:: 7 Thoughts on Reading the Bible - from J.C. Ryle's book Practical Religion.

:: 99 Ways to Entertain Your Family For Free - Seems like a useful book on fun family time.  I'm planning to order our family a copy.  Dads, you ought to work hard at planning stuff for the family.  Books like this might help make is easier.

:: Marvin Olasky interviews Tim Keller - It's about a 70 minute interview. Keller answers questions about his own story—on depression, introversion, conversion, overworking, cancer, marriage, and more.  (HT: Justin Taylor)

:: Steve Jobs, Apple, and Porn - Super interesting article.  Worth the read.  And I'm not suggesting you all convert from PC's to Apple, but I thought it worth highlighting when a big time CEO takes a moral stand.  Here's an excerpt: (again, thanks to Justin Taylor)

• Jobs has argued that he wants his portable computer devices to not sell or stock pornography. When a critic emailed him to say that this infringed his freedoms, Jobs emailed back and told him to buy a different type of computer. Steve Jobs is a fan of Bob Dylan. So one customer emailed him to ask how Dylan would feel about Jobs’ restrictions of customers’ freedoms. The CEO of Apple replied to say that he values: ‘Freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom. The times they are a changin’ and some traditional PC folks feel their world is slipping away. It is.’ The interlocuter replied: “I don’t want ‘freedom from porn’. Porn is just fine! And I think my wife would agree.” In the most revealing line, Steve Jobs dismissed the critic thus: “You might care more about porn when you have kids.” Pause for a moment and consider what the above emails represent. The CEO of one of the wealthiest, most successful international companies, responds to the email of a customer. Business prospers on the mantra ‘The customer is always right.’ Business wants the customers’ money. But in this case, over the moral issue of pornography, Jobs is happy to tell customers to buy a different product. He argues that children and innocence ought to be preserved—and that trumps the dollar. Google (with their motto ‘Don’t be evil’) rake in billions through pornography. Ranks of employees spend their time categorising and arranging advertising for pornography. (I know, I spent some time discussing the difficulties posed to a Christian who worked in their UK HQ.) Pornography is huge business, yet here is the CEO of Apple telling the pornography businesses to take their dollars elsewhere.

:: Proverbs, Community, and the Culture - Good post by Tim Keller.  

• "So Proverbs cannot be “dipped into.” It only repays very long study in which you keep the whole book in your head and compare passage with passage. How is that best done? In a community! Some commentators argue that the book of Proverbs was originally written as a manual to be studied by a community of young men under the mentorship of older men — for a number of years. Each proverb was to be discussed and considered and compared to the others. Examples from life were to be shared. In other words, Proverbs may have been written to be the basis for deep, comprehensive personal growth through mentoring in community. It touches on every area of life."  Read the whole thing.

:: A Prayer about Gospel Cover-Up - A really good prayer by Scotty Smith based on Proverbs 17:9 - "He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends."