Links for the Weekend (12/21/2018)

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Look Forward to a Better Christmas

Matt Chandler has a great article at The Gospel Coalition connecting his personal story about cancer to Christmas. Here’s a sample.

Christmas finishes quickly each year. What we look forward to soon lies behind us. But you can look forward to a day that will never end and a future that will never disappoint. The decorations will get packed away. But this year, hope and joy need not. You can look at the God who came and lay in that manger. And you can look forward to the day when he comes again.

Joni Eareckson Tada and Suffering

At Breakpoint, John Stonestreet writes about Joni Eareckson Tada, suffering, and the gospel. Only the true message of the Bible is big and sturdy enough to handle the deep suffering that often comes our way.

This type of Christianity, that’s focused on giving us a positive experience and making us feel good, is a small shriveled vision of the Gospel. This kind of Christianity will crumble in the face of true suffering. It won’t withstand the assaults of quadriplegia, of terminal illness, or of a child with a severe disability. It certainly won’t disciple it’s people to withstand the social disapproval of an angry culture, or a school full of angry peers. It leaves us poorer and anemic.

Internet Church Isn’t Really Church

It’s refreshing (if a little surprising) to see this argument in a column in the New York Times. Laura Turner argues that while live-streaming a church service may be necessary for some, choosing to do “church via app” when you could be there in person misses the point of church.

In an era when everything from dates to grocery delivery can be scheduled and near instant, church attendance shouldn’t be one more thing to get from an app. We can be members of a body best when we are all together — we can mourn when we observe and wipe away tears, just as we can rejoice when we can share smiles and have face-to-face conversations.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

At the WPCA blog this week, Sarah Wisniewski wrote about what God has been teaching her through the book of Hosea. Check it out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the groups referenced here.