THIS & THAT and Favorite Quotes of the Week

• 8 Ways to Help Depressed Christians. David Murray writes “Many of us struggle with what to do when someone we know is depressed. We want to help but fear, confusion, or misunderstanding holds us back. So, let me suggest eight guidelines for helping depressed people.”
• Should Christians Cremate Their Loved Ones? John Piper writes “My proposal in this article is that Christian churches be willing to help families financially with simple, Christ-exalting funerals and burials, so that no Christian is drawn to cremation because it’s cheaper.”
• Please Stop Saying “Christianity Isn’t a Religion, It’s a Relationship. Kevin Halloran writes “The next time you’re tempted to say, “Christianity isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship”—hold your tongue. You’re not only wrong, you may sound dumb³, and will miss a chance to share what you wanted to communicate all along.”
• Accept Your Leadership.Tim Challies writes “Your family needs to be led. Your wife and children need you to be the leader God calls you to be. He calls you to lead in love, to study the life and character of Jesus Christ, and to imitate him. Do that and God will be pleased. Do that and your family will be blessed. Run to win by accepting and embracing your leadership.”
• The Knee-Buckling Weight of God’s Grace. Scotty Smith prays “Since you gave Jesus to usand for us, of course we can trust you for everything else we actually need. Forgive for thinking otherwise. Forgive our discontent, envy and unbelief.”
• How Do We Fail in Bible Reading? Watch this four-minute video from John Piper.
• The 11 Beliefs You Should Know about Jehovah’s Witnesses When They Knock at the Door. Justin Taylor writes “The following is a brief overview of what Jehovah’s Witnesses believe, along with what the Bible really teaches, printed among the many articles and resources in the back of the ESV Study Bible.
• The Death Knell on Legalism. Watch this less than two-minute video clip from the 2017 Ligonier National Conference in which John MacArthur explains that Jesus’ teaching of the new birth in John 3 is the death knell on legalism.
• How Do You Do Family Worship? In this episode of “Honest Answers, Don Whitney states that “Three syllables is all you have to remember, read, pray, sing.” Watch the six-minute video.
• Don’t Check Your Baggage. Marshall Segal writes “Someone you know — someone struggling with the same sins you once committed against God — needs to hear what God has done for you.”
• Don’t Waste Your Commute. Having just visited my team in Atlanta, I was reminded that some folks have significant commutes to and from work each day. Nick Batzig writes “Here are four very tangible things that we can work toward as we attempt to redeem the time on our commutes.”
• A Surprising Ingredient in Christian Contentment. Erik Raymond writes “Initially unsettling and frankly a bit off-putting, a robust doctrine of sin is an essential ingredient for our contentment.”
• A Pilot Explains What It Really Means When There’s Turbulence During a Flight. I enjoy the benefits of air travel, but I’m certainly not a fan of turbulence. I found this article from Patrick Smith, a commercial airline pilot who currently flies Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft, to be both interesting and comforting.

To Make You Smile:

• Angry Arminian Mob Pulls Down Statue of John Calvin. The Babylon Bee reports “The band of Wesleyan troublemakers brought a rope, lassoed it around the neck of the stone likeness of Calvin, and yanked it down while yelling rallying cries like “Down with limited atonement!” “You’ll never take our free will!” and “For Servetus!”

In The News:

• Letter from Berlin: The Lessons of History and the Heresy of Racial Superiority. Albert Mohler writes “You cannot preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and hold to any notion of racial superiority. It is impossible.”
• Race, Gospel and the Moment. Tim Keller writes “How should Christians, and especially those with an Anglo-white background, respond to last weekend’s alt-right gathering in Charlottesville and its tragic aftermath?”

• Our supreme need, our only need, is to know God, the living God, and the power of His might. We need nothing else. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
• Holiness is not the way to Jesus. Jesus is the way to holiness. Steve Lawson
• The Father’s love is ours in his Son, the Son’s gift is ours in his Spirit. Sinclair Ferguson
• All of us will have temptations in the years ahead to compromise, and we will need each other to stand firm. Kevin DeYoung
• It’s remarkable that in all his writings, Paul’s prayers for friends contain no appeals for changes in their circumstances. Tim Keller
• If you want to know the lessons you need to learn the most, pay attention to the verses you don’t underline. Scott Sauls  
• One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time. John Piper
• Have you ever considered: Adam and Eve only got clothes after they sinned? That means laundry is a result of the fall. Kevin DeYoung
• I shudder to think how many churchgoers in the Bible Belt are going to hear Jesus say, “I never knew you.” John Piper