Lent

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. Whataboutism is a Mark of Foolishness: Brett McCracken explains the problem of pointing the finger at the other side, “Ultimately, whataboutism is a convenient, lazy, and destructive rhetorical tactic that shrinks Christian faith to the narrow confines of tribalism’s partisan aims.”

2. An Open Letter to a Discouraged Saint: Mike Emlet begins, “I know you are discouraged and distressed this morning. The trials and temptations you’ve faced this past week have brought you low. Suffering clouds your vision. Sin’s hangover—guilt, shame, and doubt—still pounds in your soul.”

3. Let Limitations Do Their Work: This is some excellent writing and advice from my friend John Starke. He says, “My wife said to me one evening as we were talking about some limitations we were experiencing: “Let the limitations do their work.” Yes and maybe that ought to be an ordinary mantra. Limitations shape us into something deeper than what we would have planned for ourselves.”

4. A Lent Within a Lent: A double-dose of John Starke for you. He reflects on this timely by William Willimon as it relates to Lent, “We thought that our problem was our need for freedom, for liberation. No. Our problem is thirst.”

5. 10 Questions Churches Should Ask Their Generation Z Members: I love these questions and the spirit of discovery. Here are Greg Jao’s first two questions, “Where does Christianity, as lived and taught at our ministry, seem most disconnected or remote from your life? If your friends could identify someone currently alive as their “hero,” who would it be and why?”

6. Travel Photographer of the Year: You can spend five minutes on this site of five hours. There are so many amazing photos. I was wowed by Nicolas Raspiengeas and the special mentions in the nature, sealife, and wildlife category. What are some of your favorites?

Two Immersive Books to Prepare for Easter

Two Immersive Books to Prepare for Easter

Tired of Netflix yet? With Easter approaching and (perhaps) some extra reading time on your hands, I have two books I would love to recommend to you. Both books are historic-fiction and both approach the story of Jesus through the eyes of a Roman character. If historic-fiction is your cup of tea, I think you’ll really enjoy them both.

The Advocate by Randy Singer

Randy Singer, a lawyer by trade, imaginatively steps into the sandals of Theophilus in his historic-fiction The Advocate. Theophilus is the man (or perhaps group of people) who Luke writes Luke and Acts to. Luke begins his account this way, “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus…” Acts begins similarly, “In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach…”

Randy Singer imagines that Theophilus was a Roman advocate, tutored in Rome by the Roman philosopher Seneca who then takes his first post under Pontius Pilate where he stands behind Pilate during the trial of Jesus of Nazareth.