Grace and peace to you today, my friends.

There are just a couple of new Kindle deals today following yesterday’s huge list.
Westminster Books is having a Reformation Day Sale that includes some good titles.
(Yesterday on the blog: Forest Fires & Apple Orchards)
Why I Am a Creationist
Tony Payne: “As the preacher on Sunday pointed out, these verses in Romans 9 are difficult for us because we are profoundly convinced that we are at the centre of the universe, not God. We can’t cope with the idea that we might be bit players in someone else’s drama, rather than the star of our own story.”
What if I Struggle Wanting to Read the Bible? (Video)
We all go through stretches when we struggle to read the Bible. In this brief video, Dr. Nate Brooks address such times.
When the Beauty Never Leaves
“Every believer likely has certain places where they feel eternity bleeding through into the present. Places where the beauty of this world awaken some kind of deep memory – or prophecy – of another world. Eden that was lost, or Eden to be remade.” This is a sweet and encouraging article.
Meaningful Membership at Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle
This is a very interesting look at the importance of membership in Spurgeon’s church. “In the first 6 1/2 years of his ministry at the New Park Street Chapel, the church took in 1,442 new members. That’s 1,442 membership interviews by a deacon, 1,442 meetings with Spurgeon, 1,442 membership visitations, 1,442 testimonies before the congregation, and 1,442 approvals by the congregation (not to mention over a thousand baptisms, as most of these were new converts).”
The Places I Used To Pray
“I’ve always found it helpful to have specific spots I can go to meet with God, to get away from the house and the desk and the lists and walk down to one of our spots—whether it was a tree, or a quay, or a beach, or the wall around a graveyard, or that little chapel at university—and talk freely, without interruption. After spending time with my Maker in these places, they begin to take on a new significance to me, a kind of personal sacredness, because these little corners of ground were set apart for special use.”
Galatians Is the Antidote to Legalism and Antinomianism
This article aptly explains how Galatians addresses both legalism and antinomianism. “I’ve found that many Christians, post-conversion, tend toward legalism or antinomianism in their pursuit of sanctification. … Not all Christians struggle deeply in one of these areas, but the tendency is widespread. That’s why we so desperately need Galatians.”
9 Things You Should Know About ‘Christian Science’
I hadn’t heard much about Christian Science for some time, but it’s recently been on the scene again because of vaccine mandates. Joe Carter has a good little roundup of its core beliefs.
Flashback: What’s The Point Of Family Devotions?
While we have appealed to our kids to take seriously their personal relationship with God and to build habits of personal devotion, we’ve also wanted to gather before God as a family, to hear the same words from God and to pray the same prayers to God.

There is no way that Christians, in a private capacity, can do so much to promote the work of God and advance the kingdom of Christ as by prayer. —Jonathan Edwards

Much has been written about the biblical concept of “meekness.” Many have pointed out that of all the attributes God expects of us, and of all the attributes so wonderfully displayed in Christ, none is so rare as this. Yet perhaps no attribute is quite so difficult to define. What, then, is meekness?

In some ways meekness is best defined by what it is not. Meekness is the opposite of self-assertion, the opposite of acting as if my will should triumph over God’s or even that my will should necessarily triumph over any man’s. It is the opposite of insisting that this world would be a better place if God and man alike just did things my way. Therefore, it is the opposite of grumbling against God’s providence as it’s expressed through circumstances or even through the hands of men.
When Jesus said “blessed are the meek,” he carefully placed this beatitude after two others—after “blessed are those who are poor in spirit” and “blessed are those who mourn.” God’s blessings are upon those who come to him with empty hands—with an awareness that they are fully dependent upon God’s grace. And God’s blessings are upon those who come to him with broken hearts—with deep sorrow over their sin and sinfulness. People who come to God in this way will naturally relate to him with a quiet spirit—with what we know as meekness. And such quietness before God will express itself in kindness and gentleness toward men.
The meek person, then, remembers that he came to God with empty hands; he remembers that he stands before God with a broken heart; and so he has a quiet spirit. He is submissive before God and gentle toward others, especially in sorrows, especially in losses, especially when he’s being led through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. The meek person is gentle toward others even when insulted by them, even when scorned by them, even when harmed by them. He trusts that even if he is distressed and bewildered today, God will eventually make his purpose clear and then he, like God, will judge it all so very good, all so very necessary, all so very wise.
A forest fire rages in Northern Ontario and we see the smoke of it blanket the sun even here in the city. It passes through the trees and seems to have left the land completely devoid of life. But no sooner has the fire gone out and the ground cooled, that new sprouts begin to push up from the ground. There’s life and beauty even amidst the ashes. That’s you and me, Christian, when it seems that God’s providence has scorched and burned us. We submit to him, we submit to his purposes, and we display fresh evidences of his grace even in our sorrow, even with shattered hearts. We act in meekness.
In the orchards outside my city the apple trees are bearing their fruit. And in these weeks of harvest, people like you and me go out into the orchards and ravage those trees. We pick them bare. Does the tree give up? Does it shrivel up and die? No, it just begins the process again so that at next year’s harvest it will once again be full of fruit. That’s you and me, Christian, when people hurt us and harm us and take advantage of us. Even then we display the fruit of the spirit. Even then—especially then—we act in meekness.
It may well be true that no attribute of the Christian is more rare than meekness, but perhaps that is only because no attribute is more precious—and no attribute more consistent with the character of Jesus who is himself the very picture of meekness—who is “gentle and lowly in heart” and who offers precious rest for our souls.

