Yup, we are still in Unalaska since all of yesterday’s flights were once again canceled. There is some chance we get off the island on Saturday, but if not, it will be Monday at best. But all is well because we know the one who raises and stills the storms and we are glad enough to be here for as long as he decrees.

My thanks goes to Ligonier Ministries for kindly sponsoring the blog this week and for offering you the ebook edition of The Legacy of Luther as a free download.
Today’s Kindle deals include some older books. I also added some newer ones yesterday.
(Yesterday on the blog: Three Years Later: What I Miss Most)
Critical Grace Theory
You’ll need to block out a bit of time and attention to read this article from Carl Trueman. “Can Christians appropriate modern critical theory, not just the theories we trace back to the Frankfurt School, but contemporary critical theories of race, sexual identity, and gender? The question can be reframed: When secular critical theory turns from analysis to transformation, does it see grace and forgiveness as means of social change?”
You Want People To Think Better of You Than You Deserve
“It is an unfortunate fact that you and I want people to think better of us than we deserve.” This is true. And worth thinking about.
Test, Seek, Pray, Fight: The Pursuit of Holy Affections
“Early morning hours are precious. The house is still, quiet. The aroma of coffee wafts from the steaming mug. A single lamp illuminates the chair and table. Here is a sanctuary, a peaceful place of communion between a man and his God. And yet on many days, it is anything but peaceful.”
A Lesson from Nearly Uprooted Trees
Lara reflects on a difficult time. “Tears in my hands and babies at my feet, I often asked God why he put us through it all. What was the purpose? What good did any of it do? What use was it to batter us so harshly with so many storms at once? Our life was fairly smooth until that year, then our roots were nearly torn from the ground. My faith felt frail.”
Autumn
Here’s a short, sweet reflection on autumn.
You’re Not Waiting Alone
“My eyelids lift in the dark of my bedroom. The autumn sun still sleeps below the horizon. I grab the phone on my nightstand and skim through the bolded headlines on the screen. Another attack in the middle east. Threats of terrorism. Flooding. Drought. Another shooting. My head hurts, my heart weeps, and I’m tired of waiting.”
Flashback: What the Wayward Wants
“To reach the prodigal, you must first crawl into the story of the prodigal.” It is an ugly story, but one God so often delights in ending with the prodigal returning to all that was once his.

God knew what we were before conversion- wicked, guilty and defiled; yet He loved us. He knows what we will be after conversion- weak, erring and frail; yet He loves us. —J.C. Ryle

This week’s Free Stuff Friday is sponsored by Ligonier Ministries, who also sponsored the blog this week. 

As Protestants celebrate the work of God in the sixteenth-century Reformation, one name keeps coming up: Martin Luther. Who was this early Reformer, and what should Christians think of him today? To help us think through these questions, Ligonier Ministries is offering the ebook edition of The Legacy of Luther as a free download for Challies readers. Edited by R.C. Sproul and Stephen Nichols, this ebook explores Luther’s life, teaching, and enduring influence. Ten Free Friday winners will receive the hardcover edition.

Learn more about the book here.
To Enter 
Giveaway Rules: You may enter one time. When you enter, you agree to be placed on Ligonier Ministries’ email list. The winner will be notified by email. The giveaway closes on November 17, 2023.

Today marks the third anniversary of the day Nick left us—the third anniversary of the day he arrived in heaven. It has been some time since I’ve paused with fingers on keyboard to collect my thoughts and deliberately think about him, about me, about my family, and about our grief. But the Lord, through the strange providence of having Aileen and me get stranded in a small fishing town in Alaska has given me time to pause, to think, and to write. (The photo above is one I snapped here.)

