Barnabas Piper's Blog, page 7
September 12, 2025
Kindle Deals for September 12
Why Should I Trust the Bible? by Timothy Paul Jones – $2.99
Determined to Believe?: The Sovereignty of God, Freedom, Faith, and Human Responsibility by John Lennox – $1.99
Know Why You Believe by K.Scott Olipint – $1.99
Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just by Tim Keller – $5.99
The Fruitful Life by Jerry Bridges – $3.99
Love, Henri: Letters on the Spiritual Life by Henri Nouwen – $4.99
On Writing (and Writers): A Miscellany of Advice and Opinions by C.S. Lewis – $2.99
Process: The Writing Lives of Great Authors by Sarah Stodola – $4.99
The Printer and the Preacher: Ben Franklin, George Whitefield, and the Surprising Friendship That Invented America by Randy Peterson – $2.99
Tyndale: The Man Who Gave God an English Voice by David Teems – $2.99
Ulrich Zwingli: The Life and Legacy of the Swiss Reformer Who Fought the Catholic Church during the Reformation by Charles River Editors – $2.99
John Wycliffe: The Life and Legacy of the English Theologian Who Preceded the Protestant Reformation by Charles River Editors – $2.99
Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII’s Most Faithful Servant by Tracy Borman – $2.99
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann – $1.99
The White Darkness by David Grann – $4.99
The Devil and Sherlock Holmes by David Grann – $4.99
Belong: Loving Your Church by Reflecting Christ to One Another – $8.99
Hoping for Happiness: Turning Life’s most elusive Feeling into Lasting Reality – $8.99
The Pastor’s Kid: What it’s Like and How to Help – $8.99
Help My Unbelief: Why doubt is not the enemy of faith – $8.99
The Curious Christian: How Discovering Wonder Enriches Every Part of Life – $4.99
These links are Amazon affiliate links.
September 11, 2025
Kindle Deals for September 11
Parenting without Panic in an LGBT-Affirming World: Discipling Our Kids with Jesus’ Truth and Love by Rachel Gilson – $2.99
The Hardest Sermons You’ll Ever Have to Preach: Help from Trusted Preachers for Tragic Times by Bryan Chapell – $1.99
Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City by Tim Keller – $1.99
How to Reach the West Again: Six Essential Elements of a Missionary Encounter by Tim Keller – $3.99
Our Triune God: Living in the Love of the Three-in-One by Michael LeFebvre – $3.99
Peace over Perfection: Enjoying a Good God When You Feel You’re Never Good Enough by Faith Chang – $2.99
Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America’s Most Perilous Year by David Von Drexel – $3.99
The Indispensables: The Diverse Soldier-Mariners Who Shaped the Country, Formed the Navy, and Rowed Washington Across the Delaware by Patrick O’Donnell – $1.99
Washington’s Immortals: The Untold Story of an Elite Regiment Who Changed the Course of the Revolution by Patrick O’Donnell – $2.99
Grey Wolf, Grey Sea: Aboard the German Submarine U-124 in World War II by E.B. Gasaway – $3.99
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America by Bill Bryson – $2.99
The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson – $4.99
Belong: Loving Your Church by Reflecting Christ to One Another – $8.99
Hoping for Happiness: Turning Life’s most elusive Feeling into Lasting Reality – $8.99
The Pastor’s Kid: What it’s Like and How to Help – $8.99
Help My Unbelief: Why doubt is not the enemy of faith – $8.99
The Curious Christian: How Discovering Wonder Enriches Every Part of Life – $4.99
These links are Amazon affiliate links.
