Amazon is having a “Big Spring Sale.” There are tons of products on sale, of course, but my interest is always primarily in books. You’ll find Kindle devices with a moderate discount. And, as you filter for books, you can find a few interesting picks. As for Kindle deals, today you’ll find a key volume in Nick Needham’s outstanding church history series.
Meanwhile, Westminster Books has a sale on a new book by Melissa Kruger called Parenting with Hope.

This was a fitting reflection for yesterday’s World Down Syndrome Day. “I am concerned that amidst this standard discourse about Down Syndrome, so heavily determined by abortion-related policy, that other more generative lines of inquiry are often precluded. For example, we might ask, if people with Down Syndrome are just as human as you and I, how should we contemplate the mystery of what it means to be a human being?” (See also this video by the child of someone whose blog I often link to.)

Samuel James considers Coldplay and Taylor Swift and their examples of performative offense. “We live in an era where the combination of authenticity and vice means that we are seeing some examples of performative offense. Performative offense is what happens when people indulge in vice less out of a sincere desire to indulge it, and more out of a desire to sell their image in the public square.”

“We live in a noisy world, do we not? Deafening, in fact. A chaotic culture with throngs of people highly uncomfortable with silence. It is considered prestigious to fill up one’s time indiscriminately, often to the neglect of one’s soul.”

Carl Trueman looks at a recent report from the Church of England and tells how it indicates their desire for a cost-free righteousness. “The irony of the report, of course, is that it criticizes Western imperialism, of which it sees missionaries as tools, and yet does so on the basis of the latest Western imperialist ideology: cultural relativism and the notion that claims to truth are really instrumental to power.”

Trevin Wax encourages preachers to be relentlessly interesting (even if this means they need to preach a little shorter). “There’s no reason for solid, biblical preaching to bore people. Crafting a sermon well, with intention, and being passionate in your delivery so your tone reflects the seriousness of the substance, isn’t something new. This has been and remains a perennial concern of Christian exegetes.”

We can often look to the past as the good old days and conveniently set aside what was terrible back then. “But something is profoundly wrong with today. This is perhaps only ‘different wrong’ to the past but that doesn’t make it less wrong. The past was better in those respects that critics of modernity criticise even if not in lots of others. It’s not sepia-tinted to suggest so, and we should be able to do so in every age until the kingdom is fully unveiled. Which is to say let’s be wary of nostalgia, but let’s be wary of lazy critiques of it too.”

I pray that Christ would be so present and so visible that people would fail to think of me at all.

Good advice may help us in daily direction; the Good News concerning Jesus Christ saves us from sin’s guilt and tyranny over our lives and the fear of death. It’s Good News because it does not depend on us.
—Michael Horton

May the Lord be with you and bless you on this fine day.
(Yesterday on the blog: One of the Most Urgent Biblical Commands for Our Day)

Randy Alcorn considers the source of human rights and explains why it is so important that we get the matter correct.

John Benton explains how some of the alarming trends we see within the church can be explained by society’s obsession with individualism.

“How many people does it take to move the hand of God? I believe the answer is one. Anyone extra is icing on the cake.” This matters when it comes to prayer during times of sorrow or distress.

“While we cannot single-handedly be aware of every person and every need in the world, it should be a great encouragement to us to know that God is! And while God is certainly not limited to our meager gift-drops to supply the ocean of worldwide needs, he is able to take our individual, sack-lunch gifts and multiply them into a collective provision for the physically and spiritually hungry and weak and poor.”

This video from SBTS nicely complements the previous article.

Here are some encouraging thoughts for Christians who have the privilege of teaching children.

We need to have confidence that he is doing what’s right and best according to his inscrutable wisdom, that he is doing what most conforms his people to the image of his Son and what most honors and glorifies his holy name. We need to depend upon it, bank all we’ve got on it, go all-in on it.

