Daily Links 3-24-14

Good morning. Here are some links to help start off the week. In today's edition: features of the New Calvinism, marketing the moon, things we should get rid of to help our kids, and more.

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John Piper recently spoke at Westminster Seminary and spoke on the features of New Calvinism. Tim Challies has a nice summary of his address. 

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If you are looking for a way to waste time on the Internet, here's the best way I know how.

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On the other hand, here are three ways to get more out of every hour. 

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Marketing the Moon: The Selling the Apollo Lunar Program appears to be a fascinating look at public relations in the era of the Space Race.

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The perfect thing for a book lover: literary greeting cards.

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George Washington didn't lose his temper often but there was one time when it was reported he swore "like an angel from heaven."

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9 things we should get rid of to help our kids. Some very sound advice in this article.

Daily Links 1-6-14

Godd morning! In today's edition: Hugh Hewitt on living The Happiest Life, Sherlock Holmes the scientist, don't waste you weaknesses, essential books on the American Revolution, and more.

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National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez interviews Hugh Hewitt about his newest book The Happiest Life. Related: my review of the book. It was also one of my favorite books I read last year.

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John Piper encourages us to not waste our weaknesses:

What is your goal in 2014? I hope it is to be humble and to magnify the power of Christ. If it is, then one key strategy is to identify and exploit your weaknesses. 

What does this mean? Negatively, it means that we stop complaining (to God and to people) about the things we are constitutionally not good at. And, positively, it means that we look for ways to turn our weaknesses into a Christ-exalting experience. 

When I say “constitutionally not good at,” I mean that we have done our best to overcome the weakness, but we can’t. God has ordained that, through genetics or life-experience, we are limited, broken, weak. Paul asked that God would take his weakness away (verse 8), but God said no. Which means that sooner or later, we should stop praying against the weakness and accept it as God’s design for our humility and the glory of Christ.

Hat tip: Challies

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How Sherlock Holmes is the archetypal scientist.

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A symposium on the essential titles to read about the American Revolution. (Hat tip: Washington's Library). I would recommend David McCullough's 1776 and John Adams, David Hackett Fischer's Washington's Crossing, and Jeff Shaara's two Revolutionary War novels Rise to Rebellion and The Glorious Cause as a good place to start.

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What does the future hold for libraries in the digital age? Here are five possibilities.

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Joe Carter offers a more unconventional (and possibly more practical) method for reading the Bible:

A few years ago I stumbled across a variation of the four steps in an article by theologian Fred Sanders and implemented his recommendation that day. I later had the pleasure of meeting Sanders in person and telling him how his post had transformed my life. My hope is that at least one other person will follow this advice and experience the same transformative effect.

Before I reveal the four steps I want to reiterate that while the advice could transform your life, it likely will not. As with most life-altering advice, it is simple, easy to implement, and even easier to ignore. Statistically speaking, the odds are great that you'll ignore this advice. 

But a handful of you will try it so for the one or two people who will find this useful, the four steps that will transform your worldview are:

1. Choose a book of the Bible.

2. Read it in its entirety.

3. Repeat step #2 twenty times.

4. Repeat this process for all books of the Bible. 

Christians often talk about having a Biblical worldview yet most have only a rudimentary knowledge of the Bible. They attempt to build a framework without first gathering the lumber and cement needed to create a solid foundation. The benefits of following this process should therefore be obvious. By fully immersing yourself into the text you'll come to truly know the text. You'll deepen your understanding of each book and knowledge of the Bible as a whole.

Daily Links 11-20-13

Stories of amazing photographs, American Girl dolls, objects that made America, the guitar as an American icon, and more in today's link roundup.

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The story behind Dorothea Lange's iconic Migrant Mother photograph and how she almost didn't take it.

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Tracing the history of an American icon which is also a work of art: C. F. Martin Guitars.

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The Smithsonian has selected 101 Objects that made America. Which ones would make your list?

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American Girl dolls are changing and it's not for the better.

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This photograph may not look like much. It was taken in the South Pacific in the early days of World War II.

