Welcome to your (chilly) weekend! I’m writing from the post-election construction site of what used to be my quiet home in Ohio. While renovations on the first floor tick away, I’ve been catching up on interesting articles and videos – lot’s of interesting stuff for you to check out! So here’s the best of what I’ve read, heard, and watched this week – grab a cup of joe and enjoy!

Let’s start out with some political news, shall we? John Boehner is going to be reelected as Speaker of the House, Bruce Springsteen is beginning to receive blow back from his disingenuous (and inconsistent) political agenda, Glenn Beck revealed he has some major health issues, and Mike Huckabee is seriously considering running for President.  Lastly, the House just approved building the Keystone Pipeline.

And, not sure whether to label this ‘politics’ or ‘the arts’, but George W. Bush has a new painting out of him and his pops, check it out here. I think its actually a pretty good painting of George H, but ‘W’ was right to admit he lacked focus on himself during the process. Interestingly he also revealed that he has difficulty painting noses…

Lot’s of John Piper cropping up on my radar this week. First, he has a new (free) advent devotional book out. Second, thanks to Tracy Lear for sending this short 7 min. podcast where Piper answers the question “Can I Confess the Name of Jesus and Be Unsaved?” Third, as I was listening, reading all this, I stumbled on his video poem from last year called ‘The Calvinist’….I think its really good (shocker?)!

Also, you may have seen that mega church pastor Mark Driscoll’s career took a nose dive this week. Piper, a friend of Driscoll’s, comments on the situation along with 8 lessons we can learn from it.

Also, (and by way of contrast) Voddie Baucham is headed to…Zambia. 

On to the interesting, and bizarre…

Kirk Cameron is out (or soon to be out) with a new movie called ‘Saving Christmas’ or some such thing.  Not sure if it will be good, or just another hokey remix of the same stuff he’s done for the last 10 years…

And Tim Challies linked to a website that lists “common myths”…there’s some interesting ones on here! A strange mix of topics from chastity belts to headaches…some of this is just opinion (ironically!), but some of these are funny.

Also, did you see Mark Zuckerberg’s attempt to speak Mandarin? No? Well, despite him (apparently) sounding like a 6 year old, it went over pretty well…

Speaking of the Chinese, apparently they have a pretty lame non-stealth ‘stealth fighter’…

And, while I know the economy isn’t good, has it really come to this?

And a few interesting and cool items…

This new robotic toy looks like a lot of fun! (I’m partial because of the name)

This week I was sent an article showing how far we’ve come as a country. In 1994 President Clinton intervened to stop his (wacko) AG Janet Reno from making a mess of a religious freedom issue. W.W.O.D.? How far we’ve come indeed…(h/t David Clementson)

And apparently I’m sending this email out too late in the day…you won’t be able to concentrate on anything you’re reading right now…

D.G. has a fascinating interview with Ebola-tested missionaries...

R.C. Sproul had a fun little article on the ‘Session of Christ’ where 50% of the post is subsumed in a Robin Hood analogy.

Speaking of which, Ligonier Ministries released a video about their Wold Cup outreach experience…this is pretty cool stuff! And as I was doing some research on another issue, I ran across this old article on ‘The True Israel of God’ (sure to ruffle the feathers of any of you dispensationalists, oh well…)

That’s it!  If you want to check out my latest post on the Introduction to the Book of Revelation you can do so here, or check out last week’s weekend reading links here. Have a great weekend!

PJW

NOTE: I’m not going to have any links for next week since I will be enjoying a few days in NYC with my wonderful wife!