This week’s Free Stuff Friday is sponsored by The Good Book Company. Enter to win 1 of 10 copies of This Was Never the Plan: Walking with God through the Heartache of Divorce by Vaneetha Risner.

Divorce brings a storm of emotions—grief, anger, confusion and shame. Yet while the ache lingers, life goes on.

Vaneetha Risner has walked through this pain. In this hopeful and honest book, she draws from Scripture and her own story to offer compassionate wisdom on…

• Finding emotional clarity and letting go of shame
• Trusting God in the uncertainties ahead
• Healing relationally, resisting bitterness and finding community
• Nurturing hope for the future

She also shares about navigating single parenting, church, dating and the work of rebuilding.

Whether you are in the early stages of divorce or beginning to restore your life, this book points to Christ’s faithful presence every step of the way. Helpful check-ins throughout invite you to pause, reflect and take hold of God again and again.

Includes appendices to guide friends and church leaders in supporting you.

Enter to win one of ten available copies of This Was Never the Plan: Walking with God through the Heartache of Divorce.

By entering this giveaway, you are giving The Good Book Company permission to send you marketing emails about relevant resources. You are welcome to update your contact preferences or unsubscribe at any time. The winner will be notified via email. Giveaway closes at 11:59 pm on April 10.

The Good Book Company will email the winner and request a shipping address. Limited to North America.

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I do not know Carl Trueman all that well, but from what I do know of him, he is not a man who is prone to overexcitement or hyperbole. Because of that, when he does get excited about something, I am likely to pay attention. It is for that reason that I found myself intrigued by a book he recommended as “remarkable” and “that rarest of books.” He says if you read it, “you will be informed, entertained, and edified.” That was enough for me, so I did as he suggested: “Take up and read.”

 30 Key Moments in the History of Christianity by Mark W. Graham is a history of the early church—the church of the first millennium. Graham begins at the end of the Apostolic era and closes 900 years later, just around 1000 AD. He tells this history by focusing on 30 specific moments that proved especially significant. Such an approach has both limitations and benefits. In terms of limitations, “readers might well find themselves wishing for the larger historical picture and searching to fill in the gaps between and among the moments covered here.” Of course, people may also want greater depth or wish to hear about characters or events the author chose not to include. Yet Graham addresses and mitigates this limitation by providing thorough citations and a list of recommended works that will provide what his work lacks.

This approach has benefits, too. It allows the author to focus on only the key events and people, thus passing over ones that may matter, but may not be quite as interesting or important. It also allows him to keep the book’s size manageable and reader-friendly at 235 pages. It also makes it the kind of book that can be read casually, since the chapters are relatively brief and, though they follow one another chronologically, they do not necessarily follow one another thematically, so each can be read independently.

The joy of 30 Key Moments in the History of Christianity is that it introduces a period of history most Christians know little about. Even Reformed Christians, who tend to put a premium on knowledge of church history, still often skip quickly from the Apostles to the Councils to the Reformation (probably also pausing to cover Huss and Wycliffe). Yet, as Graham so aptly points out, there are many of “Our People” (the endearing term he uses throughout) in the first millennium whose stories we ought to know. And to our surprise, we will find they existed “on the shores of the Black Sea, the Red Sea, [and] the Mediterranean Sea, [and] deep in the Middle East, Britain [and] China.” 

Graham does more than introduce them and tell their stories—he also draws lessons that are applicable to Christians today. So, for example, when he discusses Donatism, he draws this application:

Such might call to mind the all-too-common anonymous online attacks and deep-faked videos we see today by zealous Christians who imagine their cause as just and desire quick victories, even at the expense of openness and truth. Wisdom can never be in such corners, regardless of how justified some might feel in carrying out dishonest and cowardly acts.

He continues:

Christians sometimes revel in nostalgia. It is not uncommon to hear Christians today pining for a return to the fourth-century church or to sixteenth-century communities, or even imagining themselves as the restoration of the first-century church. Quite often, a bit of historical scrutiny reveals a fundamental myth of a golden age that never really existed.

Here is another example related to the Byzantine Empire and the first Holy War:

Assuming that our victories are ultimately God’s victories carries a serious risk. Despite Christian confidence over the centuries that each moment is the culminating moment in history, so often it has been revealed to be what it is—a mere episode in the history of Our People. History holds important lessons for us that are painful at times but always helpful. Where does the Russia-Ukraine conflict fit into God’s timetable of history? In ten years, will the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel still be seen as a signal of the imminent apocalypse? Confidently affirming that “we trust in the name of the Lord” (Ps. 20:7) does not commit God’s people to speculating on each moment in history and its place in God’s ultimate timetable for humanity.

This is history, but history we can learn from, history that applies to the present day. 

Having read 30 Key Moments in the History of Christianity, I understand and echo Trueman’s enthusiasm for it. Even if your reading diet does not regularly include history, I’d encourage you to change that with this book. I expect you’ll soon echo Trueman as well.

Few people have been canceled for what they have done in the pews, but a good many have been canceled for what they have done in the pulpit. Few gossip bloggers or discernment vloggers scan videos of the congregation to look for sins, nits, or anomalies, but many scan videos of the pastors. There is a whole industry of people who watch sermons in order to mock, rate, review, critique, or bring down the preachers. If it has always been a risk to be the person at the front of the room, how much more today, when a single errant word, embarrassing flub, or theological mistake can make its way around the world at the speed of social media? A sermon can become a meme before a pastor has even offered the benediction.

