I saw what it is and isn’t, and once I began to actually read it, my skepticism quickly subsided.

Ask Pastor John

Perhaps the most important thing to note about Ask Pastor John is that the author is not John Piper. Rather, it’s Tony Reinke. It’s Reinke’s name that is written in big characters on the front cover. Piper is mentioned only as the author of the foreword. Yet the content is clearly Piper’s. So what gives?
Back in 2013 Reinke, an employee of Desiring God, proposed a new podcast called Ask Pastor John. The format would be simple—Piper would answer questions posed to him in advance. Rather than offering off-the-cuff answers as he might during a conference Q&A, Piper would spend time in preparation, giving his responses more depth and weight. What was supposed to last for just under 400 episodes has now reached into the thousands. The episodes have been listened to hundreds of millions of times and, by Piper’s own testimony, is the most common feedback he hears from people who interact with him—they tell how much they have been shaped and blessed by it.
Yet not everyone is going to listen to hundreds of hours of podcasts (or would even want to). The book, then, is a kind of “narrative synthesis” of 750 of the most popular episodes, the majority of which deal with situational ethics. Reinke says it “is a core sample of John Piper’s mind and theology” that is meant to serve four purposes: To map the ground they’ve already covered so as to avoid repetition; to topically curate the episodes already created; to celebrate Piper’s investment in the podcast; and to acquaint readers with the scope and depth of the podcast archive. “Basically, my prayer is that by making dozens of the major podcast themes browsable in print, this book will make the archive more useful to you at the very moment you need it. This book doesn’t have an index; it is the index, an index to serve you as you serve others.”
While there is a sense in which the book is meant to prompt readers to become listeners, there is another sense in which it offers plenty of its own value. What Reinke has done is arrange episodes under topical headings. Then he has combined the content of related episodes and condensed it into a short and readable Q&A format. It’s essentially the heart of Piper’s thoughts on hundreds of big questions. Some of the sections include:

On Bible Reading, Bible Neglect, and Bible Memory
On Politics, Patriotism, and Culture Wars
On Cussing, Lying, and Gossip
On Married Sex, Bedroom Taboos, and Fading Attraction
On Satan, Demons, and the Unforgivable Sin
On Deadness, Depression, and Desertion

And that is just a sampling. Within each of these sections, readers may find 30 or 40 different headings, some of which are answers to questions and some of which are matters of practical wisdom. For those who wish to hear fuller answers or to hear the pastoral tone in which they are delivered, everything is carefully footnoted to the appropriate podcast episodes. You can simply punch the episode number into the search box at Desiring God and listen in.
I don’t really listen to podcasts and don’t plan to start now. Yet I enjoyed Ask Pastor John a lot. I enjoyed gaining brief answers to a multitude of questions and enjoyed seeing how Piper brings the truths of Scripture to bear on practical matters. I enjoyed disagreeing with him on a few matters, but such disagreements help sharpen my own thinking. The book is a fascinating and helpful archive, whether taken with or without reference to the podcast that was its origin. I expect you’ll enjoy it every bit as much as I have.