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Friday, June 28, 2019

Five Star Links



Each Friday, we share links we found especially interesting or inspiring during the previous week. 


Persis:

"As a people, we must strive to return to what’s true: That life is precious. Each life is unique. Each one irreplaceable. Each one unrepeatable." On Suicide: We Are Our Brothers' Keepers

Rebecca

Why Should I Read Deuteronomy? Not only will this piece make you want to read Deuteronomy, but it can also guide as you make your way through the book.

Friday, June 14, 2019

Five-Star Links



Each Friday, we share links we found especially interesting or inspiring during the previous week. 

Persis:

If God were a needy God, he would need our help just as much as we need his. What good news it is, then, that the gospel depends on a God who does not depend on us.

Rebecca:

I married young, and if I had it to do over again, I'd do exactly the same thing. So I heartily endorse this message: The Case For Getting Married Young. [Update: Someone pointed out that the Atlantic chose a photo of two male hands to accompany this article. I hadn't noticed this when I shared the link. It is a very unfortunate choice, because Karen Swallow Prior definitely has marriage between a man and a woman—her own marriage in particular—in mind in this piece. I am going to leave the link up, because I hate it when people just delete things and act as if they never happened in the first place. The article itself is  good,  but the photo—which Karen probably had no control over—is not. I am sorry I didn't see it before I shared the link in the first place.]

Kim:

When I purged my books in January, I came across quite a few that were merely "trends," I realized I needed to be more careful about my book buying.

Old Books, New Books, and Trends That Fade Away.

Friday, June 7, 2019

Five Star Links



Each Friday, we share links we found especially interesting or inspiring during the previous week. 


Kim:

This week's episode of "Mortification of Spin" talks about the danger of success in leadership. One of the comments made was that when someone is up in front of a congregation (or a Sunday school class) and we see people engaged with us, we can become more interested in our own glory than God's. Carl Trueman commented that we should welcome evaluation because it is a humbling thing. As I listened to this, I could not help but think how Twitter can foster a lot of ego, because we can garner many followers who validate us, while at the same time, blocking the criticism.



Persis:

I appreciate this post by Lisa Spencer, On Platt and Priorities, about the recent reaction, both pro and con, to Pastor David Platt's prayer for the president of the United States. When it comes to politics and its ability to polarize even Christians, it is possible to forget the priority of Christ and his gospel. Lisa reminds us of that:
The book of Jonah is instructive here. God told Jonah to bring a message to the Ninevites about turning their hearts towards him. Instead, Jonah did everything he could to avoid such a spectacle and begrudged the fact that God would ask such a thing. Just like Jonah, who qualified who should receive God's grace and mercy, we might be saying the same thing disguised as anti-partisan interests.

Rebecca:

Stand to Reason has a series of videos with apologetics tips. In the latest one, Alan Shlemon reminds people like me (those who feel guilty for not saying enough when talking with non-believers) to set a modest goal for our conversations.  We don't need to get the gospel in every time. "Instead," he says, "aim to put a stone in their shoe." 

Monday, June 3, 2019

Quotes of Note


Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Persis:

I'm rereading All That's Good by Hannah Anderson with a group of women from church. The whole book is great, but the last chapter sums up the reason for discernment. A reason that is just bigger than my individual Christian life. It's for the healing of the Body of Christ.
Here's the hard truth: If you are entrusted with a certain gift, most of the people around you won't be similarly gifted. They won't be able to see as clearly because God has not equipped them to. But being gifted with discernment does not give you permission to be spiteful, arrogant, or judgmental toward them. It is your responsibility to help the community by raising uncomfortable questions, and then waiting patiently while it struggles with them. And more than likely, you'll have to wait much longer than you want... you will have to remember that you are part of the Body, you are part of something bigger than yourself. You will have to remember that the clarity you enjoy is not for you alone. It is for the healing of the Body of Christ.
Rebecca:

The simplicity of God can be hard to understand. That God is simple means that he is not made up of parts. Or to put is another way, he is not a composite being. Still, we list God's attributes (love, righteousness, and power, for instance), and consider them separately, although we know God is truly one undivided essence.

In None Greater: The  Undomesticated Attributes of God, Matthew Barrett illustrates simplicity this way.
What I love best about traveling is seeing old churches. Churches that are several hundred years old typically have stained glass. Back then, churches would hire a craftsman to fashion biblical scenes using the colorful glass. Stepping back from the glass, one could see the entire story of the Bible pictured. The beauty of stained glass is seen most when one sunbeam hits the glass and several different colors are portrayed on the inside of the glass—yellow, red, blue, and so on. That imagery pictures simplicity in a way. God is one, and his attributes are identical with one another. Yet when God's undivided essence is revealed to humanity, it shines in various ways. Nevertheless, it is the same, single ray of light that radiates. God's attributes, says the Puritan George Swinnock, "are all one and the same; as when the sunbeams shine through a yellow glass they are yellow, a green glass they are green, a red glass they are red, and yet all the while the beams are the same."
As finite creatures, we can't know God in his infinite simplicity, but we can see him as he "shines through glass," so to speak. From our human viewpoint, we see various perfections, and with each perfection, we can understand another aspect of God's one undivided essence.

Kim:

From Grant Osborne's commentary on Matthew:
Jesus is never called "Immanuel" (1:23) as a proper name; rather, the term is a metaphor for the fact that in Jesus God is present "with" his people in a whole new way. There are four stages biblically: (1) God is present via his "Shekniah," or dwelling via the pillar of fire and cloud in the exodus and his throne at the midpoint where the wings of the seraphim meet above the ark, i.e., in the Most Holy Place throughout the OT. (2) God is present via his son, who was in a sense a walking Most Holy Place during his life on this earth. (3) God is present via the holy Spirit during the church age. (4) God is present physically and in full reality throughout eternity (Rev. 21:1-22:5).