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Magazine, Past Issue

May/June 2025 issue

WHAT'S INSIDE: If businesses tithed / Pierre Poilievre: sometimes access comes with too high a cost / Being thrifty and finding hope / A principled (and practical) guide to tithing / 5 things I'd like my kids to learn about money / God love a cheerful giver: 6 ways to restore the joy of giving / How to lock your phone from pornography... 101  / A Church response is needed to stop the porn crisis / RP's 10-day screen-fast challenge / Signing on the dotted line? A creative approach to boundaries in dating / Becoming Chinada? - a look at our country, from the eyes of a recently arrived Chinese family / Books: education littles will love (including "5 on our feathered friends") / 7,000 pages in, and now this? Another popular series, Keepers of the Lost Cities, takes a turn... in book 11 / Write down your story: sharing your history is sharing His history / What kind of Prime Minister could he still be? 5 things you might not have known about Pierre Poilievre / Upheld: a widow's story of love, grief & the constancy of God / Morning and Evening: a teen offers up a different sort of book review for Spurgeon's classic devotional / 3 on comforting suffering Christians / Stockholm Syndrome Christianity / Get to know John Calvin / Christian films for families / Come and Explore: Bald Eagle / Don't follow your heart / A word for a new mother... as given at her first baby shower / Our family's trip to the Ark / Ruth de Vos is quilting kids and creation / Wise and Innocent / Coming soon: RP's merch store! / and more!

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News

Saturday Selections – May 10, 2025

Gray Havens' Ghost of a King

A lyric video seems a good idea for this, one of their harder-to-understand songs. A little mystery then, accompanied by a wonderfully haunting melody...

Jamie Soles on the Genevan tunes

" highlight the male voice. Men can lift their voices and sing these songs. They cannot do this with almost any modern music. Even the folks who have rediscovered the gospel of grace, and who make songs about it, sing in a feminine voice. I have sat and listened to whole services in Reformed Baptist circles, in Charismatic circles, in modern Mennonite circles, in Bible Church circles, where men were never allowed to lift their voice above a G. Women’s voices dominate. Not so with the Genevans...."

Defending Jesus' divinity on the back of a napkin

If you're talking to Jehovah's Witnesses, or any Arians, you can sketch this argument out on a napkin.

A dyslexia-friendly Bible edition?

I did not know such a thing existed – might this be just the version for you, or someone you know?

Tolkien's "take that!" to Shakespeare

Did you know Tolkien wasn't the biggest Shakespeare fan? As Harma-Mae Smit explains, a couple scenes in Lord of the Rings are Tolkien's go at one-upping what he thought was something lame from the Bard's Macbeth.

Penguins are cool but not cold (9 minutes)

Penguins survive in the coldest temperatures on earth. How do they do it? They are built for it, from the ground up, and then operate together with their God-given instincts!


Today's Devotional

May 10 - Not by chance

“The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.” - Proverbs 16:33 

Scripture reading: 2 Chronicles 18:28-34

Not only do we see that the Lord has created a wonderful world, which even under the curse of sin cannot hide His glory, but His Word also includes God’s testimony concerning Providence, that is, how He governs the world and >

Today's Manna Podcast

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

The Incomparable God

Serving #838 of Manna, prepared by Greg Bylsma, is called "The Incomparable God".













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Book Reviews, Children’s fiction