A young man who aspires to church leadership recently asked me what he should know about being a pastor and preacher. And this was what I told him: Acknowledge the risk you take by being the man in the pulpit. 

Of course, there has always been the risk of dishonoring God by getting Scripture wrong or by going beyond what the Bible clearly states. While few men will ever teach outright heresy, most will at one time or another preach facts that are wrong, emphases that are skewed, or applications that veer either legalistic or antinomian. Many men cringe to remember their most youthful sermons when their convictions were strong, but their wisdom was weak. “Not many of you should become teachers,” says James, “for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness” (James 3:1). Most preachers grapple with this statement from their first sermon to their last, and rightly so.

There has also always been the risk of being a spiritual target. The men who lead the regiment are the focus of every sniper, and likewise, the men who lead the church are the focus of the enemy as he wages war against God and his church. The man at the front of the room should expect that he will always be held firmly in the devil’s crosshairs.¹

And then there has always been the risk that the pastor will just plain embarrass himself in front of his church. Every seasoned pastor could put together an agonizing mental blooper reel of misspoken words, poor choices of vocabulary, or unintentional double entendres. There are the illustrations that fell flat, the iPads that crashed, the mics that were left hot, the notes that fluttered to the floor, and the flies that were somehow left unzipped. To be the man at the front is to risk public humiliation. Some can shrug this off or even embrace it, but for others, it can be an insurmountable obstacle.

And then, beyond all of this, there are the additional risks that come in this new world where the expectation is that every sermon is recorded and where the rising expectation is that every sermon is streamed. Combine the speed and power of social media with that cottage industry of evil actors (those aforementioned bloggers and vloggers), and the risk is amplified all the more.

Yet the Word must be preached, for the lost must be called and the called must be equipped. The Word must be preached, for God has called the church to be a preaching church, to minister his truths from the pulpit to the people. And since preaching requires preachers, there must be men who accept the risk. Hence, my counsel to the aspiring preacher is not simply to admit that if you spend enough time at the front of the room, you will eventually suffer humiliation, but also to accept the risk as worth it—worth it to obey God by heralding the good news of what Christ has done. Every good thing brings some risk, and this risk is light compared to the glorious weight of the truth. The church needs men who, like Isaiah, will say, “Here I am; send me” (Isaiah 6:8).

I suppose there must be some people who find it exhilarating to be at the front of a room, but I think there are many more who find it draining. There must be some people who look forward to it, but there are also many who dread it. There are some who think they deserve to be up there, but far more who accept the role out of obedience to God. I want to honor those who accept the risk, and I encourage you to do the same. And together let’s pray that God will continue to raise up men who will stand up and lead his people, for the pulpit must be filled and the truth must be proclaimed.

1. On that note, here’s an apt quote from De Witt Talmage. “A French general, riding on horseback at the head of his troops, heard a soldier complain and say, ‘It is very easy for the general to command us forward while he rides and we walk.’ Then the general dismounted and compelled the complaining soldier to get on the horse. Coming through a ravine, a bullet from a sharpshooter struck the rider, and he fell dead. Then the general said, ‘How much safer it is to walk than to ride.'” ↩︎

As you know, I like to do my best to sort through the new Christian books that are released each month to see what stands out as being not only new but also particularly notable. I received many new books in March and narrowed the list down to the ones below. I have included the editorial description for each. I have also appended a brief list of books that will be coming our way in April.

It is worth noting as well that this month also saw the release of two new volumes in the excellent Preaching the Word Commentary series: The Minor Prophets: Seek the Lord and Live by Paul R. House & Stephen M. Coleman and 2 Kings: The Truth about Our Troubled World by John Woodhouse.

Coming in April

Meanwhile, here are a few books I am looking forward to in April:

• The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrades Our Humanity by Carl Trueman
• Eat, Drink, and Be Merry: A Gospel Call to Bold Enjoyment by Ray Ortlund
• The Lord Saves Me: 40 Christ-Centered Family Devotions from the Psalms by Iain Duguid
• Using Authority Well: A Concise Guide for Men by Jonathan Leeman
• This Was Never the Plan: Walking with God Through the Heartache of Divorce by Vaneetha Rendall Risner
• The Pursuit of Holy Leisure: Enjoying God in Everyday Places by Cara Ray
• Who Am I and What Am I Doing with My Life?: Finding Stability and Purpose in Jesus by Justin Poythress
• If You Will Diligently Listen: Hearing God’s Voice in Scripture by Michael Sciarra

Flashback: Combat Anxiety Through Surrender

What we want in our times of fear and uncertainty is the assurance of a particular outcome—the outcome we long for. But what we need in our times of fear and uncertainty is trust in the character and sovereignty of God.

Don’t study false doctrine, don’t study sin, don’t study error, stick with the truth and godly obedience.

—John MacArthur

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It is good to have friends who are wise and who have been seasoned by their experience of life. It is good to have friends who are trustworthy and who are committed to being a blessing to others. It is good to have people on our side, and especially good to have Christian people on our side.

But our friends are fallible. The wisest among them is still prone to misjudgment, and the most knowledgeable among them is still prone to ignorance. The fairest can still be partial, and the kindest can still act in selfishness. Even the best-intentioned friend can provide counsel that hurts, harms, or leads astray. Friends are a blessing and wise friends a greater blessing still, but, as the old saying goes, the best of men are still only men at the best.

