I can’t say anything better than has already been said by countless courageous Christian leaders around the country. So here’s a round up of the best articles I’ve found. If you want to make clear that, regardless of majority opinions and Supreme Court decisions, you will obey God rather than man, you can begin by joining me in signing the ERLC statement: Here We Stand.

Quite a few researchers have tried to find out how many love songs there are in the world. They have all concluded that it’s an impossible task. Just too many to count.

One multi-year study did find that over 60% of all songs in the Top 40 were love songs. Not surprising really, given how wonderful an experience it is to love and to be loved. However, a large number of love songs, perhaps the majority, lament the difficulties and disappointments of human love. These include:

• One-sided love: The person doesn’t love you back.
• Deceptive love: Whatever they say and do, they don’t really love you.
• Selfish love: The person is only interested in what they get out of you.
• Word-only love: No actions to back up the words.
• Unfaithful love: Betrayed by promised love going to another.
• Jealous love: Doesn’t let you love anyone else in any way.
• Controlling love: Doesn’t trust, but rather confines and crushes.
• Divided love: Love is shared with a hobby, work, home.
• Commercial love: Bargaining, score-counting, more like a business.
• Unforgiving love: Remembers every bad thing ever done – Or the ONE BIG THING.
• Unsatisfying love: It’s good, but it’s not great.
• Unchangeable Love: It fluctuates, or fades.
• Temporary love: Eventually comes to an end.

Perhaps these are some of the reasons why the Apostle Paul prayed that the Ephesians (and all Christians) would know the multi-dimensional love of Jesus Christ (Eph. 3:18-19). Unlike the best human love, His love is:

Two-sided Love: No one can ever say they love Christ more than He loves them.

True Love: There is no deception, no charade, no act, no pretence.

Selfless Love: If you were to look at Christ’s heart you would not find Himself at the center, but you.

Practical Love: He doesn’t only talk love, He does love. He gave and gives everything He has.

Faithful Love: No risk that He will betray us, give us up, or break His promise

Jealous Love: Sinful jealousy stops you from loving what would be good for you. Christ’s holy jealousy stops you from loving what would be bad for you.

Freeing Love: His love doesn’t confine or crush but frees you to flourish, to develop, to grow, and to thrive

Complete Love: You often feel as if you are the only person in the world that He loves.

Intimate Love: Instead of competitive score-keeping and quid pro quo, there’s a growing bond, union, and oneness.

Forgiving Love: The length, depth, height, and width of our sins are covered by the length, depth, height, and width of Christ’s love

Satisfying Love: It’s not just good, its great. Sometimes it is overwhelming, “beyond knowing.”

Unchangeable Love: It never fluctuates or fades, although at times our felt experience of it may have ups and downs.

Eternal Love: Once loved, always loved. A love that never ends, not even at death. Indeed, death only deepens it.

Now that’s a love worth singing about!

For more on this subject, see John Bunyan’s All Loves Excelling: The Saints’ Knowledge of Christ’s Love ($7 paperback) or $1.99 for the Kindle Version.

Blogs

Eternalizing the Old Testament | The Christward Collective

The Forgotten God – Divine Attributes We Are Ashamed Of and Why We Shouldn’t Be | Credo Magazine

10 Reasons Racism is Offensive to God | TGC

David Brooks Charts the Road to Character | The Gospel Coalition

Workers for Your Joy | Desiring God

How to protect your church against sexual orientation and gender identity lawsuits | Denny Burk

R.C. Sproul Jr. – Student In a School of Fools

Kindle Books

Is Jesus in the Old Testament? by Iain Duguid $2.99.

A Christ-Centered Wedding: Rejoicing in the Gospel on Your Big Day by Catherine Parks $2.99.

The Art of Personal Evangelism by William McRaney $0.99. Click through and scroll down for a good number of books on evangelism at low prices.

Plus hundreds of Puritan books at a dollar or less at DollarPuritans.com.

Recommended Book

Not a new one but it is a classic that every man should read.

The Shepherd Leader at Home by Timothy Witmer $7.99.

Video

Randy Alcorn Destroys The False Distinction Between Joy And Happiness

Blogs

You Never Know Who Might Be Listening
Tim Lane: “Once again, I was awakened to the fact that real sufferers are always in my audience. The impact was almost like a reset button for me. When I am teaching, I am more than a “talking head” disseminating information. Rather, I am a servant speaking words of life to people who need grace. You really never know who is listening.”

Is Preaching Really Foolishness?
What did Paul mean when he said that preaching was foolishness?

Why White Christians Should Listen To Black Christians
Jemar Tisby encourages white Christians, who are being pushed to the margins, to start listening to those who’ve lived there.

Five Pitfalls To Avoid In Sermon Illustrations
I’ve fallen down every one of these.

