Blessings to you today.

Today’s Kindle deals include another good-sized list of discounted books.
(Yesterday on the blog: It’s 2023 and We Need Blogs More Than Ever)
How a Christian Marriage Was Saved by a Wise Guerilla Leader
This is an account of how God worked through unusual means to preserve a marriage.
“I Must Decrease” … But How?
“It’s pretty clear: the world’s loud, incessant voice tells me that in order to be happy, I need to spend more of my time, money, and attention on myself. You’ve probably heard the same message about your need for this, as well.”
The Gospel Coalition Conference 2023
Join us September 25—27, Indianapolis, IN. With worship led by Sydney, Australia’s CityAlight and keynote speakers including John Piper, David Platt, Andrew Wilson, and many more, we’ll explore the theme, Hope in the Wilderness: Encouragement for Pilgrims from the Book of Exodus. Find out more about our theme, full lineup and breakouts. (Sponsored Link)
Eight Counsels for Those Thinking of Quitting
John Piper offers some counsel for those who may be considering quitting.
What is covenant theology? (Video)
You’ve probably heard of covenant theology and wondered what it’s all about. Sinclair Ferguson explains in this brief video.
A Light to My Path
“[The Bible] doesn’t lay out every step on our journey, but it gives us the light we need to take the next step, trusting in the Light, knowing that He not only knows every twist and turn in our path but also has intentionally and lovingly prepared the way for us.”
Flashback: For the Christian Who Is Afraid To Die
What we know of life after death we must know by faith. And what does the faithful heart believe about the experience of death? James Meikle beautifully tells us in these words.

It is one thing to attract a gaping crowd to witness a display of pulpit pyrotechny; it is quite another thing to attract and to hold attentive listeners to the gospel of life. —Theodore Cuyler

Today’s post is sponsored by Christian Focus Publications.

For centuries, Baptists have published confessions of faith as formal statements of their beliefs. Chief among these is the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. This doctrinal statement is a spiritual treasure trove worthy of our fresh attention. In a new study, edited by Rob Ventura, more than twenty contributors unpack its timeless biblical truths, ‘things which are most surely believed among us’ (Luke 1:1). Here, in an interview with Evan Knies of The King’s Table, Pastor Ventura shares some comments concerning A New Exposition of the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689:
Evan: Tell us about yourself?
Rob: Let me start with my salvation. I was raised on Long Island with no Christian upbringing. I was so spiritually lost that I never heard John 3:16 until I was twenty-two years old. However, around thirty years ago while I was working professionally in the music industry in New York City, God brought some Christians into my life. With the Word of God, they showed me my sin and then pointed me to the only Savior of sinners, Jesus Christ the Lord. In His free and marvelous grace, He saved me and I was radically converted. Eventually I left the music industry and enrolled in Bible school in Manhattan.
While studying the Scriptures and through the influence of Pastor Albert N. Martin and others, I became Reformed in my understanding of theology and church life. I eventually joined a Reformed Baptist church in Englewood, New Jersey. I was later ordained there as a bi-vocational pastor in 2007 after graduating from seminary. Shortly after this, I was called to full-time ministry in another Reformed Baptist congregation in North Providence, Rhode Island (Grace Community Baptist Church). By God’s grace, I have been pastoring this church for over fifteen years.
Evan: What led to this new volume being published on the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689?
Rob: While I was writing a new chapter on the doctrine of adoption as found in the Westminster Confession of Faith for a new book by Dr. Beeke entitled: Growing in Grace (Reformation Heritage Books) I noticed that the Presbyterians had many resources which opened up their great Confession, but Baptists only had one, by Dr. Sam Waldron. While Dr. Waldron’s exposition is excellent, I thought that a newer treatment with multiple authors would be helpful for many. After conferring with Dr. Waldron about this, he agreed, so I began gathering some of our best Reformed Baptist pastors to produce this work, including Dr. Waldron himself.
Evan: What do you hope that readers will take away from A New Exposition of the LBCF of 1689?
Rob: Having read this new exposition, I believe readers will see the glories and realities of those excellent doctrines most surely believed among us. This new work on the great Baptist confession is extremely practical and pastoral; therefore, I think it will minister to many and build them up in their most holy faith. This is my prayer and the prayer of many. May God grant it to be so!
Get your copy of A New Exposition of the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 from RHB here.

