Good morning. Grace and peace to you.

CBD is having a sale with some excellent titles discounted, including: ESV Readers’s Bible (set); Prayer by Tim Keller; Gentle and Lowly & Deeper by Dane Ortlund; 1 2 3 books by Jen Wilkin; Be Thou My Vision; Suffering & New Morning Mercies by Paul Tripp; ESV Study Bible (black genuine leather) and more.
There are a couple of new Kindle deals yesterday and today.
The Speck You See in Their Eye Might Be the Exact Log in Yours
“In a time when the world’s view of conflict resolution seems to be defined by ‘winning’ and humiliating your adversary, there is a lesson that I continually apply in order to try to bring grace and healing to tense situations.” It’s a lesson we’d all do well to consider.
Africa, the Prosperity Gospel, and the Problem of Unguarded Churches
I appreciate what Kenneth Mbugua has to say about the great need of the church in Africa.
January’s for Reflecting, Not Resolving
I think John Onwuchekwa may be on to something here. “Maybe part of the reason why so many resolutions fail by February is that they were early. Maybe the resolutions weren’t wrong; they were just underdeveloped. Maybe, they needed an extra month or two in the oven.”
God Has Not Given You a Stone
“God has not given you a stone in your circumstances. However pleasant or unpleasant your life may be, God is always giving the bread you need. He is never going to trick you or be cruel to you. God’s providence may lead us to a dry bank, yet even there God commands the raven to feeds us. In all things, even that thing you wish most never to have happened, God has not given you a stone.”
Millennials, Don’t Waste Your Childlessness
These are some interesting thoughts about an infamous tweet regarding intentionally childless millennials.
Homeschooling is a Better Offense than Defense
Samuel argues that homeschooling is better seen as a tool of offense than defense. “What is homeschooling good for? The answer, I think, is also fairly simple. Homeschooling is a powerful vehicle for personal formation, inasmuch as it normalizes a home-centered rhythm of life.”
Flashback: The Greatest Christians and the Most Visible Gifts
…in God’s economy earnestness counts for more than eloquence, obedience for more than acclaim, submission for more than any measure of visible success. If God chooses the weak to shame the strong, perhaps he also chooses the least visible to humble the most prominent.

God never leads us through a place too narrow for Him to pass as well. —F.B. Meyer

Good morning. Grace and peace to you.

CBD is having a sale with some excellent titles discounted, including: ESV Readers’s Bible (set); Prayer by Tim Keller; Gentle and Lowly & Deeper by Dane Ortlund; 1 2 3 books by Jen Wilkin; Be Thou My Vision; Suffering & New Morning Mercies by Paul Tripp; ESV Study Bible (black genuine leather) and more.
There are a couple of new Kindle deals yesterday and today.
The Speck You See in Their Eye Might Be the Exact Log in Yours
“In a time when the world’s view of conflict resolution seems to be defined by ‘winning’ and humiliating your adversary, there is a lesson that I continually apply in order to try to bring grace and healing to tense situations.” It’s a lesson we’d all do well to consider.
Africa, the Prosperity Gospel, and the Problem of Unguarded Churches
I appreciate what Kenneth Mbugua has to say about the great need of the church in Africa.
January’s for Reflecting, Not Resolving
I think John Onwuchekwa may be on to something here. “Maybe part of the reason why so many resolutions fail by February is that they were early. Maybe the resolutions weren’t wrong; they were just underdeveloped. Maybe, they needed an extra month or two in the oven.”
God Has Not Given You a Stone
“God has not given you a stone in your circumstances. However pleasant or unpleasant your life may be, God is always giving the bread you need. He is never going to trick you or be cruel to you. God’s providence may lead us to a dry bank, yet even there God commands the raven to feeds us. In all things, even that thing you wish most never to have happened, God has not given you a stone.”
Millennials, Don’t Waste Your Childlessness
These are some interesting thoughts about an infamous tweet regarding intentionally childless millennials.
Homeschooling is a Better Offense than Defense
Samuel argues that homeschooling is better seen as a tool of offense than defense. “What is homeschooling good for? The answer, I think, is also fairly simple. Homeschooling is a powerful vehicle for personal formation, inasmuch as it normalizes a home-centered rhythm of life.”
Flashback: The Greatest Christians and the Most Visible Gifts
…in God’s economy earnestness counts for more than eloquence, obedience for more than acclaim, submission for more than any measure of visible success. If God chooses the weak to shame the strong, perhaps he also chooses the least visible to humble the most prominent.

