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Magazine, Past Issue

Mar/April 2025 issue

WHAT'S INSIDE: Christians don't retire / Free video series to protect families from porn / Tariffs are terrible economics: why Canada shouldn't hit back / Aged saints can tell you what your peers don't know or won't say / Planning for retirement / More time to pray: Martin & Christina Veenstra on retirement in your nineties / Necessary Endings: finding the courage to let go in business, church, and family / "Can You Build it?" contest winners / Life in bloom: the gift of flowers / A century of cinema for your family: 20+ films to take you and your kids through the 100 years of feature films / Euthanasia changed the abortion battle / Why write? / How to write... for Reformed Perspective / Fiction for tween and teen boys / Chang Shen: grace to persevere / Are there little green men? / Come + Explore God's majestic microverse / and more!

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News

Saturday Selections – Mar. 29, 2025

Propaganda techniques (10 minutes)

This 1948 or 1949 movie highlights seven different propaganda techniques, and to be forewarned about them is to be forearmed. This could be great for a high school English class. Click the title above for the full 10-minute color presentation, or watch a 7-minute B&W abridgment below.

News or narrative – when the truth-tellers can't be trusted

What with images and video that can be faked so quickly and so skillfully, the biggest problem with our news consumption might be the speed at which we imbibe. When we just hit headlines, or read whoever the algorithm puts in front of us, we can't know if they are trustworthy – we can't know that this is true. So... slow down.

The slippery slope of theistic Darwinism

Howard Van Till was a physics professor at Calvin College who used to be "the pre-eminent example of an evangelical Christian scientist in the 1990s who defended Darwinian evolution."

Until he stopped being Christian.

Or even a theist.

Doctor Google, influencer moms, and the local Church

"I recently saw some Christian influencers offer a course on marriage, though they had been married for less than two years. They had paltry experience and undoubtedly little wisdom, but they did have a big platform. And many were eager to learn from them. God has carefully constructed his church so that, as much as we may benefit from those who are far off, we are likely to find the greatest and most credible help nearby. Your church has many seasoned saints who have spent their whole lives following the Lord and whose godliness is on display each and every time the church gathers."
- Tim Challies

A mid-life assessment

A pastor's wife discovers with age comes new:

"...temptations to impatience, ungraciousness, pride. This had surprised me then, but I now see this is true not just in ministry. I used to imagine I’d have to fight the same besetting sins my whole life, and while some old struggles still remain, I’ve found I need to also be vigilant for new ones."

Rend Collective: Build Your Kingdom Here

A song and a prayer.


Today's Devotional

April 1 - Introduction to the prophecies of the Messiah

The Old Testament is full of prophecies regarding the coming Messiah – the greater Son of David. Isaiah has often been called ‘The Gospel According to Isaiah’ as it is so detailed in describing the birth, ministry, suffering, death and victory of God’s Son – the Servant King.

In the New Testament we see many references from the Psalms, to God’s promise working itself out in His >

Today's Manna Podcast

Manna Podcast banner: Manna Daily Scripture Meditations and open Bible with jar logo

Knowing God

Serving #799 of Manna, prepared by Jake Torenvliet, is called "Knowing God".











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Soup and Buns

Do not worry...

Cheer up, ye saints of God, there’s nothing to worry about! Nothing to make you feel afraid, nothing to make you doubt. Remember Jesus never fails, so why not trust Him and shout – You’ll be sorry you worried at all tomorrow morning. I have often sung this little chorus to remind myself not to worry. But it is hard not to worry about ourselves and our loved ones. We face ill health, accidents, fear of pain, career problems, loss of income, fear of poverty, and worries about all sorts of other sufferings! Dr. Richard Gaffin preached a very good sermon on the topic of worry. He began with the very familiar Matthew 6:25-34, which says, in part: “…do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?... For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.” Why do we worry? Is it normal? Is it a solution, a part of life, a coping mechanism? 3 that lead to worry Let’s think about these three words: forgetfulness, pride, and ingratitude. We worry because we forget who our God is. He is the Creator of heaven and earth. He is our Father. “He loves me so much that I do not doubt He will provide whatever I need for body and soul. He desires to do so because He is my loving Father; He is able to do so because He is Almighty God” (Heidelberg Catechism, LD 9). But why do we forget? We forget because our pride gets in the way. We look at life as a circle where we are the center. We ask ourselves: what are my needs, and my desires? We develop a level of expectation as to what we want to have. This pride sets us on a spiral of desire that leads to frustration and anger when we do not get what we want, and worry is one of the results. What do we worry about? All worrying is about suffering and loss. We do not want anything to happen that we consider “negative.” In every instance, it comes down to being concerned that our desires will not be satisfied. That’s a pretty harsh way to look at a devastating loss, though, isn’t it? But when we pray “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” we acknowledge that our place is as the clay in the Potter’s hands. We forget that He loves us, and instead we fear that He might not give us what we want. We fear He will decide differently and we will not like it. Humbly... The way to be free from worry is to humble ourselves before God. This is, as Dr. Gaffin preached, a “distinctly Christian contrast to the unrealistic outcome of pride.” When we are humble, we see ourselves exactly as we should be, as we are. A humble Christian sees that the God with the mighty arm will work things out. Then we can be free of worry, and stop acting like the unbelievers. But we forget because we do not spend much time in prayer. Our pride shuts us up inside of ourselves, making our prayer superficial. But prayer is where God reminds us where our hope and faith are. It is a means of grace that He has provided. It is the opportunity to cast ourselves on our God and to be taken lovingly in His arms. He allows us to leave the matter with Him. Still, we forget and become ungrateful. We are no better than the Israelites, as we often forget all that God has done for us. Unbelievers have every reason to worry because they “bear the wrath of God.” Those who fear death end up fearing life also. They cannot teach us how to live. We, however, as God’s people have the deepest source of genuine thankfulness, and no good reason to worry. Conclusion Now, there is also a difference between genuine constructive concern and counterproductive worrying, and we must prayerfully ask our Lord to help us to discern that difference. A pain in the chest should cause concern and provoke a visit to the doctor if not an emergency call. And it is our normal human response to feel afraid or sad or grief-stricken at given times. But the definition of worry is: “to torment oneself with, or suffer from, disturbing thoughts; fret.” We must leave the “what ifs….” with the Lord. It is the humble, prayerful, thankful Christian who can be free from worry. Sharon Bratcher's second book, "Life and Breath and Everything," has just been released....


