Also, I think most or all audiobooks on Amazon/Audible are 65% off for a few days. Start here, then search for the audiobook you want. You may just find a good deal on it.

If you’re after something for your daily devotions (in printed, not audio format) perhaps take a look at this new David Powlison devotional.
Today’s Kindle deals include some newer and older books.
(Yesterday on the blog: When Church Leadership Goes Wrong)
Be Angry and Do Not Sin
Ed Welch considers what it means to be angry yet not sin. “The problem is that we are happy to exploit what seems to be a legal loophole. Anger, in its very nature, is self-justifying. My anger is righteous; your anger is not. So if we are to find some righteous wiggle room here, we must proceed very carefully.”
Rejoice (Video)
The Gettys released a new album yesterday that is well worth a listen. One of the top tracks on it is “Rejoice” which features Rend Collective.
Uprooting Bitterness
Paul Tautges is doing some writing on bitterness. “Bitterness was taking root, confirming to me that their sin was greater than mine. The wrong they did to us is more serious than my failure to trust God, I thought. For months, I prayed in anger and lacked self-awareness of what was happening inside me.”
What REALLY Happened at Nicaea
I appreciate these Red Pen Logic videos that quickly answer common objections to Christianity, like this one which claims that the canon of Scripture was established at Nicaea.
When You Can’t Meet Every Need
I appreciate what Lauren says here about her inability to meet all the needs of all the people in her family. “‘I can’t meet all of their needs, but I can meet this one.’”
To the “Young and Inexperienced” Counselor
“I am 27 years old. I’m not married and I don’t have children. I’m not a pastor or a deacon. These are usually the first things I tell my counselees because they are surprised at my youth when they walk into my counseling room. I can tell that their first thought is, ‘how can this young man help me with my circumstances when he hasn’t experienced what I’m experiencing?’”
Flashback: Maintaining Confidence in the Process
We overestimate what God will do in us over a year, but underestimate what God will accomplish in us through a lifetime of submitting ourselves to his process, to his great means of sanctification. Though it’s right to be harsh with our sin, it’s also right to be patient with our growth.

I don’t always feel His presence. But God’s promises do not depend upon my feelings; they rest upon His integrity. —R.C. Sproul

Many would agree that Michelangelo’s David is among the world’s greatest artistic achievements and a true masterpiece of sculpture. What few know is that Michelangelo was not the original artist. The commission had first gone to Agostino di Duccio, but he got only as far as roughing out the shape of the legs and body before his work ceased. Antonio Rossellino soon took it up, but only for a short time, before he, too, quit. The block then sat exposed to the elements for 26 years before Michelangelo finally accepted the challenge. In just over twenty-four months he had completed the task and the sculpture was installed outside Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio. It has now been thrilling and inspiring audiences for more than 500 years.

In recent weeks Grace Fellowship Church has had the privilege of baptizing several new believers. Each one has given testimony to God’s work in his or her life. Each has described a life given over to sin, a life given over to illicit pleasures, a life given over to ultimate meaninglessness. Then each has described hearing the good news of Jesus Christ, accepting and believing that gospel, and seeing the Holy Spirit at work in putting sin to death and coming alive to righteousness.
And on a recent Sunday, as I heard another one tell of the good and gracious acts of God in his life, I was struck by the beauty of God’s work in transforming and completing what others began. When Michelangelo was given his commission, he knew that others had already labored on his block of marble, but was certain he could work around their flawed attempts and make good of them. He knew that previous artists had complained that the marble was too weak, too flawed, to liable to crumble to dust, but he was confident he could work with it. He knew the other artists had wanted to portray David in a classical pose but that he had something better in mind. In his mind’s eyes he saw the sculpture that had to be gently coaxed out of the raw marble and had every confidence he could complete the task.
And just so, God sees the beautiful person within the ones he calls to himself. He knows that the world has begun to shape that person in its image, but he is certain he can instil within him the values of the kingdom of God. He knows the flesh has been drawing that person toward every carnal pleasure, but he is confident he can draw him toward higher pleasures. He knows the devil has begun to shape him in the image of hell, but he is convinced can shape him in the image of heaven. He sees far beyond what the person is and sees what he could be, what he can be, and what he will be.
God promises to continue his work on that person—that magnificent piece of art—until it is complete, until it is exactly the masterpiece he has envisioned. As Toplady said, “The work which His goodness began, / the arm of His strength will complete. / His promise is yes and amen, / And never was forfeited yet.” The God who began his good work will most certainly bring it to completion, for there are no abandoned, unfinished, or incomplete carvings in his gallery.