It’s hard to remember or even believe, but there was a time when social media consisted solely of blogs. Blogs were the way writers escaped the gatekeepers of old media to gain a voice of their own on the marvelous new medium we called the World Wide Web. Blogs were an interactive form of communication in which communities of writers would engage with one another while readers would provide feedback through comment sections. It was far from a perfect setup, but it worked well enough and a lot of good came from it. However else we tell the story of the rise and spread of Reformed theology in the early part of this century, for example, we cannot tell it apart from blogs.

But eventually alternative forms of social media sprang up and began to displace blogs as the next big thing. Twitter and Facebook were most prominent, but there were many others besides. Then came the rise of video, first on YouTube and then on Vine and Instagram and TikTok and other “reel” formats. Podcasts arrived on the scene and Substack newsletters. The people had claimed the right to have a voice that was unmediated by the old-media decision-makers and there’s no realistic chance that they will give it back anytime soon.
But while blogs are often regarded as an old and perhaps passé form of social media, I am convinced they still have their place. In fact, I am increasingly convinced they still have their place, even in 2023. And I still encourage aspiring writers to give blogging a chance. Let me offer a few reasons blogging still matters and may even become increasingly (rather than diminishingly) important in the days to come.
First, the foremost benefit of blogging is as important as ever. Before blogs, pretty much the only way to have a voice was to gain the attention and trust of an editor at a magazine or publishing house. Even then, the editor could reject your writing or edit it to make it conform to a particular viewpoint. There were (and still are) benefits to this, but there are also drawbacks. Blogs were the first medium that allowed individuals to create book-like or magazine-like content independent of those old media systems. And we found it to be a good and beneficial thing. There were drawbacks, of course—lots of poor-quality writing and lots of writing that lacked Christian character. But we gained more than we lost when so many people began blogs to share what the Lord was teaching them. And it is still a good and important thing to have writing that is not beholden to the whims, perspectives, political alignments, or theological positions of a select few.
Second, blogging allows us to control our own platform. Over the past few years we have come to realize the downsides of doing our writing on platforms owned and controlled by others in what has simply become a new form of ideological gatekeeping. It wasn’t long ago that progressives were at the helm at Twitter and conservatives had just about had enough of shadow bans, arbitrary account lockouts, and all manner of censorship. The recent “Twitter Files” have shown beyond any real dispute that all of this was happening and more. Today, though, a libertarian is at the helm at Twitter and it is the progressives who are crying foul, insisting that Twitter is now a bastion of the radical alt-right. I guess what we can all agree on is that we will always be at the mercy of the ideology of the people in control. But that is not the case for blogs where we control our own platform and don’t need to be concerned about censors. (Monique Judge makes this point from an opposite worldview to mine at The Verge.)
Third, blogs provide a superior reading experience compared to other forms of social media. Twitter threads are an abysmal way to read that condescends to the medium to far too great an extent. Reading anything of length on Facebook grates on the nerves. Instagram often looks attractive and has its place, but it’s a poor medium for communicating at length or in substance. It is still blogs that allow writers to prepare and share content that is substantial in its length and that conforms to the principles of typology and page layout. I’ll grant that Substack does this well, but it has other drawbacks such as poor search engine “findability” and the fact that the content is still beholden to the ideology of the company itself. Podcasts and video have their place, but text still reigns supreme when it comes to finding, skimming, saving, citing, and accessing in the future. Blogs continue to have unique strengths.
There is much more I could say. Blogs tend to be written by real people rather than anonymous trolls—I suspect most of us have realized by now that anonymity combined with access to a large audience has a power to it that few of us can handle with character and grace. Blogging diversifies the voices speaking to the church—because there are few barriers to entry, blogs invite anyone to participate and, much to our benefit, many have. Blogging serves as an ideal way to practice and showcase good writing—and this can lead to opportunities to write for other forms of media.
So how might you get started? I’ll simply direct you to an article I wrote a few years ago that still lays out a plan I know many have followed with success.
And then let me close this way: We are not going to go back to the old ways in which a few gatekeepers were responsible to determine who could have a voice. Nor do we want to. Blogging was the first medium to shake the old ways and, even 25 years later, it continues to have unique strengths that make it superior to so many of the more recent alternatives. And so, for that reason among others, I continue to encourage writers and prospective writers to give it a try. You may just find you love it, you thrive at it, and you can make use of it to serve the church and bring glory to God.

