The Lord be with you and bless you today.

Today’s Kindle deals include a couple of good picks.
In Defense of the Gender Binary
“The plausibility structure of the gender binary is losing its grip on contemporary consciousness. And, it’s not just in contemporary culture writ large, but we are seeing and experiencing shifts in the Church.”
A Time to Hustle & A Time to Stroll
“Maybe it was the pandemic slow down, or just people getting fed up with it, but the last couple of years have seen a backlash against what has been termed ‘hustle culture.’”
Get the Best Deal on Al Mohler’s Grace & Truth Study Bible
Follow the link or use Promo Code 10CHALLIES and take an additional $10 off any print edition on Amazon. That $10 on top of Amazon’s already-discounted price. Under the guidance of general editor Dr. Albert Mohler, the NIV Grace and Truth Study Bible paints a stunning canvas of the goodness of God’s redemptive plan revealed in the gospel of Jesus. (Sponsored Link)
Zombie Sins
Chris Thomas: “Here’s what I am learning. Paul asks me to slay sin, a theme that John Owen would later riff off as he famously quipped, ‘Be killing sin or sin will be killing you,’ and I thought I was. But I was wrong. Burying sin is not the same as killing it.”
Spiritual Resilience
“Your life’s adversities serve a purpose. We may want our spiritual life to be as leisurely as a man lying on a couch, watching TV while eating comfort food, but a body that does too much of that will rot and never win the race. Do not run from every difficulty that comes your way today. Trust in Jesus, move forward, and see what God can do.”
Quick Guide to Christian Denominations
Trevin Wax has put together a not-so-quick guide to Christian denominations.
Worthy of Worship
Nick Batzig has a good one here. “To whom do we owe all of our admiration, affection, and allegiance? Who is worthy of our worship? The answer is straightforward. God, and God alone, is worthy of our worship. But, what about God incarnate, Jesus Christ? Can we worship the Man, Christ Jesus?”
Flashback: Shades of Love
I have been thinking about all the different kinds of love I have been able to experience, I have been considering how each one is unique, and I have been pondering how together these loves point me to one that must envelop and transcend them all.

The goal of missions isn’t quick gains but lasting results. —Elliot Clark

Grace and peace to you today.

(Yesterday on the blog: The Joy of Forgetting What You Need To Remember)
An Open Letter to the Christian Disheartened by Ongoing Temptation
You may appreciate this letter from D.A. Carson and John Woodbridge.
What Exactly Does 1 Timothy 2:12 Teach?
“Applying 1 Timothy 2:12 in the local church setting is tricky: ‘I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.’ What exactly does Paul not permit?” Robert Yarbrough offers a response to the question.
How To Turn A Clique Inside Out
“Cliques. They’re awful, aren’t they? We love to hate them (probably because we feel like they hate us). They’re easy targets for our criticism, all selfish and exclusive and proud, and who do they think they are treating other people like they don’t matter and barely exist at all? Cliques are bad. That is, until we’re in them.”
Sinclair Ferguson: Live at 7:30 p.m. EST
Sinclair Ferguson will be live with Ligonier Ministries this evening at 7:30 PM. He’ll be answering biblical and theological questions submitted live.
Fighting Flat
“Part of our challenge as preachers is to fight flatness in our preaching. This could be in terms of delivery, structure, or content. Perhaps you would add more areas too.” This article may help preachers understand and combat “flatness.”
Triggers and Tender Mercies
I’ve been blessed to read Donna Evans’ blog as she grieves the loss of her son James Bruce. In this article she writes about triggers that catch her off guard.
Flashback: The Best Tool for the Job
…the danger of thriftiness is that it can easily tip into stinginess. (Of course, in the same way, free spending can tip into a profligacy.) We can elevate the joy of finding an item at a low cost, while overlooking that this low cost may necessitate low quality.

