I wanted to remind you once again that my book Seasons of Sorrow is now available for pre-order (with a release date of September 13). Also do remember the launch event in Nashville on Labor Day! Information here.

Westminster Books is offering a deep discount on the excellent ESV Scripture Journals. It’s the time to stock up!
You’ll find a few new Kindle deals today.
The Antifragile Christian
“Antifragile is different from resiliency or endurance, in that those characteristics only measure the amount of pressure something can repeatedly take. If that something were antifragile, however, it would actually get stronger because of the difficulty.” Though it’s not a biblical word, it’s still a helpful one.
How Dangerous Hermeneutics Can Inform False Teachers
“One sign of a false prophet is when a religious leader invents novel and fanciful interpretations of Scripture, interpretations completely divorced from the original context. Religious charlatans usually engage in such hermeneutical gymnastics in order to bolster their own power.” Here’s an example from the history of Mormonism.
Maturing Towards Childlikeness
It’s an interesting thought this: that we mature toward childlikeness (even as we mature away from childishness).
There’s a Reason We Call Them “The Lost”
This is a good reminder: There’s a reason we call them “the lost.”
The Remnant is Like a Fuse
“Throughout history, we see the church grow and contract not only in size but also in terms of its faithfulness to Jesus Christ and his word. Today, in North America, the visible church as a whole seems to be in a time of decline. Many churches are shrinking or closing, and many others are giving into the spirit of the age. They are salt that is losing its saltiness. A time of decline is never the time for the faithful follower of Jesus Christ to grow fainthearted.”
When Life Doesn’t Turn Out Like I Think It Should
Sylvia Schroeder has a powerful article about those times when life doesn’t turn out the way we think it should.
Flashback: Gray Hair and a Righteous Life
Am I living the kind of life that will allow that gray hair—that proof that I’ve grown old—to also stand as a symbol that I’ve grown wise, that I’ve lived a righteous life?

Scripture does not tell us to “let go and let God”. The Bible never promises any easy, automatic victory over sin and temptation. —John MacArthur

Abortion has always been an important cause to me. When I was very young my parents—and my mother in particular—were heavily involved in pro-life work in Toronto, so much so that the history of one of its pregnancy care centres (which, for a time, I had the joy of serving on the board of directors) reads like a history of my childhood. The names and the locations are still familiar after all these years.

Because abortion has been an important cause to me, I have read quite a number of books on the subject. Almost invariably, those books focus on the harm abortion does to an unborn child. And for good reason—abortion is the unjust and immoral killing of a human being. While society around us attempts to disguise abortion through a host of denials or euphemisms, the reality is plain to those with eyes to see.
But while the unborn child suffers the greatest harm, this is not the only harm that comes with abortion, and this is especially so when it is accepted and even celebrated across society. In their new book Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing, Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis focus on the many and often less obvious ways that abortion brings harm. “While it’s essential to focus on the unborn child—whose death is the gravest harm of abortion—there’s much more that needs to be said, because abortion harms far more than the child in the womb. The case against abortion is far more comprehensive.”
Thus, in each of the book’s seven chapters, the authors highlight a different way in which abortion is harmful. In chapter one they make the familiar case that the foremost harm comes to the unborn child whose life is terminated. In chapter two they show that, contrary to the way abortion tends to be presented, it is not a boon to women that allows them to participate in society and the economy on par with men. It has not caused increased education or workplace success, and has not allowed women to thrive as women. To the contrary, it has compelled women to have to act more like men to increase their likelihood of success.
Chapter 3 makes the argument that abortion has “exacerbated inequality, perpetuating racial division and social stratification.” Anderson and DeSanctis expose the eugenic roots of the abortion-rights movement and show how abortion disproportionately affects non-white Americans and disproportionately takes the lives of girls and those with disabilities. Chapter 4 shows that the entire field of medicine has been harmed as doctors have used their technology and expertise to kill rather than to heal.
Chapters 5 and 6 turn to the rule of law and politics to show how both the legal process and the political process have been taken captive by the issue of abortion. Here they look at a number of Supreme Court rulings, the increasingly tumultuous vetting of Supreme Court Justices, and the Democratic Party’s increased insistence that there is no place within the party for those who are not pro-choice.
The final chapter turns to media to show how popular culture is increasingly showing abortions in a positive light and even how the abortion industry has consultants in Hollywood who attempt to work positive representations of abortion into movies and television. It also shows how the corporate world is taking clear sides on abortion and using their influence to promote the pro-choice cause while blocking anything that would promote the opposite. A brief conclusion calls each person to action—action that will help make abortion as unthinkable as it ought to be. Though none of us can do everything, certainly each of us can do something.
The authors of Tearing Us Apart make a fascinating, compelling, and heartbreaking case. While we all know that abortion brings ultimate harm to the unborn child, I’d suggest that few of us have thought as clearly about the many other forms of harm. But when we begin to understand this, it opens our eyes to see just how deeply and terribly society has been impacted by the presence, the acceptance, the celebration, and the near-sacramental obsession with abortion. “We all have a responsibility to ameliorate the harms of abortion—a task that starts by remembering the profound and inherent goodness of life, even in the face of suffering. It is our hope that this book will show those who haven’t made up their minds on this issue how abortion has hurt our country, and that it will equip pro-life readers with the truth so they can offer it courageously to others.” This is very much my hope as well.