September 10, 2025
Kindle Deals for September 10
What Fuels the Mission of the Church? By Daniel Hames & Michael Reeves – $2.99
The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything by Fred Sanders – $5.99
Beholding the Triune God: The Inseparable Work of Father, Son, and Spirit by Matthew Emerson & Brandon Smith – $4.99
Communion with the Triune God by John Owen – $7.99
The Joy of the Trinity: One God, Three Persons by Tara Leigh-Cobble – $4.99
The Gospel Shaped Leader: Leaning on Jesus to Shepherd His People by Scott Thomas – $2.99
Spiritual Leadership: Principles of Excellence for Every Believer by J. Oswald Sanders – $6.91
Grandparenting with Grace: Living the Gospel with the Next Generation by Larry McCall – $2.99
The Foundation of Joy: Assurance in the Theology of John Flavel by Jeff Strickland – $2.99
The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson – $2.99
Tales from Both Sides of the Brain: A Life in Neuroscience by Michael Gazzaniga – $1.99
Virgil Wander: A Novel by Virgil Wander – $1.99
By Sorrow’s River: A Novel by Larry McMurtry – $1.99
Savage Country: A Novel by Robert Olmstead – $3.99
The Power of the Dog: A Novel by Thomas Savage – $2.99
Belong: Loving Your Church by Reflecting Christ to One Another – $8.99
Hoping for Happiness: Turning Life’s most elusive Feeling into Lasting Reality – $8.99
The Pastor’s Kid: What it’s Like and How to Help – $8.99
Help My Unbelief: Why doubt is not the enemy of faith – $8.99
The Curious Christian: How Discovering Wonder Enriches Every Part of Life – $4.99
These links are Amazon affiliate links.
September 9, 2025
Kindle Deals for September 9
Telling a Better Story: How to Talk About God in a Skeptical Age by Josh Chatraw – $1.99
Spiritual Gifts: What They Are and Why They Matter by Thomas Schreiner – $4.99
Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible by Mark Ward – $5.99
Strengthening Your Marriage by Wayne Mack – $3.99
Picking Up the Pieces by Lou Priolo – $4.99
A Still and Quiet Mind: Twelve Strategies for Changing Unwanted Thoughts by Esther Smith – $4.99
Gay Girl, Good God: The Story of Who I Was, and Who God Has Always Been by Jackie Hill Perry – $4.99
The Storied Life: Christian Writing as Art and Worship by Jared C. Wilson – $.99
Something Needs to Change: An Urgent Call to Make Your Life Count by David Platt – $5.99
Walking Through Fire: A Memoir of Loss and Redemption by Vaneetha Risner – $1.99
Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth by John Garth – $3.99
The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man’s Survival in Warsaw, 1939–1945 by Wladyslaw Szpilman – $2.99
God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible by Adam Nicolson – $3.99
The First Frontier: The Forgotten History of Struggle, Savagery, & Endurance in Early America by Scott Weidensaul – $2.99
Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941–1945 by Andrew Roberts – $4.99
Allies at War: How the Struggles Between the Allied Powers Shaped the War and the World by Tim Bouverie – $2.99
Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph by Jan Swafford – $3.99
The Help by Kathryn Stockett – $1.99
Belong: Loving Your Church by Reflecting Christ to One Another – $8.99
Hoping for Happiness: Turning Life’s most elusive Feeling into Lasting Reality – $8.99
The Pastor’s Kid: What it’s Like and How to Help – $8.99
Help My Unbelief: Why doubt is not the enemy of faith – $8.99
The Curious Christian: How Discovering Wonder Enriches Every Part of Life – $4.99
These links are Amazon affiliate links.
September 8, 2025
How God Feels Today
How often do we roll out of bed feeling great? I don’t just mean physically (although that seems rarer and rarer the older I get). I mean spiritually and emotionally. It nearly always feels like waking up into a fog or with a weight on our chests of some kind. We are anxious about responsibility and stress. We feel low because of sins in our own lives or sins committed against us. We carry big questions that maybe we can’t even articulate (especially early in the morning), but we definitely feel the weight of them.
And while we so often wake up feeling lousy, we also wake up without a sense of how God feels about us. And that matters deeply because if we understand how God feels it will ease so many of our burdens and fears. Zephaniah 3:17 tells us:
The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.
That’s how God feels about us. God is with us in power today. He rejoices over us and offers peace and healing. He takes joy in us as his people. So no matter how we feel this morning, we can be confident in how God feels about us, and that can change everything in our hearts.