Culture

11 Outrageous Items Still On Sale Online
Nazi uniform anyone? Try Amazon.

Major Harvard-affiliated Boston Hospital Expels Physician For Voicing Concerns About Homosexual Behavior

Biomarker Helps Identify Mental Illness in Women
This is good news and should motivate us to regularly pray for medical researchers: “San Diego researchers report that for the first time, they have identified a biological marker: the over-production of specific genes that could be a diagnostic indicator of mental illness in female psychiatric patients.”

Fly Brain Senses Swat Threat
This is important. “Researchers in the US say that they have solved the mystery of why flies are so hard to swat….The research suggests that the best way of swatting a fly is to creep up slowly and aim ahead of its location.” Wish I’d known that last night.

Kindle Books

Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament $4.99.

To Be Near Unto God by Abraham Kuyper $2.99.

Understanding Scripture: An Overview of the Bible’s Origin, Reliability, and Meaning by Wayne Grudem $2.99.

Pastors in the Classics: Timeless Lessons on Life and Ministry from World Literature by Leland Ryken $1.99.

Video

How To Engage Today’s Gay Marriage Debate

One of the reasons why I almost stopped blogging a couple of months ago was the growing awareness that blog posts are so ephemeral. No matter how good the content, they may flare for 24 hours, but soon they fall off the bottom of the page as more blogs are published and the article is gone forever. Sure, the odd person may discover it on the 34th page of a Google search but it’s basically buried in the virtual cemetery within a few days.

Which raises the question, “Is this the best use of my time?” Would it not be better to work on something with a longer-shelf-life, something more permanent, something that may not burn very brightly but will burn longer?

One of the ways I answered that question was to cut down on the number of blog articles I was writing each week in order to concentrate my limited mental resources and time on a research project which will take me maybe two years to complete, but which I hope will be a long-term blessing to the church.

But another way I answered the question was to make past blog posts more permanent, by turning them into eBooks. With the help of my assistants Sarah, Esther, and Marjolein, we sorted through 5-6 years of blog posts and selected the best 500 or so. We then divided them into two books, The Christian Life and The Christian Ministry, and categorized the articles in each book under several topics.

What made all this so easy was using Pressbooks software. The beauty of this (especially for bloggers) is that it uses exactly the same software as WordPress (see screenshot below).

So if you’ve ever used WordPress, you’ll feel very much at home. And if you haven’t, don’t worry, it’s so easy to learn. Moving around chapters is easy – just drag and drop. And you have a choice of dozens of typeset templates which you can experiment with at the click of a button to see what your finished book will look like. People will think you’ve spent hundreds of dollars on Typesetting.

You can output in PDF, MOBI, and EPUB for free, although the book will have a Pressbooks watermark on the pages. You can remove the watermark by upgrading the book. That costs about $20 for EPUB and MOBI, and a further $80 for PDF. However, Pressbooks often offer special 50% discounts, which you can be informed of via their email list. But even without the discount, you basically can produce a really nice looking eBook in MOBI (Kindle) format for $20. The only additional cost might be to get a cover designed. Mine were done by my blog designer, Cameron Morgan.

The final step is to upload your book to Kindle Direct Publishing, which is quick and easy, and within a few hours, your book will be on sale on Amazon! You can also produce a paperback version of your book using Createspace, a process I’m starting out on with another eBook, God’s Mobile Home (to make it more readable for kids). Pressbooks again can help with the initial stages of that, but I’ve found the Createspace uploading process a bit more complicated compared to Kindle Direct Publishing.

Self-publishing will never take the place of quality Christian publishers; but it might be a useful way for you to get started in writing and publishing, and maybe attract the attention of a publisher or an agent. For myself, I see it as a way of making existing written material more accessible and permanent, and also for quick and smaller publishing projects that are worthwhile but probably wouldn’t interest a traditional publisher. I also used it to bundle together a number of smaller works on happiness that came out of my research for The Happy Christian but were not included in that book (see A Bundle of Joy: Six Books on Christian Happiness).

BTW, although it might be tempting to price your books at zero in order to increase distribution, Amazon don’t like you doing that and will not actively promote your book in their searches (they want their cut!).

Blogs

A Life Changing Event One Year Later | Borrowed Light

Hello, I Am an Idol | The Gospel Coalition

Ask R.C.: What Are Some Concerns You Have With the Homeschooling Movement?

The End of the University by Roger Scruton  First Things

Theological Fidelity: An Interview with David Garner | Ligonier.org

Shepherd the Shepherd | Gentle Reformation

When Leaders Fall, All Are Punished | Desiring God

Kindle Books

Marriage Is: How Marriage Transforms Society and Cultivates Human Flourishing $2.99

Becoming Worldly Saints: Can You Serve Jesus and Still Enjoy Your Life? by Michael Wittmer $2.99

Entrusted with the Gospel by Andreas Kostenberger $0.99.

Reading Comprehension: How To Drastically Improve Your Reading Comprehension and Speed Reading Fast! $2.99.

Video

Free Streaming Video Series on Suffering From Elisabeth Elliot