It is a tremendous comfort, then, that when we pray, we are not praying to someone else who is just trying to figure it all out, as we are. We are not praying to someone who sees incompletely and opaquely, or to someone who is merely doing his best to sort fact from fiction and truth from lies. Neither are we praying to someone who is only ever reacting and attempting to make the best decisions possible based on muddled information. 

Rather, when we pray, we pray to one who sees and knows everything there is to see and know. We pray to someone who sees not only what is and what was, but also what might have been and what has never been. He knows not only the words that were said and the deeds that were done, but also the thoughts of the mind and the intentions of the heart. He understands the motives as well as the actions and the desires as well as the results.

Even better, we pray to the one who is sovereign over all of it, the one who uses evil just as he uses good, and who redeems the acts of self-serving men just as much as God-fearing ones. We pray to the one who has wisdom that cannot be surpassed and purposes that cannot be hindered, thwarted, or arrested. We pray to someone who knows the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things that are still to come. We pray to the one who stands over all of it and declares with the utmost truth, sincerity, and confidence: “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose” (Isaiah 46:10). This is the most definitive of statements, for, unless God is a liar, his counsel shall stand, and he will accomplish all his purpose.

Because we pray to such a God, we can have the utmost confidence in his response to our prayers. This God who is all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-purposeful, hears our every prayer and responds to each one in the most appropriate way. If it is best that he answers just when and how we have asked, he will do so. If it is best that he delays and answers in the future, he will do so. If it is best that he denies the very thing we have asked, he will do so. His “yes” and his “no,” his “later” and his “not yet,” and even his silence are inarguably and unassailably the best possible response. Everything he does or declines to do will indubitably bring him the greatest possible glory.

Hence, when we pray, we can pray with confidence that our prayers will never be unheard or misheard. They will never lead to the undermining of God’s purposes or the diminishment of God’s glory. Whether God grants our entreaty or denies it, he will be seen to have acted with knowledge greater than the smartest of any friend and wisdom greater than the wisest of any friend. He will be seen to have acted just the way we would have acted had we seen what he sees, known what he knows, and always acted most faultlessly for the good of others and the glory of his name.

In my weekly Works & Wonders article, I combine a brief devotional with other uplifting bits and pieces. These can be stories, poems, songs, photos, articles, quotes—just about anything I found enjoyable in the week that was or that I am looking forward to in the week to come.

1.

A Lord’s Day Devotional. It is right and good to thank God for his gifts. We are to give thanks “always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20). We would be remiss if we failed to thank God for life and health, food and shelter, love and grace. Yet we need to be careful that we do not come to love the gifts more than the giver—to honor God more for what he gives than for who he is. If we wish to truly delight in God, we must not do less than consider his gifts, but do more—we must consider God himself. For the deepest spiritual delight comes not from pondering the things God has given us, but from meditating upon who God is. It is when we ponder his beauty and perfections, his essence and character, that we come to appreciate him most, to find wonder and awe in him. “If the wicked love God, it is only for his benefits,” says Henry Smith. But God’s children love him because he is so lovable—so perfectly worthy of our delight.

2.

The Gettys recently released a live album of recordings from last year’s Sing! conference. It’s not just them, of course, but also their guests: CityAlight, Fernando Ortega, Sandra McCracken, and others. Jubilant Sykes’ rendition of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” is a remarkable piece of vocal art and seems particularly poignant after his tragic death. The whole album is an enjoyable listen. Here’s the YouTube playlist queued up to the opening song:

(If you can’t see the video, click here to pull it up on YouTube. You can also find the album on your favorite music app.)

3.

This week brought a surprise announcement about an upcoming Tolkien movie. We already knew about The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, which is due to be released next year, but now we know that there will also be at least one other movie. The online complainerati are already panning it, but I’m daring to be optimistic and forcing myself to hope these films recover at least a bit of the magic that went missing from The Hobbit and The Rings of Power. Does it sound like I’m trying to talk myself into it? I probably am.

4.

Earlier this week, I read and reviewed Kevin Burrell’s Considering Sparrows, and it got me thinking about my favorite bird photos. I have photographed a lot of them over the years—from eagles to parrots and from hummingbirds to ostriches. But I think my favorite might be this simple photo I snapped on the border of Namibia and Botswana. There’s just something about the starkness, symmetry, and simplicity of it that I love.

5.

Here’s a fitting Sunday morning prayer by Alexander Maclaren.

Lord, sometimes you surprise your followers with abundance. May it be so with us this morning! If it pleases you, come into our assembly.

Although our petitions and praises are poor, compared with what they ought to be, grant your gracious Spirit to each of us. May we feel that it is no vain thing to wait upon the Lord.

We commit ourselves to your gracious care. Remember all whom we remember. Speak your grace to waiting souls, and in love rebuke the forgetful ones. Draw us all out of the mire in which we are too apt to walk, set our feet upon the rock, and establish our way. Amen.

(As found in Joy of Heaven: Prayers of the Revivals)

6.