I originally wrote this post for my church, Immanuel Nashville , in our Daily Pulse email. If you want encouragement from God’s word delivered Monday thru Friday to your inbox, I encourage you to subscribe.
Kindle Deals for September 8
Prophet, Priest, and King: Christology in Global Perspective edited by Michael Horton, Elizabeth Mburu, & Justin Holcomb – $4.99
Original Sin: A Cultural History by Alan Jacobs – $1.99
The Great Rescue: Understanding the Saving Work of Christ by R.C. Sproul – $.99
The Prayer of the Lord by R.C. Sproul – $5.99
Ephesians: An Expositional Commentary by R.C. Sproul – $6.99
Misled: 7 Lies That Distort the Gospel (and How You Can Discern the Truth) by Allen Parr – $1.99
I Am a Church Member: Discovering the Attitude that Makes the Difference by Thom Rainer – $6.22
Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells – $4.99
Tender Bar: A Memoir by J.R. Moehringer – $1.99
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World by David Anthony – $2.51
Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion by Robert Morgan – $1.99
Dead Reckoning: The Story of How Johnny Mitchell and His Fighter Pilots Took on Admiral Yamamoto and Avenged Pearl Harbor by Dick Lehr – $1.99
The Complete Novels of Jane Austen – $.99
Mystic River by Dennis LeHane – $1.99
Shutter Island by Dennis LeHane – $6.49
Belong: Loving Your Church by Reflecting Christ to One Another – $8.99
Hoping for Happiness: Turning Life’s most elusive Feeling into Lasting Reality – $8.99
The Pastor’s Kid: What it’s Like and How to Help – $8.99
Help My Unbelief: Why doubt is not the enemy of faith – $8.99
The Curious Christian: How Discovering Wonder Enriches Every Part of Life – $4.99
These links are Amazon affiliate links.
September 5, 2025
3 Things I Like This Week – September 5
Photo by Tony Hand on UnsplashEach week (give or take one or two here and there) I share three things I like – It could be a book, a movie, a podcast, an album, a photo, an article, a restaurant, a food item, a beverage, or anything else I simply enjoy and think you might too. You can find a whole pile of things, especially books, I like and recommend HERE.
1) Peg Leg Porker
The first time I ate at Peg Leg Porker, shortly after it opened I walked up to the counter and ordered a half rack of ribs, wet (that’s with sauce for the uninitiated and the vegans who might be reading this). The lady taking my order paused and asked, “Have you had our dry rub ribs?” I informed her that I wasn’t generally a fan of dry rub ribs–I’d had limited and subpar experiences to that point–to which she responded, “Well, you haven’t had ours.” I asked if I would get them for free if I didn’t like them, and she simply said, “Oh, you’ll like them.” And I did, that time and the dozens of racks of ribs I have consumed there since. Peg Leg Porker is my favorite BBQ joint in Nashville, a city that has many. It offers a simple menu of smoked meats and basic sides, all of which are entirely acceptable too. Their sweet tea is sweet and their beers are local. It’s near downtown, but not so near as to be over run by bachelorette parties and pedal taverns. So when you visit Nashville next, be sure to stop in and order the ribs, dry. You’ll like them.
I’ve loved Sam Cooke’s music for a long time. Cooke was a gospel singer, a crooner with soul who mostly put out love songs and sweet ballads, but his song “A Change is Gonna Come” is a protest song and an anthem of hope. He released it in 1964, the heart of Civil Rights movement, and it is rich with story, imagery, and emotion. What Nikkolas Smith, a brilliant illustrator and artist, has done is bring the song to life visually. Sam Cooke’s lyrics serve as the text, and Smith has created brilliant illustrations to pair with each phrase. Each page is a vignette of a time and a place and of heroes of the movement across the decades. It is for kids, yes, but only because adults don’t usually read books with pictures. I really just used my son as an excuse to buy this book for me. One day he’ll be old enough to understand these words and learn about the history and heroes and hope represented in these pages. Until then, I will thumb through it, soak it in, and appreciate all its detail and genius–both the lyrics and the images.
