• Will We Learn in Heaven? Randy Acorn writes “We’ll be learners, forever. Few things excite me more than that.”
• What is the Gospel? Robert Godfrey writes “The church needs to preach the gospel in both its broad and narrow senses.”
• Is the Church Breeding Loneliness? Monica Geyen interviews Rosaria Butterfield. As they talked about friendship and boundaries, they narrowed in on loneliness, especially among single women.
• Does God Direct All the Details of My Life? On this episode of the “Ask Pastor John” podcast, John Piper answers the question “How much of our daily life is sovereignly directed by God?”
• Were the First Christians Socialists? Kevin DeYoung writes “Despite the initial plausibility of a socialist reading of Acts, there are at least two realities that make the sharing in the early church different from socialism and especially communism.”
• What Is the Relationship between the Holy Spirit’s Work and Our Effort in Sanctification? How does sanctification take place? From one of the live Ask Ligonier events, Sinclair Ferguson considers how the fruits of the Spirit become evident in our lives.
• Intelligent Atheists, Intelligent Christians: Who Gets It Right? Scott Sauls writes “The resurrection and absolute lordship of Jesus Christ come as a package deal. If Jesus is risen from the dead, then it means we are accountable to allthat Jesus said, namely, that we are sinners who are without hope apart from him, and that our lives belong completely to him.”

Click on ‘Continue reading’ for:

• More interesting article links
• Great cartoons
• Favorite Quotes of the Week

• Ligonier 2019 Atlanta Conference Media. Recently, Ligonier Ministries hosted a conference in Atlanta. Anthony Carter, B.Charles Jr., David Hall, and Burk Parsons considered six of the core teachings of the Christian faith, helping us understand exactly what we believe as Christians and why these doctrines are so important.  You can now watch all of the messages free.
• Christian Daily Reporter. Check out Adam Ford’s (The Babylon Bee) “Christian Daily Reporter” website (it is not available on social media).
• Help Me Teach the Bible Live with David Platt: Teaching That Ignites a Passion for the World. In this recording of Help Me Teach the Bible in front of a live audience at the 2019 Gospel Coalition National Conference, Nancy Guthrie asked David Platt to work his way from Genesis to Revelation and demonstrate how a teacher can ignite a passion for world mission from whatever part of the Bible they are teaching.
• Simply Put: A New Ligonier Podcast. Simply Put is a new weekly podcast to help you build your Christian vocabulary. Each episode explains a different theological term in clear, concise language and shares stories and illustrations that apply it to your life.

• The Meaning of the Cross. In this brief video clip from his teaching series Hath God Said?, C.Sproul considers the various ways the cross was viewed by people in the New Testament.
• The Four Hundred Year Flower. Kevin DeYoung writes “The Synod of Dort is a high-water mark of Calvinism, but it would never have taken place were it not for Arminianism.”

• Suffering: God’s Workroom of Grace. In this message, delivered at the 2019 Gospel Coalition National Conference, Paul Tripp speaks on God’s Work in Trials.
• J.D. Greear on Whether Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God. J. D. Greear explains how the Christian and Muslim ideas of God are irreconcilably different; however, Greear suggests that it’s possible to work from some shared assumptions about God in apologetic conversations with Muslims.
• Why Culture Matters. Watch this nineteen-minute message in which Tim Keller provides a fundamental perspective on why culture matters to God and therefore must matter to us.
• John 3:16 and Man’s Ability to Choose God. C. Sproul writes “What does this famous verse teach about fallen man’s ability to choose Christ? The answer, simply, is nothing. The argument used by non-Reformed people is that the text teaches that everybody in the world has it in their power to accept or reject Christ. A careful look at the text reveals, however, that it teaches nothing of the kind.”
• Why We Can’t Choose God. In this brief video clip from his teaching series Knowing Christ, R.C. Sproul explains why we can’t choose God, even though we have free will.
• Ordinary Christians Will End Abortion. Tim Counts writes “The question for us as Christians is, Will we continue to pray? Will we continue to speak? Will we continue to act? As a result of the love of Christ poured into our lives and hearts, the killing of babies in the womb cannot become white noise to us.”
• How to Mortify Sin. Sinclair Ferguson writes “Paul gives us the pattern and rhythm we need. Like Olympic long jumpers, we will not succeed unless we go back from the point of actionto a point from which we can gain energy for the strenuous effort of dealing with sin. How, then, does Paul teach us to do this?”
• Christianity and Politics in an Age of Upheaval: A Conversation with Jonathan Leeman. On this episode of the Thinking in Public podcast, recorded live at the 2019 Gospel Coalition National Conference, Albert Mohler talks to Jonathan Leeman about his book How The Nations Rage: Rethinking Faith and Politics in a Divided Age.

• The more we are convinced of our utter depravity and inability from first to last, the more excellent will Jesus appear. John Newton
• Your salvation is not kept secure by you holding onto Jesus, but by Him holding onto you—and He will never let you go. Steven Lawson
• You are coming to a King––large petitions with you bring, for His grace and power are such none can ever ask too much. John Newton
• The question is not, “Why is there only one way to God?” but “Why is there even one way?” R.C. Sproul
• Christ did not die to make men savable, but to save them. Charles Spurgeon
• When Jesus died on the cross, the veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom so that big sinners like me might fit through. Charles Spurgeon
• The parent who tries to train without setting a good example is building with one hand and pulling down with the other. J.C. Ryle
• Biblical orthodoxy without compassion is surely the ugliest thing in the world. Francis Schaeffer
• Hear our loss of focus on the gospel in our songs. This isn’t a comment about musical styles and tastes… In many cases, congregations unwittingly have begun to sing about themselves and how they are feeling rather than about God and His glory. Sinclair Ferguson