It can be difficult to know how to tell others about our Christian convictions. It can be difficult to know the best way to tell others about what we believe and why we believe it. And while I am sure this has always been the case, there are new challenges that come with the seismic shifts we’ve seen in Western culture over the past decade or two—shifts that have carried us into what is increasingly obviously a post-Christian West in which our religious convictions are now a social liability far more than an asset.

I am often asked for recommendations on books that someone can hand to an unbeliever, a skeptic, or a religious wanderer—books that may help persuade them to come to the Christian faith. I generally recommend Keller’s The Reason for God because of the way he engages intellectually with the modern mind, but now I’m glad to also be able to recommend a newer option: Rory Shiner and Peter Orr’s The World Next Door: A Short Guide to the Christian Faith. This book, they say, “is our best shot at commending the Christian message to our friends. It’s driven by the universal human instinct to increase the joy of finding a good thing by sharing it with others. We both think we’ve found a good thing—the best thing—in finding God through Jesus. We want to share it.”
Shiner is a pastor in Perth, Australia while Orr is a Northern Irish professor who now teaches New Testament in Sydney. Shiner was raised in a Christian home while Peter was not. Yet both have come to the Christian faith and both are now eager to share it with their friends and family members. This book is their best attempt to do so.
They take an interesting angle on an evangelistic work by framing it around the Apostle’s Creed, the most widely accepted summary of Christian truth. This creed “is associated with baptism and the entry of new converts into the faith. We figure the creed will keep us on the straight and narrow, tethering us to an account of the faith that is briskly orthodox and historically grounded…” The creed also allows them to do more than talk about the Christian faith—it forces them to share exactly what its primary claims are. It forces them to deal immediately and unashamedly with matters Christians may shy away from as they talk to unbelievers—God as Creator, Jesus born of a virgin, the triunity of God, and so on.
Where they begin, though, is with demons. Yes, demons. They begin by telling of Jesus’ confrontation with a demon-possessed man, explaining how it opens up an understanding of the unseen world—the world the biblical writers described as existing above and below us. Why would they begin here? “Francis Schaeffer, a Christian thinker from the mid-20th century, apparently used to give his first talk on angels when addressing university students. When asked why, he explained that when he spoke about God and sin, people heard him to be speaking about morality. But when he spoke about angels, people understood he was speaking about spiritual truths. About a bigger reality, about transcendent truths. That’s what we want to talk about, too.”
This is clever, I think, because it immediately confronts the reader with the reality that the Christian faith is not merely a way to live or a system of morality, but something far bigger, far broader, far more all-encompassing. “The Christian faith is less like an object in the world, whose existence is accepted by some and denied by others, and more like a pair of glasses through which you look at the rest of life, the universe, and everything.”
And so they lead the reader through the Creed, phrase by phrase. They discuss the being and nature of God and tell of his creative power; they introduce Jesus as God and man, as incarnated and virgin-born, as crucified and buried, as resurrected, reigning, and returning; they tell of the Holy Spirit and his ongoing work in this world. In other words, they lead the reader through the most essential claims of Christianity.
While I am obviously not a skeptic of the faith, and while I have not yet had opportunity to hand this book to one, I do believe its approach is helpful and will prove effective. I admire the authors for not running away from even the most offensive of Christianity’s claims and from its most difficult doctrines. I admire them for wanting to share their own enthusiasm for the God who has met them and saved them. And I admire them for remaining engaging and winsome all the while. “Christianity’s explanatory power, bracing beauty, and sheer otherness are some of the best things about it. It ends up making our modern, secular, materialistic Western view of life look a bit, well, dull. There are all sorts of good reasons to become a Christian, some of them very serious. But one of the more surprising reasons is that being a Christian is actually really interesting and, in its own way, fun.” I couldn’t agree more and it’s my hope that many people read The World Next Door and come to embrace the faith it describes.

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