Here are a few books I worked (or am still working) through from this past year or so.
A Selection of my 2023 Reading
Blow Their Minds
Parents, remember that you only get a handful of Christmases with your children to cement in their imagination the glorious joy that came with Christ’s advent. Overflow with generosity towards them. Make timeless memories. Don’t be a grouch, a curmudgeon, or spoil sport. Blow their minds with the goodness of God by giving them both yourself & brightly wrapped gifts of your love & affection.
The way you celebrate the Advent of Christ in the midst of the bleak midwinter sets a tone of triumphant joy and gratitude for your children’s entire lifetimes. The days leading up to Christmas are some of the most important ones there are for forming Christ-like character in your children. Don’t pull up short. Go all in.
Individuals at the Table
We place a great emphasis on the gathering together of the saints. We stress the importance of joyful family bonds, and labor to cultivate a robust community of Christians who are in fellowship with God and each other. In part, this is corrective to the foul wind of individualism that lays heavy like smog above our culture.
Some have recommended that the term interdividuals would be preferable to individuals, and that is a good instinct. We ought to recognize that we are one body with many members. The gross error of our age is the conviction that you are an individual in isolated & sovereign authority over yourself with no reference to others. But that’s just not how God made the world. He made us intricately connected to a whole hierarchy of relational loves and duties.
That said, we must not overlook the need for individual reflection. Are you heading in this particular direction of reformed evangelicalism simply because you are around other saints who are? Just because the saints around you are rejoicing in the things of Lord does not mean that you hold all these things dear and precious yourself.
Proximity to Christ & His Church is not where salvation is found. Dwelling in Christ by faith is your only hope of salvation. The fellowship of the saints is a great boon to our faith, but God calls to us individually to lay hold of Christ. Not because the person next to you is, but because you have seen in Him the sum of all glory, the precious pearl, the brightness of the Father’s radiance.
The bread & wine on the table is a meal for God’s family. But each member must lay hold of and apprehend Christ individually. Here is Christ, given for you. Yes, every last one of you.
So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…
A Public Execution
Every baptism is a public execution. By this ordinance, this little one is joined to the death of Christ for her. When Christ died, she died. That is what baptism means. The charge to these parents and the congregation as we walk alongside this child, is to labor together to assist her in daily dying, daily putting to death the desires of the flesh, daily reckoning that as those who are united with Christ we are crucified with Christ.
But Christ’s public execution was followed by a public resurrection & ascension. There’s life on the far side of the cross. That life is described as a Christ-filled life: it is no longer I who live, but Christ. So this baptism both symbolizes the flesh’s mortification as well as the surpassing glory of the Spirit’s power at work in this child, to cause her to walk in His ways all the days of her life.
So welcome, our sister, to Jesus Christ…
Vigilance During the Holidays
The holidays are rife with a temptation to let down your guard. Drinking to drunkenness. Lowering entertainment standards. Snapping in irritation at family members. Wandering down an internet rabbit hole of folly, envy, or lust. Being slothful and calling it rest.
As Christians, our celebrations are to be glorious. But the glory of our celebrations doesn’t come from reckless self-indulgence. Rather, the glory only comes from being a forgiven people. And, forgiven people ought to be marked as loving people. The equation which Christ gave us is that those who are forgiven much love much. But love isn’t the mushy slop of subjective feelings. The definition for love is found in the deep ocean of God’s attributes.
The love of God which we are to imitate cannot be divorced from the holiness of God which we receive through Christ by the Spirit who dwells in us. Being forgiven is like getting rid the furniture of sin (the musty couch of envy, the chair of arrogance with a missing leg, the creaky bed-frame of lust, and so on). But a barren house, void of the comfort of lovely furniture and the beauty of attractive decor is not a pleasant place for celebration. Pursuing holiness is how the Spirit works in us to bring into our lives the pleasant furnishings of God’s love.
Holiness is loving what God loves and hating what God hates. This maxim holds true at all times, including our celebrations and holidays. The glory of our jollification comes from being forgiven and being holy by the Spirit’s power in us.
So be vigilant during your celebrations. Don’t put down the sword. Don’t fold your hands in sloth when it comes to vigilantly watching for sin. Don’t leave a chink in your armor. For godly celebration is a lethal weapon in overthrowing the darkness of our age.