God never leads us through a place too narrow for Him to pass as well. —F.B. Meyer

This week’s deal from Westminster Books is on a book I’d urge all Baptists (and maybe even non-Baptists) to read.

(Yesterday on the blog: What I Want From A Church)
When I Die Young (Or Old)
Vanessa Le considers dying young…or old.
Members who build the body
“Healthy local churches make a powerful and attractive testimony to a watching world. This means that every member has to be devoted to building others up.” Chopo lists some of the people who, as members of the church, build up the body.
The Economics of Abortion in One Lesson
Some people make an economic argument for abortion. Kevin DeYoung responds to it here, saying that “even if abortion made great economic sense, abortion would still be wrong. But let’s think about the economic argument on its own merits.”
10 Absurdities of Atheism
Michael Patton offers 10 absurdities of atheism (plus a bonus 11th).
On Feeling (and Being) Heard
Chris looks at the well-known words of Matthew 18 and considers one of the ways people get around it.
The Self-Righteous Narrative of Abuse
“People who hurt, misuse, and condemn others almost always couch their cruelty in self-righteous language. They twist the truth to make themselves look good, and they do it at the expense of others. Like Adam, they blame their partners for their bad behavior, and like the Pharisees, they create pious narratives and attack anyone who disagrees with them.”
Flashback: Be a Parent Worthy of Honor
Children do not bear the full responsibility of the fifth commandment. If children are to extend honor to their parents, parents are to make it easy for them by living honorable lives.

Sound doctrine and holy living are the marks of true pastors. —J.C. Ryle

NPR recently ran an article about the future of the Christian church. Church attendance is in decline, they said, but some creative leaders are finding ways to keep it relevant in a new cultural context. Pastor Chris Battle has walked away from traditional church because it “was not connecting with people” and now leads a “spiritual community” called BattleField Farm & Gardens. Rector Billy Daniel and Pastor Caroline Vogel of an Episcopal Church in Knoxville use their sanctuary for yoga, breathing exercises, and other alternate forms of spirituality. “Just because you leave organized religion doesn’t mean the hunger to connect with the divine is going to cease,” she says. Bradley Hyde, a Methodist minister, sees churches like his hemorrhaging members and is also turning away from traditional services to focus more on community involvement.