3) A Change is Gonna Come – Sam Cooke
If you don’t know, now you know. Here is the anthem.
Kindle Deals for September 5
Adoniram Judson by Vance Christie – $2.99
John G. Paton: an Autobiography by John G. Paton – $.99
If There’s a God Why Are There Atheists?: Why Atheists believe in unbelief by R.C. Sproul – $2.99
Comfort the Grieving: Ministering God’s Grace in Times of Loss by Paul Tautges – $1.99
On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature by C.S. Lewis – $.99
Studies in Words by C.S. Lewis – $.99
An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis – $1.99
Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917 by Michael Punke – $3.99
Last Stand: George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of the New West by Michael Punke – $3.99
Becoming Queen Victoria: The Tragic Death of Princess Charlotte and the Unexpected Rise of Britain’s Greatest Monarch by Kate Williams – $1.99
George V: Never a Dull Moment by Jane Ridley – $1.99
The Heir Apparent: A Life of Edward VII, the Playboy Prince by Jane Ridley – $4.99
The Water Is Wide: A Memoir by Pat Conroy – $1.99
When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines by Graydon Carter – $1.99
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi – $7.99
The Shell Collector: Stories by Anthony Doerr – $1.99
Collected Fiction: The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Wonder Boys, and Werewolves in Their Youth by Michael Chabon – $3.99
The Short Novels of John Steinbeck – $5.99
Belong: Loving Your Church by Reflecting Christ to One Another – $8.99
Hoping for Happiness: Turning Life’s most elusive Feeling into Lasting Reality – $8.99
The Pastor’s Kid: What it’s Like and How to Help – $8.99
Help My Unbelief: Why doubt is not the enemy of faith – $8.99
The Curious Christian: How Discovering Wonder Enriches Every Part of Life – $4.99
These links are Amazon affiliate links.
September 4, 2025
Kindle Deals for September 4
Together Through the Storms: Biblical Encouragements for Your Marriage When Life Hurts by Jeff & Sarah Walton – $2.99
When Sinners Say “I Do”: Discovering the Power of the Gospel for Marriage by Dave Harvey – $4.99
Preparing for Marriage: Help for Christian Couples by John Piper – $6.99
How to Pray: Reflections and Essays by C.S. Lewis – $1.99
God’s Not Done With You: Encouragement from the Bible’s Greatest Comeback Stories by John Meador – $2.99
How Can I Begin to Teach the Bible? by David Helm – $2.99
How Can I Get More Out of My Bible Reading? by Jeremy Kmble – $4.74
How Do I Get Started in Evangelism? by J.Mack Stiles – $4.74
A River in Darkness: One Man’s Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa – $6.99
Every Falling Star: The True Story of How I Survived and Escaped North Korea by Sung Lee – $2.99
Under The Same Sky: From Starvation in North Korea to Salvation in America by Joseph Kim – $2.99
India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy by Ramachandra Guha – $3.99
The Hotel on Place Vendôme: Life, Death, and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris by Tilar Mazzeo – $1.99
Sicily ’43: The First Assault on Fortress Europe by James Holland – $2.99
The Filthy Thirteen: From the Dustbowl to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest—The True Story of the 101st Airborne’s Most Legendary Squad of Combat Paratroopers by Richard Killblane & Jake McNiece – $2.99
The Reckoning by David Halberstam – $2.99
Neither here nor there: Travels in Europe by Bill Bryson – $1.99
Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States by Bill Bryson – $1.99
The Lord of the Rings Illustrated by J.R.R. Tolkien – $2.99
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway – $.99
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway – $.99
Gunslinger: The Remarkable, Improbable, Iconic Life of Brett Favre by Jeff Pearlman – $2.99
Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football by Rich Cohen – $2.99
Belong: Loving Your Church by Reflecting Christ to One Another – $8.99
Hoping for Happiness: Turning Life’s most elusive Feeling into Lasting Reality – $8.99
The Pastor’s Kid: What it’s Like and How to Help – $8.99
Help My Unbelief: Why doubt is not the enemy of faith – $8.99
The Curious Christian: How Discovering Wonder Enriches Every Part of Life – $4.99
These links are Amazon affiliate links.
