BCL Online Picks — October 2, 2025
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Scroll less. Read more. Here are Beautiful Christian Life’s online picks for this week to nourish your faith and strengthen your heart.
1. What about the Man on the Island?
What about those who’ve never heard the gospel? In this With All Wisdom post, Derek Brown gently unpacks this pressing question, showing us why only Christ saves—and why that truth should fill us with gratitude, hope, and a renewed desire to share the good news.
2. Expect Purifying Persecution
The “prosperity gospel” promises health, wealth, and “your best life now,” but is that what Jesus taught? In this Substack post, pastor and author Campbell Markham draws from Daniel 11 to show why Christians should expect opposition from godless powers and how even persecution serves our good and God’s glory.
3. Encourage One Another
What if we saw encouragement the way Paul did in Romans 16—not as flattery but as a way to build up the body of Christ? In this Ligonier Ministries devotional, pastor, author, and theologian Kevin DeYoung reminds us that highlighting God’s grace in others strengthens the whole church in love and truth.
4. Why I Don’t Participate in Halloween
Many Christians wrestle with whether they should allow their children to dress up and go trick-or-treating on Halloween. In this Reformation21 piece, pastor, chaplain, and theologian Brian H. Cosby reflects on why he chooses not to participate in Halloween, pointing to the call of Christians to holiness, separation from darkness, and conformity to Christ rather than the world.
5. The Tyranny of Quiet Time
Quiet time should be a joy, not a burden. In this encouraging blog post, pastor and author Tim Challies gently challenges us to trade performance and guilt for dependence on God’s grace in Christ—reminding us that even on our worst days, God’s presence is not earned but received.
6. Martin Luther on Preparing to Die
Death is often hushed in our day, but the Protestant Reformation theologian Martin Luther taught that a Christian can and should prepare to die. In this Tabletalk Magazine article Stéphane Simonnin draws us into Luther’s pastoral wisdom, inviting us to live with eternity in view and rest confidently in Christ’s victory when our final hour comes.
7. Was Jesus Joyful? (And Why It Matters for Us)
The Bible tells us that “Jesus wept” (John 11:35), but have you ever wondered if Jesus was happy? In this Modern Reformation article, pastor, hymn writer, and author Jonathan Landry Cruse invites us to see how Jesus’ joy is essential to understanding his character—and how it shapes what it means for us to walk in the Spirit.
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