In Aunt Lucy's Kitchen

by Cyntia Rylant 1998 / 56 pages Three nine-year-old cousins are staying with their Aunt Lucy, and wondering what sort of fun they can cook up. When Lily comes up with the idea of a cookie company, Rosie and Tess are quickly on board. And all it takes to convince their Aunt is the promise of some free Cinamon Crinkles, her favorite. It's this enthusiasm, right from the start, that most appeals in this "Cobble Street Cousins" series. All 6 books are low on the drama – no fights or conflict – but high on the creativity, with the three girls always eager to build on each other's ideas. Lily is the writer, so she composes a poem to help them advertise their cookies: Cookies to your door, Who could ask for more, Aunt Lucy's girls will bake for you Cinnamon Crinkles, sweet and true Call us for a Baker's dozen We'll bring them over with no fussin! This is just the first of Lily's works, and while not her best (one of the others prompted my youngest to blurt out, "That was a really good poem!") it gets the word out. And then the orders start a'coming! Their first delivery is to a young man stuck on his couch with his leg in a cast. The outgoing Tess just has to know how it happened, and before long the girls have learned the man's name (Michael) and his occupation (he studies plants), and they find out that he has visited their aunt's flower shop but been too shy to really talk with her. That, of course, gets the girls thinking, and before long they've figured out a way to have the two of them meet: the girls will have a performance and invite the neighborhood! There are 5 others in this Cobble Street Cousins series, all just as sweet. They are, in order: In Aunt Lucy's Kitchen A Little Shopping Special Gifts Some Good News Summer Party Wedding Flowers In #4, the girls start their own newspaper, which got my middlest doing so as well. She described the whole series as "inspiring." Cautions The one caution concerns the cousins' parents, or more specifically, their absence. Whether it is Peter Pan, Frozen, or The Green Ember, a common theme in kids' stories is for the parents to be conveniently out of the way. That's because it will be harder for children to have big adventures if their big folk are still around to keep them safe. Sometimes the absence is because the parents are dead (Pollyanna) or desperate times have required desperate measures (WWII bombings in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe). But in the Cobble Street Cousins series, the three girls are with their aunt because their parents are professional dancers doing a year-long tour. My kids didn't notice that this was a lame reason to leave your kids behind for a year... but I wanted them to notice because this is the "career over kids" misplaced priority that the world is so often pitching. To disarm it, we need to be able to recognize it. In addition, Tess only has a mom, and her dad's complete absence – no explanation is offered as to whether her dad is dead, or her parents are divorced – is odd. Conclusion While these will only appeal to girls (girls read boy books, but a boy wouldn't dare be caught reading a book about three girl cousins!), they most certainly will appeal. And at between 56 and 72 pages long, these are a nice digestible size for Grades 2 through 4. I'll also note that our family really enjoyed them as a bedtime read – the Cobble Street cousins are gentle, happy girls, who will inspire pleasant dreams! Cyntia Rylant has also authored the absolutely wonderful "Mr. Putter and Tabby" series, which, if you haven't checked it out already, you really should. Find my review here....



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Book Reviews, Teen non-fiction

Finding My Vocation

by William Boekestein 2024 / 154 pages William Boekestein wants to help young readers figure out how they can pick the right job, and like the good Reformed pastor that he is, he offers up three points.... or, rather, parts. In Part 1, “Pondering Vocation,” he covers what work is, and the different reasons that Christians have to want to work, like providing for our family, serving others, and as a means of expressing our gratitude to God. Part 2 gives us biblically-grounded tips on how we can start “Preparing for Your Vocation.” We need to make ourself valuable to an employer by fostering key character traits – honesty and respect for authority might seem bare minimums, but they can really set a Christian apart – and by developing specific marketable skills, like welding, framing, accounting, etc. The author encourages readers to be ambitious to make the most of the skills God has given you. And he reminds us also of the other vocations God has called us to, like parent, elder, friend, and more. Then in Part 3, “Practicing Vocation,” we’re challenged to work hard, and reminded that God does give us a weekly Sabbath rest. This is a solid primer, and could be a great tool for high schoolers, Grade 9 or 10, as they start planning for their post-school years. It'd be best used with a parent or teacher along for the ride. If I were to pick a nit, it would be with a couple of the appendices – “Is my vocation compromised by sin?” and “Is Military a Good Option for Me?” – that raise important topics, but in what struck me as too cursory a manner. The military question, for example, raised some cautions about women in the armed forces, but didn’t even touch on the issue of women in combat roles. It's one thing for women to serve in the armed forces when male and female differences are understood and appreciated, and another thing for women to serve in the military when the higher ups have started to pretend that men and women are interchangeable and want to have women leading the charge. But this critique – not for what Rev. Boekestein said, but for what more I wish he had addressed – is indeed a nitpick, faulting his 154-page book for not being a dictionary-sized tome instead. And he offers us some of that more I was after in his great conversation with Lucas Holtvlüwer in the Real Talk episode below, so be sure to check it out. ...





