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This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. The COVID Vaccine Has 666 Written All Over It: But That Doesn’t Matter: Matthew Halsted provides helpful clarification for the context of the Mark of the Beast. He begins with the question, “[I]sn’t there enough evidence that the vaccine is the “number” of the beast, including a bill currently before the House of Representatives (6666) and the very letters “C-O-R-O-N-A” themselves?”

2. Why is There Only One Way to Heaven? This is such a great article by Tim Challies. He begins, “It is an audacious claim of the Christian faith that there is only one way to heaven. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” we believe. Not most, not some, but all. Since all of us have sinned, all of us are lost and in need of saving.”

3. The Teachable Will Lap the Gifted: Oh my are AW Workman’s words true! He shares, “The unassuming, the unpretentious, the ones who didn’t have to lead, but who eventually led anyway because of their steady faithfulness and consistency – these friends are the ones who quietly got started in ministry, have so far persevered, and are now harvesting righteousness (James 3:18).”

4. Grief Should Always Make Us Better: Tim Challies lost his son to unforeseen and unknown medical issues late last year. He’s had a number of powerful posts on the experience. If you like this one, you should read his other posts. Challies begins, “Death is the great interrupter. Death is the great interrupter because, far more often than not, it strikes when it’s least expected. When death comes it invariably interrupts plans, dreams, projects, goals.”

5. 11 Incredible Species of Insect in Flight: Most of these look fake. Remarkable!

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. My Son Did Not Live One Day More or Less Than God Planned: Erik Reed shares the powerful story of grieving over his 15-year-old son's death and holding onto the truth of God's sovereignty. He shares, "Before Kaleb existed in the womb, he existed in the mind of God. From the foundation of the world, God determined that Kaleb Reed be born on March 8, 2004. Not only is this true, but He wrote the days of Kaleb’s life in His book, before one single day came to pass. God wrote the days of his life in His book and He didn’t write it in pencil."

2. Medical Ethics, Gender Identity, and Children: Robert George and Ryan Anderson weigh in on this complicated issue. They conclude, "Prudent legislation is needed to prevent adults from interfering with a child’s normal, natural bodily development. “Gender affirmation” procedures violate sound medical ethics. It is profoundly unethical to intervene in the normal physical development of a child as part of “affirming” a “gender identity” at odds with bodily sex."

3. Come to Me All Who Have COVID Weariness: My friend Benjamin Vrbicek with a timely and poignant post. He says, “The flowing current of COVID sadness can drown the strongest swimmer. You might already be gasping for air. If you feel this way, come to Jesus. Pray to him. Read his word. Belong to his church... Come and enjoy the freedom found in being loved by the Savior, not controlled by a harsh slave master.”

4. Navigating Different COVID-19 Recovery Convictions: I have felt the heat of different convictions and share Costi Hinn’s concern that “one of the ways the enemy will seek to divide our ranks within the church is tempting us to use our opinions against each other. IF the Devil has his way, we’ll be throwing stones of accusation from all sides, calling the cautious people ‘soft,’ labeling the optimists of being ‘reckless.’”

5. Do We Really Want to Go Back to Normal: Trevin Wax considers some of the ways he hopes that COVID-19 re-shapes us. He says, “What if this period of forced isolation can help us see the end result of radical individualism’s trajectory, so that in the end we come out of our enclaves and homes with a stronger commitment to our communities, our churches, and our country?”

6. Behind the Scenes of One of the World’s Top Nature Photographers: I love the combination of skill, creativity, and perseverance Yarrow demonstrates in his craft.

Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering by Timothy Keller

Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering by Timothy Keller

Everyone suffers. And yet perhaps because of the age in which we live, there have been few cultures that have struggled more with suffering than ours. I’m currently reading a popular book on loss and I’m struck by how vapid the wisdom of our age is in the face of suffering.

Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering is, quite simply, the best book on suffering that I’ve read. Keller deals with the subject philosophically, theologically, and practically. Each treatment is successful on its own, and combined they pack a unique punch as Keller engages mind and heart alike.

Timothy Keller is such a unique author. His books range from the incredibly accessible: The Prodigal God and Counterfeit Gods, to the slightly more rigorous, but still very accessible apologetic, The Reason for God, to the more rigorous practitioner’s guides such as Generous Justice or Preaching. Part of Timothy Keller’s unique gifting is his ability to write so well in each of these genres. Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering is the most rigorous book by Keller to date and yet the book is every bit as well written as any of his best.

Contemporary westerners are repelled by suffering and death. On the stage of world history, our fear of death is abnormal. Keller quotes an author at The New York Times Magazine, who, after the tragic sniper shootings in the Washington DC area reflected, “The fact is, staving off our own death is one of our favorite national pastimes. Whether it’s exercise, checking our cholesterol or having a mammogram, we are always hedging against mortality. [And yet] despite our best intentions, it is still, for the most part, random. And it is absolutely coming.”[i] This aversion to suffering and death is a cultural blind spot and means that we naturally approach the topic with naiveté.