What’s Allowed in Married Sex? Ray Ortlund writes with such gentle wisdom. He begins, “The sexual chaos of our times does not free us. It pressures us. It confronts us with questions we didn’t raise or even want. It claims to offer us ever-expanding options. But the truth is, our hyper-sexual culture robs us of the joy of our personal discoveries within the safety and integrity of a Christian marriage.”
Three Questions for Evangelism: Paul Levy’s questions are simple and empowering. What if we all tried just one of these in the next week?
The God of Your Troubled Heart: Craig Thompson puts us into the shoes of John the Baptist. He says, “Maybe you have been like John. Maybe there have been times in your life when you questioned your relationship with or commitment to Jesus. Maybe you doubted that Jesus was who he claimed to be, or that he could possibly love you.”
Monomania is Illiberal and Stupefying: Jonathan Haidt is concerned about monomania, “an exaggerated and unhealthy obsession with one thing.” Instead, Haidt believes, “we need critics to make us smarter, and that we should have no confidence in our beliefs until we have exposed them to intense challenge and have considered alternative views.”
Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale: It’s incredible how intuitive music is.

1. What the Bible Teaches About Sexuality: David Powlison on the threefold vision of sexuality in the Bible, " The Bible discusses many forms of sexual immorality and sexual victimization. A vision for fidelity does not drive honesty about infidelity and betrayal underground. Prudish? Not Scripture. Squeamish about the sordid details of human life? The biblical authors frequently (though not always) eschew photographic description and details when they speak of sex. They often model a certain delicacy of generic description."

2. Making Space for your Neighbor: Dexter Culbreath encourages us to reach out to those God has placed near us, " Let’s be real. We are the ones holding ourselves back. We are not fans of failure, nor do we want to subject ourselves to the messiness of investing into the lives of others. So, what do we do? We wait to see how it goes with others before we stick our necks out there. As with many things, fear drives our hesitancy."

3. Your Smartphone is Making You Stupid, Antisocial, and Unhealthy. So Why Can't You Put it Down? Ouch, this is a painful read by Eric Andrew-Gee. He reports that the evidence is "in a growing body of research by psychiatrists, neuroscientists, marketers and public health experts. What these people say – and what their research shows – is that smartphones are causing real damage to our minds and relationships, measurable in seconds shaved off the average attention span, reduced brain power, declines in work-life balance and hours less of family time. They have impaired our ability to remember. They make it more difficult to daydream and think creatively. They make us more vulnerable to anxiety. They make parents ignore their children. And they are addictive, if not in the contested clinical sense then for all intents and purposes."

4. 6 Ways to Discourage Your Pastor: Paul Levy with a pointed, but accurate list. His fourth reason is, "Speak to others in the congregation, but not the leadership. This way word gets back to leadership through others, 'Some people are saying...'"

5. Mr. Graham and the Reasonable Man: How do we navigate these incredibly difficult discussions around law enforcement and African American men? The More Perfect podcast takes us back to the beginning of what would become an important precedent in courts' interpretation around how to rule on these cases.

This Week’s Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations