Bart Ehrman has perhaps done more to undermine the credibility of the Bible than anyone else in my lifetime. But his story didn’t begin that way. Ehrman is a New Testament scholar and skeptic. Ehrman grew up in a Christian home, attended a conservative Bible school, and then found his way to a liberal seminary where his faith in the God of the Bible unraveled. That seminary happens to be the seminary I would attend a couple of decades later.
For Ehrman, everywhere he looks he sees holes in the biblical story. The inconsistencies that he sees have led him to determine that he cannot trust in the God of the Bible.
“Don’t listen to your feelings; remember what Jesus did for you!”
“Don’t be guided by your feelings; listen to what God commands you to do!”
In just the past week, I heard both of these warnings. Two very different Christian speakers urged their audiences to shut down their feelings. These admonitions resonate. They contain truth. It is correct that our feelings don’t override truth, nor do our emotions negate what God has done. Neither do our feelings give us an out for what God commands us to do.
I had outsized emotions as a child. Games, especially, would get the best of me, whether cards or boardgames or sports. In response to a stroke of bad luck, a hot surge of anger would erupt, followed quickly by tears and then embarrassment.
Emotions are God’s gift to us in many ways. They are one of his kind ways of showing us where our deep attachments lie.
Our son started his freshman year at the University of Arizona this fall. It’s been a great experience for him, but not without its adjustments. The climate of a secular school is quite different than the Christian school he graduated from
Most have heard of the famous Stanford marshmallow experiment. In 1970, psychologist Walter Mischel invited kids into his lab. A child was offered a marshmallow that they could eat, or, if they waited until the researcher returned, they were given a second marshmallow. About one-third of the kids waited approximately fifteen minutes for the additional reward.
The study then tracked those children over time and found that children who waited for the second reward tended to have higher SAT scores and lower body mass indexes. Later tests have challenged those outcomes, but it hasn’t stopped parents everywhere from running the experiment on their kids, often with humorous results.
Happy election day!
In 2016, data scientists Eitan Hersh and Yair Ghitza analyzed data among registered voters to determine how often Democrats and Republicans married. They learned that 9% of marriages had the spouses registered in the two parties. Over the next four years that meager number would drop precipitously, down to 4%.
As Jonathan Haidt and others have successfully argued, the ideological disparity between FOX News and CNBC are child’s play compared to the engineered social media algorithms that create hermetically sealed echo chambers for our political views.
I love gardening. I love helping bring something to life, nurturing it, and watching it flourish.
I am not particularly great at gardening, though. Any improvement I’ve had has come through the school of hard knocks: a plant I put in the wrong soil, a plant placed in the incorrect amount of sunlight, or not giving a plant the right amount of water (my default is always that more must be better—it isn’t).
Relationships are like plants, aren’t they? They are fragile. They are challenging.
1. My Cup Overflows: HB Charles Jr. reflects on a familiar text with fresh insight, “Psalm 23 is not the boast of a spoiled youth. This is not the testimony of a trouble-free life. It is not the memoir of a peacetime king. David was a neglected shepherd boy in his father’s house. David was a fugitive from the murderous ways of Saul. David was a father whose rebellious children broke his heart. David was a wartime king who faced one enemy after another. David was an exile whose own sought to overthrow him, Yet David exclaims, ‘My cup overflows.’”
2. Into the Waves: Andrea Sanborne reflects, “It is tempting to shift our weight a little in an attempt to be more comfortable in the dominant culture. To build our house there, on the soft sands of acceptance. Since childhood we have all struggled to fit in with the group holding power, whether that be the popular girls at the lunch table or the consensus at the board meeting. But when the storm comes, we will regret not building our lives on something more solid.”
3. Not Just Doctrine, but Culture and Friendship Too: Ray Ortlund urges us to not reduce what God invites us into, “I believe that orthodox doctrine, gracious culture and lasting friendships, if widely shared among our churches — by God’s grace, for his glory alone — can accomplish something profound in our generation. Much more could be said, of course. But I don’t see us making progress without these threads wonderfully woven together by us, among us.”
4. Now More Than Ever: Here is cause for encouragement from JK Wall, “For people who are pro-life, there has never been a time as good as this. All Christians should celebrate.”
5. Worst Year Ever: The folks at Radiolab ask the question: what was the worst year ever? You will be surprised by their answer.
It’s here! New backpacks are filled with unclicked mechanical pencils and crisp highlighters. New sneakers are ready to be laced up and fresh hair cuts sported. School is back.
I look back with fondness at many years of schooling and regret how I spent a couple of those years. My kids are entering their senior and sophomore years in high school. I want to see them thrive in the year ahead. As those in the thick of it, I processed these questions with them:
How can you make the best of this school year? Better yet, how can the year ahead be used for God’s glory?
We agreed on the following encouragements:
1. Is This the End of Recycling? What a bizarre turn of events: in a day and age with more environmental awareness, recycling is disappearing because of financial realities. Alana Semuels reports, "For decades, we were sending the bulk of our recycling to China—tons and tons of it, sent over on ships to be made into goods such as shoes and bags and new plastic products. But last year, the country restricted imports of certain recyclables... These municipalities have two choices: pay much higher rates to get rid of recycling, or throw it all away. Most are choosing the latter."
2. How to Create a Culture of Happy Complementarians: Whitney Woolard's excellent post begins, "If I were a man, I would be a church planter... But I’m a woman—a woman who believes God has spoken authoritatively in his Word on all matters pertaining to life and godliness."
3. What Should My Sunday Look Like? Chad Asby's article might look simple, but it packs a punch. He begins, " Week after week, many of us attend a worship served not a worship service."
4. Christians More Likely to Have Intergenerational Friendships: Here is an encouraging study by Barna. Aaron Earls reports, "Twenty-six percent of those who have an older friend and 18 percent who have a younger friend say they met them at church. Among Christians, 26 percent say they lack a friendship outside their age group, compared to 41 percent of non-Christians."
5. Americans Less Certain in God's Existence: Aaron Earls reports that, " In the past 15 years, the percentage who say they know God exists and have no doubts dropped from 65% to 53%, according to the latest research from the General Social Survey."
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