May the Lord bless and keep you today.

There’s a very long list of excellent Kindle books due to be discounted today. I’ve added all I could find!
The Brevity and the Beauty
A recent birthday has Chris Martin considering death and the brevity of life.
We’re Not At The Gates Yet
Meanwhile, Chris Thomas is offering hope for those who may be near despair. “Dear friend, we have not arrived at the gates of hell yet. While we live in trying times, we live with the same sense of confidence our brothers and sisters have lived with for millennia.”
Our Weekly Wedding Rehearsal
“Have you ever thought of how every Lord’s Day is like a wedding rehearsal?” It’s well worth considering how church can be like a weekly wedding rehearsal.
Listen Every Friday to Luther: In Real Time
It’s 1520. Martin Luther has been declared a heretic by Pope Leo X, and his books are being burned. How much longer before Luther himself is thrown into the fire? Subscribe to Luther: In Real Time, the immersive podcast from Ligonier Ministries, to follow the dramatic story of Martin Luther at the dawn of the Protestant Reformation. A new episode from season 2 is available every Friday. (Sponsored Link)
The Problem With Dave Chappelle
Samuel James: “Dave Chappelle is right about transgender ideology. He’s right about the disproportionate control that gender ideologues wield over pop culture and public discourse. And he’s also right that most of the people greatly upset by his jokes are white liberals who are more than happy to drop their racial consciousness at the sign of any conflict between minorities and LGBTQ activism. But this doesn’t, or shouldn’t, add up to conservative sympathy for him.”
Why Does God Allow Us To Suffer?
In this article by Rohit Masih, probably the first I’ve ever linked to that begin in Hindi before being translated to English, you’ll find four reasons God allows us to suffer.
Grief Is Not an Enemy of Faith
Trevin Wax explains why grief is not an enemy of faith. “Some churchgoers seem to think grief must be a sign of weakness, as if our Christian hope should keep us from shedding tears. But the stiff upper lip owes more to the ancient Stoics than the ancient Christians.”
Flashback: Be a Living Example of God’s Living Love
Aren’t you glad that Jesus did not only feel love for you but that he ultimately acted in love for you? His feelings would not have done us much good! The ultimate measure of love is not what you feel for others but what you do for them.

God bears long with the wicked notwithstanding the multitude of their sin, and shall we desire to be revenged because of a single injury? —A.W. Pink

May the God of love and peace be with you today.

Logos users may want to check out some bundled deals of resources I recommend.
(Yesterday on the blog: Why I Owe Everything To Don Lewis)
Friendship: The Foundation of Paul’s Global Ministry
Caleb Greggsen: “Spurred on by this urgent desperation [to change the world], Christians often look to the book of Acts. They want to find the apostle Paul’s secret sauce. How did he get the gospel to go forward? What can we learn from him? Which methods are we applying incorrectly? Which methods would produce the harvest we pray for? But Paul’s actions in Acts aren’t the first place we should look to learn from his ministry.”
Our Scattered Longings
“Like most girls my age, I struggled with my own body. The number on the tag of my pants seemed like the gateway to true happiness. I scanned the girls in my middle school and high school and concluded If only I looked like her…  The end of that sentence was long. I’d be happier. More comfortable. More adventurous. Confident. Assertive. And obviously no longer single.”
Why Christians Should Avoid Alarmism (And What To Do Instead)
Akos Balogh writes about the ways in which Christians can be prone to alarmism. He also writes about the cost it exacts from us.
10 Truths About the Holy Spirit from Romans 8
Ryan Higginbottom looks at a much-loved chapter of the Bible to see some of what it tells us about the Holy Spirit.
Look Up
This article deals with the way we can be so focused on our little problems that we forget to elevate our gaze.
The Dreaded Answer
“We absolutely hate it. It’s vile and wretched and rarely the answer we want to hear. Yet, unfortunately, we often find it a regular part of life. What is this four-letter response that leads us to wince when we hear it?”
5 Steps for Connecting (or Reconnecting) With A Church
This one may be helpful to people who are between churches. “I hear many people say that they want or need to get plugged into a local church, but they aren’t sure where to start. Maybe you are one of those people.”
Flashback: The Influenced Will Be Like the Influencer
…bit by bit, day by day, sermon by sermon, podcast by podcast, we will come to resemble the people we follow. For good or for ill, we will imitate them until we are like them.

