Spiritual Coffee: What's Worth Reading for a Christian Mind Today

Very often the best words on a subject belong to someone else, and I would rather read them than write about it myself. With the label Spiritual Coffee I will post three links to things from this week that combine thoughtful Christian thinking and application with important issues. Just like many of us use a morning cup of coffee (or three) to kick start our physical activity, my goal is to provide three things to help fuel your mind and heart to engage with the world by wisdom, devotion to the Lord, and clear biblical thinking.

Ground Rules

1. All subjects are fair game, as long as the content tackles them with a Christian mind that seeks to be faithful to God, authentic in love, and an accurate display of the Gospel to the world.


2. I will try to mostly avoid the Christian leaders who are so prominent that you probably saw this in their Twitter, Facebook, or blog feeds already.


3. My priority will be sharing things that will help shape and fortify your mind and heart with mature Christian thinking, but sharing it for consideration doesn't mean I endorse every word or conclusion. Test everything, use your own judgment, and pray and reason through to what is valuable.

Get Your Cup Ready

Happy Ascension Day, Kevin DeYoung (TGC)
How many of us pay attention to Ascension Day? Yet it couldn't be more important for how we view mankind - with an illustration from The Lord of the Rings to close the deal. 

God Is Not Like You -- And That's a Good Thing, Kristin Tabb (TGC) (book review)
Tabb explains that what makes Jen Wilkin's new book on the attributes of God, "None Like Him", so valuable is the way it contrasts how we try to imitate - and be independent of - God. The insights on the human heart double the impact.

"But the most valuable gift None Like Him offers is Wilkin’s stark contrast between each unique divine attribute and our desire to get that attribute. In other words, she reveals a foil for God in the idolatrous human heart. …

"Instead of trusting and worshiping God for his attributes, in our sin we want to hawk them. So rather than pursuing his moral attributes Scripture enjoins (wisdom, justice, mercy, faithfulness, goodness, truthfulness), we seek his limitless power, knowledge, and authority."Wilkin’s insights into how humans attempt to assume limitlessness, rather than embrace God’s infinitude with humble trust, are worth the price of the book. The chapter on self-sufficiency is especially poignant"

Evangelicals and Politics After Trump, Matt Lee Anderson (Mere Orthodoxy)
Many of us as Christians, accepting the responsibilities of citizenship, are wondering where we stand now. This piece captures all of it in one place better than I could have imagined.

"Here is, perhaps, the only silver lining I can find to this sad affair. The rise of Trump is the death blow to any pretenses, any illusions about where the convictions of those conservative Christians involved in politics at our highest levels lie. We face the prospect of a great untethering of the evangelical witness from the Republican party, a prospect that every Christian—including, and especially, those like me who have claimed the Republican name—should meet with joy and gladness."