Good morning from Padua, Italy. I am here to speak at a conference and to preach at a church and am very much looking forward to it.
Today’s Kindle deals include a whole big selection of good books. There is a timely one for students, one for married couples, and a couple to help you study the Bible.
I know many women have benefited from Keri Folmar’s “Delighting in the Word Bible” studies. I thought you’d like to know there is a new one (in a great new look and format) on the book of Romans.
(Yesterday on the blog: The Dutiful Introvert)

This is an interesting one from the Wall Street Journal. I think you should be able to read it for free. “In a rock quarry south of Athens, more than 100 actors dressed as soldiers in an ancient army are waiting for the order to charge. Blowing dust mixes with white plumes from artificial smoke machines. Thirty horses shift under their riders armed with prop swords and shields. Facing them is another small army: the production crew transforming one of the most famous tales in human history—David versus Goliath—into a television spectacle.”

Robby wonders why God didn’t clearly explain every theological issue and suggests one reason God may have chosen to do things this way.

“The problem is that TikTok’s algorithm (or any other platform’s algorithm) doesn’t know or care what the difference between #progressivechristianity and #biblicalchristianity is. So, interest in one might as well be interest in the other as far as the robots are concerned. Someone who is genuinely interested in fairly normal, if not milquetoast, Christian content on social media can easily have a rabbit hole open up under their feet as the algorithm begins to mingle in people who sow seeds of doubt about the reliability of scripture.”

Caleb Davis: “Many times, I’ve asked God to change my suffering. I’ve had sleepless nights and stomachaches. I’ve studied, sought coaching, made plans, and pursued best practices. I’ve poured out prayer after prayer, asking God to take my pain away. I’ve wanted it to end. I find it easy to see all that suffering takes, all I miss out on. I see what I’ve lost. But it’s easy to miss what God gives me in trials.”

Writing for Ligonier, Robert Carver has counsel for children, parents, and grandparents.

This article strikes some of the same notes. “I have some dear friends, whom I love very much even though they run. I mean really run. On purpose. Because they like it. They have a few years up on me, yet they are forever completing some big mileage run. They do this with smiles on their faces. And they look good. And they have at least one million grandkids for whom they pray and spend time with while remembering all their names.”

The Bible’s warnings about laziness and idleness are many and stern. So when God puts you into a vocation that is legal and moral, he has done you a great benefit. 

One of the great mistakes made, generation after generation, through Church history, is to slather rules onto our behavior and think that external behavior is what fosters, or even accurately reflects, vital spiritual growth.
—Dane Ortlund

