Your August Digital Smorgasbord

This week, I'd like to share a selection of interesting pieces from across the interwebs.

Your July Digital Smorgasbord

This week, I've got a selection of interesting pieces from across the interwebs. 

June Digital Smorgasbord

This week, I've got a selection of interesting articles from across the interwebs.  

May Digital Smorgasbord

This week, I've got a selection of interesting articles I've come across.

March Digital Smorgasbord

This week I'd like to share some articles I hope you'll find interesting. As Holy Week is upon us, we lead off with some pieces that will help us prepare for Good Friday and Easter.

February Digital Smorgasbord

This week I'd like to share some articles I think you'll find helpful or edifying.

January Digital Smorgasbord

This week I offer some interesting content from across the interwebs.

November Digital Smorgasbord

This week, I've got a selection of articles I've come across I think you'll find useful.

Your Digital Smorgasbord

This week is an all-video edition of our digital smorgasbord. I've got a selection of interesting and helpful videos for your perusal.

Your Digital Smorgasbord

This week, I've got a selection of articles from across the interwebs I think you'll enjoy.

Your Digital Smorgasbord

This week, I've got a selection of articles from across the interwebs I think you'll enjoy.

Your Digital Smorgasbord

This week, I've got a selection of articles I've come across I think you'll enjoy.

Your Digital Smorgasbord

This week, I've got a selection of articles I've come across I think you'll enjoy.

Bible Study Ideas

Today I’d like to share some things I’ve come across that help you dig into the scriptures while getting a bird’s eye view of the scriptures.

Recommended Reading for the Times

This week I offer links to some pieces I think you’ll find helpful, pieces on navigating the times we find ourselves in.

Some Links for the Times

If we normally think of life as a marathon, today’s world makes it feel like a Tough Mudder course — harder, slower, and way dirtier. We’re going to start a series soon on some biblical guidance for navigating this obstacle course, but this week I thought it’d be useful to offer you some other people’s thoughts on the matter.

Links - Bible Study

This week I offer you a collection of articles on reading or studying the Bible well. I hope you find them useful.

♦ Why I Stopped Calling Parts of the Bible ‘Boring’

When I announced that we were spending the next six months in Jeremiah, I said something I’d heard many Bible teachers say before me: “I know this book is boring. But we’re going to learn something.” I think I was trying to lower the stakes for them—or maybe for me. I was setting the bar low so that if Jeremiah held their interest even a little, that was a success.

But looking back, I regret saying it. It’s not true. Jeremiah isn’t boring. The Bible isn’t boring. Even the parts that people always say are boring are weird, gripping, and awe-inspiring. If we let them, they will absolutely command our attention.

12 from '20

'Tis the season for "Best of" articles, and since I don't do links very often, I wanted to share some of my favorite posts from other sites. In approximately chronological order:

♞5 Ways to Love God with All Your Mind
"As our minds master truth – and are in turn mastered by it – the rest of our being inevitably follows. Hence we find ourselves experiencing greater love for God as we hear, sing and speak of the truths we know. Truths grasped in your mind can be tasted and savoured."

♞Seven Apologetics Books Every Teen Should Read
These books offer a good starting place for anyone of any age, but these would be a great foundation for someone who will be heading off to college.

♞It’s Time for a New Culture War Strategy
"[W]e must recommit ourselves to strengthening alternative institutions, investing in counter-cultural church communities, and catechizing our own children. Let me underscore the last item. ...

Here’s a culture war strategy conservative Christians should get behind: have more children and disciple them like crazy."

♞Why Read Early Christian Authors?
"The truth of the matter is that far too many modern-day Evangelicals are either ignorant of or quite uncomfortable with the Church Fathers. ... Well did Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–92)—a man who certainly could not be accused of elevating tradition to the level of, let alone over, Scripture—once note: 'It seems odd, that certain men who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves, should think so little of what he has revealed to others.'"

♞The Fear of the Lord ... for today?
"[T]he fear of the Lord remains unclear for most of us, and it is critical to embrace it if we are to grow in wisdom (Pro 1:7). Let’s assume that we benefit from understanding it, and we could use more of it."

♞Not White Fragility, Mutual Responsibility
"Watching a country tear itself apart is quite a spectacle. This is the cycle I have come to expect when we have a national racial incident. We have the racial incident, the protest and the backlash. Is it a cycle that we can break? Not if we keep doing what we have done before. So here is my attempt to move away from that cycle and to encourage us to think about a mutual accountability approach."