The photo was the result of a team effort of nine men. It is arguably the most decorated photograph in history. Read the fascinating story here.

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Aaron Armstrong has an excellent review of John Piper's new book on Calvinism. It looks like a great read.

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Amazon to start delivering packages on Sundays utilizing the U. S. Postal Service. Could this help the Post Office make its way back to solvency?

Daily Links 11-5-13

A fresh roundup of links for your morning reading. In today's edition, a call to parents to require obedience from their children, defining fecundophobia, and more.

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John Piper has a few things to say about children and obedience:

I am writing this to plead with Christian parents to require obedience of their children. I am moved to write this by watching young children pay no attention to their parents’ requests, with no consequences. Parents tell a child two or three times to sit or stop and come or go, and after the third disobedience, they laughingly bribe the child. This may or may not get the behavior desired. 

Last week, I saw two things that prompted this article. One was the killing of 13-year-old Andy Lopez in Santa Rosa, California, by police who thought he was about to shoot them with an assault rifle. It was a toy gun. What made this relevant was that the police said they told the boy two times to drop the gun. Instead he turned it on them. They fired. 

I do not know the details of that situation or if Andy even heard the commands. So I can’t say for sure he was insubordinate. So my point here is not about young Lopez himself. It’s about a “what if.” What if he heard the police, and simply defied what they said? If that is true, it cost him his life. Such would be the price of disobeying proper authority.

I witnessed such a scenario in the making on a plane last week. I watched a mother preparing her son to be shot. I was sitting behind her and her son, who may have been seven years old. He was playing on his digital tablet. The flight attendant announced that all electronic devices should be turned off for take off. He didn’t turn it off. The mother didn’t require it. As the flight attendant walked by, she said he needed to turn it off and kept moving. He didn’t do it. The mother didn’t require it. 

One last time, the flight attendant stood over them and said that the boy would need to give the device to his mother. He turned it off. When the flight attendant took her seat, the boy turned his device back on, and kept it on through the take off. The mother did nothing. I thought to myself, she is training him to be shot by police.

Hat tip: Challies

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Dispelling the myth "I'm bad at math" is genetic. The bottom line is that you have to work harder but you can get better at it.

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Mollie Hemingway has an insightful piece on fecundophobia - the irrational fear of families with large numbers of children:

There is much more than a whiff of the misogyny in denigrating mothers of multiple children as brainless, in stating that mothers who are homemakers are inferior to those who “earn” their living, or in attacking women for prioritizing fertility above independence. It’s not just that nobody on planet earth could be truly independent — which is to say completely self-reliant or free of any other human support. It’s not just that we each depended on others from the moment of our conception to birth, but all of society is comprised of individuals who work with each other and depend on each other throughout their lives. Or healthy societies are, at least. It may be impolitic to suggest that men and women are in any way different, science be damned, but many women have a particular specialty in cultivating relationships and family. To denigrate women who acknowledge and accept this as a good thing rather than fight against it is not exactly life-affirming.

Hat tip: John Stonestreet

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How to read a lot more than you are now.

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A defense lawyer's reply to the government's motion to not be referred to as "the government". (Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds)

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Revealed: a once-lost art collection valued at approximately $1.5 billion that was thought to have been destroyed in air raids during World War II was discovered behind rotting food in a Munich apartment.

Who to Follow on Twitter - Pastoral Edition

When I first started blogging nearly ten years ago one of the things I noticed was how many pastors were embracing this new medium. It makes a lot of sense as the Internet is a good medium to share teaching whether by audio, video or written form. So it should come as no surprise that there are pastors who embrace Twitter as part of their overall social media presence. Some use it to publicize their blogs while others simply share Scriptures or other thoughts. Here are a few of my favorite pastors to follow:

1. Timothy Keller (@timkellernyc)

Pastor of Redeemer Church in New York City and author of numerous books, Keller is preaching the gospel in one of the toughest cities in America for Christians to live. He's a leading reformed pastor and is currently in very high demand on the conference circuit. Like several of the pastors I will list here he is able to share nuggets of truth that will get you to think about your life and relationship to Christ.