AI





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Drama, Movie Reviews, Watch for free

Hidden Blessings

Drama / Christian 2024 / 107 min Rating: 8/10 Gregory Davidson is kind of like Willy Wonka of chocolate factory fame. Both men are creative artists, with Davidson being the painter behind the series of "Hidden Blessings" canvases that were so popular not so long ago. Like Willy Wonka, he stepped away from the public eye entirely, even as everyone was dying to get a glimpse in to his "factory" to see how the product is made. Now, for the very first time Davidson has invited a documentarian into his house, a young filmmaker, Lydia Drake, who contacted Davidson about a painting gifted to her in her mom's will. The canvas had Davidson's signature, so, she was initially only hoping to find out if the painting was genuine. But then the two started texting back and forth and, eventually, Davidson put out the invite to do a documentary on his work. Like Wonka, Davidson is a quirky, frantic, oddball, bouncing across the room, breaking into song, doing impressions. He is quite the character, and you'll want to get to know him. And like Wonka, he's entirely fictitious. That is not clear at the start – this is a drama convincingly presented as a documentary. To the film's credit, it was about 50 minutes in before my girls started suspecting this might be fiction rather than fact. Only when the storyline started aligning with some key points from the Prodigal Son parable were their suspicions raised, so it was impressive and entertaining how the film pulls off this genre subterfuge for so long. While there are a few different mysteries that documentarian Lydia Drake is trying to solve, the biggest relates to the "Hidden Blessing" series of paintings that brought Davidson to public attention. Each one involves a "painting of a painting" but with the interior painting always somehow obscured – a married couple stands in front contemplating, a couple of passersby just happen to be in the way, a repairman is replacing the bulb just above it, or maybe a whole crowd has gathered to see what we can never quite glimpse. It's a gimmick Davidson plays out innumerable ways, and while the public loved the series it left them with questions. What was the painting in the painting? Was it the same one in each instance? Might it be a picture of his wife? What was the "hidden blessing"? It's a lot of fun to see this mystery played out, and you're going to love the final reveal! Cautions Part of this story addresses the problem of pain: why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? That's such a tough question there is probably no entirely satisfactory answer – when you are suffering, you might know intellectually that God is going to turn this to your good, as we are promised in Romans 8:28, but it is hard to emotionally grasp it to the same degree. That promise is a big part of the answer on offer here, with Davidson's sister pointing to God's faithfulness and trustworthiness to make that transformation. But the film also offers an Arminian take, trying to divorce God from responsibility for our pain by blaming free will instead. Not to give too much away, but when one of Davidson's sons takes a Prodigal turn, we can see how his choices – his "free will" – leads directly to the pain he experiences. His injuries are self-inflicted. However, the most painful cut of all for the Davidsons – still impacting them two decades later – is the death of Gregory's wife. Her death was not the consequence of choices she made so "free will" doesn't suffice as an answer. A part of the answer to pain is that, as RC Sproul might note, there are actually no good people since if it was up to us we would all be rebels against our Creator. Thus any pain we experience is merely what we deserve, and any goodness, undeserved. But that's too edgy and too Calvinist an answer for most evangelicals to consider. One other warning would be for younger audiences – one character dies. While it happens offscreen, it is unexpected, and therefore might be quite jarring to the under ten set. Conclusion This is an incredibly creative film, and the credit there is due to the star, James Arnold Taylor, a long-time Hollywood voice actor, who does the heavy lifting, offering up a memorable performance. And while he's onscreen 90% of the time, that isn't the limit of his involvement. He was also the writer, producer, co-director, and he even created many of the dozens of paintings we see throughout – those are his works. Hidden Blessings will be too preachy for some. These kinds of sermons-wrapped-in-cinema stories always have their contrived moments. But if you can appreciate a Kendricks brothers' Facing the Giants or Courageous then that a little subtlety is sacrificed for the sake of the sermon won't put you off. I waffled between giving this a 7 or 8, because as much as I enjoyed it, it would have been better about 15 minutes shorter, and those cuts could have also helped it make its point more subtly. But I settled on 8 because it is just so creative. This is James Arnold Taylor showing us all his gifts... and they are a multitude. Seeing him offer up his best to the glory of his God is such a delight to experience. Check out the trailer below, and watch it for free at RedeemTV.com. ...