Time passes at a constant rate, of course, never any faster and never any slower. Yet sometimes it seems to have been so short a time since he died and sometimes it seems to have been so long. Sometimes he feels almost as present in my life as the day I last saw him and sometimes he feels so distant. Sometimes my memories of him are sharp and clear and sometimes they are dim and hazy. Increasingly they are like dreams I’m desperately trying to remember or reminiscences I’m desperately grappling to hold on to. The sound of his voice, the cackle of his laugh, the feel of his hugs—these are all fading into a past that seems ever more distant. I don’t like it that way, but it seems to be how human memory works—that without constant reinforcement, the old gives way to the new and the past to the present. It makes me wonder what I’ll remember of him years from now, or decades.
Today, though, I sure do miss him. I miss having someone who loved me in that unique way a son loves his father, and I miss having someone to love in that unique way a father loves a son. There are many kinds of love, of course, but that father-son bond is sweet, strong, and true. It’s no better than a father-daughter bond. But it’s different. Irreplaceable.
I miss having someone who shared so many of my interests and who was similar to me in so many ways. In varied ways, and mostly good ways, he was a kind of reflection of myself, though one who had the good sense to assume my virtues and eschew my faults.
I miss having someone who was deliberately following in my footsteps—who wanted to be like me enough that he observed and imitated. I miss the challenge of continuing to be worthy of being followed by someone so dear to me as a son.
I miss having someone who was growing beyond me, whose increasing experience and education had begun to reverse the roles so that I was beginning to turn to him for advice and guidance. We were becoming peers, he and I.
I miss the future we had mapped out in our conversations, a future in which he would get married, complete his degree, return to Canada, and take up a position at our church or at one nearby. We had planned to live close together, a family reunited after that time of preparation and education.
We will be reunited, of course, though at a much different time and in much different circumstances. We will be reunited in that place where our faith will become sight, that place where our pain will be erased and our tears wiped away, in that place where this will finally all make sense. He is already there. I will eventually catch up.
In the meantime, God continues to grant us the grace to trust him. None of us have wavered in our confidence that God is good and that in some way even an experience as painful as this is an expression of that goodness. None of us have allowed this to knock us out of the race or to give us an excuse to become less useful to the Lord’s purposes. None of us have allowed this to rob us of our joy or to keep us locked endlessly in sorrow or lament. All of us have committed to staying true to the Lord, to living our lives well, and to looking forward to that day when we will be together again.
Together again with our Savior. Our family whole, our hearts whole, our souls whole. All made whole through the goodness and grace of our God. Until that day I miss my sweet boy. I miss him, I love him, and I can’t wait to see him again.

We are still in Unalaska. Yesterday’s flight was canceled due to volcanic ash in the air along the route. That’s a first for me!

If you have the free ONE Audiobooks app, you’ll be able to listen to Stephen McAlpine’s excellent Being the Bad Guys this month (for free).
Meanwhile Westminster Books has the new Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament on sale this week. Do you need it? Probably not. Will it look amazing on your bookshelf? Definitely. (Also take a look at their Reformation Day sale.)
The Future of Manufactured Children
Carl Trueman considers the concerning future of manufactured children. “Krisiloff and his team are working on producing human embryos from genetic material that is not connected in origin to an egg or a sperm. Indeed, the article begins with a quotation from a Japanese biologist, Katsuhiko Hayashi, who believes that it will be possible to make human eggs from skin cells within a decade.”
Beginning to think about Generative AI
While Trueman is thinking about reproductive technology, T.M. Suffield is thinking about artificial intelligence. “As I write, Christianity Today have just published an article extolling the use of ChatGPT for Pastors in their preparation for preaching and Bible studies. It has gone viral for all of the wrong reasons.”
Book Offer: What Is Reformed Theology?
Many people today say theology doesn’t matter. But theology is the knowledge of God, and nothing could be more important in life. That’s why R.C. Sproul founded Ligonier Ministries: to make theology accessible for everyone. If you’ve never contacted Ligonier before, they’d love for you to request a free paperback copy of What Is Reformed Theology? by Dr. Sproul. (Sponsored Link)
Is My Dad One of the Characters Mentioned in Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”?
Shane Rosenthal goes in search of an answer to an unusual question.
Leadership in the Church: Managers, Midian, and Moses
Joe Holland: “For better or worse (probably worse), we do live in a managerial culture. This has a hammer-and-nail effect on pastoral leadership: when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When you’re expected to be a manager, everything looks like…”
Total consistency is impossible – Jesus says so!
“I am quite big on consistency. I like to believe that I think both logically and consistently (no doubt other opinions on how I think are available). Consistency really does matter to me and I find it hard to settle when there are nagging points of inconsistency in my frame of understanding.” Yet what if total consistency isn’t possible?
Can We Limit God By Our Free Will?
Can we limit God by our free will? Many people say we can…
Flashback: Do You Have the Faith to be Faithful?
Fill yourself with the Word. Be a man or woman of the Word. Devote yourself to Scripture. As you do this, your faith will grow, and as your faith grows, so too will your faithfulness.

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. —A.W. Tozer

I am still in Unalaska, Alaska. That’s three days now in which no flights have been able to land. As much as I am enjoying the place and people, I’m ready to get home!