Our perverse mistake is that we demand that God shall explain Himself at every step, instead of waiting for Him to unfold His intricate purposes at His own time and in His own way. —Theodore Cuyler

If I have my timing right, the last conference I spoke at was the 2020 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors. It was early February and we were just beginning to hear unfamiliar words like “COVID” and “coronavirus.” (A search through my inbox shows that the first mention of it was from an old Adam Ford newsletter in which he speculated that the outbreak in China was far worse than anyone was letting on.) I didn’t think much about the virus as I traveled to Minneapolis and at that time never would have imagined the way it would slam borders shut, disrupt travel, and close down the conference industry. I never would have imagined I wouldn’t attend another event for more than two years.

My topic at that conference was “Pastors and Productivity” and I enjoyed leading a seminar that took pastors through the opening steps of constructing a system meant to help them become more productive. It was based, of course, on the system I outline in Do More Better. I led the seminar, spent some time in meetings and fellowship, and then flew home. Just a few weeks later Ontario was locked down, the borders were closed, the airliners were in long-term storage in Arizona, and my entire calendar was blank.
A couple of weeks ago my church hosted a Weekender event for pastors and I was asked to dust off that very same seminar and to present it again. So I printed the same worksheet, opened the same slideshow, and presented pretty well the same content. I was gratified to see that it stood up pretty well, but did have to acknowledge how different my life has become in the two years between. The pandemic massively simplified my life and did so primarily by taking away almost all travel. I could still write the blog and work on books, but all speaking and all travel was gone. I could see how what I presented there had been flexible enough to easily bend with the changing circumstances.
As I led the pastors through the seminar, I saw that one core idea is still the most helpful of all: A good system of productivity allows us to experience the joy of forgetting what we need to remember. One of the great difficulties many of us wish to overcome in life is the fear that we will miss something, neglect something, forget something. We fear that we will miss an appointment, neglect a responsibility, forget a deadline. And as long as such fears remain present, we have trouble relaxing, we have trouble setting our minds at ease. One productivity writer wants his readers to have a “mind like water” but I’m content to help people achieve a mind that is at rest.
It’s for this reason that the main idea I present in the book and seminars is the value of creating and then perfecting a system that you trust to such a degree that you become confident it will remember what you need to remember, prompt you to do what needs to be done, and remind you to complete what is due. The practice I want people to aspire to and them embrace is getting things out of your head and into your system. This may have the side benefit of allowing you to attempt more and accomplish more. It may have the side benefit of convincing you to attempt less and accomplish less—less overall, but more of what really matters. The main value, though, is not accomplishments, but peace.
Ultimately, a strong system of productivity isn’t necessarily meant to help you do more, but to ease your mind, to calm your heart, to allow you to have confidence that your system is good enough, perfected enough, robust enough to grant you the joy of forgetting what you need to remember. Whether you learn that system through Do More Better or through one of a hundred other worthy books, I highly recommend creating some kind of a system—a system that fits your personality, a system that suits your life, a system that puts your mind at rest. You will know that system is where you need it to be when you trust it enough that you can forget what you need to remember, confident that the system will remember it for you.

A number of people who receive this content via email are having trouble clicking links. I am waiting for the newsletter service to fix it. In the meantime, clicking the headline will take you to my site where the links are working as they should!

We Live in Confusing Times
Kevin DeYoung leads an intellectual exercise meant to prove that we live in confusing times, especially as it pertains to matters of gender and sexuality.
Weak for Those We Love
Chris Martin shares a sweet reflection on fatherhood.
Struggling on Your Behalf in Prayers
“It may be one of the most overlooked ministries we can perform for others: to struggle on their behalf in our prayers.” Darryl Dash explains.
Get the Best Deal on Al Mohler’s Grace & Truth Study Bible
Follow the link or use Promo Code 10CHALLIES and take an additional $10 off any print edition on Amazon. That $10 on top of Amazon’s already-discounted price. Under the guidance of general editor Dr. Albert Mohler, the NIV Grace and Truth Study Bible paints a stunning canvas of the goodness of God’s redemptive plan revealed in the gospel of Jesus. (Sponsored Link)
Why Did Jesus Speak in Parables?
“Why did Jesus speak in parables?” The answer is quite interesting.
What Convinced James His Brother Was God?
“My brother isn’t God. It’s pretty obvious (we grew up together, after all), and nothing he could do or say could convince me of his divinity. I’m not God, either, and nothing I could do or say would convince him otherwise, too. Yet somehow, Jesus convinced his brother he was God. And James was so confident, he was willing to die for his belief. How did Jesus do it? What convinced his own brother to acknowledge Jesus was God and worship him?”
When “I” Becomes “We”
“I’ve always been independent. Maybe it’s because I’m the firstborn of three children, or maybe it’s my personality, but doing things on my own is my default.” Allyson Todd considers the end of a good measure of such independence through her impending marriage.
Flashback: Rule #4: Watch for Temptation (8 Rules for Growing in Godliness)
One of the means God uses to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ is temptation. Though we must never seek or desire it, still we have the confidence that God redeems the crucible of temptation to refine his people, to remove their sin, and to instill his righteousness within them.