Contrast yourself not with those below you, but with God above. We are too prone to compare our white robes with the stained garments of others, rather than with those robes which were whiter than a fuller could white them. —F.B. Meyer

Last week brought the news that Don Lewis has died—Dr. Donald Munro Lewis, professor of church history at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is remembered there with great affection not only as a skilled teacher of church history, but as a spiritual companion to many, a faithful mentor, and a man who was committed to prayer. And though I met Don only a handful of times, and though we were only infrequent correspondents, I owe him pretty much everything.

Long before Don was a professor at Regent, or even a student there, he attended Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Quebec, very close to his hometown of Sherbrooke. Don was raised in a Christian home and became a believer at a young age. His father led a church in the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada and it was as a Pentecostal that Don enrolled at Bishop’s University, a school associated with Anglicanism. Bishop’s is set in the beautiful Eastern Townships of Quebec, quite near to Montreal where my father was raised and closer still to the small towns where my mother grew up. It was on the campus of Bishop’s that these three lives would intersect.
Dad had grown up in a privileged home, the son of a Superior Court Justice. But his family life had been turbulent, often dominated and disrupted by a sister who suffered from severe mental illness and who committed suicide when dad was in his teens. (Nancy’s story, as I have explained elsewhere, became the subject of Leonard Cohen’s song “Seems So Long Ago, Nancy”.) Unusually intelligent and always interested in ideas, dad enrolled in Bishop’s to study philosophy. But though he understood philosophy, he couldn’t make himself believe in philosophy. He didn’t buy it as the ultimate explanation for his ultimate questions. His heart remained restless. Angry even. Despairing.
In the final year of dad’s undergraduate studies, he and Don Lewis became fast friends. They were soon spending hours together discussing life, faith, God, and everything in between. As they talked, Don found opportunities to explain the gospel of grace and to call dad to it. And eventually dad realized he had finally found ideas that were big enough to fill his mind and great enough to satisfy his heart. Here’s how Don explained it in the eulogy he delivered at my father’s funeral:

Slowly his questions were heard, his raging against life and God was stilled. After about six months John had found his way into the Kingdom of God. John Wesley said of the people in a small town in Cornwall of the impact of his preaching: “the lions have become lambs.” Or as Puritan preachers might have said, “The roaring lion vanquished by the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” Vanquished, but not that John ever lost his passion, or his asking of deep questions.