I got thinking this week about study Bibles that have been renamed and relaunched in recent years. I can think of several:

• The NIV Spiritual Habits Bible was formerly the NIV Lifehacks Bible
• The One Story Bible was formerly The Story of Redemption Bible
• The NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible was formerly the NIV Zondervan Study Bible

I don’t know why all three of these Bibles were relaunched, but I would assume it was to reposition them in the marketplace. It allows them to be redesigned, rebranded, and refocused. All three were excellent products before, and all three are excellent products now. (Those who have been around for a while may remember another one from the 90s: Ligonier’s Reformation Study Bible was based on The New Geneva Study Bible.)

7.

I am on my way to Zambia and, for the sake of minimizing the rising costs of travel, I opted to book with Kenya Airways rather than one of the more mainline carriers. Some Kenyan friends assured me I would come to rue this decision. Either way, it left me with an 11-hour layover in Paris. Today I find myself especially thankful for airline lounges and their policy that, if you arrive on a connecting flight, you can use them for as long as you wish. I didn’t care to head into the city, so I spent all 11 hours in an airline lounge. It almost perfectly aligned with what would have been my workday at home, so it was actually quite a pleasant experience. Now onwards to Nairobi and from there to Ndola, where I will be leading a conference for prospective writers.

I want to offer fair warning that, beginning next week, I plan to update the format of A La Carte. It will have the same great content (and more!), but it will look just a bit different. Even if you are resistant to change, just breathe through it, and you’ll be okay. First, though, I have a new edition of Weekend A La Carte that features some think pieces and other longform content. I hope you enjoy it!

I’m grateful to the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals for sponsoring the blog this week to ensure you know about Here We Stand!, their book that includes contributions by Carl Trueman, Albert Mohler, Michael Horton, and many others.

Today’s Kindle deals include a variety of books, most of which are classics.

And now on to those links…

Make Cousins Great Again

I appreciated Mary Julia Koch’s piece for the Wall Street Journal’s Free Expression newsletter, in which she laments the decline of cousins. Because of declining birth rates and growing mobility, many children will never know the experience of being part of a pack of extended family members who know and love one another. That’s a sad loss. “America’s baby bust is shrinking more than nuclear families—it’s thinning out entire family trees. As the U.S. average fertility rate of 1.6 births per woman compounds across generations, extended family members are dropping in numbers at a faster rate than siblings. Among the branches being cut are what was once a staple of childhood: cousins.” (Gift link)

The Empty Promises of Sentimentalism

There is a lot to think about in Tim Rosenberger’s article about sentimentalism. He considers how Christianity has given people ideas and concepts they like to use, even as they reject the Christian foundation behind them. This results, he says, in “a politics that promises compassion while frequently producing consequences that harm the very people it claims to defend. The pattern is consistent enough to deserve sustained examination.” He shows how this works itself out in sanctuary cities, abortion, and the progressive prosecution movement. “Good intentions do not ensure good outcomes. And the persistent gap between the language of compassion and its practical consequences is not an accident. It is the predictable result of a moral vocabulary that has been uprooted from the theological soil in which it grew.”

AI In the News

AI is once again in the news and in the thinkpieces. Here are some of the highlights as society navigates this massive new technology.

• The Atlantic considers How AI Is Creeping Into The New York Times and most other news outlets. It seems like we are witnessing a bit of an arms race between the AI generators and the AI detectors. The article suggests several measures that could prevent the use of AI in many circumstances, but I am skeptical that they will prove useful in the long term. I’m afraid we may be stuck with AI-generated news for the foreseeable future. (Gift link)
• Meanwhile, the New York Times asks Is Taste the One Thing AI Can’t Replace? In this case, they mean “taste” in discerning between the excellent and the ugly, rather than taste as a sense of flavor (though I suspect AI also can’t do much with that). While there is much that can be programmed into the algorithms, taste has proven elusive, which may explain why so much of what AI generates is, well, tasteless. (Gift link)
• Writing from a Christian perspective, Alan Noble asks Why Should We Just Accept AI? “I don’t think we have to roll over and accept the juggernaut of AI, at least not in every area of our lives. And I think we will look back with regret if we don’t act now to temper AI, if we don’t change our posture toward AI to one of prudent skepticism.”
• Sahaj Garg is co-founder of Wispr, an app that does a phenomenal job of capturing voice and turning it into text. Of course, the company’s long-term goal is much more ambitious and intimidating: a wearable neural interface. Garg wrote The Displacement of Cognitive Labor and What Comes After. While I think he may take things too far at times, it’s still an interesting piece that comes from a technophile who is deeply immersed in the world of AI and who is trying to show where this technology may lead. “We are past the point where the question is whether artificial intelligence will exceed human capability across most cognitive domains. It already has. The remaining question is not if but when the full implications arrive, and the ‘when’ is measured in months and years, not decades.”
• Finally, I Love the Em Dash—Too Bad If AI Does Too is a tribute to the humble em dash—a piece of punctuation my editor once begged me to stop using so often. Yet because AI uses it so much, it has fallen on hard times and begun to arouse suspicion. But I assure you, as does this writer, that I used it and loved it long before AI made it sus.