It needs to be said: I care what NPR thinks of the church about as much as I care about what North Korea thinks of democracy or what Jehovah’s Witnesses think of the Trinity. But the article did have some tremendously revealing components to it and ones that are worth considering because they reveal universal human tendencies and temptations.
One of these comes courtesy of a participant in Chris Battle’s church who describes herself as “a refugee from fundamentalist churches.” When asked why she is part of BattleField Farm & Gardens she says, “Generally, I’m here because I want two things out of church … I want time to sit down, like we do on Sundays sometimes or around the fire, and, like, pray and re-center and figure out what we’re about in the world. Because the world is very noisy. And then I want a church to get [expletive] done with your community and for your community.”
The key part of her comment is not the bit about sitting around the fire and re-centering and it’s not the bit about getting [expletive] done within the community. The key part is at the beginning where she says, “I want two things out of church.” The assumption is that her desires are relevant, that what she wants out of a church is even the least bit consequential.
But then she is well-trained because the pastor, when he became convinced church was no longer relevant, said to himself, “maybe we need to begin to do church differently. But what does that look like? And I didn’t know until I got to the garden.” There’s no indication that he looked outside of himself for answers, but only that he looked inside. He asked what he wanted, not what God wanted. He indicates no source of authority beyond his own desires or his own reasoning.
Then Caroline Vogel says that just as we need food, shelter, and clothing “we also have to feed our souls in some way. … And so I think there’s this challenge of, OK, we’ve been doing it like this for so long, and it’s just not working for people in a way that meets them in a holistic way.” What apparently meets them in a holistic way is yoga, breathing exercises, a Celtic service. “Your human breath is infinitely connecting to the divine breath,” she says in one of these yoga services, “so that as you breathe you are being breathed by the Holy.” One of her new parishioners says “she and her husband stopped going to traditional church about six years ago because it wasn’t doing anything for them.” “The breathing linked with feeling the spirit is really important to me. And it stays with me more than just a sermon and some hymns.”
We may roll our eyes at such people and consider ourselves superior to them. But isn’t it possible that we can relate to church in a similar way? Isn’t it possible that we can join and depart churches on the basis of preference more than on the basis of God’s revelation of what a church is and ought to be? Aren’t we all tempted at times to leave a faithful church for an exciting one, a church that does things God’s way for one that does things in a fresh or novel way? Isn’t every leader tempted at times to change the way he does church not because he has come to realize it’s unfaithful to Scripture but because it no longer seems to engage the people around him?
The fact is that we are all prone to create a local church community or a worship service that begins with questions like “What do I want? What feels meaningful to me? What makes me feel fulfilled?” The Church Growth Movement essentially baptized this consumeristic impulse by building churches around the desires of their target demographics. Their constant question to the unchurched and de-churched alike was “What would it take to get you to come?” Rarely if ever did they ask, “What does God say a church should be?” Instead of scouring the Bible, they scoured the minds, desires, and requests of unbelievers.
If indeed it is true that church attendance is in decline, our key task is not to change what we do for the sake of regaining attendees. Our key task is not to survey people to find out what it will take to get them back in and it’s not to inquire what they might find spiritually meaningful. Our key task is to search the Scriptures to see what God tells us a church ought to be and ought to do. We will find that he is not silent. We will find that he prescribes how we are to worship him. We will find that we must remain faithful to him whether the church fills or empties, whether the congregation explodes in growth or stays static (or even diminishes).
Here’s the great irony in this story: The cure that these church leaders propose is actually indistinguishable from the disease. The cure they propose for this illness is to administer more of the illness! They are treating cancer with cancer, infection with infection, radiation poisoning with even greater doses of radiation. The reason their churches are crumbling is ultimately because they lost their confidence in the Word, in its guidance, in its core message. The way home is not to wander even farther, but always to return—to return to doing what God says, to doing what God makes clear.
What we want from church is utterly irrelevant, completely meaningless, entirely inconsequential. All that matters is what God wants. After all, he is the one who created us and the one who created church! Surely then we can trust his purpose and his design. Whether we are tempted to leave one church for another over a matter of mere preference, whether we are tempted to remove an element of our worship service because it no longer resonates with people, whether we are tempted to try something novel and new, we must always turn first to the Word, first to the one who knows exactly what we need. He will lead us, he will guide us, he will help us to worship in the ways that please him and that satisfy our hungry souls.

We have entered into a stretch in which we aren’t seeing a lot of great Kindle deals. But I’ll keep searching and hope to find some more soon. (Note: if you like general market books, you’ll find a list of popular 2022 releases on sale.)

Fickle Gods and the Wondrous Clarity of the Law
This is so good. “We tend to chafe at the sheer number of laws given to the people of Israel, viewing things primary through our new covenant perspective where so many of these laws have now been fulfilled in Christ. And yet a primary response of the ancient Israelites to these laws would not have been a sense of burden. It would have been a sense of tearful relief, even rest.”
Significance
Andrea discusses what we tend to mean by significance, then describes “a few people in my world who don’t have a platform or a publishing contract, but who I think have real significance.”
The Only Thing Protestants can Appreciate About Pope Benedict
Jordan Standridge doesn’t hold back here.
Chinese Pastors Can Teach You What John Calvin Can’t
Hannah Nation wants us to consider that some of the answers to our questions may be waiting for us among Chinese (and other) pastors. “In recent years, American churches have been asking questions very similar to those I hear from Chinese house churches facing persecution. What’s the church’s purpose in society? How do we understand state authority and religious liberty? Where do our ultimate allegiances lie?”
Can You Share the Gospel with Sexual Sinners without Sounding like a Bigot?
Is it possible to share the gospel with sexual sinners without sounding like a bigot? Alan Shlemon considers the question here.
Misreading Providence for Personal Gain
“Matthew Henry once suggested we can sometimes neglect to obey God because we misinterpret trials and challenges as permission to shirk our responsibility when, instead, God allowed these hardships to test and exercise our courage and faith.” That’s something we ought to consider carefully.
Flashback: All My Ways Are Known To You
He knows all there is to know about me, things I don’t even know about myself. I am an open book before him, laid bare before his penetrating gaze. And still he loves me.