In the same eulogy Don said that his friendship with dad “was one of the great gifts that has shaped my life.“ I know dad would have said just the same.
Meanwhile, mom had also become a student at Bishop’s and, though she succeeded academically, found herself doing poorly otherwise. She had determined that life was meaningless, that she could never find hope and joy, that there was no solution to the guilt she felt or to the knowledge of the evil that dwelt within her. She had determined she would give herself a few more days and, if in that time she could not find a reason to live, would simply take her own life and be done with it. Sitting alone on campus one day, dad came bounding up to her. They had met a couple of times and had even gone on one date, and she knew him just well enough to know that something about him was different. In his zeal, dad began to tell her all about his newfound faith. He begged her to go out to dinner with him two days later so he could tell her more about it. She went, though almost against her will. On that very evening she, too, came to faith after dad led her to some Christians Don had introduced him to.
Mom and dad were married just a few months later. With university now behind them they decided to travel through Europe and, for whatever reason, Don journeyed with them. But real life beckoned and it was not long before their ways parted. Don decided to pursue further education and studied first at Regent, then at Oxford. He became a committed Anglican along the way and, alongside his friend and colleague J.I. Packer, devoted much of his life to fostering a healthy Anglicanism. Meanwhile, mom and dad had spent time with Francis Schaeffer and his family and become committed Presbyterians. But though their ways and Don’s parted and they settled on opposite sides of a very large country, they stayed in touch, even if only sporadically. Regent’s remembrance of Don says: “Prior to Covid-19, it was not unusual for Don to spend his reading week flying from Atlanta to Minneapolis to Winnipeg to visit the many alumni and pastors he mentored.” He made many of these Pauline missionary journeys and a number of them led to our home and to my parents—his way of continuing to invest in the people he had led to Jesus.
Mom and dad had five children, and all of us know the Lord. We have 16 children between us, and they all know the Lord—at least, those who are old enough to be able to express it. But there’s more. Dad told his mom about Jesus and she believed. He told his older sister and she, too, believed. Mom told her sister and she believed. And those families, too, now boast three generations of believers. And if we trace the Christian faith of all these people—perhaps 40 or 50 of us now—they all eventually converge on Don Lewis. They all converge on a young man who simply and faithfully shared the gospel.
Jesus told a parable about a farmer who went into his fields to sow seed. He scattered it far and wide. Some fell along the path where it was quickly gobbled up by birds; some fell on rocky soil where it sprang up but, because its roots had no depth, was scorched by the sun; some fell among weeds where it was choked out by thorns; but some fell onto good soil where it put down deep roots, grew well, and produced a crop that was 30 or 60 or 100 times more plentiful than itself. And this is exactly how the Lord does his work, through ordinary people like Don when they share the extraordinarily Good News of the gospel. Don told dad; dad told mom; they told me; I told Aileen; we told our children; they will tell theirs. And so it will go until the full harvest is gathered in, until the Lord returns, until we are all reunited before Him.
As friends and family gather to remember Don, to lament his departure but rejoice in his homegoing, I find myself praising God for his life and legacy, for in a small way I am part of that legacy—that legacy of faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ. “In some ways I consider you my spiritual grandson,” he once wrote me, “as I was, under God, someone who had a significant role in your father’s coming to faith.” And in just that way, under the kind providence of God, I owe everything to Don Lewis.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

(Yesterday on the blog: Prayer for the Unconverted)
Social Media’s Anger Problem
This is all too common. “Someone says something online that we find offensive, and we retaliate with a harsh word, a quick jab, or a joke at their expense. What we have done at that moment is allow them to steal our blessing of a quiet and gentle spirit to pay them back for their worthless words.”
Funeral Pants
Glenna Marshall writes about laments and funeral pants. “‘How long, O Lord?’ I have prayed many times this week. In the night while fighting with my own body and the pain that seems to rule it. After phone calls that break your heart for the suffering of others. In a funeral service where the parents weep for the babies whose lives ended on the day of their birth.”
Let the Little Moments Linger
“We are told that we can be whomever we want; we can pick whatever career interests us; we can change the world. Then, when we pursue our passions (or when we go with the smart, practical decision), sometimes things don’t end up being quite what we envisioned. Are we meant for bigger things?”
Stream the Luther Documentary for Free
Through the end of October, Ligonier Ministries has enabled free streaming of the award-winning documentary Luther: The Life and Legacy of the German Reformer on their YouTube channel. You can also download the accompanying study guide for free. (Sponsored Link)
6 Things You Should Do Before You Leave Your Church
“So, you’ve decided to leave your church: you’re moving, or you’ve come to a doctrinal impasse, or there has been conflict that you’ve tried to navigate, but the church has been unwilling to biblically walk through a peacemaking process to bring about reconciliation.” This is a helpful little guide on leaving well.
Why China is Building Africa’s Railways
As I’ve traveled within Africa, I’ve been fascinated to see the massive Chinese investment in infrastructure. This video helps explain what’s going on.
Live Like You’ll Live Forever
Greg Morse: “How would the world change overnight if all people everywhere heard that a man had cured death? How many ages would pass celebrating the discovery? But as it stands, these same people bypass the knowledge of a true eternity because it is not the eternity they invented.”
Flashback: The Discipline of Watching
Each of us has certain sins to which we are particularly prone and the flesh, the sin that remains within us, is always looking for just the smallest crack, the smallest weakness, the smallest invitation.

Certainly Satan would never make such a fierce and constant war as he doth upon private prayer, were it not a necessary duty, a real duty, and a soul-enriching duty. —Thomas Brooks

Buried deep in an old, mostly-forgotten anthology of poetry, I found this little gem from Newman Hall—a poem that expresses in rhyme and meter the longing of many a Christian heart. May it give you words to pray for “those who do not pray, who waste away salvation’s day.”