Our times of leisure are a blessing from God’s hand, a gift of His grace, and a foretaste of the everlasting peace purchased for us through Christ’s blood. As such, we must not neglect to put on Christ in our times of celebration. We must not forsake our duties of righteousness which God has commanded for us. And we certainly must not toy with our temptations instead of slitting their throats. May God give you vigilance in your merry-making, that you may be a clear and vivid testimony of the glory of His forgiveness and the potency of His holiness in us.
Finally, true rejoicing and celebration only from flows from the knowledge that God is merciful to sinners. This mercy was made manifest in the cross of our Lord Jesus, through whom the world was crucified to you and you to the world. So let all your rejoicing this month be grounded upon this everlasting glory, that your sins, which are scarlet, He has washed whiter than snow.
Give the Blessings Away
We are told that that this cup is a cup of blessing. We should consider, then, what God teaches us to do with blessings. If your mindset surrounding God’s blessings to you is to become a doomsday-prepper, jarring & canning all the blessings in order to line the shelves of your tornado shelter, you have missed an important element of the nature of God’s blessings. They go bad if you try to confine them, hoard them, or bottle them up for a rainy day.
This principle is demonstrated all around us, but take, for example, the blessing of marriage. The mutual love which the husband and wife bestow upon each other replicates and becomes offspring. Couples who impose childlessness upon themselves are misusing the blessing of marriage, and as such the blessing goes stale. But in the giving away of the blessing, more blessings come. When your children grow into adulthood, you ought not hold them hostage. Rather, you send them out with your blessing, in order to increase the blessing through the formation of their own households, fruitful endeavors, and conquests.
God demonstrates this reality for us. Father, Son, and Spirit exist in the everlasting blessedness of pure delight & love. Yet God determined to create this world in order to fill it with manifold displays of His goodness. That’s why butterflies have colorful wings, and resplendent nebulas birth new stars, and sunrises parade in changing robes of grey & red & gold.
But God’s generosity of blessing is on fullest display here: in the body of Christ, given for you. The Father crushed His Son, the One most blessed forever, to bring about greater blessedness in our redemption. And so, God shows you how to both receive and give blessings. You receive it in order to spread it around in order for it to return to you once more in increased glory.
So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…
Reasonable Sacrifice
Sacrifice is reasonable (Rom. 12:1). But the mindset of most people is that self-preservation is more reasonable. We think that sparing ourselves difficulty & discomfort is sensible. We’ve built a framework that incentivizes selfishness. From the smorgasbord of the entertainment industry, to the twisting of the medical field to drug and carve and indulge the patient’s imagined vision for themselves, we are a culture consumed with self. But this is unreasonable; like trying to grow a crop of corn by planting popcorn.
Both Moses’ Law and throughout the Psalms we see that thanksgiving is expressed through sacrifice. The sacrificial system was the way in which Israelites demonstrated their gratitude for God’s covenant mercies. The Psalms further revealed the ethical reality that thankfulness is demonstrated by sacrifice (Ps. 116:17).
If we put this together with Paul’s instruction to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice we can see the necessity of the material discomfort of obedience. Thankfulness ought not to be merely in an inwardly felt affection; but rather it is to be manifested in the actions of obedient sacrifice. Preparing a feast, raising children, supporting a ministry financially, caring for aging parents, protecting your nation from invasion, and feeding the impoverished all require your material expense and physical exertion.
If you insist on self-preservation you are insisting on self-ruination. That’s just how God made the world. He made it such that sacrifice reaps glory. Scattering seeds in the soil looks momentarily like wastefulness; but in the harvest those seeds have multiplied. So, in the end, selfishness, in all its forms, is the truly unreasonable ethic. The Lord’s wisdom turns our sensibilities upside down. True reasonableness is to sacrifice yourself. As you celebrate Thanksgiving this week, decide beforehand to not begrudge the physical, financial, and relational sacrifices you must make. Those sacrifices will soon become glories.
Prayer fo Confession
Father God,
You summon us to imitate Your generosity & goodness. Yet we become tight fisted, irritable with strained family relationships, unwilling to endure the inconvenience of welcoming strangers to our feasts. Forgive us for how we have embraced the unreasonable ethic of selfishness and grumbling, instead of what Your Word commands us to: sacrifice and generosity. Instead of trying to hide from danger & difficulty, give us grace to gladly endure hardships, as good soldiers.
You have called Your church to truth in the inward parts, so we now confess our individual sins to You. Selah.
We do this in Jesus’ mighty name, and Amen.