Bitterness about your parents’ brokenness will kill you. Be the grace-filled end of generational sin in your family. —John Piper

Blessings to you today, my friends.

Today’s Kindle deals including some highly-regarded historical books, among them Philbrick’s excellent Mayflower.
(Yesterday on the blog: I Want Him Back (But Not The Old Me Back))
Not Like Any Other Book
Mitch Chase helpfully reminds us that the Bible is not like any other book. “The Bible is not like any other book, so it must not be interpreted just like any other book. There are Christian convictions—or assumptions—about Scripture which uphold not only the task of biblical theology but also the importance of studying Scripture at all.”
Our Dads Are All Dying. So What Are We Learning From It?
Stephen realizes he has reached the stage of life in which everyone’s dads are dying. He wonders what they are learning from it all.
A Dust-up among the Historians
Kevin DeYoung: “To many outsiders, the field of history probably looks like a straightforward endeavor. Historians teach us about the people, the events, and the ideas of the past. Sounds simple, but once you start studying the past, you realize there is no one agreed upon way to do history. In the last several years, this perennial difficulty has become especially pronounced within the guild of evangelical historians, ‘evangelicals’ broadly understood.”
What is typology? How can we use it responsibly in Bible study?
Sinclair Ferguson discusses biblical typology in this brief but clarifying video.
A Forgotten Fact about the Earliest Christian Movement
Michael Kruger considers a forgotten fact about the earliest Christian movement—that they were people who traveled extensively. This matters!
In Praise of a Godly Layman, Gary Riegel, upon His Death
I sometimes think almost nothing is more helpful than to read about the lives of “ordinary” Christian believers who served the Lord faithfully in their time.
Flashback: All Will Be Well
He knows our anxiety, he knows our weakness, he knows our frailty. And so he has gone before us. He has made the journey and returned to assure us that all will be well and to tell us that we need do no more than follow in his footsteps.

God’s will is always your sanctification. —Kevin DeYoung

This week the blog is sponsored by Reformed Free Publishing Association. This post is about their children’s magazine, Ignited by the Word.

Ignited by the Word is a quarterly-published, Christian children’s magazine split into sections for three different grade levels: PreK–2nd grade, 3rd–5th grade, and 6th–8th grade. Whether you are looking for Bible stories to read to your preschooler, stories about the heroes of the faith for your ten-year-old, or a set of daily devotions for your young teenager, Ignited by the Word is the magazine for you and your children!
Why a children’s magazine?
Jesus told his disciples to let children (little children!), come unto him. He also said that his kingdom belonged to children such as these whom he held in his arms and blessed.
Our goal for every issue of Ignited by the Word is to bolster the faith of God’s dear children as they live in this world. By bringing the truths of the Bible and the Protestant Reformation into every part of their lives, we also bring them closer to their heavenly Father and closer to each other.
What can readers expect to find in the magazine?
You can find just about everything in Ignited by the Word! Here are some of our favorite rubrics:
He Shall Purify – Devotions: these are the three sets of devotions in each issue, one for each grade level. This rubric instructs children and teens about their creator and heavenly Father, applies Bible passages to their young lives, and encourages them in their daily walk as Christians.
Here I Stand – Defense of the Faith: a rubric where pastors, teachers, and other believers explain Christian fundamentals like abiding in Christ, unconditional election, and brotherly love to children and young teens, encouraging readers to stand firm for the truth and live new and holy lives.
Creation Connection – The Beauty of the Earth: there is so much to learn about God’s creation! From the twinkling of each star above to the beauty of tiny butterflies to the grandeur of mighty mountains, every creature glorifies its Creator. This rubric leads children to join all of creation in praising his great name.
The best part?
Four times each year, the latest issue of Ignited by the Word is delivered to the mailboxes of children living in nine countries and all over the United States!
No matter how digital our world becomes, children will always find it exciting to receive something in the mail. A hard copy of the magazine also means children of all ages will get the added fun of completing the Spark Your Interest activities at the back of each issue–these include word finds, coloring pages, arts and crafts, and more!
Subscribe today
If you have children or grandchildren, a subscription to Ignited by the Word will be an invaluable resource to gift in the new year. And don’t forget about the children at your church, down the street, or halfway around the world!
A yearly subscription includes four highly-engaging, faith-focused issues designed for Christian children of all ages. Visit ignitedbytheword.org and subscribe today!
And as a thank you for subscribing, we will send you our devotional ebook, Preparing for Dating and Marriage: A 31-Day Family Devotional by Cory Griess—absolutely free!