https://www.challies.com/a-la-carte/a-la-carte-january-16-6-2023/

It is one of the great paradoxes of the Christian life—we have been saved, but we still sin. We have committed ourselves to the Lord, but are sometimes still so committed to rebelling against him. We have been forgiven, yet still at times spurn his grace. I expect thoughts like these were in the mind and heart of a poet named M.A.B. Kelly when she wrote “Without and Within” and pleaded with the Lord to “let the sunlight in.”

The sun shines in my outer world,But darkness reigns within,A fearful gloom enshrouds my soul,The nebula of sin.Dear Savior, smile away this gloom,And let the sunlight in.
Sweet bird-songs cheer my outer world,But anguish wails within.Ambition, pride, and gross deceitHave bound my soul in sin;Then, O my Savior, break these bonds,And let the sunlight in!
Temptations throng my way without,Remorse broods dark within;The chains that bind my tortured soulAre festered o’er with sin;Dear Savior, send thy healing balm,And let the sunlight in.
While pleasure gayly smiles without,What torment reigns within!And still, poor weakling that I am,I tread the paths of sin,My Savior, I am lost if thouLet not the sunlight in.

My thanks goes to Reformed Free Publishing Association for sponsoring the blog this week to tell you about their children’s magazine, Ignited by the Word.

There is quite a good collection in today’s Kindle deals. I have it on good authority that we will see plenty of good deals next week.
Westminster Books has a deal on a neat new family devotional.
(Yesterday on the blog: And Then There Was One)
The Chosen and The Word
This article is worth reading and considering. “As I gazed at the smiling, gentle face of Jonathan Roumie, I felt uneasy. This actor who portrays Jesus in ‘The Chosen’ was different to any other Jesus actor I had ever encountered. He had the right skin colour for a start. But more than that, his face somehow simultaneously conveyed a strength and kindness that attracted and drew me in. I felt the need to remind myself that he wasn’t Jesus, and that thought gave me pause.”
The Ultimate Balanced Guide to Arminianism (from a Calvinist)
This is a kind and clarifying explanation of Arminianism.
A Family Vacation, a Broken Transmission, and a God Who Is with Us
I always enjoy reading stories like this one. “Recently, I said these words to my wife as we began to panic about twenty-five miles north of Jackson, Wyoming: ‘God is with us. He will help us and provide for us. This is no surprise to him. We need only to be faithful and not lose heart.’”
I Was Preaching to My Twitter Feed
“I noticed the problem when my joke didn’t land. I thought it was a witty take on a major cultural issue, but no one had any idea what I was talking about. My wife, who usually laughs politely at my humor, stared blankly. I was astonished, because this issue was all anyone had talked about for days . . . on Twitter. That was the problem.”
Don’t Women Need Access to Abortion for Rape?
“You don’t have the right to tell my fourteen-year-old daughter she has to carry her rapist’s baby.” Andy Naselli considers this common argument for the right to abortion. (See also: An Open Letter to a Young Woman Contemplating an Abortion)
Being Made New
“In His hands, our worst sins, pains, and sorrows are re-woven into a new and glorious creation. Every broken relationship, illness, tear, and sin is bound together in God’s redemptive way and made beautiful in Christ.”
Flashback: The Easiest Sin to Justify
When it comes to the sin of anger, we can always find an explanation that exists outside of us. We can always dump this sin in the lap of a husband or wife, a child or stranger. Failing that, we can plead fatigue or hormones or waking up on the wrong side of the bed or something—anything!—else.

You will never be smarter than God, your plan for your life will never be better than God’s plan for you, what you want for you will never be better than what your Savior has died to give you. —Paul David Tripp

This week’s Free Stuff Friday is sponsored by Reformed Free Publishing Association, who also sponsored the blog this week with their article Ignited by the Word: A Christian Magazine for Children. They are offering a free, 1-year subscription to Ignited by the Word to each of ten winners.

