Your Best Links Now – 2/4/14

Charles Spurgeon on Mystical Union with Christ

Here’s an excerpt from the excerpt: “The word divorce He will never mention, for ‘He hateth putting away.’ Death must sever the conjugal tie between the most loving mortals, but it cannot divide the links of this immortal marriage. In heaven they marry not, but are as the angels of God; yet is there this one marvelous exception to the rule, for in heaven Christ and His Church shall celebrate their joyous nuptials . . .”

The Prosperity Gospel Almost Killed This Guy (Literally)

Sean DeMars at 9Marks shares his testimony of both the spiritual and physical dangers of believing in the “health and wealth”/”name it and claim it” false gospel.

How Much Snow is Needed to Cancel School?

This handy color-coded map shows you just how much in each US county.

Joe Namath Would Not Want His Kids to Play Football

Well, and if they think they’d have to wear those silly fur coats, they probably wouldn’t want to anyway.

Jordan Ballor’s Response to Tullian Tchividjian’s Take on the Good Samaritan Parable

Ballor writes, “Tchividjian is right to temper the common tendency to moralize the parables too quickly and easily. These are difficult teachings and our inability to ‘go and do likewise’ in any kind of proper fashion ought to be convicting. But neither should we take Jesus’ command to ‘go and do likewise’ to mean that we should simply ‘stay in,’ albeit as ones who have ‘inwardly come out’.” I would agree with Ballor here.

I’ve written on the Good Samaritan parable here and more extensively in my new book on the parables, The Storytelling God, which releases later this month (but is already for sale in the bookstore at the Desiring God Pastors Conference this week.)

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Funniest Scene

We lost a great actor recently to his addictions, and while Hoffman gave us some powerful dramatic moments on stage and in film — I was first impacted by his work in the film Magnolia — this lighthearted moment in the lightweight comedy Along Came Polly is one of my faves. I copy it whenever I’m on the court myself. “White chocolate!”