A religion that is of no use to you while you live, will be of no use to you when you die. —De Witt Talmage

Few resources are more helpful to Christians than a good study Bible. We have just seen the release of the new Grace and Truth Study Bible which is edited by Dr. Albert Mohler and now available in both English and Spanish. In this sponsored interview, I asked him a few questions about it.

We have a good number of study Bibles available to us. What was the benefit in creating a new one?
I have been dependent upon study Bibles from the time I was a teenager. Those Bibles and their notes helped to open the scriptures to me as I became more and more serious about studying the Word of God. There are many really wonderful study Bibles available to Christians, but I saw the need for a study Bible that was theologically and convictionally clear while being accessible to people who might be intimidated by a study Bible that was thousands of pages long. I also saw a need for a study Bible that people will be able to take with them. I hope Christians find the Grace and Truth Study Bible a faithful and trustworthy companion—a study Bible that can be used as a devotional Bible and a Bible to be brought to worship to be opened for the preaching of God’s Word. My great hope is that the Grace and Truth Study Bible will help coming generations to love and to understand God’s Word.
What are some of the unique features of the Grace and Truth Study Bible?
The most important feature of the Grace and Truth Study Bible is represented by the table of contributors. I was able to work with a team to pull together the most remarkable biblical scholars who combined unquestioned conviction with excellence in biblical scholarship. This is not a study Bible that will be of interest only to the world of scholarship. It represents scholarship turned into a passionate devotion for the Word of God. Every single book of the Bible received careful attention from a skilled interpreter of God’s Word whose passion is to see God’s people exalt in the glory of God as revealed in every book of scripture. 
Another feature is that the accessibility of the notes has driven this entire project. It was one of my great joys was to work with that team of scholars to craft introductions and helpful notes so that Christians utilizing the study Bible could clearly understand God’s Word.  
Last, I was determined that a study Bible that would serve Christ’s church would need to be available only in the highest quality of presentation in both form and format. Every part of the Bible—down to the design, the print and typeface, the quality of paper, the density of ink, the translucence of reflection—was carefully chosen. God’s Word deserves the very best. I have to thank Zondervan Bibles for their outstanding support in this respect because we were able to bring to the excellence of that attention to detail to this project.
Who’s the target audience or reader for in the study Bible?
Every Christian will benefit from the Grace and Truth Study Bible. One of the interesting issues in publishing is knowing your target audience. In that respect, one could envision a study Bible that would be many volumes in length that would serve the scholarly community. On the other hand, one could imagine a study Bible that would be so minimal that it would basically offer just a bare introduction to each book, and then a few necessary notes along the way. Finding the right balance between those two polarities is the great challenge. I believe we were able to strike a unique balance in the Grace and Truth Study Bible that I hope will really serve the church.
We aimed this study Bible at Christians who are committed to Christ, who love God’s Word, and who want to know how to understand it even better. This Bible is for getting deeper into God’s Word. It is accessible enough that the newest believer can immediately benefit from it. It is also deep enough and thoughtful enough that the faithful, mature believer of many decades will find ever new riches in the text.
I do hope there will be many unbelievers who will read the Word of God as found in this study Bible, receive new birth in Christ, and come to saving faith. It will be the Holy Spirit through the Word of God does that, not the study Bible. However, our main audience for this Bible is Protestant, evangelical Christians who are looking for a serious study Bible because they want to be devoted to the serious study of God’s Word.
What was the importance of launching the Spanish addition alongside English?
Given our own hemispheric reality, the incredible opportunities in the Spanish-speaking world, and the interchange between the English and Spanish-speaking worlds, we really saw the opportunity to make history. This is the first major study Bible released simultaneously in English and in Spanish. Many people in the Spanish-speaking world told us of the need and hope for a study Bible like the Grace and Truth Study Bible. We intended to reach the untold millions of people included in both the English and the Spanish speaking audiences in order to meet that need. I am very thankful to Zondervan and Vida Bibles and to our team for finishing this project on time without any sacrifice of quality in either translation.
Creating a project as big as a study Bible must represent quite a logistical challenge. I wonder if you could talk us through a bit of what that process looks like.
It all began with the concept that led to a consensus that this study Bible meets a need for the church. A leader from the Bible Group at HarperCollins Christian Publishing, which comprises both Zondervan and Thomas Nelson Bible teams, approached me, and I agreed to be general editor. Then it fell to me to put together a team. I started with managing editor and then editors for both the Old and New Testaments. Then we had to get down to the hard work of putting together the roster of writers who would each take responsibility for one of the books of the Bible. 
I was able to choose the very first ranked team because the Lord opened many doors. I am so thankful that the best team of biblical scholars bought into the project. They affirmed its theological convictions. They agreed to its approach. They were eager on the basis of their own convictions about holy scripture to help Christ’s church in understanding the Word of God.
The writers received the assignment and guidelines—including a word length—and then most of them gave a sample of their work so that we could understand how they were doing. When those contributions were forwarded to the editors, the editors went through every single line, weighing them in terms of conviction and helpfulness to the project as a whole. Those editors put enormous work into this, including keeping the entire project on time, which is seldom found in something of this magnitude. Finally, I went through the whole project to ensure we accomplished what we set out to do. It was a great joy to work with our team, and I am extremely thankful to all who worked to see this project come together.