The End of the Free-Range, Device-Free ‘Stand by Me’ Childhood

Don’t take my linking to this article as an endorsement of Stand By Me, which I haven’t watched since I was a child, and therefore don’t really remember. But I do share the author’s sorrow that it reflects a childhood that few get to experience today—a childhood like mine, where I was a free-range child who could wander, explore, and discover at will, as long as I was home by bedtime. “The autonomy of the boys in ‘Stand by Me’ is vastly different from the freedoms allowed a child living in 2026, when each is practically AirTagged, when we can track a car or a person’s phone across a map on a device in our palms, when we can know each moment of every day where each and every person in our home can be found. A gathering of children is more likely to be in front of a screen than with a rucksack and a deck of cards, as in the movie.” (Gift link)

Videos

Here are a few videos that may be of interest:

• Spiritual Formation and the Reformation: Comer, Willard, Calvin (Video). Michael Horton discusses the contemporary spiritual formation movement that is now associated with John Mark Comer, but which was heavily influenced by Dallas Willard. He critiques it gently and compares its emphases to Calvinistic piety.
• Christian Work Ethic: Busy for Christ (Video). This video is a bit older, as A La Carte goes, but I stumbled across it and thought it was worth sharing. Joel Beeke tells how he stays busy for Christ and why he is committed to never wasting five minutes. (True story: I was on a flight with Dr. Beeke once, sitting in front of him, but across the aisle. I wanted just to kick back and watch a movie, but felt too guilty knowing he’d be working up a storm behind me, so I pridefully redeemed the time!)
• Redeeming Productivity: Are You Making the Most of Your Time? (Video). Compared to that 👆, I feel like a bit of a pretender when it comes to productivity. Yet I was recently interviewed on the subject and thought I’d share that interview in case it’s of interest.

The Rest

Here are a few more links:

• We keep hearing that the Roman Catholic Church is seeing an unusual number of new converts. The New York Times wrote about this a couple of days ago and seems to back it up with facts in Roman Catholic Churches See a Surge of New Converts.
• Ryan Burge asks, Can We Blame the Nones for America’s Marriage Crisis?. To answer, he digs into the data and eventually decides that it’s a bit more complicated than that.
• Kim Riddlebarger says that TBN Headquarters Is No More, and this is no loss for the Kingdom. “Originally built as the headquarters for the ‘Full Gospel Businessman’s Fellowship,’ this garish facility became the Trinity Broadcast Headquarters in 1996. It was eventually sold in 2017, several years after TBN founders Paul and Jan Crouch both died. The building—in the opinion of many—was the ugliest in the county.”
• I believe you’ll need an account to read Could the Girls of Camp Mystic Have Been Saved? which is a heartbreaking account of last year’s tragic flood at Camp Mystic. Note that there is a fair bit of bad language in interviews. You can also find it in Apple News if you subscribe to that.

Flashback: The Only Way To Do The Work Of A Lifetime

We can hardly boast we have lived a worthy life if we succeed in what we like to do but fail in what we must do, if we succeed in our passions but fail in our obligations. The successful life is the one that accounts seriously for its duties and that meets them with diligence. 

I didn’t invite Jesus into my heart; he gave me a new heart.

—Scotty Smith

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This week, the blog and this giveaway are sponsored by The Allicance of Confessing Evangelicals.

What does it mean to stand firm in your faith today—when culture is constantly shifting, and truth feels increasingly unclear?

More than 500 years ago, Martin Luther made a bold declaration that echoed through history: “Here I stand!” His words were rooted in an unshakable conviction in the truth of the Gospel.

That same conviction is still needed today.

In every generation, the church faces new pressures, new distractions, and new temptations to compromise. Yet the call remains the same: to return again and again to the unchanging truth of Scripture and the transforming power of the Gospel.

That’s the heart behind Here We Stand! A Call from Confessing Evangelicals for a Modern Reformation.

This updated edition commemorates the 30th anniversary of the Cambridge Declaration, a powerful statement written by evangelical leaders who saw the need for renewal in the modern church. Concerned that the church was drifting toward cultural compromise, they came together to reaffirm historic Christian truths—truths that still speak clearly today.

Inside, in addition to the Cambridge Declaration, you’ll hear from trusted voices like James Boice, David Wells, Albert Mohler, Sinclair Ferguson, Michael Horton, Carl Trueman, and others. Together, they explore how the message of the Reformation continues to shape faithful worship, ministry, and everyday Christian life.

Whether you’re a pastor, student, or simply want to grow deeper in your faith, this book will encourage and equip you.

The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is giving away three copies of Here We Stand!—enter below for your chance to win—drawing ends April 8.

I have always had a fascination with aviation, and I’m pretty sure it began with birds. I was an outdoors kid with a big yard and beautiful garden, and I loved to watch the birds just doing what they do—flitting about, building nests, feeding their young, flocking, murmurating, and eventually heading south. I have also had a long fascination with theology—with knowing who God is, what he has done, and how he acts in this world. It’s not often these two fascinations come into contact with one another, but I’m thankful they have in Kevin Burrell’s work of ornitheology, Considering Sparrows, which bears the descriptive subtitle, “What Birds Teach Us About Who We Are, Where We’re Going, and the Joy of Following Jesus.”

If you aren’t familiar with the word ornitheology, that’s because it was made up by John Stott. It is a clever little portmanteau that combines ornithology, the study of birds, with theology, the study of God. Stott, like Burrell, was an avid birdwatcher. (I, by the way, am not for two reasons: first, I once suggested to Aileen that I would like to take it up and she replied simply, “no;” second, I am colorblind, which would make it abnormally difficult since the birds would often be indistinguishable from their backgrounds.) Burrell says ornitheology is “a great description of the interplay between creational attentiveness and biblical teaching, or specifically, the study of birds and the study of God. Although both of those undertakings have been a regular part of my life, they took on new meaning on my front porch swing in the spring of 2020.” That was, as I’m sure you remember, the beginning of the pandemic that quickly shut down the world and confined us to our homes for days, weeks, or months, depending on our location. This often forced people to double down on their hobbies. In Burrell’s case, it was his hobby of birdwatching.