This week the blog is sponsored by New Covenant OPC and is written by Michael Grasso, Pastor of New Covenant OPC.
Our church, New Covenant OPC, recently started a building campaign to build a new place to worship because we have outgrown our current facilities.  I have been told several times about the difficulties of such an undertaking, which are made even more daunting in light of our location: the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most expensive areas in the country.  Though the process is challenging, we believe that this project will advance the kingdom of God and that supporting it is akin to supporting missions in some important ways.
The Bay Area is not only one of the most expensive places in the country but also one of the darkest.  Certainly, the past decade has seen a general spiritual decline throughout the US and the West as a whole, but for this area, the darkness has been thick for decades.  Another OPC church in San Francisco faced lawsuits, vandalism, and firebombing in the late 1970s and early 80s over the issue of homosexuality.  (You can read more about this here).  If there was anywhere in the US that could be considered a mission field, surely San Francisco would be it.
In the midst of this darkness, those who are standing up for the truth are few and far between.  The vast majority of churches have compromised the truth.  It was common for churches in our area to caution against celebration at the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs decision in 2022.  Even in the relatively conservative homeschool groups, my family is a part of many of the families told stories of how their churches wanted to make space for those who might be grieving a legal decision that saves the unborn.  Faithful, expository preaching is the vanishingly small exception to the general rule of compromise.
In this darkness, we at New Covenant are trying to hold forth the Word of life faithfully to a lost and dying generation.  I myself am a relatively new pastor, being in my fifth year of service.  We moved from Greenville, South Carolina because we wanted to serve in a place where the gospel was needed, and we can say that God has blessed the ministry.  The church has grown by the grace of God, and what we’ve found is that much of the growth has been from people new to the Reformed faith and expository preaching.  It has been a fairly regular occurrence that new members are excited merely that the Bible is preached.  That is often the main thing that draws people to our church and is so different from what’s happening around us.
Faithful, expository preaching is the vanishingly small exception to the general rule of compromise.Michael GrassoShare
Because of our growth, we are at the point of needing new facilities, a problem for which we thank God.  Most churches would probably think that the new building we are proposing would still make us a small church, but this illustrates how serious our problem is.  We can currently only fit 72 people in our main worship area.  We make use of an overflow room with closed-circuit TV upstairs, but if we were to use every room in our building (which would require some work to set up on our end) the most we could reasonably hope to accommodate is about 90-100.  Our current attendance is anywhere from 65-75.
On top of this, we live in one of the most expensive areas in the country.  It is difficult for the congregation at its current size even to support me as the pastor given the cost of housing in the area, let alone seek to build a new place to worship in such an area.  Our problem is that we cannot accommodate the growth required to be able to support a building project.  We need the building to grow, but we need to grow to have the building.
Hence our appeal.
Our church has historically been one in need of aid, but we hope to become one that gives it through church planting.  By the grace of God we’ve seen growth and regularly put before the congregation the vision of planting another church in the Bay Area.  Our new facility, which would be able to accommodate 160 in the main worship area, would enable us to accommodate enough growth to begin thinking about planting more Bible-preaching, Reformed churches in the Bay Area, churches that are committed to standing for the truth in the face of great darkness.
Hence missions.
What is missions but to labor for the advancement of the gospel and the planting of churches in areas that don’t have it?  Having a church building that can accommodate more growth is a crucial strategic step in being able to plant another church, not to mention the added ministry opportunities a new building could facilitate.
And so, here is our appeal: would you consider supporting our new building project so that more people might be able to sit under the preaching of the Word in a dark area?  Our current goal is to raise $500,000 from sources outside the congregation.  The total project cost is $2.4 million.  Any gift is helpful.  If many people give $100 or $1,000 this adds up.  If you are a person of means, we would ask you to consider giving a more substantial gift to help us.  If you’d like to partner with us for the long haul, consider giving a monthly gift.  Whether or not you give, please join us in praying for the advancement of God’s kingdom in the Bay Area.
To give, visit our Gofundme page: https://www.gofundme.com/f/newcovenantopc.
You can also send gifts via Zelle using the email: [email protected]

I stepped out my front door this morning and stepped into a veritable work of art. I stepped out for my morning walk and stepped into God’s own gallery.

The sun was just beginning to peer over the eastern horizon, its earliest light warm and brilliant gold. The clouds that stretched across the sky faded from east to west, from thick to thin, from heavy to light. Each cloud caught the golden rays and reflected them in a fiery swirl of red, orange, and yellow. God himself had mixed up a pastel palette, a work of art that was not quite realistic and not quite abstract. It was, though, absolutely breathtaking. “Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee / How great Thou art.”
I stood for a moment and soaked in the scene. I had an urge to wake Aileen and to tell her to step outside with me, for surely such beauty is best shared. I had an urge to grab my camera and race down to the shore of Lake Ontario, for surely such beauty is best captured. But I knew that the best beauty of a sunrise lasts for only a few moments and that by the time I woke Aileen and led her outside, the light would already be fading. And I knew that the best beauty of a sunrise cannot be captured by camera and lens, for even the most high-quality of sensors can only capture a small slice of the scene and only a small portion of the spectrum. And so I stood and enjoyed the beauty for the brief moments it existed, for the brief moments before the sun’s light cooled from gold to white, before it no longer reflected off the clouds, before dawn became day.
So many of life’s pleasures are as fleeting as a sunrise. Yesterday Aileen looked wistfully over her garden and said, “It is already past its peak.” What was planted at the end of May has already given us the best of its beauty even though the calendar shows only August. The flowers that bloomed bright yellow and pure white and brilliant purple have faded and fallen. The leaves that grew vivid and green have become ragged and discolored. Caterpillars have chewed, rabbits have nibbled, sun has scorched. Sunrises, gardens, and so much else all tell the same tale: Time is no friend to beauty.
Yet as we live with opened eyes, we will see that we are most truly never without beauty, if only we will accept its fleeting nature, if only we will cease lamenting the past and look to the present. The sun that rose will set and there will be fresh delights to behold in the evening sky. Even as the wonders of plants and flowers begin to fade, the trees high above the garden will explode with their brilliant fall colors. Snow will fall and coat the ground in a clean and dazzling white. 
We are never without beauty in this world—never without displays of splendor. We are never without beauty because God’s divine fingerprints are impressed on all he has made. We are never without beauty because we live in a world carefully crafted by the one who is himself beautiful, who is himself Beauty.