Few gifts are more meaningful than a thoughtfully chosen book. It’s a gift that can offer hope, wisdom, and even fun. As you consider your Christmas gift, here are a few books you might want to consider for loved ones.
Recommendations, Christian Living, Parenting, Suffering
The better way of Christian parenting: Casey McCall argues that appeasement benefits neither the parent nor the child, “Rather than grant your child’s every desire, your job as a parent is to use your God-given authority to redirect those desires toward righteousness (love of God and neighbor) and to train your child to righteously handle the common human experience of coping with the disappointment of unfulfilled desires. In other words, the wise parent prepares the child for adulthood by training the child to be content in all circumstances.”
Church, Culture, Death, Fear, Politics, Theology, Wisdom
Last week, on the eve of the anniversary of 9/11, Charlie Kirk was assassinated. The founder of Turning Point, USA, Kirk was an outspoken Christian conservative.
On Sunday, before our sermon, we prayed for our country in light of the assassination, the religiously motivated shooting in Minneapolis, the racially motivated murder in Charlotte, and the school shooting in Denver. We kept the rest of the service as planned. We preached on the planned text in 1 Corinthians 7 and shared the same announcements that had been planned.
On Sunday afternoon, I spent an hour and a half with a family member processing their upset that their church spent most of their Sunday service focused on Kirk’s murder.
Biblical Studies, Church, Education, History, Vocation, Theology
Monosyllabic.
Inflammable.
Abbreviation.
Phonetically.
Every one of these words are ironic. Monosyllabic means one syllable but contains five syllables. Inflammable means “easy to catch fire,” but looks like it means the opposite (not flammable). Abbreviation is not an abbreviation. And don’t phonetically should be spelled funetically, don’t you think?
Perspicuity means clarity or “ease of understanding” and yet isn’t very easy to understand. We’ll return to that later.
Roman Catholic theologians during the Middle Ages argued that the scripture was not perspicuous. Scripture was too veiled and obscure for the average person to understand, they contended.
Recommendations, Forgiveness, Parenting, Science
To be almost saved is to be completely lost: Tim Challies begins, “Along the coast of New York is a little town called East Hampton. And I recently read that there is a cemetery in East Hampton where you can find 12 identical graves that have been laid side by side. There’s a story behind them, of course.”
All the ways I’ve hated myself: Brittany Allen shares, “This bully has been berating me for years. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever been rid of her. Because, as you probably already guessed, she is me.”
Counseling, Marriage, Family, Prayer, Relationships
I’m more faithful with oil changes than I am with annual visits. I’ve missed more annual well-checks to the doctor than I’ve made. It seems like a waste of time to tell the doctor that I’m not experiencing any physical difficulties, have him check my blood pressure only to confirm it is within the healthy range, and then pay on my way out the door for what I already knew.
Many of us feel the same way about counseling. Why would I go to a counselor unless things are falling apart?
There is a grain of truth in this impulse.