This month Logos is offering a Get Logos 10, Give Logos 10 deal. They are also offering weekly specials as they approach Black Friday. This week you can get deals on a good number of commentaries, theological resources, and so on. Finally, don’t forget to look at their free and nearly free books for the month.
There is another huge list of Kindle deals today. It includes a long list of general market books.
(Yesterday on the blog: Living Sorrows and Departed Joys)
Train Up a Child
“For years, I looked at Proverbs 22:6 as a promise from God. I believed if I taught my children the truths of the Word of God, they would turn out right and never rebel.” Dianna corrects herself and offers some items for reflection.
Divine Infinity (Video)
In this brief explainer video, Kevin DeYoung explains God’s infinity.
Should Evangelicals Pray with Roman Catholics?
Leonardo De Chirico considers joint prayer meetings between Protestants and Roman Catholics. “As I speak at conferences on Roman Catholicism worldwide and how Evangelicals should relate to it, a question often arises: ‘What about joint prayer? Could or should Evangelicals pray with Roman Catholics?’ Let me offer my rules of thumb as I wrestle with the issue.”
75 Theses on Pastoral Ministry
J.A. Medders offers a long list of 75 theses on pastoral ministry.
Is “Mental Illness” a Helpful Label?
“Considerable controversy has arisen over the label ‘mental illness’ and whether or when such a label should be used.” Tom Karel and David Murray consider whether it’s a helpful label and whether, therefore, we ought to use it.
Psalm Singing: The Church’s Punk Rock
The title might be a little over the top, but the article itself is a good one. It explains why churches ought to include psalms in the selections they sing in their worship services.
Flashback: If God Is Not Sovereign…
Unless God is sovereign we look to the future with uncertainty rather than confidence, with hope that is shaky and trepidatious rather than firmly fixed.

God’s glory and our good are not mutually exclusive. —Erik Raymond

I am worshipping with a congregation that is not my own, a community of Christians on the far side of the planet. Though I am there primarily to learn and to worship, I cannot help but observe one of the members of the church as he sits just in front of me. His wife is pressed close to him on one side and a chair has been left vacant on the other. He rises with the rest of the congregation as the pastor speaks the call to worship. “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.”

“Because God is worthy of our trust,” says the pastor, “you can pour out your heart before him. No matter the circumstances of your life, you can trust him because he is powerful and he is good. So let’s join our hearts and voices together to sing of this good and powerful God.”
The musicians take up the first strains of the opening hymn and the people soon join in.

O worship the King all-glorious above / O gratefully sing his power and his love. / our shield and defender, the Ancient of Days, / pavilioned in splendor and girded with praise.

I observe that as this man begins to sing, he glances toward the door at the back of the room, his eyes searching for something or for someone.

O tell of his might and sing of his grace, / whose robe is the light, whose canopy space. / His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form, / and dark is his path on the wings of the storm.

He sings a few more lines, then looks that way again.

Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail, / in you do we trust, nor find you to fail. / Your mercies, how tender, how firm to the end, / our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend!

The hymn gives way to a Scripture reading, then to reciting a creed, and still I can see that his attention is divided—divided between worship and watching, between the front of the room and the back.
The service continues with prayer and song and still I see him looking forward and back, still I can see his heart expressing praise while his face expresses expectation, longing, hope.
It is only after the service has ended and I can speak to one of the pastors that I learn why his attention has been so divided. It is only after the service that I learn what he has been looking for—or, better said, who he has been looking for.
His daughter has said she will come to church today. His daughter has wandered far but has said she is ready to return. His daughter who has squandered so much says she has learned her lesson. His daughter who has caused her father’s heart to ache has said that today she will soothe it. This man is looking for his daughter, his beloved daughter.
As time goes on and as the elements of the service pass by, the glances become less frequent and less hopeful. Unless I’m wrong, his shoulders become a little less straight, a little more stooped, for it becomes clear that this will not be the day on which the prodigal daughter returns. This will not be the day on which sorrow gives way to joy, on which weeping gives way to dancing. Though I do not know him and though we live worlds apart, I grieve with him and for him. I grieve as a brother in Christ.
I spend a fair bit of time with men who know loss, fathers who have laid a child in the grave. Some of them are grieving beloved daughters and I know they sometimes experience stirrings of jealousy when they see other fathers with their girls. It causes them to remember better times, to remember the pleasures of being father to a daughter, to long to experience it and enjoy it again. I sometimes feel like this too when I see fathers with their sons.
But in this moment, this moment in which the congregation takes their seats and the pastor approaches the pulpit, words flash into my mind, words I came across in an old book from long ago. The author pointed out that in many lives the sorrow over the living is greater far than the sorrow for the dead who have passed on to sweet rest. Far more often, he says, has his heart been moved to pity for the parents of a living sorrow than for the parents of a departed joy. There are some sorrows harder even than the sorrow of death, he insists, some griefs deeper even than the grief of bereavement. And while I find little benefit in comparing one kind of grief to another, I am certain the sorrow of watching a living child careen toward hell is every bit as sharp as the pain of losing a child, but knowing he is safely in heaven.
And so, “God save that girl” my heart whispers. “And pity her father, Lord. Bless that man and comfort the sorrows of his troubled heart.”

