Weekly Wisdom [08.03.18]

Need some Weekly Wisdom?  Here are my favorite resources of the week.

VERSE OF THE WEEK

and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place [Deut. 1:31].

BOOK OF THE WEEK

The Storytelling God: Seeing the Glory of Jesus in His Parables by Jared C. Wilson

The prodigal son. The good Samaritan. The treasure hidden in a field. Most of us have heard Jesus’s parables before. Yet if these stories strike us as merely sweet, heartwarming, or sentimental, we can be sure we’ve misread them. In The Storytelling God, pastor Jared Wilson helps us to see how Jesus’s parables reveal profound spiritual truths about God, humanity, the world, and the future.

Discarding the notion that Christ’s parables are nothing more than moralistic fables, this book highlights how each one is designed to drive us to Jesus in awe, need, faith, and worship.

PODCAST OF THE WEEK

Did Paul and Moses Prioritize Mission over Joy in God? by Ask Pastor John

My question: How could a Christian Hedonist, with a properly ordered mind, accept eternal separation from his greatest delight for the sake of achieving some other end? Aren’t Paul or Moses suggesting a personal end in which the salvation of the lost, not God, is their higher concern?”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Every Christian must be fully Christian by bringing God into his whole life, not merely into some spiritual realm.  –Dietrich Bonhoeffer

SONG OF THE WEEK

Great version of one of my favorite hymns.  For this conference, John Piper wrote some additional verses for “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.”

POST OF THE WEEK

What Is the Bible, Anyway?  by Tim Challies

We Christians spend a lot of time reading the Bible, hearing it preached, and meditating on its words. Why this commitment? We are committed to the Bible because of what it is and what it does. The Bible guides us to its purpose and power through the many metaphors it uses to describe itself. Here is a pretty good collection of them. Perhaps you’d do well to meditate on a few of them.

TIP OF THE WEEK

Let the List Overwhelm You. When a big project at work, church, or home, has the potential to overwhelm you – let it!  I have realized that the anxiety that surrounds the unknown is much worse than the reality of what you actually have to do.  When a big project is up ahead, write out everything that has to be done either on a white board or a piece of paper (digital format might work for you, but standing and scribbling is helpful for me).  As the list grows, you will think of more things.  Put it all out there, be overwhelmed, and then itemize and prioritize what is next.  It has to be done either way, I have just found that seeing it all in one place provides the scope of the project but a clear next step.