Links for the Weekend (7/19/2019)

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

Embracing the Good in ‘Goodbye’

On this side of heaven, saying “goodbye” is a sad inevitability. It happens whenever God calls his people to a different earthly location. But when people we love move away, or when we are the ones moving, there is often profound grief knocking at our doors. Heidi Carlson helps us handle goodbyes as Christians.

Whatever the circumstances of the parting, grief is a close companion of goodbye. God created us for community, and when physical separation breaks our community, we grieve. We long for togetherness. As I tell my children and remind myself, it’s okay to cry at goodbyes. As believers, we stand in a long line of the faithful who have grieved at a departure. However, we grieve with the hope and knowledge that eternal togetherness is certain.

Living in the Bodies We Have and not the Ones We Don’t

Lore Ferguson Wilbert wrote a beautiful reflection on living in a body that is both wonderfully made by God and yet profoundly affected by brokenness. She has spent the last year writing a book on the topic, and this is a meditation on submitting to the bodies we have, not the bodies we want.

I have spent nearly 40 years trying to be the body I am not. I remember with startling clarity the moments I began to look for another body: the words a friend’s mother said about my pubescent body, the comment from the preteen girl with the perfect nose and teeth, the jovial jokes my family made about our genetic disposition (male and female) for sturdy thighs—these all took my eyes away from the fearfully and wonderfully made creation of the body God gave me and put my eyes on the impossible pursuit of the bodies God gave others. I worshipped the form I couldn’t have. I became a slave to the body I wanted, counting calories, straightening my hair, trying every new diet with a hashtag and eliminating every food group one at a time.

10 Things You Should Know about Reformed Theology

The phrase “Reformed theology” broadly describes the theological framework to which our church subscribes. What does that mean? If you’re new to Reformed theology, or if you’d just like an overview, check out this post at the Crossway blog from Paul Smalley and Joel Beeke.

God-centered teaching calls us to God-centered living. The Word aims to inculcate the wisdom of God’s Word through faith in Christ (2 Tim. 3:15), and the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord (Prov. 9:10). Though it is possible to do theology in a spiritually arid, merely intellectual manner, Reformed theology has historically aimed at the same Paul had in his teaching: “love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Tim. 1:5).

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published The Sad Song of Samson, by Zachary Wisniewski. Check it out!

Thanks to Maggie A and Phil A for their help in rounding up links this week.

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