Real freedom is the deep-seated confidence that God really will provide everything we need. The person who believes this is the freest of all persons on earth, because no matter what situation he finds himself in, he has nothing to fear.
—Jon Bloom

One of the most urgent biblical commands for our day—and perhaps for any day—is to speak the truth in love. Different people at different times tend to overemphasize one of the two factors and underemphasize the other so that some lean away from truth while others lean away from love. But the Lord expects that we will do both without competition or contradiction. “Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way…” he says (4:15). This verse tells us that there is a thing we must do and a way we must do it. There is both an action and an attitude.
The thing we must do is speak truth, or maybe a little sharper, we must confess truth. Paul has just written about “the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God,” and this tells us that what we need to confess is what is true about Christ. He—his person, his work, his gospel—is to be the content of our speech, of our confession. We need to know it, believe it, guard it, and speak it to each other.
The way we must do it is in love, which means we need to acknowledge that truth can be spoken well or badly. We can confess what’s true, yet in a way that brings harm instead of blessing. We can say what is true, yet still sin as we say it. And so our calling is to speak truth in love or, to turn it around, to lovingly speak what is true.
As is so often the case in the Christian life, there is peril on both sides. On one side we can be all about the truth, but cruel and unkind. We can derive joy from fighting and busting others down. On the other side, we can be all about love, but spineless and weak. We can refuse to address even the greatest weakness or sin. Neither extreme will do and neither extreme is superior to the other. Nothing but the divine balance pleases God.
To speak truth in love means taking the time to know other people and to understand them. It means taking the time to know where they are at in their lives and in their spiritual maturity. It means taking the time to ask good questions, to listen carefully, and to prayerfully consider the right truth for the right time.
The way you speak truth in love to a person who has been a Christian for weeks may be very different from a person who has been a Christian for decades. The way you speak truth in love to a person who has just lost their job may be very different from a person who has just gotten a big raise. The way you speak truth in love to someone who has just committed an offense in ignorance may be very different from a person who has committed an offense in full knowledge of their sin. All truth is true, but truth can be spoken in ways that are appropriate or inappropriate, fitting or unsuitable, in ways that build up or in ways that tear down. So much depends on circumstance.
Maybe someone has exhibited a sinful behavior and you are frustrated and angry about it, so you hastily quote a Bible passage that calls them to repent. But you don’t account for them being a new Christian or being in a time of deep grief. That doesn’t excuse their sin, but it might explain it. What you said might be true, but you have said it out of anger instead of love. You have added your sin to their sin. “Do you see a man hasty in his words?,” asks Solomon. “There is more hope for a fool than for him.”
Or maybe someone tells you, “This week I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.” And you pipe up to say, “But the Bible says ‘do not be anxious about anything.’” Those words are true, but it is unloving to offer a trite solution to a complex problem. It is unloving to speak harsh truth to a heavy heart. Solomon says, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.”
The challenge ever and always is to hold truth and love together and never to emphasize one at the expense of the other. We trust this is possible because God is truth and God is love. He is the source of both, and in him there is never the least competition or contradiction between the two. Our calling, then, is to imitate him, to be equally truthful and loving, to regard the two as the closest of companions and the best of friends.

Logos’ March Matchups is done and there are some great deals to be had. Baker Commentary on the Old Testament is 60% off and Pillar New Testament Commentary is 57% off. A bunch of others are in the 40-60% off range. Get the deals while you can!
Westminster Books is having their annual (semi-annual?) sale on pew Bibles. It’s a good time to stock up!
I added a good-sized batch of Kindle deals yesterday and will see what today brings.

I enjoyed Susan’s anecdote about a flight and a conversation.

“Oh, the benefit of hindsight. One hundred years later, it seems like the most obvious thing in the world to us that a ship should have enough lifeboats for all of its passengers and crew. But if anyone had pointed out the danger to White Star, the company that owned the Titanic, they would have laughed as they positively compared themselves to every other ship out there.”

What is the correct response when God blesses others and not us? Here’s some guidance.

Samuel James uses the recent example of the Princess of Wales to show how technology has a way of redefining personhood.

Andrew Roycroft has a great little tribute to Anne Marie Vallotton. You may not recognize her name, but there’s a good chance you’ll recognize her art.

Anne Kennedy: “Fortunately for us, Satan lacks self-control. He can’t keep anything within reasonable proportion. He can’t be content with transing just some of the kids. He must trans all of them. He must destroy every human body on the way to devouring every precious soul. And so, eventually, all the confused speech becomes such a deafening cacophony of lies, that all the ‘surgical racism,’ whatever that is, will be seen for what it is—total and complete evil.”

…we are not our own, but belong to him in body and in soul, in life and in death, in joy and in sorrow, in the circumstances we would have chosen anyway and the ones we would have avoided at all costs. 

