This last weekend I took some of my kids to the White Mountains. We went to celebrate with the saints of Concho Valley Orthodox Presbyterian Church their becoming a new church within our presbytery.

In a passage I preached on during a special service, the Bible says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice.” It is one of the ways we use our bodies as Christians, especially within the body of Christ.

So we travel, shake hands, hug, and sing. We praise God together.

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You can greatly improve your knowledge of the Bible by memorizing these brief outlines of the Old Testament books. It may seem like a lot, but my Bible survey students are just about finished and will be ready for their final next Monday. Way to go!

Exercise Wins: Fit Seniors Can Have Hearts That Look 30 Years Younger 🖇

Every now and then I need a reminder that regular exercise is important. And now is one of those times.

Thankfully, this morning I heard Patti Neighmond’s report about a study on aging and exercise. It makes one of the best cases for lifelong exercise I’ve ever heard. And it put me back on track.

The study compared the health of three groups: old people who were lifelong exercisers, old people who were not lifelong exercisers, and young people who were exercising as much as the old exercisers.

The results were remarkable. The health and quality of life for the lifelong exercisers was significantly better than those of their non-exercising peers. One 82-year-old, David Costill, has been exercising since he was in high school. Now,

when Costill looks at his friends, he says he finds he can do a lot more physically than they can. “If I’m out with a group of my peers, guys who are near 80, and we’re going someplace, it seems to me they’re all walking at half speed.”

So in addition to the immediate benefits of exercise, we can also look forward to the future.

It might even help to think of exercise like money. With each push up, you invest in a fund with an extraordinarily good rate of return. To greatly improve your quality of life in the future, make regular investments today.

Check out Michael Kruger’s great list of books on the nature/authority of Scripture. He annotated it too. Although, he forgot to add his own excellent books, which are must-reads. 📚

My daughter thinks, “He’ll have a short but good life.”

I’m looking forward to reading Cal Newport’s thoughts on digital minimalism.

J. Todd Billings and Stephen Shaffer explain how pastors who tend to their theology strengthen their service to the church.

To help my Old Testament studetns learn how to read Song of Songs, I shared with them Billy Collin’s 45-second Introduction to Poetry. You might want to listen to it too.

Do you pray for librarians? Read John Dury’s (1596–1680) job description of the Reformed Librarie-Keeper and you’ll see why you should. 📚 🙏

Only a month and a half ago I heard a new recording of Bach’s Cello Suites, which had been “recomposed” and performed by Peter Gregson. And now this, thanks to @pauljacobson, a recomposed version of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons by Max Richter!

So I guess this is thing, at least at Deutsche Grammophon, the label behind both albums. Are there other examples of this?

I have a lot of writing to do today and look forward to re/listening to both these albums.