A talented writer, he soon took to writing articles about the lessons these birds brought to mind. The articles, which I have often linked to in A La Carte, eventually led to a book—this book. And it’s a good one. It differs from his Substack in this way: All of the chapters are themed around the book of Philippians. In fact, Considering Sparrows is a kind of walk through the epistle with almost all of the illustrations relating to birds. It is a surprisingly effective and enjoyable combination that draws lessons about the Creator from his creation. It teaches theology by illustrating it with ornithology, often relating some of the most fascinating and nearly unbelievable facts about the bird kingdom.

If you’re into theology or you’re into birds, you will enjoy this book. If you’re into both (as are Joni Eareckson Tada, Conrad Mbewe, and others who endorsed it), I’m sure you’ll enjoy it even more. Either way, I have little doubt that you’ll benefit from reading it and pondering not only the birds, but also the One who made them.

May the Lord be with you and bless you today.

Today’s Kindle deals should include several good picks from Christian Focus. Among them is Simona Gorton’s Mothering Against Futility, which is a helpful look at meaning and mundanity.

Pastoring the Scrupulous Conscience

I found this a very helpful piece about pastoring or otherwise helping people who have a scrupulous conscience. “Michael Lawrence helps pastors think carefully about how to minister to those with a scrupulous conscience. Both physical and spiritual factors may be affecting those who experience unusual levels of guilt, fear, and anxiety regarding their spiritual state, and pastors are encouraged to deal gently with them, pointing them to the truths of Scripture; praying with and for them; and bringing along other church members who can speak the truth to them in love.”

Protestants and the Pill

Katelyn Walls Shelton has an interesting look at some Protestants who have decided not to use the birth control pill on the basis of ethics or theology. I do tend to agree with her that this is an area in which many Protestants have not thought as deeply as perhaps they should before making their decisions on birth control.

Ben Shapiro and Others Mocked This Christian Couple, So I Interviewed Them (Video)

A Christian husband recently took to social media to share how Jesus changed his wife and forgave her past sins. This led to a lot of chatter online, which even went as far as Ben Shapiro and others publicly mocking them—and especially her. Ray Comfort decided to interview the couple, and I think you’ll be encouraged by it. (I think you’ll be encouraged even if you believe it may not have been the wisest thing to post or even if you wouldn’t have posted such a thing yourself. You can also read Bethel McGrew on this situation in And Such Were Some Of You.)

Made Lonely by Holiness

John Piper speaks about the loneliness that can come to those who choose to eschew what they consider inappropriate entertainment. “I share Kate’s dismay at how many professing Christians, young and old, embrace as their frequent form of entertainment in movies and television a level of immodesty and immorality, filthy language, gender-leveling feminist ideology, arrogance, revenge, and a whole cluster of empty worldliness.”

Two Pressures of Age

Scott Hurst writes about two of the different pressures people may experience as they age. “Two distinct pressures I feel now that I didn’t as a young Christian are the pressure of coasting and apathy. Reflecting on Solomon’s turn offers a chance for self-reflection; to recognize these pressures and respond with faith.”

Three Strategies for Teaching Digital Discernment to Teenagers

Like it or not, it falls to parents to instruct their children in digital discernment. This article from Rooted helps parents by laying out three strategies they can use.

Flashback: What God Wants You To Forget

To run this race well, we must run unhindered—unhindered by sin, of course, but also by whatever lies in the past that may threaten to slow us, to weigh us down, or to keep us from reaching the finish line. 

Surely it is not wrong for us to think and talk about Heaven… We are all going to emigrate in a very little while.

—D.L. Moody

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Over the past few years, I have had the privilege of visiting many different churches in many different countries. Some of these visits were related to my Epic project, some to From the Rising of the Sun, and some to conferences or events. It has been a joy to worship in a host of churches spanning every one of the inhabited continents.

I would love for children to be able to experience some of the wonder of worshipping in contexts and cultures very different from their own. I’m thankful, then, that they will soon be able to do so through God’s Great Big Global Church, a book I have written for younger readers that invites them to visit 10 kids and their churches all around the world. I’m excited to not only announce it, but also to let you know that it is now available for pre-order at retailers like Amazon and Westminster Books.

There are free downloadable bonus resources available that can assist parents to better understand and apply the book to their children, allow their kids to think about how their own church is special, help them create a fun little passport, and so on.

Note: Pre-ordering, especially from Amazon, is an increasingly important aspect of releasing a book, since publishers will give more attention to titles with many pre-orders than those with only a few. So if you plan to order a book anyway, it’s a helpful practice to pre-order it.

Here is how the publisher describes God’s Great Big Global Church: 

Take kids on an exciting adventure exploring the global church!

Kids will gain enthusiasm for going to church on Sundays as they discover that they and their local fellowship are part of something much bigger: a family of people worshiping God all around the world!

Join Tim Challies as he guides you on this illustrated journey through 10 countries. Your children will be delighted to meet fictionalized kids just like themselves as they discover…

• Fascinating facts about life in each location
• Fun stories about how life, worship and church community are different all around the world
• A connected Bible passage about worship

Each positive, eye-opening visit to another country is based on Challies’ own travel experience and conversations with local church leaders.

