Mount Barker Presbyterian Church

Jesus Christ is Lord!

Rachel Green

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler

by

E. L. Konigsberg

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler is set in modern times in the city of New York. Konigsberg chose that setting because the crowd is large there and it would be easy there to get lost.

The characters Claudia and Jamie are children who get into a good relationship as the book progresses, and they begin to agree on things.

The book reminded me that even evil people can learn that doing bad things leads to bad results.

Something that I enjoyed about the book is that it described the characters personalities well. Jamie didn’t like to spend money. Claudia was always anxious to know things. It is important that they were different characters but they learned to work as a team.

The Sovereignty of God

by

A W Pink

“To say that God is sovereign is to declare that whatever takes place in time is but the outworking of that which He decreed in eternity.”

“Present day conditions”, writes the author, “call loudly for a new examination and new presentation of God’s omnipotence, God’s sufficiency, God’s sovereignty. From every pulpit in the land it needs to be thundered forth that God still lives, that God still observes, that God still reigns. Faith is now in the crucible; it is being tested by fire, and there is no fixed and sufficient resting-place for the heart and mind but in the throne of God. What is needed now, as never before, is a full, positive, constructive setting forth of the Godhood of God.”

This is an outstanding book. It is a fairly short and easy read,  so great for older teenagers. (Don’t leave your teen years behind without reading it through once: it’s free online!) 

Arthur Pink was a deep thinker who met a variety of personal challenges and underwent a significant theological metamorphosis over the course of his 66 years, so if you detect a pessimistic eschatological allusion or two in this book, do not be surprised. Also, try to avoid the Banner of Truth edition: it’s missing 1/3 of the content.

Pink wrote this inspiring and thoughtful discussion on the Sovereignty of God with an approachable style, considering the application of this central doctrine to creation, salvation, reprobation, the human will, and prayer.

Make The Sovereignty of God your next read! 

Family Worship Bible Guide

by

Michael Barratt; Joel Beeke; Jerry Bilkes; Paul Smalley

Joel Beeke said that to the Puritans, daily family worship was as essential to life as air or water. He wrote that Richard Baxter said that “a Christian family… is church, a society of Christians combined for the better worshipping and serving God”, and that similarly, William Perkins wrote of the goal we should all set before us: “These families wherein this service of God is performed are, as it were, little churches, yea even a kind of Paradise upon Earth.” Beeke continued, [the Puritans] “encourage us to view family worship not as a dutiful burden, but as a joyous delight- a taste of heaven on earth.”

In our busy family, this little book- the Family Worship Bible Guide– has made family worship efficient and productive. Each day, we sing, read a chapter of the Bible plus the rich, devotional thoughts on that chapter from this book, chat about it, and then we pray.

We recommend this book to every family!