September 3, 2025
Thoughts on Trying a New Creative Thing
In 2011 I launched a blog, and it was intimidating. I was committing to put words and thoughts out into the universe from my mind and heart. I was hoping to be helpful and to be liked. And I was trying something new that felt natural but also difficult. It came with many temptations and frustrations.
I was tempted to gauge my success by the success of other writers, comparing traffic numbers, clicks, shares, vitality, and whatnot.I was discouraged by how much better other writers were than me qualitatively.I was tempted to forget how much writing was enjoyable and good for my soul and mind. Instead I was tempted to focus on responses to my writing.Earlier this year I made another foray into a new (old) creative venture: photography. Photography is an old flame of mine, going back decades, that had smoldered and been smothered by the ease of Sony cybershots and iPhones. Years ago my parents gave me their old Pentax film camera and I loved it through high school and into college. But then, like most of us, I moved into the ease of the digital age and away from the creative labor of love. I still loved shooting, I still saw photos in the world around me even though I couldn’t quite capture them with my phone.
I mentioned this to my wife who promptly conspired to enable my whim by giving me a real camera for my birthday. It has been so fun getting back into photography. My friend Tony pointed out, “You just see the world a little bit different” as a photographer. Which is not so different from being a writer. In both cases, you engage the world around you with possibility and potential rather than passivity. As a writer, you listen for ideas, phrases, questions, or narratives. You consider how a person or place might be described. You tune into feelings and thoughts with more clarity. As a photographer you begin to notice contrasts, shapes, light, shadow, features, faces, and whole bunches of seemingly mundane things that might be capturable through a lens. In both endeavors you learn to find beauty and uniqueness and to capture something in a brief, concise, digestible format.
And yet . . .
It hasn’t been all creative nirvana and artistic utopia. I have discovered, once again, that when you step into a new creative venture the same temptations and struggles arise.
I am tempted to gauge my success by the success of other photographers, comparing social media responses, shares, followers, and all that.I get discouraged by how much better other photographers are than me qualitatively, especially those who are years ahead of me. We can see the same thing, shoot the same thing, but we are not capturing the same thing. They’re just better.I am constantly tempted to forget that the reason I get excited about photography is the joy of doing it. Yes, there is a thrill in getting that shot, but the experience of wandering and seeing and trying things and experimenting is the actual constant.I am tempted to think in terms of “success,” instead of enjoyment and growth and learning. It’s so easy to think about “the shot” as a product, to fixate on perfection and distribution. In so doing I forget the more valuable things being produced: curiosity, adventurousness, relationships, creativity, restfulness, appreciation, and much more.I forget how to learn. I am 42 which means I’m not used to being a rookie at much, but here I am. And learning is humbling but also thrilling. It’s a thrill when something clicks, when an experiment works, when something that used to be laborious starts to become natural.I’m tempted to forget the value of a hobby. This isn’t a gig. It’s not a job. There is no goal other than enjoyment. And the value of that has tendrils that extend into my vocation, my family, my rest, my and friendships. A good hobby isn’t trite; it is restorative. It’s not a waste of time; it redeems the time.I suspect these observations could apply to any number of ventures: wood working, baking sourdough (although that seems more like a religion than a hobby), painting, car restoration, and so forth. We can take a good hobby and turn it into a temptation in heartbeat. We can also eschew and resist these temptations for the sake of joy and growth. It all depends on what we’re trying to get out of our creative efforts—are we doing them for the sake of the doing, or are we doing them for the sake of external validation and some arbitrary version of “success”? I don’t think there’s really a moral to this post or a particular lesson. I don’t have a grand motivational push. But maybe, hopefully, it is encouraging and clarifying to someone considering doing a creative thing.