We pray for those who do not pray!Who waste away salvation’s day;For those we love who love not Thee—Our grief, their danger, pitying see.
Those for whom many tears are shedAnd blessings breathed upon their head,The children of thy people saveFrom godless life and hopeless grave.
Hear fathers, mothers, as they prayFor sons, for daughters, far away—Brother for brother, friend for friend—Hear all our prayers that upward blend.
We pray for those who long have heardBut still neglect Thy gracious Word;Soften the hearts obdurate madeBy calls unheeded; vows delayed.
Release the drunkard from his chain,Bare those beguiled by pleasure vain,Set free the slaves of lust, and bringBack to their home the wandering.
The hopeless cheer; guide those who doubt;Restore the lost; cast no one out;For all that are far off we pray,Since we were once far off as they.

May you know the Lord’s blessings as you honor and serve him this weekend.

I’m grateful to Baker Books for sponsoring the blog this week with news of a new book by Andrew Davis titled The Glory Now Revealed. Be sure to check it out!
Today’s Kindle deals include some newer and older works.
(Yesterday on the blog: Welcoming the Uncomfortable Work of God)
The Final T4G
Collin Hansen reflects on the forthcoming final T4G. “More than 15 years ago I crowded into the Galt House Hotel ballroom, just across I-64 from the Ohio River in Louisville, Kentucky, with 3,000 pastors and students. We gathered for the inaugural Together for the Gospel (T4G) conference without much idea of what we should expect. We got something we could never forget.”
Back to the Word
I’m with Andrée Seu Peterson: “I’m just about ready to give up the rational conversational approach to social intercourse and to start quoting straight Bible to people. The further we go, the more reason isn’t working anymore. In these sputtering last gasps of the Enlightenment, language itself is deconstructing before our eyes.”
James Bond Converts to Conservatism
As I read Samuel James’s analysis of the latest Bond film, I realized that I’ve never seen a Bond film. He looks at how Bond has changed over the years and what it may mean.
A Theology of Disappointment
“Oddly enough, disappointment can be an indicator you are seeing the world correctly. No one enjoys feeling disappointment. In itself, disappointment is akin to the sadness of loss, and ultimately we were not designed for it. But like all emotions, disappointment is a gauge of how a person perceives his life—what he believes about it and wants from it. When you’re living in a broken world, sometimes believing and wanting the right things means you’ll be disappointed.”
When Does Marriage Begin In God’s Eyes?
Femi Osunnyi provides an interesting answer to the question.
Jesus Spoke a Persian Word From the Cross
“One way to distinguish Central Asia as a region is to say that it is the part of the world dominated by Turkic or Persian-related languages. … These hundreds of millions of people are overwhelmingly Muslim – and they might be surprised to hear that Jesus spoke a word from their ancestral language while on the cross.”
Sin-Coddlers Are Not True Friends
Trevin Wax looks at older and newer definitions of “friend.” “True Christian friends understand the pervasiveness and pull of sin. They’re not shocked by your misstep. They don’t make you feel worse than you already feel. They don’t heap judgment and guilt upon you. But neither do they excuse or minimize your sin. They see something better in you. They know the work of Christ and trust the power of the Spirit. They call you away from sin because they’re calling you to holiness, to the Christlikeness that marks your destiny.”
Flashback: When Jesus Says Stay
He wanted to follow Jesus. He wanted to be close to Jesus. He wanted to live a life of radical obedience. But Jesus told him to stay, not to go. Do not follow me.

We must have cast our sins on Him before we can cast our cares. —F.B. Meyer

Of all the pursuits that come with the Christian life, is any more constant, any more consuming, and any more difficult than the pursuit of humility? Surely nothing cuts harder against the grain of our natural, sinful humanity than to be humble before God and humble before our fellow man.

Yet God calls us to display humility. He warns that he opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. So how do we become humble? Or, to say it another way, how do we humble ourselves? Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it! Give me a course I can take, a list I can check off, a procedure I can follow, and I’ll keep at it until I’m properly humble! But as David Mathis points out in his new book Humbled: Welcoming the Uncomfortable Work of God, such an attitude is all wrong because it elevates us too much. “In contrast to this attitude, the humble-self theme in Scripture turns our human instincts and assumptions upside down. Yes, this is indeed a biblical directive. And at the same time, it’s not something we can just up and do. We cannot humble ourselves by our own bootstraps.” There is no simple plan to follow, no course to take, no step-by-step procedure. That’s because …

… we humans are not the drivers of our own humility. Our God designs the humbling way in which he forges the virtue of humility. He takes the initiative. He acts first. Our humility happens on his terms. He sees. He knows. He moves, with sovereign, omnipotent, meticulous care. He is intimately engaged with his created world and with each of his creatures. He is the one who humbles us with his mighty hand, and when his humbling hand descends and we’re cut to our knees or flat on the ground, then the question comes to us: Will you humble yourself and embrace God’s humbling hand, or will you try to fight back?
Will you receive his humbling providences, or attempt to explain them away?
Will you soften to him in humility, or harden with pride?
True self-humbling is not our initiative, but it does require our doing as we learn to welcome the uncomfortable work of God.

