The Saturday Six

One.

I wanted to share this post this week, because whether or not you know the people in the story, the life lessons are worth remembering across the board. Some of you know Josh and Shelly Buck and others of you may have read about them here or there on posts I've shared. (I interviewed them a couple of times when I was at WBCL.) I first knew of Josh because he went to high school with my best friend, but then we were in college together and his dad was one of my professors. Josh and Shelly have been through a lot in their marriage, including an accident that left him paralyzed - and now he's an amputee as well. His mom wrote this post for Josh and Shelly's blog, and it gives you a peek behind the scenes of their daily lives. It's sometimes easy to forget that the people we think of in times of major crisis still have major needs even after the moment of specific crisis goes by. I encourage you to read her thoughts!

Two.

Have you seen this? I just learned about it. IHOP and the Tiny House Nation builders collaborated to build a tiny IHOP! There are only a couple of pictures online right now...so I sure hope they post more later. I am totally intrigued by this! It's a tiny house version of a real IHOP...how adorable is that!?!??!?!

Three.

DO NOT TELL RYAN about this one, okay? DO NOT TELL HIM that the house in that Hallmark movie we watched last week is really a BandB that you can actually stay at. The movie was Christmas at Honeysuckle Lane, and I think it was one of last year's new releases, but this was the first time I remember seeing it. It's also the first time I remember being quite so enamored with the house in the movie. I mean I always love them (hello!!) but this time I kept saying all throughout the movie, "LOOK AT THAT HOUSE!!!!!!!" And then this week I discovered that it was filmed at a BandB. Be. Still. My. Heart. And don't tell Ryan. Because of course now I want to go.

Four.

Speaking of houses...I learned about this Hallmark movie house from a site called Hooked on Houses, and I don't think I need to tell you that I could spend ALL DAY reading these posts and looking at adorable houses. You should look at it. For an hour.

Five.

You know I love my Dashing Dish recipes, and this week I made Everything Baked Chicken...and Ryan declared it a 100% for-sure keeper. And our friend Amber had dinner with us that day and asked for the recipe. So it really must be great. (Bonus: SUPER SUPER EASY!!!!) I discovered it is not a members-only recipe, so I wanted to share it here with you!! Make it! It's delish!

Six.

Guess what?! I finished studying the book of Luke and am now in the fourth and final stretch of my yearlong study through the four Gospels! Today I wanted to tell you about the supplemental commentary I used while studying Luke, in case you're working through a similar study yourself!

To recap...when I studied Matthew, I used Charles Spurgeon's commentary on Matthew, and I really loved it. It was thought-provoking and kind of academic, but I learned SO much. But sadly, that was the only full-book-of-the-Bible commentary Spurgeon ever wrote, so I had to find a new source for Mark. That's when I discovered that Charles Swindoll has a whole series of commentaries on the New Testament books, so I used his volume on Mark, and I loved IT so much that I've decided I'd like to own the rest of them eventually. But by the time I found out this information about Swindoll's series, I'd already purchased my commentary on Luke, because I found it at a great price at a secondhand store.

So...

My commentary for Luke was simply titled Luke: A Commentary for Bible Students, and it was written by Ken Heer. It's a book in a series of commentaries published by Wesleyan Publishing House, but many authors have contributed to the series. Though I know/know of many of those authors (several have been professors at IWU, where I attended), Ken Heer was a new name to me.

I hadn't used any books from this series ever before, so I wasn't quite sure of the layout when I started, and the book proved to be a very different sort of commentary.

This one seemed to flow more like a regular book you would read and less like a verse-by-verse commentary. I learned many things from studying it, but the format wasn't my favorite of all the books I've used. For this kind of study, I like a verse-by-verse breakdown, not a flowing story sort of feel. There were some verses that seemed to be glossed over entirely in favor of getting the overall flow and feel of the book.

Having said that, it was easy to follow, and I did learn some word study information, some historical context background, and some good thoughts that seemed easily quotable, like they'd been in a sermon. (And maybe they were at some point!)

I was actually surprised (given the publisher and what I know of some of the other authors who have written for this series) that it wasn't more academic than it was. I expected something pretty tough to break down, and this was very easy to understand. That's not a complaint - just an observation.

I don't think I fell in love with this one as much as I did the first two, but it was a good guide through Luke, and I did learn. Took many notes. At this point, if I had to give an overall recommendation of a commentary series, the one Charles Swindoll wrote still has my top vote!