The God of love and peace be with you today.

Logos users will want to grab the free book and at least consider the nearly-free ones.
(Yesterday on the blog: Don’t Waste the Days When You Feel Little Need for God)
The Mustard Seed Mum: Pressured to be perfect?
Ruth Clemence: “The start of being a good parent is realising that your performance is not being measured against anyone else. It’s not a competition, even if it feels like it.”
Is There Such Thing As Random?
“We don’t choose our moments of suffering, or the times we are pressed into service; they usually come on suddenly and without warning.” Cara reminds us that God orchestrates perfect timing.
What Is Transgenderism?
Here’s an article from Rosaria Butterfield on transgenderism. “Transgenderism emerged from this feminist political rejection of the creation ordinance that says God made human beings male and female, so their biological sex and not their internal feelings determines their maleness or femaleness. Transgenderism, instead, argues that our internal sense of self is what makes us men or women.”
Speechless
“Deathly pale in light of the vision. No strength. Alone and overwhelmed to the point of exhaustion, Daniel drops. Face to the ground. Powerless. Speechless. Unable to breathe. And the Lord responds to His servant. With tenderness and strength.”
Touch This Tree and You’ll Want to Die
Gene Veith writes about an actual tree that, if you touch, you’ll deeply regret it. He also draws a spiritual lesson from it.
I Remember
Andrea Sanborn reflects on the beauty and necessity of the Lord’s Supper.
Flashback: Why Should We Remember what God Forgets?
Why should we dwell upon the sins we have committed that God himself has forgotten? Why should we live in a shameful past that God has already put out of his faultless mind?

Whatever you lack, if God is yours, if you are God’s child, you have all. —Jeremiah Burroughs

It would be a strange man who would meet a woman, pursue her, marry her, and then immediately establish a pattern of ignoring her. It would make little sense for him to marry someone he has little intention of continuing to get to know, of continuing to build relationship with. It would make for many wasted years if he sat cold and silent until their twentieth anniversary before finally beginning to open up, to finally draw her out. Their relationship would inevitably have suffered grievous harm through his cold indifference.