While this project is not formally related to Epic or From the Rising of the Sun, it complements them well.

You can pre-order it from:

• Amazon
• Westminster Books
• or wherever else good books are sold.

The Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary is a relatively new series and one that has not yet been completed. It also features some especially gifted theologians like Tom Schreiner, James Hamilton, and Andreas Köstenberger. That offers lots of good reasons to begin collecting it! As it happens, it’s on sale now at Westminster Books.

Today’s Kindle deals include several titles from The Good Book Company, like Steve Midgley’s Understanding Trauma and Christopher Ash’s seven-week study of the Psalms.

(Yesterday on the blog: When Your Spouse Stops Being Your Project)

Decisions In the Room

I really appreciate what Matthew Hall has to say here about decisions—both making them and abiding by them. “From our lives together in communities, to our local churches, to our places of employment, so much of what we share involves actually leaning in, saying yes to new obligations, and thereby assuming the responsibility of speaking into decisions and being accountable for them. Here are a few thoughts on how any of us can better steward the places and responsibilities entrusted to our care.”

What Does the Bible Say about Demons?

Robb Brunansky provides a helpful overview of what the Bible says about demons. “The topic of demons is, by all accounts, fascinating for believers because we have divine revelation that prepares us for spiritual battle with our enemies. Christians believe that God has revealed truth about the demonic realms for our benefit. So here, we will wrap up our series by looking at what Scripture says about demons.” (The other entries in the series are equally helpful and cover what the Bible says about angels and Satan.)

Why Rationalists Are Asking AI to Read Their Future

Speaking of the demonic, Joe Carter considers those who dismiss astrologers and tarot as outdated and instead ask AI about their future. “A growing subculture of rationalist AI devotees—tech-savvy, often skeptical of religion, fluent in the language of optimization and systems thinking—have made AI chatbots their primary vehicle for self-knowledge. They ask the AI chatbot Claude to analyze their attachment style, identify their core wounds, map their psychological blind spots, and prescribe a growth plan.”

30 Day Prayer Challenge

Jesus wants us “always to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1, ESV). But have you ever prayed for something every day, even for 30 days? Now, imagine your whole church praying together—for your church—for 30 days. God is listening and ready to answer! Sign up for this free 30-day Prayer Challenge using biblical prayers from “5 Things to Pray for Your Church” in the PrayMore app. (Sponsored)

Tiny Changes, Massive Payoffs

Stephen Kneale considers the ways in which even tiny changes in our lives can result in surprisingly big payoffs. “This isn’t a spiritual guilt-trip to make you feel inadequate or a means of geeing you up by bringing you down. I am purposefully presenting these things, for what they are, as things that might benefit you should you want, or be able, to do them.”

Stop Scrolling and Start Singing!

The premise of this article is true, I’m sure. If we spend more time looking up from our phones, we will find more reasons to praise God! It’s important, then, that we all make time to stop scrolling and start singing.

Learning to Laugh Again

This is a poignant reflection from Sylvia Schroeder that covers love, joy, and aging. “As I scroll those baby pictures with nostalgia in my heart, I cannot help but feel like just yesterday it was my baby and I was on the floor tickling her belly and listening to her laugh. Today it is a great grandchild squealing and gurgling. Sands of time, once leisurely sifting, now pour.”

Flashback: Are You Binding the Wound or Aggravating It?

When you have the opportunity to reach out to someone who is hurt and hurting, consider whether you are being led by compassion or curiosity. Consider whether you are binding the wound or aggravating it. 

As soon as we think God owes us mercy, we’re not thinking about mercy anymore.

—R.C. Sproul

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I have met many spouses who seem to be living out their days waiting for that breakthrough moment when their marriage will finally transform from bad to good, from difficult to easy, from ordinary to extraordinary. Many spouses are desperate for their marriage to improve, so they long for it and pray for it to finally happen. They know, of course, that if there is to be that kind of momentous leap, there must first be a momentous change.

But here’s something I have long observed: few spouses believe they are the one who needs to change—or at least, the one who needs to change the most. Rather, they are convinced that for their marriage to reach a whole new level, it’s their spouse who will need to undergo the greater transformation. 

In their minds, the breakthrough moment will come when he finally addresses that pesky habit, or when she finally begins that important discipline. The marriage will advance when he at last takes on the responsibility God has given him, or when she finally learns to submit to his leadership. Everything will get better when he finally takes his sin seriously or when she finally gets motivated to pursue holiness. Though both husband and wife may acknowledge they have sins and weaknesses of their own, they are convinced that the greatest holdup belongs to the other person.

Many spouses remain stuck here almost indefinitely, trapped in the conviction that the transformation of their marriage lies just on the far side of the transformation of their spouse. Believing that they themselves have already done what’s necessary to make the marriage thrive, they stand impatiently by, waiting for their husband or wife to catch up. In my experience, they often wait despairingly and sometimes even naggingly. They sometimes wait impassively, refusing to put much more effort into their marriage until they see their spouse begin to reciprocate. “I’m done doing my bit until you start doing yours.”