Every issue of Ignited by the Word, our Christian children’s magazine for children and young teens, has a theme. Past themes include:

Heaven-Bound Citizens
God’s Goodness and Mercy
The Protestant Reformation

Our January issue, “Prayer,” will be mailed out soon! Below is a sneak peak of some of the exciting content that subscribers will be enjoying in this issue.
From PreK-2nd Grade – Devotions 
Closing Our Eyes
Have you ever prayed in a closet? That might seem like a strange place to pray to God! But in Matthew 6:6, Jesus tells us that a closet is a good place to pray. Why? Because a closet is a quiet, dark place without very many distractions. We are easily distracted by people or sounds or other things around us. That is why we almost always close our eyes when we pray. When we close our eyes, we suddenly create a dark, quiet place where we can pray without many distractions. Just like the closet Jesus was talking about! Closing our eyes helps our hearts and minds to focus so we are ready to pray to God reverently. Can you close your eyes and fold your hands in your prayers today?

From 3rd-5th Grade – Church History
One Who Sings, Prays Twice
…Singing is a form of prayer, but also something more. Singing helps move us to greater zeal in prayer, as we approach God with joy and gladness, love and devotion. That idea, if not the saying, goes all the way back to Augustine, a great church leader who lived over 1,700 years ago…
After years of neglect, the Reformation restored congregational singing in the church. Martin Luther, a gifted musician, believed music was essential to worship. He required students preparing for the ministry to study music. He wrote that music was given to us so we remember that “God has created us for the express purpose of praising and extolling God…

From 6th-8th Grade – Devotions
Read Jonah 2:1-10
Jonah’s Prayer of Repentance
Jonah prayed to God out of the belly of the fish when God chastised him for his sin of disobedience. In this beautiful prayer, Jonah confesses that God is right and just in His chastisement. But the beauty of Jonah’s prayer is that God doesn’t leave him in the “belly of hell” or at the “bottoms of the mountains.” Jonah confesses that salvation is of the Lord and that God delivered his life from corruption. He recommits his way unto the Lord. He promises to keep his vow to serve the Lord. With this prayer of repentance, God forgave Jonah and the fish spit him out upon dry land. This prayer reminds God’s people that we must confess our sins before God and commit our ways unto Him.
Would you like a copy of the January issue of Ignited by the Word to share with your children? How about the January issue and the next three issues, too? Enter our giveaway below for a chance to win one of ten 1-year subscriptions for free!
TO ENTER
Giveaway Rules: You may enter one time. When you enter, you agree to be placed on Reformed Free Publishing Association’s email list. The winner will be notified by email. The giveaway closes on January 19, 2023 at midnight.

I don’t know what it is like to lose a spouse. I don’t know what it is like to bid farewell to the person with whom I’ve built a home and had a family and shared a life. I don’t know the unique griefs, the unique sorrows, the unique traumas that come with so devastating a separation. On the one hand I can’t know without actually enduring it myself, but on the other hand, I can learn from those who have experienced it and have recorded it. I can learn so I can better serve those in my life who are enduring this trial.

Mary Echols lost her husband very suddenly and unexpectedly after he suffered a heart attack. And in the aftermath of her loss she was desperate to find out how much of her experience of loss was typical. “I began looking for something I could read that would allow me into someone else’s journey and help me to see that the little things I was stressing over were okay,” she says. “I needed to know that someone else couldn’t change the sheets, that someone else washed her spouse’s clothes with hers, that someone else would open his bathroom drawer that held hairbrush, aftershave, cologne, and breathe in his scent. I needed to have these things validated!” Because she couldn’t find anything, she decided to journal her journey and the result is And Then There Was One: An Emotionally Raw Journey Through Spousal Grief.
The book’s format is what I have found typical for a book that has been written in a time of deep grief in that it is comprised of short thoughts that are often very urgent and very poignant. Some of it is written as if to her husband, some as if to herself, and some as if to an unknown reader like you and me. She recounts returning home to find her husband slumped in his chair and tells, how though she was a seasoned RN, nothing had prepared her for the moment. She tells about the early hours in which, as if in a terrible dream, she went through the motions of calling her children, and the early days in which she cried herself to sleep in a bed that was now cold and empty.
But time passes and she finds that, though time does not heal all wounds (as some insensitively suggest) it does provide space in which healing can begin to take place. She observes that the initial stages of healing seem to proceed in six-week increments where every six weeks she realizes she has begun to see some change in herself, some new ability, some new acceptance. She begins to do those things all grieving spouses must—write thank you notes to people who have brought her a meal, box up her husband’s possessions, learn to shop for one instead of two.

