Weekend A La Carte (August 12)
I am so grateful to TWR for sponsoring the blog this week to tell you about the kinds of people who make great missionaries.
I am looking forward to speaking at a conference in Tasmania in October. The details are available on Facebook. I’d love to see you there!
Today’s Kindle deals include some newer and older titles.
(Yesterday on the blog: Preparing Yourself to Share the Gospel with Muslims)
Don’t Waste Your Waiting
John Koning writes for TGC Africa and considers our relationship with time. “My issues with time seem to be typical of the Western world. Time is precious. Time is money, say the experts. Waiting is therefore a waste of time and money. ‘Quick and easy’ are two words with enormous seductive, even magical, powers. How can we ‘do life,’ maximising it with the least fuss and bother?”
Counseling a Woman Whose Husband Doesn’t Lead
Counselors and pastors will want to give this article a look since this is such a common concern.
Where does sin come from?
“Sin is not a substance that needs to be created in order for it to exist. It is an attitude or a posture—an anti-God attitude or posture—that leads in turn to anti-God thoughts, words, and deeds. Sin is the privation or absence of godliness or righteousness or lawfulness, much in the same way that darkness is the privation or absence of light. God didn’t need to create ungodliness; it already existed as an ‘opposite’ to His own character and will.”
What Is Wisdom?
What is wisdom, anyway? How would the Bible define it? And how do we live it out?
Gospel, Grind, and Christmas in July
Adam York tells about a service project and the difference it made.
Social Media Is a Spiritual Distortion Zone
It is important that we continue to think, and think well, about social media. “People sometimes say, ‘Social media is neutral. It’s just about how you use it.’ This is false. As we learn more about social media’s role in our national mental health crisis, it’s increasingly clear this technology is anything but neutral—and government leaders are starting to respond.”
Flashback: Why You Really Need To Be Praying For Your Pastor
There are many decisions still to be made…and all of this puts the call on you and me and all of us to pray for pastors. They are going to need divine assistance to lead well and to lead with wisdom.
When the world is bitter the word is sweet. —Matthew Henry
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Free Stuff Fridays (Association of Certified Biblical Counselors)
This week’s Free Stuff Friday is sponsored by ACBC, who also sponsored the blog this week.
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We care for souls because God gave the church as His community of care,
His Word as our guide for care, and His Spirit as the empowerment of our care. Our vision of care should be shaped by what God has revealed to us in His Word and the person of Christ, not by what our therapeutic culture claims to be legitimate care for struggling people.
Join ACBC for this year’s Annual Conference, O Church, Arise: Reclaiming a Culture of Care, October 2021 as we explore the important task of soul care in the church.
We’re offering a special discount for Challies readers. Enter code CHALLIES at checkout to receive 10% off of your registration. Prices increase August 31st.
You can join us in person this year as we meet together in Charlotte, NC on October 4-6, 2021!
If attending in person is not possible, we are excited to invite you to join us virtually!
Have a group of 10 or more joining from your local church? We made the Group Watch option just for you!
This Week’s Giveaway: Sufficiency (eBook) & Counseling Resource Package
The sufficiency of Scripture is one of the core doctrines of the biblical counseling movement. This book celebrates biblical counselors’ commitment to Scripture for theology and practice by presenting key writings on sufficiency through the years. In this powerful collection of essays, you’ll be exhorted to stand on the sufficiency of Scripture for counseling.
Everyone who enters this week’s giveaway will receive a free eBook copy of Sufficiency: Historic Essays on the Sufficiency of Scripture from ACBC.
Three winners will receive a bundle of books from key leaders in biblical counseling that will challenge and prepare you for the ministry of counseling.;
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God Sets the Terms and Conditions
God initiates his grace in our lives by his Holy Spirit and invites us to cooperate with it as we grow in our relationship with him. But what is that grace meant to accomplish in our lives? And how do we sustain a relationship with a Being we cannot see and with whom we cannot converse face to face?
The answer is this: God gives us what Christians have long referred to as “means of grace.” David Mathis says “It is the grace of God that gives us His ‘means of grace’ for our ongoing perseverance and growth and joy this side of the coming new creation.”
As we take hold of these means, we grow in knowledge and faith, we persevere in the Christian life, and we experience joy as we await the coming new creation. These means of grace are the disciplines or habits through which we can relate to God in ever-deeper ways.
By giving us these means, God shows that we really do have the privilege of relating to him, but he also shows that we cannot relate to him in whatever ways we may want or we may deem suitable. While we can genuinely be friends with God, he is the one who sets the terms and conditions of that friendship. To us falls the joyful privilege of cooperating with his grace according to his means. -
2024 Christian Reading Challenge
Do you love to read? Do you want to learn to love to read? Do you enjoy reading books that cross the whole spectrum of topics and genres? Then I’ve coordinated with Visual Theology to create something that may be right up your alley—the 2024 Christian Reading Challenge.
Whether you are a light reader or completely obsessed, this 2024 Christian Reading Challenge is designed to help you read more and broaden the scope of your reading.
How It Works
The 2024 Christian Reading Challenge is composed of 4 lists of books, which you are meant to move through progressively. You will need to determine a reading goal early in the year and set your pace accordingly.The Light Reader. This plan has 13 books which sets a pace of 1 book every 4 weeks.
The Avid Reader. The Avid plan adds another 13 books which increases the pace to 1 book every 2 weeks.
The Committed Reader. This plan adds a further 26 books, bringing the total to 52, or 1 book every week.
The Obsessed Reader. The Obsessed plan doubles the total to 104 books which sets a demanding pace of 2 books every week.Begin with the Light plan, which includes suggestions for 13 books. Choose those books and read them in any order, checking them off as you complete them. When you have finished those 13, advance to the Avid plan. Use the criteria there to choose another 13 books and read them in any order. Then it’s time to move to the Committed plan with a further 26 books. When you have completed the Committed plan (that’s 52 books so far!), you are ready to brave the Obsessed plan with its 104 books. Be sure to set your goal at the beginning of the year so you can make sure you’re reading at the right pace.
All you need to do is download the list (or buy a printed version—see below), choose your first few books, and get going. Happy reading in 2024!Ideas
Take the challenge with your spouse and divide the list in two.
Take the challenge with your family and divide the books between the entire family
Take the challenge with your youth group or small group and divide the books between all of you. Regularly report on your progress with short reviews.
Set your goal and read the books from all of your lists in any order (rather than progressing from Light to Avid to Committed).
Discard all the rules and choose books from any plan in any order. Use the 2024 Christian Reading Challenge as a guide to diversifying your reading.
Use #vtReadingChallenge to connect and to keep track of others on social media.
Have fun with it!Get the Challenge
The 2024 Christian Reading Challenge is available from Visual Theology and you can download it for free. Alternatively, you can purchase it as a professionally printed poster or an HD file that you can print at home or take to a local printer. Either way, happy reading!