That uncomfortable work, and our response to it, is the theme of Mathis’s book. In its eight brief chapters he offers a study of the Bible’s humble-self language. Specifically, he follows the lead of the “humble-self” texts “for what we might discover not as much about humility in general, though that’s not unimportant, but specifically (and practically) about what it means to pursue humility, and especially to humble-self, when God is the one who initiates our humbling, not us.”
So he asks first “How do I humble myself?” and explains how God humbles us through our response to his Word and his work. He shows the importance of providence, Scripture, prayer, fasting, and local church fellowship in God’s working out of our humility. He explains how we can think less of ourselves and think of ourselves less. He shows how most ultimately, humility is the means through which we admit to ourselves, to others, and to God himself, “I am not God.” In that way, it is “a posture of soul and body and life that acknowledges and welcomes the godness of God and the humanness of self.”
All-in-all, Humbled is as helpful a book as you’ll find on the essential but oh-so-difficult task of becoming humble—of responding appropriately to God’s pursuit of our humility. I highly recommend it.

Buy from Amazon

The Lord be with you and bless you today.

Westminster Books has a really good deal on a really neat set of books.
Remembering Don Lewis
“Dr. Donald Munro Lewis died Tuesday, October 19, 2021 in Vancouver, BC, of cardiac arrest. He was seventy-one. A beloved and respected historian, professor, mentor, friend, and parishioner, Don will be mourned and missed around the world. He was a wise and steadying presence from Vancouver to Cape Town.” Don was also the man who led my dad to the Lord (who in turn led my mom to the Lord).
Identity vs. personhood
This is a really good one from Janie Cheaney. “Anyone over 40 could have a lot of fun with 249 genders, but it’s no laughing matter for young people trying to figure out who they are in a confused and confusing world. The tragedy is, some may be so intent on crafting identities that they’ve let go of personhood.”
The Woke Non-Gospel at the Chappelle Netflix Protests
Rhys Laverty has some interesting analysis of a recent protest. Note that there is a really bad word that comes up in the article, but it is asterisked out. “I awoke this morning to a protest video. A friend had forwarded a video of yesterday’s demonstration outside Netflix’s head office in LA. Employees walked out, joined by plenty of others, to protest comedian Dave Chappelle’s latest Netflix standup special.”
Sing When You’re Losing
“The gathered church sings. That’s what we do. It’s not the only thing we do, but it is what we do. … We sing to worship the Lord, we sing to bolster one another, we sing to ‘push back the dark’ by declaring the victory of Christ. But, occasionally, we struggle to sing. Especially I think we struggle to sing—or at least I struggle to sing—when it feels like we’re losing.”
Four Types of Men in Leadership
I appreciate Chopo’s thoughts on leadership here. Focusing specifically on leadership in the home and church, he highlights four kinds of men commonly found in the church and in our society.
What the Lord’s “Imminent” Return Means
This is a helpful look at what it means that the Lord’s return is “imminent.”
The Church Among the Deathworks
I’m committed to linking to pretty much everything Carl Trueman writes. “Hegel writes that the 1820s witnessed a rise in anxiety and despair because cultural symbols and institutions began to lose their meaning, plunging the world into a state of random flux. Of course, this is all the more true of our own world, where old symbols—national flags, national anthems, national narratives—have lost their shared meaning, and have thus also lost their authority. Which flag to fly—Stars and Stripes or Pride? Which anthem to sing—’Star Spangled Banner’ or ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’? Where to date America’s founding—1776 or 1619? These are now serious questions.”
Flashback: Young Christian: Give the Lord a Lot to Work With
The teens and twenties—these are years that can be put to very good use or that can be squandered. These are years that can form the firm foundation of a life well-lived or the unsteady foundation of a life tragically wasted.

Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us (leading us to faith and worship), we have to see it as something done by us (leading us to repentance). —John Stott