While God did rest from His creative work, since the Fall He has never rested from His redemptive work.
—Peter Hubbard

The God of peace be with you today.
(Yesterday on the blog: Always Look for the Light)

Casey asks some important questions in his article. It begins like this: “It was the first and only time I’ve ever been called to perform an exorcism. It wasn’t a person that was possessed, the frantic lady on the phone informed me, it was her house. It had not one but two spirits. She had already tried a medium, a Catholic priest, and the strategic placement of crosses. You know you’re desperate when your last best hope is a Baptist pastor.”

This article considers the way the little word “should” can become such a poison.

I tend to agree with Barbara that in heaven we will understand more than we do now about God’s acts of providence, but not necessarily everything we’d like to know. “I don’t know if we’ll understand everything that God did and allowed while we were on earth. Because He will still be God and we still won’t be. He is omniscient, and we will never be.”

What a sweet bit of writing. “We come from unique backgrounds and paths of life as diverse as the potluck table: chile rellenos and chow mein sidled next to green bean casserole. We are white and colored, Asian and other, a mottled crew from nursery to our nineties. We vote on different ballots and think in different ways. Surely strangers who engage in such an intimate act of worship have no business with one another this side of glory as we learn again to be the church.”

This excellent article looks carefully at what’s true and what’s false, what’s orthodox and what’s heretical.

That’s a good line that counters something so common in society (and even in the church): truthful thinking is greater than positive thinking. “I regularly meet people who promote a worldview of positive thinking. In fact, there are religions and schools of thought that major in it. Such belief systems claim, to a greater or lesser degree, that positive thinking saves people from sin, grief, pain, brokenness, and even eternal damnation in hell. They’re attractive because they give us a sense of control. And in an age of chaos, a little control feels comforting.”

This “village” is not there just to keep them in line when they get unruly, but to experience the joy of seeing them grow up in God and grow up for God.

Faith does not pretend that a situation is not painful or scary. What faith does do is take our problem to the One who really cares and can do something about it.
—Matthew Mitchell

This week the blog is sponsored by P&R Publishing and is written by Ralph Cunnington.
Years ago, I stumbled repeatedly on an ancient phrase that altered my thinking forever. 
Distinct yet inseparable.
The first time I encountered this phrase was while studying the Council of Chalcedon’s description of the two natures of Christ. Soon after, I found that Augustine had used it to describe the relationship between the three persons of the Trinity. Then I saw that John Calvin had used it to describe the relationship between justification and sanctification. It was so beautiful and clarifying, so simple: there can be distinction without separation. We can experience unity within diversity and diversity within unity.
“Someone should write a book on that one day!” I thought.
Fast-forward to 2020.
Lockdown.
COVID-19.
George Floyd.
Marches.
Riots.
Tensions were running high, and debates raged both in society and in the church.
To mask or not to mask?
Should we take down statues of people we now find problematic?
What is gender?  
What is real and true, and what is not?
I saw the church struggle to respond, and the phrase that had altered my thinking years ago suddenly came to back to me in a brand-new way. Distinct yet inseparable. I was sitting on an ancient concept that could bring clarity to these divisive issues.
And that’s how “Someone should write a book on that one day!” became “I need to write that book.”
Distinct yet inseparable explains who God is and how God works in his world. It explains what he has created us to be and how he has called us to live within the church. Indeed, the concept provides the key to answering the most pressing questions of our time—questions of identity, gender, and ethnicity.
My three children are part of the first generation to grow up with smartphones. According to recent research, they’re also part of the most dissatisfied and depressed generation yet. They are passionate about racial and gender equality, yet deeply pessimistic about the future. They’re not alone. We all need to see how the beautiful news of the gospel fulfils our longing for unity and diversity in a broken and confused world.
I wrote Perfect Unity to play a small part in doing just that.