Christians have a complex relationship to suffering. We do not wish to experience suffering. It is not our desire, preference, or longing to go through times of pain and persecution, times of sorrow and loss. Yet we also know that God uses such experiences to accomplish significant and meaningful things within us. We know there are certain graces that bloom best in the valleys, certain fruits that ripen best in the winter, certain virtues that come to fruition most often in the shadows.

We want to be “perfect and complete, lacking in nothing,” yet James make it clear that the way to these graces does not pass around trials and tests, but through them. We want our faith to be tested and proven genuine, yet Peter tells us that we gain this confidence not when we avoid trials, but when we are grieved by them. We want to be able to offer comfort to Christians who are enduring times of sorrow, yet Paul tells us that it is precisely through receiving comfort in our pains that we become specially equipped to comfort others (James 1:4ff; 1 Peter 1:6ff; 2 Corinthians 1:4). A host of Christians will testify that they have come to know the Lord more intimately, they have come to put sin to death more earnestly, they have been equipped to serve more thoroughly, not apart from their suffering, but because of it.
And, indeed, as we look back at our own lives, we often see evidence of the ways God has worked in us through our hardest times. We see how it was when a loved one was taken from our side that we truly grew closer to the Lord, how it was when our wealth disappeared that we came to treasure God more fully, how it was when our bodies weakened that our reliance upon God grew. We see that God really does purify us through the fire, that he really does strengthen us in our weaknesses, that he really does sanctify us through our sorrows. Though we do not emerge from our trials unscathed, we still emerge from them better and holier and closer to him. Though we wish we did not experience such sorrows, we are thankful to have learned what we have learned and to have grown in the ways we have grown.
As I said, Christians have a complex relationship to suffering. And recently I have been pondering how I have a complex relationship to suffering. I have been pondering a kind of conflict that now exists in my heart and mind.
I want Nick back. But I don’t want my old self back. I so badly wish that my son could be part of my life again. But I would so badly hate to lose all the precious ways in which God has been real to me and true to me and present with me in my sorrows. There is so much I have learned, so many ways God has drawn close to me, so many blessings I’ve received from the Lord. And all of these came through sorrow, not apart from it. In some ways my greatest gains have flowed from my greatest loss, my greatest joys from my deepest sorrow.
But I suppose this should not come as a complete surprise, for God often works through paradox. After all, he is the God who says it is the poor rather than the rich who have the greatest wealth, that is those with the deepest hunger who are most satisfied, and that it is those who are persecuted who ought to rejoice and be glad. If in God’s kingdom the way to riches is through poverty and the way to exaltation is through humiliation, wouldn’t it stand to reason that the way to joy passes through sorrow and the way to growth passes through barrenness? Wouldn’t it stand to reason that the way to green pastures passes through dark valleys?
And so we live with this tension: to become who we want we often have to endure what we hate. To receive what we long for we often have to release what we love. To attain the most advanced graces we often need to experience the most painful sorrows.
I need to offer a word of clarity. I do not mean to say that God’s reasoning goes something like this: That guy is not growing in generosity in the way I’d like, so I am going to burn his house down to hasten the process; or that woman is not sufficiently sold out to my purposes so I’m going to take her health to force the issue. No, we need to separate the why from the what, the reason God wills things from what he may be accomplishing through them. We are far too small, far too simple, far too limited to be able to draw firm conclusions about God’s reasons—about why he has willed the difficulties in our lives. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God.” But what we can do and must do is ask, “How might God mean to use this in my life? What is God calling me to through it? How can I become a better Christian because of it?”
Sorrow does not always lead to advances in holiness, but it always can and always should, for the Spirit is present in our sorrows, ready and eager to sanctify them to his precious purposes. Through our sorrows he draws our hearts away from the fleeting pleasures of this earth to set them on the enduring pleasures of heaven. Through our sorrows he shifts our longings from things we cannot possibly keep to things we cannot possibly lose. Through our sorrows he diminishes the traits that mark citizens of the kingdom of this world and he amplifies the character that marks citizens of the kingdom of God.
We don’t wish to suffer. We shouldn’t wish to suffer. Yet we know that none of us escape this life unscathed. And when the time comes that “the path that I feared is the way he has set,” we can be certain that God is eager to sanctify our sorrows in ways that are ultimately for our benefit and for his glory, that behind the mysteries of his providence are wondrous treasures of sanctification, that whatever his reasons, he truly is working all things for good for those of us who are loved by him and called according to his purpose.