Yet there are many people who come to faith in Christ, who build a relationship with him, who pledge allegiance to him, who are baptized and received into the church, but who then quickly go stagnant. They are slow to establish the habits and patterns that will cause their relationship to grow and to thrive. They fail to implement the disciplines of reading and prayer through which they will speak to God and God to them. They fail to commit to a local church where they can increase their knowledge of God and love for God, and where they can learn how to love others in the way Christ has loved them. They, like that husband, accumulate many wasted years—years in which they could have gotten to know the God they love.
It comes as no great surprise when the faith of such people fails to thrive or even to survive in times of trial and trauma. It comes as no surprise when their faith proves unequal to the inevitable challenges that come to all of us who live in this world of woe.
You may set out on a camping trip when the sun is high in the sky and the day still long, and it may then seem silly to carry a flashlight with you—to ensure that the batteries are charged and bulb still bright. But it will not be long before night falls and darkness looms under the dense trees of the forest. And this is when your preparation will prove itself, for this is when you need a lamp for your feet and light for your path.
And just so, it is when we encounter deep sorrows and losses that we are most thankful to have fostered a relationship with the Lord. It is when we are in the dark valley that we are most thankful to know the Good Shepherd, when we are in the deepest distress that we are most grateful to know the great Healer, when we are in the greatest agony that it’s most needful to know the great Physician. It is in these times that it proves so important to have established and fostered a relationship with the Lord.
Ideally, trials are not the time to construct a relationship but the time to lean upon an existing one. Ideally, trauma is not the time to begin trying to understand how God is present in our pain, but the time to lean into what we already know to be true. Ideally, darkness is not the time to begin groping around for a light, but the time to depend upon the light you have been carrying with you all along.
And so the call upon each of us is clear. We must not waste the days when we may feel little need for God, we must not neglect the times when we may feel little desire to build a relationship with him. It is when things seem to be at their best that we need to plan for the worst, when all seems to be gain that we need to prepare ourselves for loss.

Grace and peace, my friends.

If you live in southern Ontario, you may want to take a look at the Simeon Trust workshop coming up in this area.
(Yesterday on the blog: We Are Very Anxious About Our Character)
The ‘Young, Restless, Reformed’ Movement Wasn’t Enough, But It Wasn’t a Mistake
“The problems of the present are real, but so were the blessings of the past. The passing of a particular moment in evangelical life is lamentable not because it was irreplaceable, but because it accomplished something real, and those who saw it are, in a very real sense, different people for having experienced it.”
You Don’t Need to be on Social Media to Make a Difference in the World
This is probably worth considering. “It is certainly possible to make a positive difference in the world through social media. But it is not required.”
The Chasm of Being a Latino Christian
I found this an interesting look at some of the particular challenges of being a Latino Christian.
Get the Best Deal on Al Mohler’s Grace & Truth Study Bible
Follow the link or use Promo Code 10CHALLIES and take an additional $10 off any print edition on Amazon. That $10 on top of Amazon’s already-discounted price. Under the guidance of general editor Dr. Albert Mohler, the NIV Grace and Truth Study Bible paints a stunning canvas of the goodness of God’s redemptive plan revealed in the gospel of Jesus.
Serving Others with Our Schedule
This article asks, “are we using our schedules in a way that God is pleased? What if there was a better way to use our schedules for something eternally redeemable? If we find that our schedules serve only us, we must come to realize that the better alternative is to serve others with our time.”
A Civilization, if You Can Keep it
Kevin DeYoung: “The great privilege of growing up in relative peace and prosperity—whether narrowly in a healthy family or more broadly in a nation guided by the rule of law and rooted in God-given rights—is that the world seems more or less safe and it kind of makes sense. Let us give thanks for this experience wherever it exists. The danger, however, is that we begin to think it always has existed and always will exist.”
What is the Bible?
So what is the Bible, anyway?
Flashback: How To Grow in Self-Confidence
I determined that when I spoke I would do so with God’s authority, not mine. I decided I wouldn’t stand up in front of people and share my own opinions or bestow my own wisdom. Rather, I would ground what I say in the Bible.

Christ is a thousand times more full of affection than earthly parents can be. —Nathaniel Vincent

Earlier in the week I posted an article about being willing to suffer wrong in the face of those who wish to do us harm. After sharing it I came across a wonderful quote from F.B. Meyer that is at least parenthetically related. He counsels us on what to do when others attack our character and seek to harm our name. In short: wait on the Lord.