I’m still in Unalaska, Alaska where the weather refuses to be anything but foggy—so foggy that planes can’t fly. Since there is literally no other way back to the mainland, I will need to wait it out. Thankfully I am well looked after and very grateful for Christian hospitality.

Westminster Books has a deal on a new book that means to help you better understand Reformed theology. You’ll also find good deals on the huge new Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, devotions based on the Shorter Catechism, and more.
I updated the list of deals currently on offer at ChristianBook.com.
Also, don’t forget about my upcoming webinar, Getting the Most Out of Logos.
When Catholicity Leads to Compromise
Jonathan Worsley commends catholicity yet warns that “an over-realized catholicity is potentially poisonous. I caution us all to beware of the following three catholicity-based compromises…”
Dare to Be a Daniel
“Maybe you’ve been exposed to the kind of teaching from the Old Testament that uses its stories to highlight moral examples. Is that kind of teaching bad? Should we do such a thing? Should it be avoided for the sake of christological interpretation?”
Prone to Dechurch, Lord I Feel It
Trevin Wax: “Dechurching doesn’t just happen to us, as if we have no moral agency. Thinking you can pursue the Christian life on your own, apart from a local body of believers, isn’t only wrongheaded; it’s wrong. It’s disobedience to King Jesus. By removing the moral frame of dechurching, we do a disservice to believers who need to be called back into community.”
What Should We Make of the Hypothetical “Q” Source?
Michael Kruger explains and offers his take on the hypothetical “Q” source for the synoptic gospels. “Students of the Gospels will know that there has been a long-standing discussion among scholars about the relationship between the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). These three Gospels are so similar at so many points (often word for word), that it raises a number of intriguing questions. Did they know each other? Did they use each other?”
Symptoms of A Prayerless Life
Chopo Mwanza lays out some of the common symptoms of a prayerless life.
Preacher, Reformer, & Politian: The Complex Life of Zwingli
Peter Witkowski shares a brief biography of “the passionate, gifted, and yet flawed father of the Swiss reformation.”
Flashback: We Are All Cultists On the Inside
We may pay lip service to diversity, but when it comes down to it we find that our natural instinct is toward uniformity—a uniformity to our own emphases, our own convictions, our own preferences.

If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million of enemies. Yet the distance makes no difference; He is praying for me. —Robert Murray McCheyne

Good morning still and again from Unalaska where the fog has come in and flights have been cancelled. We had planned to leave yesterday but are now going to be stuck here until at least Wednesday!

I dug up a few new Kindle deals for you today, though it’s not quite as extensive as yesterday’s massive list…
(Yesterday on the blog: 20 Years of Daily Blogging and Other Miscellania)
Movies, Moral Revulsion, and a Post-Christian Age
This is a strong piece by Samuel James as he considers how movies may glamorize the very thing they are supposedly critiquing.
Saying Our Prayers
Andrea considers hypocrisy—our own and that of other faiths.
“My Greatest Accomplishment”—I Get it Now, Mom
“And oh dear Lord, I am so glad that I had children—so grateful that you entrusted me with these four precious souls who are forever ‘mine.’ Yes, raising them was hard. To varying degrees, they gobbled up my time, my energy, my money, my sleep, my space, my patience, and sometimes my sanity, but they are still and always will be my greatest accomplishments.”
Free eBook: R.C. Sproul’s Commentary on Romans
It’s Reformation Day, when many Protestants celebrate the recovery of the biblical gospel that took place in the sixteenth century. It was while Martin Luther was studying the book of Romans that he rediscovered the doctrine of justification by faith alone. So, today Ligonier Ministries is offering R.C. Sproul’s commentary on Romans as a free ebook. Download your copy to enjoy a verse-by-verse exploration of the rich gospel truths woven throughout Paul’s letter. (Sponsored Link)
When Death Starts to Take Our Friends
Stephen McAlpine: “So you reach an age when your friends all start to die. News that Friends star, Matthew Perry, died suddenly on Sunday after an apparent heart attack in his hot tub, met with the usual outpouring of grief. And rightly so. He was a gifted man, a tortured man, an honest man about his gifts and tortures.”
What Does It Mean to Grieve the Holy Spirit?
Fred Sanders considers if and how we can grieve the Holy Spirit.
Less leader and more shepherd and servant
Stephen Kneale looks to the Bible to encourage pastors to be less leader and more shepherd and servant. “Who is head of the church? In true Sunday School style, everyone knows the answer, as always, is Jesus. Colossians 1 and Ephesians 5 both says it so. Jesus is head of the church. But, if Jesus is the head of the church, where does that put pastors and elders?”
Flashback: Things for Christian Men To Think About
I have had a few opportunities in the past few weeks to interact with Christian men. Along the way I’ve jotted down a few thoughts that arose from those conversations. I thought I’d share them…

Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief! —Robert Murray M’Cheyne