There is a variety of Kindle deals for you to browse today. Remember that I’ve got an X account dedicated to it: @challiesdeals.

(Yesterday on the blog: What Becomes Of All Our Dreams?)

Robb Brunansky: “Two responses often prevail when celebrities claim to have been converted to Christianity. On one end, we have people who excitedly embrace them, platform them, and treat them as de facto religious leaders. They see these celebrities as great spokespeople for Christ and the Christian faith. They believe that having such cultural influencers on the side of truth will result in massive societal impact, with perhaps millions of unbelievers suddenly coming to faith in Christ.”

I don’t follow basketball or care about it even a little bit but was still glad to have read Daniel’s analysis of a recent trade. He draws an important lesson from it. “If you are reading this and you are not a sports fan and have zero idea what I’m talking about, please bear with me. There is a lesson here for you. Let me explain…”

At a time when the church is often influenced by superficial thinking about the Christian faith, The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul compels readers to tremble at the majesty of the Lord and His wonderous gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. Request the 40th-anniversary edition of this celebrated book when you make a donation of any amount to Ligonier Ministries. (Sponsored)

This is a good principle to ponder: the temple is the best place to hide an idol. “Idolatry is easy to hide in the temple. The simplest way to foster idolatry is to smuggle it into the place of worship.  The slyest manner in which to promote worldliness is to parasitically attach it to the worship of the one true God.”

“Dopamine media is the most powerful, pervasive, and engineered form of communication technology in human history, and it’s not shaping us to love Jesus most. It’s not shaping us to love our neighbor. It’s shaping us into pleasure-seeking addicts. Christians must recognize that, at its heart, this technological revolution has resulted in an institutional, relational, and formational crisis for the church.”

Chap offers some wisdom on overcoming blind spots in our parenting and leadership. And it’s certain we all have some!

This is written specifically for counselors but can be useful for all of us as we communicate with others. Sometimes it is best to let the silence linger.

One matter that constantly perplexes me is just how difficult it is for young Christians today to figure out dating and romantic relationships. What was quite straightforward in my day seems to have become much more complicated in these days.

Sometimes the most godly thing a mouth may do is keep silent.
—D.A. Carson

Westminster Books has many different varieties of ESV Scripture Journals on sale this week in case that’s of interest.

Today’s Kindle deals include an excellent systematic theology along with some commentaries and books related to specific issues.

As Jonathan Van Maren explains, IVF is not pro-family as some are claiming. “Families are not ‘made great again’ by having unborn children created in labs, graded, discarded, or stored in freezers, and we must make this case both persuasively and emphatically.”

Trevin Wax explains why we need to be careful with the words we use to describe ourselves. If we talk about ourselves like we are machines we may begin to understand ourselves accordingly.

“It’s difficult to be published. Unless you have a large following, or catch a break, you may face an uphill battle in getting your book published. And yet, I would argue, it’s still important for you to write for at least a couple of reasons.”

Rachel draws a lesson from a grade school pencil sharpener. “Holding that little itty-bitty piece in my hand struck me with its resemblance to sin.”

Karen Corcoran: “Wilderness and wandering go together for the sake of our hearts. What might God see about the wilderness journey as good for our hearts? When life’s direction seemingly feels harder than it should, I grow increasingly aware of how unsettled I feel. It feels like wandering an aimless trek, full of uncertainties. Unresolved things are, by nature, not settled or solved.”

It is important to define “nation” because God calls us to go to the nations and make disciples within them!

Just as a tower is straight only to the degree to which it matches the builder’s perfect line, our lives are right only to the degree to which they match God’s perfect law. 

If we aren’t deliberate in developing our children’s understanding of God, then it will be developed by someone else.
—Sam Luce & Hunter Williams

It is for good reason that we have both the concept and the word average. To be average is to be typical, to be—when measured against points of comparison—rather unremarkable. It’s a truism that most of us are, in most ways, average. The average one of us is of average ability, has average looks, will live an average lifespan, and will leave an average mark on the world. That’s just the way averages work.
Maybe it’s something about being well into middle age that has given me greater freedom to admit all the ways in which I am average or below average. As a young man, I may have harbored dreams of excelling at everything I attempted and of achieving each of my dreams. I assumed I had all it would take to succeed in every way, that I was far beyond average and far more than ordinary. But as a not-so-young man, I have a more realistic assessment of myself—an assessment that accounts for the ways in which I am average or less-than-average. And there are many.
In this vein, I often find myself thinking of the parable of the talents and the way the main character in the story distributes his wealth to his servants. “To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability.”
This man knew his servants and had realistically assessed their capabilities. He knew that some were more able than others, and he distributed his wealth accordingly. To the most able he gave much and to the least able he gave less. And crucially, he passed no judgment on the varying abilities, as if the two-talent servant was lazy and needed to work harder or the one-talent servant was apathetic and ought to expect himself to enlarge his capacity. He distributed to each what he knew they were capable of handling, whether by nature, nurture, or some combination of the two.
From the parable we learn that God distributes opportunity according to ability, for “talents” are all that God distributes among his people—gifts, passions, abilities, influence, education, money, and anything else that can be used to honor (or dishonor) the Lord and carry out (or fail to carry out) his purposes. And while we may all like to think that we are the five-talent servant, the law of averages, not to mention an honest look within, assures us that most of us are not. Many of us are three- or two- or one-talent people. Though to some God has given extraordinary minds, abilities, opportunities, and responsibilities, to most he has not. In most ways and for most of the time, most of us are hovering around average. You are probably hovering around average, and so am I.
Though to some God has given extraordinary minds, abilities, opportunities, and responsibilities, to most he has not.Share
And that is okay. It is okay because this reflects the way God himself has made you. There is no shame in being a one-talent servant when God gave you one-talent ability. There is no need to compare yourself unfavorably to those who have achieved more success on the basis of their greater gifts. And that’s because God’s assessment of you is made on the basis of what you did with what he gave you. Even though the five-talent servant and the two-talent servant generated different results (a gain of five for the first and a gain of two for the second), they received the same reward. Why? Because they had been equally faithful with what God had entrusted to them so that their results were proportionally identical. God had five-talent expectations of the five-talent man and two-talent expectations of the two-talent man. Faithfulness did not look like five from the two or two from the five.
A sweet application of the parable is that the person of little ability can be every bit as successful in the eyes of God as the person of outsized ability. And that’s because you are responsible before the Lord for what he has given to you, not what he has given to another. Your task is not to display the same results of faithfulness as the person with a bounty of gifts but the results of faithfulness that go along with your sparse gifts. I am quite certain that heaven does not cheer louder for the five-talent servant who earns another five than it does for the two-talent servant who earns another two. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the greatest cheers rise for the one-talent servant who is simply and joyfully faithful.
The upshot is that you don’t need to dream of pastoring a bigger church, leading a greater ministry, writing bigger checks, or influencing a larger crowd, as if this is what it means to succeed in the eyes of God. Of course, neither should you allow yourself to be apathetic and fail to discover and maximize what God has given you. But you can faithfully, diligently, and confidently steward your one talent or two and know that God is well pleased, for you are most truly stewarding his one talent or two—the full sum of what he entrusted to you.