We are very anxious about our character, but if we live close to Christ, men will impute to us all manner of evil. They will impugn our motives, misrepresent our actions, and circulate malicious stories about us. The nearer we live to Christ the more certain it is it will be so, that if they called Him Beelzebub they will call us the same.
My belief is that we should be very careless about these things, and that the only time when we should defend our character should be when aspersions on it may injure the cause of Christ; that as far as we are concerned we should be content to lose our character and be counted the off-scouring of all things.
When these reports are circulating, and these stories being told, and these unkind words being hurled from lip to lip, we should immediately turn to our Master and tell Him we are content to suffer with and for Him. Ask Him to intercede for and to vindicate us, if it is His will we should be vindicated, and if not, to give us grace to suffer patiently and wait.
We are so eager to stand well; we are so sorry if the least thing is said against us; we are so irritated if we are misunderstood and misrepresented; we are so anxious to write the explanatory letter to the paper or the private individual. It is a profound mistake. We should be content to trust God with the aspersion, to leave to Him our vindication, and meanwhile to plod on, doing our work quietly day by day, as in His sight, only being more tender and thoughtful and careful of those who have done us wrong.
That is the true Christian spirit. 

Please bear with me as I try a bit of a different format for today’s A La Carte. Let me know if you prefer (or don’t prefer) it.

First up, there are some new Kindle deals for those who collect them—some newer books and some older ones.
Then, here’s today’s prayer from F.B. Meyer’s hard-to-find collection My Daily Prayer, which I thought you might enjoy:
“Most gracious God, I thank You for the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, pure as dew, cleansing as fire, tender and refreshing as the breath of spring. O blessed Trinity, ever engaged in giving Your choice things to us, Your unworthy children, accept my gratitude for which I have no words.”
Yesterday on the blog I wrote about Health, Wealth, and the (Real) Gospel.
If You Read Just One
Trevin Wax considers some recent articles about modern notions of sex and sexuality and sees them as proof that mere ‘Consent’ Isn’t Enough for a Sexual Ethic. That’s not to say that these authors are ready to entertain the Christian sexual ethic, but that “these are baby steps, important ones, that indicate a sense of angst and anxiety underneath the commonsense cultural ethos surrounding sex.”
Other Good Reading
We have probably all attempted to convince someone that the Bible is inspired. Greg Koukl says that, when we do so , we ought to let God do the heavy lifting. “I came to believe the Bible was God’s Word the same way the Thessalonians did, the same way you probably did: They encountered the truth firsthand and were moved by it. Without really being able to explain why, they knew they were hearing the words of God and not just the words of a man named Paul.”
Al Gooderham wants us to know our place—the particular place God has called us to minister his gospel. “One of the dangers for us as churches, pastor and people is that we assume our place is a generic place. That it’s the same as the places and people elsewhere or that we see via our media consumption be it social media or binge watching our favourite series.” This can have the consequence that “we end up preaching a generic gospel via generic sermons and meeting generic needs for a generic area and a generic people and guess what we get a generic response.”
Christians often grapple with the nature and extent of God’s sovereignty. Derek Thomas has an excellent article on the subject. “God is sovereign in creation, providence, redemption, and judgment. That is a central assertion of Christian belief and especially in Reformed theology. God is King and Lord of all. To put this another way: nothing happens without God’s willing it to happen, willing it to happen before it happens, and willing it to happen in the way that it happens.”
Do true Christians still have evil desires? And if so, how is that consistent with what Scripture says about putting to death evil deeds and desires? John Piper answers some good questions in the latest Ask Pastor John.
Last but not least, Ligonier Ministries recently hosted their National Conference on the topic of Upholding Christian Ethics and has now shared video of all the plenary sessions, Q&A sessions, and seminars.

Flashback (an article from the archives): What the Lord’s Day Is. “As I stood to worship on Sunday, I found myself considering just some of what the Lord’s Day is…”

And, last but not least, today’s SquareQuote:

We mistakenly look for tokens of God’s love in happiness. We should instead look for them in His faithful and persistent work to conform us to Christ. —Jerry Bridges