For many years there was a little potted plant on our kitchen window sill, though I’ve long since forgotten the variety. Year after year that plant would put out a shoot and from the shoot would emerge a single flower. And I observed that no matter how I turned the pot, the flower would respond. If I turned the pot so the flower was facing the room, within a day or two it would have turned to face the light. And if I rotated it again, the flower would respond in the same way, turning itself toward the light streaming in from the window. I could not fool it. I could not discourage it or persuade it to give up.
You cannot read about the life and ministry of Jesus Christ without noticing his love for the natural world. Many of his most vivid illustrations are drawn from nature—the birds, the plants, the trees, the winds. You often observe him making use of the natural elements that were right before him to help his listeners understand his teaching—the fig tree that failed to bear fruit, the fields that were white for harvest, the birds that were unconcerned about their next meal.
And in that vein, I learned a lesson from that little flower—the lesson of the potted plant. No matter how I turned the plant, it dutifully responded by realigning itself to face the light. No matter how many times I turned it and no matter how completely I turned it, it responded in the same way.
From the plant, I learned that life’s circumstances often turn us into times of darkness, times when we are overcome by pain, sorrow, or other trials. For a time the world around us may look dark and foreboding, like the Valley of the Shadow of Death is closing in around us and threatening to swallow us up. Yet our duty in such times is to look for the light and to turn toward it.
God never leaves us without some truth to believe in, some promise to cling to, some hope to long for, some light to turn toward.Share
And there always will be a source of light, for our God never deserts or abandons us. He never leaves us without some truth to believe in, some promise to cling to, some hope to long for, some light to turn toward. For God does not just have light or display light—he is light.
I’m certain that if I had taken my little potted plant to a dimly lit room in a hospital, it would still have turned toward whatever light came from the window, no matter how dim the source. I’m certain that if I took it to a prison cell with nothing but a single little window high above, it would lift its face toward that one shaft of light. It could not be stopped. It could not be discouraged. It could not be dissuaded.
And neither should we ever be dissuaded from turning toward the Lord in every circumstance. Our eyes may be weary and full of tears, the light may seem distant and dim, but the Lord is present, close to the broken-hearted and eager to save those who are crushed in spirit. It falls to us to simply turn and to look toward the light that streams from his presence and illumines us with his grace.

For many years there was a little potted plant on our kitchen window sill, though I’ve long since forgotten the variety. Year after year that plant would put out a shoot and from the shoot would emerge a single flower. And I observed that no matter how I turned the pot, the flower would respond. If I turned the pot so the flower was facing the room, within a day or two it would have turned to face the light. And if I rotated it again, the flower would respond in the same way, turning itself toward the light streaming in from the window. I could not fool it. I could not discourage it or persuade it to give up.
You cannot read about the life and ministry of Jesus Christ without noticing his love for the natural world. Many of his most vivid illustrations are drawn from nature—the birds, the plants, the trees, the winds. You often observe him making use of the natural elements that were right before him to help his listeners understand his teaching—the fig tree that failed to bear fruit, the fields that were white for harvest, the birds that were unconcerned about their next meal.
And in that vein, I learned a lesson from that little flower—the lesson of the potted plant. No matter how I turned the plant, it dutifully responded by realigning itself to face the light. No matter how many times I turned it and no matter how completely I turned it, it responded in the same way.
From the plant, I learned that life’s circumstances often turn us into times of darkness, times when we are overcome by pain, sorrow, or other trials. For a time the world around us may look dark and foreboding, like the Valley of the Shadow of Death is closing in around us and threatening to swallow us up. Yet our duty in such times is to look for the light and to turn toward it.
God never leaves us without some truth to believe in, some promise to cling to, some hope to long for, some light to turn toward.Share
And there always will be a source of light, for our God never deserts or abandons us. He never leaves us without some truth to believe in, some promise to cling to, some hope to long for, some light to turn toward. For God does not just have light or display light—he is light.
I’m certain that if I had taken my little potted plant to a dimly lit room in a hospital, it would still have turned toward whatever light came from the window, no matter how dim the source. I’m certain that if I took it to a prison cell with nothing but a single little window high above, it would lift its face toward that one shaft of light. It could not be stopped. It could not be discouraged. It could not be dissuaded.
And neither should we ever be dissuaded from turning toward the Lord in every circumstance. Our eyes may be weary and full of tears, the light may seem distant and dim, but the Lord is present, close to the broken-hearted and eager to save those who are crushed in spirit. It falls to us to simply turn and to look toward the light that streams from his presence and illumines us with his grace.