What happened? We used to be together. We sat at the same table, ate the same food, watched the same TV shows, slept in the same bed, breathed the same air, and then you went away. Funny how that changes everything. I still sit at the same table, eat the same food, watch the same TV shows, sleep in the same bed, and breathe the same air, but none of it is the same.
❖
I am alone and I’m so afraid. I’ve lost so much with your death. It’s not just the loss of my husband and friend. I’ve lost my protector—the one who always saw to it that I was safe from the world, the one who stepped in when I couldn’t handle something and took care of it for me, the one I turned to for guidance when I didn’t know what to do or how to do it, the one who was my emotional support, the one I leaned on. You were so strong when I was weak, and now there is no one to be strong for me. Now I have to handle the world all by myself, take care of things I know nothing about, and trust people I don’t know to help me.
❖
My mind is gone and I’m not sure I want it back, as I don’t know where it’s been. What kind of strange journey is it on, and why didn’t it give me some notice that it was leaving? The audacity of it to just leave me without so much as a hint it was going. I would much rather my heart had left and taken the pain of your death with it—but maybe, my mind decided I should only deal with one thing at a time, and that grieving should be top priority. But doesn’t my mind understand that its leaving just made the grieving harder? How can I concentrate on grieving when I can’t concentrate? My mind is gone, and I wish I had gone with it.

There is a turning point along the way where she gains a deeper acceptance of her circumstances. The day comes when she realizes she may be tempted to turn some of her husband’s things in a shrine and resists that temptation. The day comes when she realizes she doesn’t mind making decisions for just one person instead of two and living according to the plan and schedule of only herself. The day comes when she faces some of the regrets from her marriage, when she utters one final apology and grants one final forgiveness. After all, “We were just two people who loved each other and did the best we could with who we were.”
By the end of the book she has emerged from the worst of her sorrows. She may not be healed, but she is healing. She may not be over her sorrows (as if anyone ever is) but she is once again getting on with life. She is laughing again and experiencing joy. She has come to the other side of her grief. She has begun experiencing a new normal. “I am at the end of my grieving now. I find I can think of you without tears or heartache, for those things have been replaced with sweet memories. I can talk about you without tears yet, sometimes the memories are so sweet that the tears still come, but they aren’t tears of grief any more, but of fond remembrance. You are still as much a part of me as ever, and I find myself talking to you every now and then when I need another viewpoint because you were always so wise.”
In my assessment, this book has two notable strengths. The first is related to Echols’s realness. She simply lets us into her journey as she goes through it and is honest about her joys and sorrows, her fears and doubts, her submission and her anger. The second is related to her faith. She writes as a Christian who mourns, but not without hope, and who grieves, but not without a sense of God’s will being expressed even in something as tragic as death. Her book is not a theology of death, yet teaches that God reigns over death and provides ultimate hope beyond it. This is a beautiful, hopeful little book and one I’m glad to recommend.

Buy from Amazon

I don’t know what it is like to lose a spouse. I don’t know what it is like to bid farewell to the person with whom I’ve built a home and had a family and shared a life. I don’t know the unique griefs, the unique sorrows, the unique traumas that come with so devastating a separation. On the one hand I can’t know without actually enduring it myself, but on the other hand, I can learn from those who have experienced it and have recorded it. I can learn so I can better serve those in my life who are enduring this trial.