I wish I could say this dynamic has been entirely absent from my own marriage, but I have to admit that I have fallen into it at times. I have convinced myself that I have reached some pinnacle of marital accomplishment and am now waiting for Aileen to catch up. I have thought very highly of myself and very poorly of her by comparison. It took some time to awaken to the irony that even as I was disparaging my wife, I was also elevating her. Even as I was denigrating her, I was also idolizing her, for she became the key to my joy. I could only be happy and I could only be satisfied when she changed, when she fixed herself. In a strange way, she became a god.

One of the most affecting things I have ever learned about marriage is also one of the most obvious: We marry an entire person. We don’t marry someone who has only strengths or only weaknesses; we don’t marry someone who has only a body or only a soul; we don’t marry someone who has only the history we have made together, but also the history that came before we knew and loved one another. By marrying another person, we have joined ourselves to a being who is wonderfully complex. By focusing narrowly on a particular area of weakness (or perceived weakness, as the case may be) there is a sense in which we lessen the other person’s personhood, reducing them to only one small factor, one tiny part of a much bigger whole. We define them and our relationship to them by this one holdup, this one hangup, this one weakness. It is highly insulting, highly inappropriate, and highly unfair.

Of course, it is not wrong to want our spouse to change. It is not wrong to want them to grow in virtue, to grow in character, to grow in maturity. It is not wrong to want them to be as sanctified as a man or woman can be on this side of glory. But it is profoundly wrong to set aside our own love until they have made the changes we deem necessary or to make our continued effort dependent upon theirs. We are never absolved of the responsibility of loving the one whom God has given us, and to not merely match their efforts, but to “outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10). If we are to love our enemies and grant grace to those who hate us, how much more our most dearly beloved?

The difficult but freeing fact about your marriage is this: It will never be as fulfilling as you want it to be. It will never provide the degree of satisfaction you want it to. It simply can’t when it is the union of two broken beings, each waging war against the deadly enemies of the world, the devil, and their very own flesh.

That doesn’t mean you just grit your teeth and endure it, but it does mean that you need to be realistic about who your spouse is and what they are dealing with as they make their way through this world, not to mention who you are and who your spouse is dealing with as you make your way through this world. It means that you ought to rejoice at every evidence of God’s grace in their life rather than resenting every evidence of remaining sin, and that it’s better by far to focus more on victories won than battles still underway. It means you owe it to your spouse to love them for who they are, not who you wish they would be.

We are all prone to thinking that the breakthrough moment for our marriage will come when our spouse finally changes. It is more likely, though, that the breakthrough moment will come when we finally stop idolizing our spouse by making our happiness contingent on their progress. It is more likely that it will come when we stop trying to cajole our spouse and instead determine we will accept them, enjoy them, and do our utmost to bless, affirm, and strengthen them as together we make our way to glory.

The God of love and peace be with you today, my friends.

Today’s Kindle deals include books on subjects as diverse as parenting, creeds, and eating disorders.

Embracing Slow Sanctification

I think you might be both challenged and encouraged by what Erin Davis says here about sanctification. “If God made buds and brains to grow slowly, again I pose the question: Where did we get the idea that God wants us to grow as quickly as possible? And beneath that: If He designed biological and developmental growth to be slow processes, why shouldn’t we embrace spiritual growth following the same pattern?”

Men Are Lost

Murray Campbell writes about the number of men who seem to be lost when it comes to understanding masculinity. “In accepting that Jesus is the plumb line for being human, we will discover that he stands at odds with all kinds of current thinking about sexuality and gender. It’s not a surprise that Jesus doesn’t feature as the answer to Louis Theroux’s investigations or to Victoria’s Secretary to changing men’s behaviour. Jesus doesn’t play by our rules and he doesn’t conform to our inklings.”

Your Attention Isn’t Failing. Your Environment Is.

I think Trevin Wax is right on this: Your attention isn’t failing you as much as your environment is. This means we can stop blaming everything on our screens and start to think instead about all the ways we use screens. “Wanting to read more is one thing. Becoming a reader, in a world designed to prevent the kind of deep focus reading requires, is another.”

Notes on Justice

Joel draws a helpful distinction between two terms that, though related, are distinct: revenge and vengeance. Both of them are important when we consider justice. “Justice involves vindication, the public declaration of right and wrong, the acquittal of the innocent and the condemnation of the wrongdoer. But justice in this present world will inevitably fall far short.”

Ships Passing in the Night: My Friendship With C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien

This article highlights the joys of reading and writing. “We are what we read. In like fashion, we become friends with those authors whose work we read regularly. True and honest writing is a terribly intimate business. In a writer’s endeavor to write those things which are sincerely good, true, and beautiful, they must first throw open the window to their soul so that their well-worn thoughts on a matter can pour out—and equally as vital, so that their readers can peer in.“

The Gospel Is All about Jesus

Randy Alcorn considers those who reject Christianity because of the poor behavior of those who claim to follow Jesus. “Tragically, many reject God because of the behavior of those who profess to be God-followers. I do know many honest and loving and gracious and generous Christians. Unfortunately, you will rarely see them in newspapers and on television, and in my experience, I don’t see all that many online either. This is very sad. I believe it grieves the heart of God.”

Flashback: Does God Care How You Cook Your Goat?

There are broadly two different schools of thought. While some scholars choose one of the two options, a good number suggest both are relevant.

Let us stop worrying about the future of Christianity and get down to the hard work in carrying out the instructions of the Lord.

—Francis Grimké

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