For many years there was a little potted plant on our kitchen window sill, though I’ve long since forgotten the variety. Year after year that plant would put out a shoot and from the shoot would emerge a single flower. And I observed that no matter how I turned the pot, the flower would respond. If I turned the pot so the flower was facing the room, within a day or two it would have turned to face the light. And if I rotated it again, the flower would respond in the same way, turning itself toward the light streaming in from the window. I could not fool it. I could not discourage it or persuade it to give up.
You cannot read about the life and ministry of Jesus Christ without noticing his love for the natural world. Many of his most vivid illustrations are drawn from nature—the birds, the plants, the trees, the winds. You often observe him making use of the natural elements that were right before him to help his listeners understand his teaching—the fig tree that failed to bear fruit, the fields that were white for harvest, the birds that were unconcerned about their next meal.
And in that vein, I learned a lesson from that little flower—the lesson of the potted plant. No matter how I turned the plant, it dutifully responded by realigning itself to face the light. No matter how many times I turned it and no matter how completely I turned it, it responded in the same way.
From the plant, I learned that life’s circumstances often turn us into times of darkness, times when we are overcome by pain, sorrow, or other trials. For a time the world around us may look dark and foreboding, like the Valley of the Shadow of Death is closing in around us and threatening to swallow us up. Yet our duty in such times is to look for the light and to turn toward it.
God never leaves us without some truth to believe in, some promise to cling to, some hope to long for, some light to turn toward.Share
And there always will be a source of light, for our God never deserts or abandons us. He never leaves us without some truth to believe in, some promise to cling to, some hope to long for, some light to turn toward. For God does not just have light or display light—he is light.
I’m certain that if I had taken my little potted plant to a dimly lit room in a hospital, it would still have turned toward whatever light came from the window, no matter how dim the source. I’m certain that if I took it to a prison cell with nothing but a single little window high above, it would lift its face toward that one shaft of light. It could not be stopped. It could not be discouraged. It could not be dissuaded.
And neither should we ever be dissuaded from turning toward the Lord in every circumstance. Our eyes may be weary and full of tears, the light may seem distant and dim, but the Lord is present, close to the broken-hearted and eager to save those who are crushed in spirit. It falls to us to simply turn and to look toward the light that streams from his presence and illumines us with his grace.

For many years there was a little potted plant on our kitchen window sill, though I’ve long since forgotten the variety. Year after year that plant would put out a shoot and from the shoot would emerge a single flower. And I observed that no matter how I turned the pot, the flower would respond. If I turned the pot so the flower was facing the room, within a day or two it would have turned to face the light. And if I rotated it again, the flower would respond in the same way, turning itself toward the light streaming in from the window. I could not fool it. I could not discourage it or persuade it to give up.
You cannot read about the life and ministry of Jesus Christ without noticing his love for the natural world. Many of his most vivid illustrations are drawn from nature—the birds, the plants, the trees, the winds. You often observe him making use of the natural elements that were right before him to help his listeners understand his teaching—the fig tree that failed to bear fruit, the fields that were white for harvest, the birds that were unconcerned about their next meal.
And in that vein, I learned a lesson from that little flower—the lesson of the potted plant. No matter how I turned the plant, it dutifully responded by realigning itself to face the light. No matter how many times I turned it and no matter how completely I turned it, it responded in the same way.
From the plant, I learned that life’s circumstances often turn us into times of darkness, times when we are overcome by pain, sorrow, or other trials. For a time the world around us may look dark and foreboding, like the Valley of the Shadow of Death is closing in around us and threatening to swallow us up. Yet our duty in such times is to look for the light and to turn toward it.
God never leaves us without some truth to believe in, some promise to cling to, some hope to long for, some light to turn toward.Share
And there always will be a source of light, for our God never deserts or abandons us. He never leaves us without some truth to believe in, some promise to cling to, some hope to long for, some light to turn toward. For God does not just have light or display light—he is light.
I’m certain that if I had taken my little potted plant to a dimly lit room in a hospital, it would still have turned toward whatever light came from the window, no matter how dim the source. I’m certain that if I took it to a prison cell with nothing but a single little window high above, it would lift its face toward that one shaft of light. It could not be stopped. It could not be discouraged. It could not be dissuaded.
And neither should we ever be dissuaded from turning toward the Lord in every circumstance. Our eyes may be weary and full of tears, the light may seem distant and dim, but the Lord is present, close to the broken-hearted and eager to save those who are crushed in spirit. It falls to us to simply turn and to look toward the light that streams from his presence and illumines us with his grace.