Word of caution

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Hypothetically speaking, if you tell your child that it's okay to pee in the water at the beach - like my husband might have hypothetically done because bathrooms weren't easily accessible - then you might also want to tell your child that she should not make said action obvious to other beachgoers.


Or maybe I wasn't speaking hypothetically.

I'm just glad it was early in the morning, and the only people (an older couple, probably some child's grandparents) who noticed were laughing. At my kid? Or at the fact that I stopped to take a picture before addressing the behavior? I'm not sure, but probably both.

Multiplying by zero

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We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. (John 15:12)

Multiply zero by any other number, no matter how high, and the result will be the same. Altruism is doubly pointless when both the one who seeks the good of others and those he seeks to help are ignorant of the meaning of life…The good works we perform for our fellow man are filthy rags in God’s sight because of His surpassing holiness (Isa. 64:6; Titus 3:5). (Jason Stellman, Dual Citizens, p. 107)

Should we serve people and engage in social and political issues? Yes. Should we do it at the expense of or with more importance than sharing the Gospel? No. However, we can - and should - do them concurrently. Just preaching the Gospel without engaging those around us is little more than shouting at the masses, acting as the Pit Preacher at UNC or the Brickyard Preacher at State. Just engaging the world without sharing the truth that is found in Christ is giving a false and fleeting hope; it's multiplying our works by zero.

Doing both? Now that's Christ-like. That's the Gospel.

Book review: The Church History ABCs

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The book? The Church History ABCs: Augustine and 25 Other Heroes of the Faith by Stephen J. Nichols and Ned Bustard

My thoughts? (part one) If you have kids and want them to have a primer in church history, get this. Like, now. Seriously.

The gist? This book is a colorful, kid-friendly ABCs of, you guessed it, church history. From Augustine to Zwingli, you'll find illustrations and a paragraph for each person. In the back, a more adult-slanted paragraph can be found, which also explains some of the more cryptic pictures. For example, Jonathan Edwards is eating a chocolate bar in his because he loved that particular treat, and he has a spider pictured with him as a call back to his famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," in which he compared sinners to spiders dangling over hell by a thread. (Wow. That sounded creepy, as if you'll find that type of thing in these pages. No worries, this book doesn't delve into imagery like that!) The authors also provided a chronological timeline in the back, from Ignatius (who died in 110) to Florenece Young (died 1940).

My thoughts? (part two) As you'll see in the pictures below, I have a sweet girl who loves this book. I'm not sure how much she's getting from it yet, because some of the vocabulary is a little over her head (it's geared toward kids a little older than her, ages 4-8), but she loves the colors, loves to have Mommy read it to her, and loves asking questions about the words and pictures. Did I fall in love with it right away? Yes. Do I love it even more now because she loves it? YES.

Did I love it when she climbed into bed at 6:30am yesterday with the book, woke me up, and asked me to read her all of the stories? Notsomuch. But I do still love the book! (As does she, even in bad lighting...)











And did I mention that you should get this? 'Cause you should.

Edited to add: Oh my goodness, I just found the book's website. It has coloring pages and activities for some of the people featured. I'm psyched.

The FTC requires that I disclose that Crossway Books provided this book for me to review. Crossway, however, required nothing from me and didn't ask for a positive review or anything else. Therefore, I like Crossway more than the FTC, but I include this disclaimer because I also like not being fined by the FTC.