♞Let's Think About This For a Moment
"If you read every day about every bad and evil thing that has happened over the last 24 hours in every part of the world, you shouldn't be surprised if you are constantly dwelling on those things and struggling with depression and anxiety. If you listen to songs with sexually explicit lyrics and watch movies, television shows, and videos with sexually explicit images, you shouldn't be surprised if you are constantly dwelling on those things and struggling with lust. ... If you choose to drink from a sewer rather than from a clear spring, don't be surprised if you get sick. "

♞How to Prepare for the Next Cultural Revolution
"[W]e need to be ready for the next false philosophy—in a year, in five years, or in a decade—that will spawn the next cultural revolution. I can’t predict what it will be, but I know it will happen. I also know what we can do to be ready, prevent Christian defectors, and answer the challenge when it arrives. Here are two ways to prepare for the next revolution..."

♞We disagree over how to help people, not whether to help them
"[Pro-lifers] do want to care for people, including after they are born, and many of us are actively involved in doing so. We just don’t think it should necessarily be done by big government programs. ... Today, I want to relate a bit of my experience through my church in Louisiana to illustrate this point."

♞Teaching Politics at Belmont Has Me Worried About the State of Debate
"[O]ur classrooms have not escaped the tribal nature of our politics. Conversations are often strident, and it is a challenge to rein in disputes before they turn into full-fledged shouting matches. Students find it harder to come to grips with what Jonathan Haidt labels the “moral matrices” that underpin our political commitments and are hesitant to recognize the sacred values that “bind and blind” political choices, both ours and those of our opponents. The same sources that spur these novel conversations can create inflexible ideological camps."

♞A Biblical Critique of Secular Justice and Critical Theory
This is part of a series of long-form articles by Tim Keller. They'll take a while to read, but they're worth the time investment.

"Which justice? There have never been stronger calls for justice than those we are hearing today. But seldom do those issuing the calls acknowledge that currently there are competing visions of justice, often at sharp variance, and that none of them have achieved anything like a cultural consensus, not even in a single country like the US."

♞Refugee? Mixed-Race? Please stop co-opting Christ
"Any time we make Jesus’s ministry about anything other than fulfilling His mission of being the perfect lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29) we are in danger of at least distorting the Gospel if not even teaching a false one (Gal. 1:8-9)."

Links: Arming for Battle

"We are at war. 

It’s not a war of bombs and bayonets. It’s not a war against flesh and blood. In fact, it’s not a physical war at all. It’s a spiritual war."

That's from Tim Barnett, one of the speakers at Stand to Reason. He reminds us that we are in a spiritual war, and that it is a battle against ideas. More importantly, our kids are going out into the battlefield. Are we arming them and training them for the battles ahead? 

I encourage you to read the whole piece, Training Students for War. He talks more about this conflict and our need to prepare, and he links to some of STR's resources that can help us do the work. 

♞ One of their new resources that isn't in that piece is Tim's new YouTube channel Red Pen Logic with Mr. B. In these short videos, he combines humor and clear thinking to demonstrate how to approach the memes and catchphrases the culture throws at us. I highly recommend it.

♞ Another new site to help us prepare our kids for the real world is Mama Bear Apologetics. Even though it's geared towards moms, plenty of dads listen to their podcasts and read their blogs and book. Check out their recent post, Teaching Our Kids to Spot Empty Statements. If you like what you see, check out their other resources. I really like these ladies; they're nowhere near as stuffy as some of the apologetics podcasts out there, but they produce very serious content. 

♞ Finally, I encourage you to check out Alisa Childers' work. Her blog and podcast focus on teaching people how to detect and defend against what she calls "progressive Christianity" — namely, the use of Christian language to teach very un-Christian ideas. You might start here where she explains what the "historic Christianity" is that the progressives are deviating from.

Links

I think these will be helpful sites for you to visit:

Do "contradictions" discredit the Gospels?
(This is part of a series of videos that, frankly, try to sell a DVD set, but the short video is still a useful piece.)

Forget About Evolution and Inerrancy (for a Minute)

"The issue of origins and inspiration and inerrancy are very important. We eventually need to discuss them. But they arenot 'make or break issues.' And they can be used to sidetrack the Gospel into endless and fruitless debate."

Raising Daughters in a World That Devalues Them: 7 Things We Must Tell Them
Like this author, I have two little girls, and I'm appalled at what our culture wants to teach them about themselves, men, God, and life in general. There are a lot of good thoughts here.