2. John Piper (@JohnPiper)

He's the founder of Desiring God Ministries and another prolific author. For a guy who just retired from the pulpit this spring he sure stays busy. He's still doing a lot of writing and teaching which makes him an interest person to follow. He will also link to a lot of other pastors and teachers as well which is another really good reason to follow him.

3. Kevin DeYoung (@RevKevDeYoung)

He is pastor of University Reformed Church in Lansing, Michigan. He's also another of the growing number of Reformed pastors on the Internet. He also blogs at The Gospel Coalition and is worth frequently checking.

4. Mark Dever (@MarkDever) 

He is the Senior Pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC and founder of 9 Marks Ministries which is devoted to the development of healthy churches. He is also one of the founders of Together for the Gospel. He is a prolific tweeter and his writings have been of tremendous encouragement to me in my previous roles in church leadership.

5. Albert Mohler (@albertmohler)

Technically speaking, he's not (currently) a pastor. Dr. Mohler is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He is another principal leader behind Together for the Gospel and also is associated with 9 Marks. Dr. Mohler is also a prolific blogger and hosts a daily radio program addressing current issues from a Christian world view.

6. Tim Challies (@challies)

Tim is an associate pastor with Grace Fellowship Church in Toronto. However, I have had the opportunity to get to know him more through his blog. He is one of the smartest guys among Reformed thinkers that I know of. He's also the most prolific reader I have ever seen as he publishes book reviews at a staggering rate. In fact, I am usually searching his blog first to see whether he has read a book before deciding to tackle it myself.

Previous entries in this series:

Who to Follow on Twitter - Let's Eat!

Who to Follow on Twitter - Don't Know Much About History

Friday Tweet Recap

During the week I'm usually tweeting out articles via Twitter so here are a few things that you might have missed that caught my attention this week:

Seven marks of false teachers. This is especially good advice if you're either looking for a church or evaluating what pastors to listen to .

I am really bad at remembering someone's name so this article provided some pretty helpful tips.

I didn't realize John Piper had retired from the pulpit earlier this spring. He's spending a year in Knoxville which is a lovely city not far from where I live. The most striking thing he said in this article is that he intentionally left Minneapolis behind to give his successor at Bethlehem Baptist Church some breathing room.

It was Father's Day last Sunday and Joel Miller has some thoughts on what every child needs to hear from their dad.

My daughter pointed this one out to me. I think it has to do with the fact she wants to major in theatre. 10 Ways Being a Theatre Major Prepared Me For Success.

John Stonestreet has some thoughts about what to say to our daughters about the morning after pill.

It's a little bit of a shock but longtime Los Angeles Dodgers play-by-play announcer Vin Scully almost signed with the New York Yankees. And demonstrating that he is a true Renaissance man, he took to Twitter earlier this week during the Dodgers-Yankees series. It was as beautiful as you could have imagined.

More baseball: Grantland's Jonah Keri examines the flawed importance of the closer. I have always wondered whether too much emphasis is placed on the 9th inning. Now I'm sure of it. This also made me think of this piece from Joe Posnanski.

This article got me thinking: 9 Qualities of Truly Confident People. It's an interesting read. On a related note, the four questions great leaders ask.

Some of these vintage rules for conversation (from 1875!) are really remarkable. It would be interesting to see how different our conversations would be if we applied these rules.

Life Magazine has been posting photos from their vast library online. The latest installment is unpublished color photos of the ruins of Normandy following D-Day. These pictures are amazing.

Also from the Life Magazine archives, color portraits from the 1950s of Ella Fitzgerald and other jazz legends.

Here's a list of 8 things you shouldn't do every day. I confess that I am guilty of quite of few of these mistakes.

Some tips on how to read a book. I will admit I hadn't thought about some of these strategies before and they look like they are worth a try. This article also has some tips on how to read more books including some interesting ways to keep track of books on your reading list.

That's it. Have a great weekend.