Mary Echols lost her husband very suddenly and unexpectedly after he suffered a heart attack. And in the aftermath of her loss she was desperate to find out how much of her experience of loss was typical. “I began looking for something I could read that would allow me into someone else’s journey and help me to see that the little things I was stressing over were okay,” she says. “I needed to know that someone else couldn’t change the sheets, that someone else washed her spouse’s clothes with hers, that someone else would open his bathroom drawer that held hairbrush, aftershave, cologne, and breathe in his scent. I needed to have these things validated!” Because she couldn’t find anything, she decided to journal her journey and the result is And Then There Was One: An Emotionally Raw Journey Through Spousal Grief.
The book’s format is what I have found typical for a book that has been written in a time of deep grief in that it is comprised of short thoughts that are often very urgent and very poignant. Some of it is written as if to her husband, some as if to herself, and some as if to an unknown reader like you and me. She recounts returning home to find her husband slumped in his chair and tells, how though she was a seasoned RN, nothing had prepared her for the moment. She tells about the early hours in which, as if in a terrible dream, she went through the motions of calling her children, and the early days in which she cried herself to sleep in a bed that was now cold and empty.
But time passes and she finds that, though time does not heal all wounds (as some insensitively suggest) it does provide space in which healing can begin to take place. She observes that the initial stages of healing seem to proceed in six-week increments where every six weeks she realizes she has begun to see some change in herself, some new ability, some new acceptance. She begins to do those things all grieving spouses must—write thank you notes to people who have brought her a meal, box up her husband’s possessions, learn to shop for one instead of two.

What happened? We used to be together. We sat at the same table, ate the same food, watched the same TV shows, slept in the same bed, breathed the same air, and then you went away. Funny how that changes everything. I still sit at the same table, eat the same food, watch the same TV shows, sleep in the same bed, and breathe the same air, but none of it is the same.
❖
I am alone and I’m so afraid. I’ve lost so much with your death. It’s not just the loss of my husband and friend. I’ve lost my protector—the one who always saw to it that I was safe from the world, the one who stepped in when I couldn’t handle something and took care of it for me, the one I turned to for guidance when I didn’t know what to do or how to do it, the one who was my emotional support, the one I leaned on. You were so strong when I was weak, and now there is no one to be strong for me. Now I have to handle the world all by myself, take care of things I know nothing about, and trust people I don’t know to help me.
❖
My mind is gone and I’m not sure I want it back, as I don’t know where it’s been. What kind of strange journey is it on, and why didn’t it give me some notice that it was leaving? The audacity of it to just leave me without so much as a hint it was going. I would much rather my heart had left and taken the pain of your death with it—but maybe, my mind decided I should only deal with one thing at a time, and that grieving should be top priority. But doesn’t my mind understand that its leaving just made the grieving harder? How can I concentrate on grieving when I can’t concentrate? My mind is gone, and I wish I had gone with it.

There is a turning point along the way where she gains a deeper acceptance of her circumstances. The day comes when she realizes she may be tempted to turn some of her husband’s things in a shrine and resists that temptation. The day comes when she realizes she doesn’t mind making decisions for just one person instead of two and living according to the plan and schedule of only herself. The day comes when she faces some of the regrets from her marriage, when she utters one final apology and grants one final forgiveness. After all, “We were just two people who loved each other and did the best we could with who we were.”
By the end of the book she has emerged from the worst of her sorrows. She may not be healed, but she is healing. She may not be over her sorrows (as if anyone ever is) but she is once again getting on with life. She is laughing again and experiencing joy. She has come to the other side of her grief. She has begun experiencing a new normal. “I am at the end of my grieving now. I find I can think of you without tears or heartache, for those things have been replaced with sweet memories. I can talk about you without tears yet, sometimes the memories are so sweet that the tears still come, but they aren’t tears of grief any more, but of fond remembrance. You are still as much a part of me as ever, and I find myself talking to you every now and then when I need another viewpoint because you were always so wise.”
In my assessment, this book has two notable strengths. The first is related to Echols’s realness. She simply lets us into her journey as she goes through it and is honest about her joys and sorrows, her fears and doubts, her submission and her anger. The second is related to her faith. She writes as a Christian who mourns, but not without hope, and who grieves, but not without a sense of God’s will being expressed even in something as tragic as death. Her book is not a theology of death, yet teaches that God reigns over death and provides ultimate hope beyond it. This is a beautiful, hopeful little book and one I’m glad to recommend.

Buy from Amazon