Good morning. Grace and peace to you.

Today’s Kindle deals include a selection of books from Crossway. Among them are some excellent picks by Carl Trueman.
(Yesterday on the blog: Cling to the Cross!)
Before you watch Harry & Meghan
“Harry and Meghan are everywhere. As much as I’m trying to avoid them, the latest revelations are headline news for newspapers and the late-night news on tv. I’ve taken to wearing noise-cancelling headphones everywhere I walk (metaphorically speaking) as I way to block out the latest stories of who did what to whom. And because repeating them here makes me an accessory to gossip I have no intention to repeat the stories here.”
What Grumbling Sounds Like to God
Grumbling is no small sin! “What is in a grumble? The sound, unheard in heaven, is the heart shaking its head, rolling its eyes, cursing under its breath. It is the seemingly harmless exhale of several respectable sins — ingratitude, thanklessness, discontent. It’s a controlled rage, an itchy contempt, the muffled echo of Satan’s dismay. A broken tune. It can be voiced in a sigh or strangle a praise. It is the cough of a sick heart.”
For Norwegians So Loved the Bible, a New Translation Made Many Mad
What an interesting (and perhaps slightly disheartening) article about a new Bible translation for Norway.
FOBO: Gen Z’s FOMO
You’ve heard of FOMO. This article introduces FOBO. “What is FOBO? It’s the ‘fear of better options.’ The average young person’s inner dialogue seems to have shifted from What if I don’t go and they have fun without me? to What if I commit now and regret it later?”
Who Were the Nations in Nebuchadnezzar’s Prophetic Dream? (Daniel 2)
You know you’ve wondered!
Tell Me About a Time You Deeply Hurt Someone
“We learn to ask certain questions only after experiencing significant pain or dysfunction. A new question was recently clarified for me, one that I will be sure to ask in any future interviews with those who desire to serve overseas. That question is, ‘Tell me about a time you deeply hurt someone, and how you made things right.’”
Flashback: Big Sins Little Sins
We know that while all sin is the same in expressing rebellion against God, some sins show greater evidence of a hardened heart and bring more devastating consequences. In some ways all sin is the same and in some ways each sin is unique.

It is harder to live nobly—than to die heroically. —J.R. Miller

We live in a world of enemies, a world of people and forces that wish to do us harm. The last enemy we must all face is death. The old preacher James Smith once pondered this enemy and gave his church both warning and encouragement. In this closing excerpt of a sermon he calls upon Christians to bravely cling to the cross as they face death.

The sick bed, the dying pillow, the painful disease, the dying pangs are before you. Then, Satan will make his last onslaught. Then, the heart and flesh will fail. The Jordan will roll before you, perhaps overflowing its banks, and perhaps clothed with storms! Then you must burst all earthly bonds, and withdraw the affections from all earthly loves. This, this is the time to cling to the cross!
If Satan harasses you—hold up the cross!
If death terrifies you—hold up the cross!
If conscience accuses you—silence it with the cross!
When launching away, press the cross more firmly to your heart than ever, and plunge into death’s dark river, relying solely on the cross!
Cross of Jesus! You are now the ground of my hope, the object of my faith, the theme of my salvation, the subject of my song, the antidote of my miseries, and the joy of my heart. O may Your cross become growingly precious to me, and through life and all its changes, may I cling to Your cross!
But, when death—often dreaded death, shall come, though I want no crucifix, may the cross of Jesus stand out in bold relief before my mind’s eye! On that may I gaze when my eyes are glazed by death! On that may I rest when I feel all around giving way! And resting on this alone—clinging fast with a death-grasp to it—may I gasp my last, exclaiming,
“O the sweet wonders of that cross,Where God my Savior loved and died!”