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Animated, Movie Reviews, Watch for free

Jungle Beat - fun for the kids that will have the adults laughing too

Family / Animated 750+ min RATING: 10/10 I'm always on the hunt for films or shows my kids will enjoy that I'll enjoy too. There aren't many that fit that bill, but Jungle Beat sure does. This is comic genius at its best! The videos are all 5-minute stand-alone pieces featuring one jungle creature. Our favorite is probably the giraffe, or the turtle, but the bee, monkey and hedgehog are popular too. While the videos do have sound, they remind me of the very best silent film comedies from Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin, because they are entirely dialogue-free (after all, animals don't talk, right?) so all the humor is physical. Let me give you an idea of some of the scenarios: What's a poor turtle to do when it gets an itch, but its shell won't let it scratch? Maybe it should just slip off its shell? But like a pair of tight pants, his shell comes off easily, but doesn't go back on nearly so quickly. This leads to some high-speed hijinks when the turtle has to surf on his shell to evade an eagle that wants to eat the now-exposed turtle. What's a poor firefly to do when it wants to catch some sleep, but its own light is keeping it awake? What's a poor giraffe to do when he accidentally head-butts the moon and knocks it to the ground, where it breaks to pieces? Each of the stories has a creative set-up, and all come with a happy ending. I don't know if Jungle Beat's creators are Christian, but I suspect so, because they've gone to great lengths to make sure this is family-friendly. I really can't say enough good things about this series. It is so very clever, and other than a few moments of peril, which might have our two-year-old a little nervous, it is entirely safe. And for the perfect finishing touch, they've even included coloring sheets at their website: www.junglebeat.tv. Two thumbs very enthusiastically up – I give this a 10 out of 10! So far we've watched four seasons, with each season made up of a dozen or so short videos. Each season's videos have been combined into full one-hour-long compilations which you can find below. And if that isn't enough, you can find six seasons of the Munki and Trunk series – focused on Jungle Beat's two most popular characters – just below. That's more than 13 hours of animated fun! The only caution I will mention is that these do include commercials, and while YouTube generally keeps kids' show commercials tame, nowadays you just don't know what they'll show. So even with these very G-rated videos, parental supervision is a must in case of PG-rated commercials. I'll also add that these are a lot more fun in short 10- or 15-minute chunks than they are watching a whole hour's worth at a time. So gather round your family – y'all are in for a treat! JUNGLE BEAT SEASON ONE (65 minutes) SEASON TWO (66 minutes) SEASON THREE (60 minutes) SEASON FOUR (79 minutes) MUNKI AND TRUNK SEASON ONE (79 minutes) SEASON TWO (80 minutes)  SEASON THREE (80 minutes) SEASON FOUR (81 minutes) SEASON FIVE (81 minutes) SEASON SIX (80 minutes) THE EXPLORERS PART ONE (14 minutes) PART TWO (12 minutes) This review was first published on ReelConservative.com...

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Documentary, Movie Reviews

Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl

Documentary 51 minutes / 2011 Rating: 11/10 You are going to like this. I haven't met anyone yet who has seen this and hasn't been impacted by it. Now at first look, this might seem a pretty random collection of thoughts put to film with moments of poetry, philosophy, biography, musical artistry, and nature documentary. But there is method to the seeming madness, and one clear overarching thought that unites all the chapters in this film – that God is great! That God is great is hardly a new thought, but getting excited about His greatness is a somewhat recent development. Martin Luther, for example, always knew God was great, but that was a fearsome thought for him in his early years. It was something that filled him with dread as he considered how great God was and what a wretched man he was. God’s greatness left Luther despairing of what he could do to ever earn a place before his Creator. After the Reformation, when we relearned that faith was a gift, that our great, holy, awesome God was also loving, merciful, and willing to humble Himself to become like us, to save us, well, His greatness is still fearsome, but now it is also something for us to explore – we can come near. He has invited us to enjoy Him forever. In this film, Nate Wilson teaches us to see again this greatness of God. Today we so often overlook the wonder around us - we think it unremarkable that we are sitting here, on a lump of spinning dirt, hurtling through space at an unimaginable rate of speed. Wilson, more in tune with the wonderous nature of our frenetic journey round the Sun, will, on a semi-regular basis, fall to the ground and get a solid grip on the grass just to ensure he doesn't go hurtling off into space. This film is about making us see the wonder that is really there, but which we have grown too cynical to see. Occasionally an "ordinary" miracle still impact us – parents, watching their child be born, will be awe-struck, even though this is an event much like what has happened literally billions of times before in the history of Man. Our awe is rekindled. In Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl Wilson helps us understand – helps us feel again – the wonder of God's creative genius. God is great! And while trembling remains an appropriate response, wonder is certainly another. You can watch a "chapter" below. And be sure to check out the book of the same title. ...