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Adult biographies, Book Reviews

Come Back, Barbara

by C. John Miller & Barbara Miller Juliani 182 pages / 1997 This is the true story of a prodigal that came back. Barbara Miller, seemingly out of the blue, tells her parents that she is not going to church and doesn't want any part of the Christian life anymore. As her parents look back, they can see signs of her stubbornly self-justifying attitude much earlier, and they spend time trying to see what went wrong – more specifically, what they did wrong. Of course, such a question is futile, and in seeking to place blame and guilt, especially on their wandering child, the Millers were, as they admit, approaching her with an attitude of shame instead of love. By God's grace, this story continues with her parents' journey toward recognizing that any straying child has been sinned against herself, including by her parents. This movement toward humility, toward the acknowledgment of their own need for God's grace, leads toward other necessary changes – a life of persistent prayer, the willingness to seek their daughter's forgiveness, the ability to show unconditional love for an often self-centered child, and the willingness to give up control over a child who is daily rejecting her parents' upbringing. What makes this story especially compelling is the fact that Barbara answers each chapter of her father's story with her perception of what her conflict with her parents looked like from her point of view. Too often, parents of prodigals can not understand what their outreach to their children looks like to them – how easy it is to for any child to see through our confident or indignant exterior to our need for control or our smug sense of superiority. At the same time, her responses also show just how great is the power of humble unconditional love. Although you could read this book in an evening or two (and you may well do so), don't stop there. Read it again, a chapter at a time, with the study questions at the end as a guide, and incorporate some of the Bible passages quoted in the questions into your own devotions. It will reward the effort. This review first appeared on ReallyGoodReads.com and is reprinted here with permission....

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Adult non-fiction, Book Reviews

Prodigal God

by Timothy Keller 2009 / 240 pages My pastor recently concluded a series of sermons on a single 21-verse passage of Scripture. I was delighted to discover just how much God has to tell us in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. I felt that same delight while reading Tim Keller’s Prodigal God, which is also on Luke 15:11-32. Keller begins by explaining why he doesn’t call this passage the Parable of the Prodigal Son. He notes that the word “prodigal” means “recklessly spendthrift” and the term is “therefore as appropriate for describing the father in the story as his younger son” since the father “was literally reckless because he refused to ‘reckon’ or count his sin against him or demand repayment.” Thus Keller arrives at his book’s title, Prodigal God. But that is still not what he calls the parable. He calls it the parable of “The Two Lost Sons.” Two lost sons? Wasn’t there just one? After all, the older brother never left home! But as Keller explains, the older son was just as lost as the younger. The younger son’s rebellion was more obvious, but the older son shows that he isn’t interested in his father’s happiness either. If he had been, he would have rejoiced when his father rejoiced. Instead it becomes clear that he has only been obedient with the expectation of reward, so when that reward doesn’t come to him like he expected, he gets bitter. Keller argues there are a lot of older brothers in the Church. We all know we are sinners, but because we don’t fully understand how all we receive is a matter of grace, we still find ourselves looking down on “younger brothers” caught up in “big sins” like homosexuality or prostitution (we may be sinners, but at least we don’t sin like that!). This is rebellion of a more subtle kind – it is a form of works righteousness, because even as we acknowledge we aren’t sinless, our gracelessness to those caught in “big sins” shows we think ourselves in some way deserving of the goodness God has showered on us. Prodigal God is very engaging and quick read. I believe it is a very relevant and challenging book for our churches and would recommend it to anyone 16 and up. The only caution I would note is that Pastor Keller is a leading proponent of theistic evolution. That doesn't impact this book, but in his other writings Keller doesn't treat Genesis 1-2 with the same care, rigor and reverence with which he plumbs the depths of Luke 15 here. But a very enthusiastic two thumbs up for Prodigal God....