A La Carte (March 7)
I don’t quite know how to gauge these things, but I feel like today’s collection of articles is especially strong. I hope you enjoy it!
There’s a new version of Paul Tripp’s War of Words available and on sale if you’ve never read it. You can’t really go wrong with a Tripp book!
Today’s Kindle deals include an interesting memoir, a trustworthy commentary, and more besides.
This is a tremendous article on God’s attributes. “I once heard it said that the true measure of a person’s character can be determined not by their ability to express any single attribute well, but rather by their capacity to display seemingly contrary attributes in harmony with one another at any given time.”
Samuel James writes about a couple of odious headlines and ties them together. “Andrew Tate is a bad person, even if people with the moral framework to know why can’t afford to say it. Prostitution is bad, even if people with the political commitments to know why can’t afford to say it. And the biggest losers of this confusion will not be podcasters or Hollywood producers, but the young men and young women who consume the content, dazzled by the confidence they see, and unprepared for the consequences of being fooled.”
I appreciate Dan sharing his view from the other side of the pew. “I recently had a friendly exchange on social media with a professor who posted about how being a pastor is the hardest job in the world. I wouldn’t have challenged it if it came from someone serving in Ukraine or the DRC. But having spent plenty of time around posh seminary offices in America that often come with perks like compensated part-time church roles, I couldn’t let it go.”
Justin considers our tendency to provide answers that are far too easy for complex problems.
“Why do human beings always celebrate with a meal? What is it about food that makes consuming it together the most appropriate way to commemorate an occasion? Think about it. We celebrate everything with a meal. Birthdays, funerals, graduations, anniversaries, engagements, promotions, holidays—all excuses to gather and eat and drink.”
Are Christian happier than non-Christians in this life? John Piper considers the question.
The church…is, in short, a place where God means to bless every family—even, and perhaps especially, those families who are most broken and most in need of his grace.
Look up! That is the key to perseverance. Not looking in—to our pain. Not looking down—in despair. But up—up to the King, the Lord, the Saviour, the one who has gone before us and who will use hard things to make our faith complete.
—Helen Thorne
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A La Carte (August 3)
The Lord be with you and bless you today.
Today’s Kindle deals include another good-sized list of books.
Westminster Books has ESVs on sale this week. You’ll also find a discount on a book meant to provide daily liturgies.
(Yesterday on the blog: Seasons of Sorrow: A Special Pre-Order Offer)
A Crucial Court Case Exposes the Darkness of America’s Worst Industry
This is difficult to read, but important at the same time. Let’s not allow ourselves to be fooled about the reality of pornography.
From Rage to Repentance
“Hamid unexpectedly walked in just as the service was beginning. At once I felt anxious chills in the back of my head and neck, my body’s way of telling me that it feels threatened.” Here’s an encouraging dispatch from Central Asia.
Whip the Devil with the Golden Chain
“Foreknew Predestined Called Justified Glorified. These five words capture the drama of redemption. The salvation God gives is all-encompassing—we are cocooned into the grace of God from eternity past to eternity future. Each link is an act of God to bring us into his grace, keep us in his grace, and bring us into eternal life on the New Earth. Grace upon grace.”
How to become a Calvinist in 5 easy steps:
This is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek (yet also not altogether unheard of) way to become a Calvinist.
A community response to an adverse event
“Recently I was attacked while walking along a beach near our friends’ place out of town.” Thankfully Tamie was not hurt. In this article she relays how justice and restitution can look different in a different culture.
Look for Your Moral Blind Spots
“We all have blind spots preventing us from pursuing true, biblical justice.” This article at STR explains why it’s important to look for our own moral blind spots.
Flashback: The Utter Devastation of Sin
Sin isn’t here for a moment and then gone. No, sin is so evil that it leaves its lingering scent behind. -
A La Carte (April 28)
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you today.
The FAQs: Anglican Group Calls on Church of England’s Leader to Repent
Joe Carter has one of his FAQs about what’s been happening lately with the Anglican Church.
What Does ‘Salvation” Mean?
“Almost no word so well captures the heart of the message of Scripture as does the word salvation. It appears more than 170 times in our English translations of the Old and New Testament. The related word, saved, appears approximately one hundred times throughout the pages of Scripture. But what is salvation? What does it mean for someone to be saved?” Nick Batzig answers.
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Should You Accommodate A Person’s Requests?
“Christians are routinely pressured to compromise their convictions. Sadly, it’s other Christians who leverage a good-faith principle to achieve an unfair end. I want to encourage you, though. If you’re feeling pressured to accommodate a request from an LGBT person that violates your conscience, know that there’s a line you do not have to cross.”
God Delights in You
Lara considers our love for our children and the Father’s love for us.
Themelios
There is a new issue of Themelios available in a variety of formats for those who would like to do some academic reading.
Flashback: Whatever Is Not Christ
When we come to Christ in repentance and faith, we surrender ourselves to the purpose of God and submit ourselves to the hand of God. We are the block of marble and he the artist, we the medium and he the one who must remove from it whatever is not Christ.How…could God remain equally faithful to His love for us and His just judgment of our sins? The glory of the cross, its unimaginable wisdom lies in the way God has devised to provide salvation for His people. —Sinclair Ferguson
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We Need Qualified Leadership
A few days ago I happened upon the page of an especially mega-sized megachurch. The church is about to undergo a leadership transition from an older man to a younger one and a page on the site lays out the process through which this new pastor was chosen. I read with a morbid kind of fascination as it told about personality testing, leadership evaluations, compatibility assessments, and much else. But I couldn’t help but notice that it said not a word about doctrine, beliefs, or the ability to understand and teach the Word of God. It may as well have been a corporation hiring a CEO. In fact, I rather suspect that’s essentially the long and short of it.
Biblical Eldership
There are few responsibilities more necessary and more sobering than the responsibility of choosing elders (or pastors—for our purposes, let’s understand the terms to be synonymous). Yet there are few responsibilities Christians seem more likely to mishandle. Where the Bible makes clear what a man ought to be if he is to serve as an elder, we like to do it our own way, to assess him by our own criteria. And the cost is immeasurable. The church of our day is plagued by unqualified leaders.
Many years ago, Alexander Strauch released a groundbreaking book on the topic: Biblical Eldership. This year he has released a substantial revision that both updates and expands it. Importantly, it now considers recent scholarship and addresses contemporary concerns. In my view, it has made the best book on the subject still better.
Strauch is nothing if not methodical. He moves slowly and deliberately, beginning with the importance of restoring eldership as it was understood and described in the New Testament. He is a staunch advocate of plural eldership—of a group of men who lead the church as equals. After the opening section, he begins an in-depth examination of the biblical data related to eldership. Twelve chapters in he turns to an extended look at the qualifications of character that must be present in those who would serve as elders, whether vocationally or non-vocationally. Because his specific concern is qualified leadership, this section consumes the majority of the book. Toward the end, he turns to the responsibilities of a congregation to love, honor, and obey the elders God has raised up to lead them.
Though I had read the book in the past, I was both blessed and challenged to read it again in its new edition. And I think I did it in the best way by reading it alongside some other men and having regular Zoom calls to discuss, analyze, and apply it. It helped me now as it did in the past. I recommend Biblical Eldership: Restoring the Eldership to Its Rightful Place in the Local Church as near-essential reading for any man who is already an elder or who aspires to be one in the future.