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We are probably so accustomed to seeing bonsai trees that we don’t think much about them. But have you ever paused to consider how strange and freakish they really are?
Bonsai trees are otherwise-normal trees that are deliberately kept small. They are grown in little pots where they can put down only shallow roots. They are obsessively pruned to stunt them and keep them from growing tall or wide. They are mighty woods relegated to mere flowerpots, whole forests confined to side tables. Though they may live for centuries, they grow no more than one or two feet tall. Though they have such potential, their gardener applies constant and deliberate action to keep them from ever reaching it. What a strange thing that a gardener would choose to grow a dwarf in place of a giant.
Some churches do something like this to those who attend them, don’t they? They fear that doctrine is drab or divisive, that it is boring or alienating, and determine that it is best to keep the church entertained and immature. They feed their senses rather than their souls and tickle their egos rather than transform their minds. Rather than help them grow tall and broad in their faith they keep them low and stunted. They give them a bonsai faith.
And then some Christians do something like this to themselves, don’t they? They make a profession of faith but content themselves with scant growth and bare maturity. They can sometimes seem to be passive in this, but there is a sense in which they are very active. They do not merely allow themselves to be satisfied with spiritual puniness but they actively pursue it. They work to dwarf themselves, to resist the impulse to grow their knowledge and stretch their faith. They restrain the Spirit who would so readily help them to grow. They give themselves a bonsai faith.
God’s purpose for his people is never smallness and never stagnation.Share
But God’s purpose for his people is never smallness and never stagnation. Rather, his purpose for us is constant transformation, constant renewal, constant growth. We are to resist any allure toward spiritual laziness and instead be active in growing and maturing. We are to press on, always straining, always striving, always pressing on toward the goal.
Thankfully, God is committed to our growth and eager to help us. And thankfully there is no trick to spiritual growth and no mystery to solve. We simply have to take hold of the means he gives us—to obey him by being baptized and taking the Lord’s supper, to grow in our relationship with him through Word and prayer, to commit ourselves to a local church where we can serve and be served. As we take hold of these simple means and as we dedicate ourselves to them, God transforms us from the inside out. He causes us to grow rather than stagnate, to have a faith that is tall and broad rather than shrunken and puny. This and so much more is ours through Christ if only we will reach out and take it, if only we will resist the allure to be bonsai Christians who have a bonsai faith.

If you’re a bonsai lover, don’t be a hater. I think they’re neat too. They just happen to make a vivid illustration.