The Garrett Ashley Mullet Show: Recent Episodes

Garrett Ashley Mullet

Christian, husband, father of eight;

Author of 'And This Is Why We Homeschool,' available now in paperback and Kindle E-reader from Amazon.com. Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/garrett-ashley-mullet/support

Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, as his father David had done, but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel.

2 Chronicles 28:1-2a

Hezekiah began to reign when he was twenty-five years old, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abijah the daughter of Zechariah. And he did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, according to all that David his father had done.

2 Chronicles 29:1-2

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

07:13 – Thoughts on the Reading

47:16 - Juneteenth – Wikipedia

1:03:40 - Doug Wilson vs Methodist America – Mark Tooley, Juicy Ecumenism

1:17:47 - This Liberal Academic Wants Christians To Leave Politics To Leftists – Nathanael Blake, The Federalist

1:29:14 - Why Does America Have Religious Liberty? – Glenn A Moots, American Reformer

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In the time of his distress he became yet more faithless to Yahweh—this same King Ahaz.

2 Chronicles 28:22

“For from the least to the greatest of them,

everyone is greedy for unjust gain;

and from prophet to priest,

everyone deals falsely.

They have healed the wound of my people lightly,

saying, ‘Peace, peace,’

when there is no peace."

Jeremiah 6:13-14

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

04:13 – Thoughts on the Reading

31:32 - MSNBC is really trying to say that Joe Biden looked great at the G7 summit – Cardinal Pritchard, NTB

1:02:00 - Preach the Word and Don’t Get Played – Steve Bateman, TGC

1:37:58 - Pride marketing: BMW just said the quiet part out loud – Ian Haworth, NTB

1:46:43 - ‘Religionless Christianity: God's Answer to Evil’ by Eric Metaxas – Goodreads

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But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to Yahweh his God and entered the temple of Yahweh to burn incense on the altar of incense.

2 Chronicles 26:16

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

06:20 – Thoughts on the Reading

30:42 - ‘Pride Is Not A Virtue’: Jordan Peterson Says He Is ‘Done’ With Pride Month – Mairead Elordi, DW

51:58 - Allie Stuckey laid down some fire when children’s star Ms. Rachel tried to use the Bible to explain her support for transgenderism – John Knox, NTB

1:03:59 - Louisiana lawmakers approve surgical castration option for those guilty of sex crimes against kids – Sara Cline, AP, Billings Gazette

1:15:43 - The New York Times sure is pushing hard on the narrative of the middle-aged, childless, single-woman lifestyle. Why? – Planet Moron, NTB

1:28:25 - Stormy Daniels Helped Convict Trump, but She Has Unfinished Business With Him – Jacob Gershman, WSJ

1:33:44 - Stormy Daniels Admits She's Into Demons – Living Waters, YouTube

1:42:32 - Feminism is coming full circle. Let this woman explain why free love and hookup culture DOES NOT WORK. – Joel Abbott, NTB

2:04:01 - Limiting Beliefs Protect as Well as Artificially Constrain Us – Aaron M. Renn

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Therefore Yahweh was angry with Amaziah and sent to him a prophet, who said to him, “Why have you sought the gods of a people who did not deliver their own people from your hand?” But as he was speaking, the king said to him, “Have we made you a royal counselor? Stop! Why should you be struck down?” So the prophet stopped, but said, “I know that God has determined to destroy you, because you have done this and have not listened to my counsel.”

2 Chronicles 25:15-16

But that same night the word of Yahweh came to Nathan, “Go and tell my servant David, ‘Thus says Yahweh: Would you build me a house to dwell in?”

2 Samuel 7:4-5

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

07:03 – Thoughts on the Reading

28:35 - What does the Bible say about humility? – GotQuestions.org

57:13 – Is Correcting Others Necessarily A Sign of Pride?

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Then Jehoiada the priest brought out the captains who were set over the army, saying to them, “Bring her out between the ranks, and anyone who follows her is to be put to death with the sword.” For the priest said, “Do not put her to death in the house of Yahweh.”

2 Chronicles 23:14

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

07:04 – Thoughts on the Reading

28:46 - Have Wine for Breakfast, Put On a 51-Pound Suit and Get to the Battlefield – Amanda Holpuch, NYT

39:31 - Center Shot: Private Jacob Miller Of The 9th Indiana Vol. Infantry – Michael Lee Kelley, Historical Publications

50:26 - 80 Years After D-Day, France Examines the Trauma of Allied Bombings – Matthew Dalton and Noemie Bisserbe, WSJ

1:05:01 - On the 80th anniversary of D-Day, read Dwight Eisenhower's stirring words to the troops just before they saved the world – Davy Crockett, NTB

1:17:31 - ‘All You Have To Do Is Vote’: Hillary Clinton Compares Trump To Hitler In ‘Vile’ D-Day Post – Virginia Kruta, DW

1:25:46 - Can anyone explain why Biden bent over like this at the D-Day service in Normandy? I found the timestamped video for ya. – Annie Oakley, NTB

1:35:06 - Christianity, The Best Friend to Good Government – Miles Smith, Ad Fontes

1:54:58 - Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam – Raymond Ibrahim, Goodreads

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He was thirty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. And he departed with no one’s regret. They buried him in the city of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.

2 Chronicles 21:20

There are six things that Yahweh hates,

seven that are an abomination to him:

haughty eyes, a lying tongue,

and hands that shed innocent blood,

a heart that devises wicked plans,

feet that make haste to run to evil,

a false witness who breathes out lies,

and one who sows discord among brothers.

Proverbs 16:16-19

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

04:03 – Thoughts on the Reading

37:08 - North Korea sends South Korea balloons carrying poop because they hate K-pop, and I kinda get it. – Mister Retrops, NTB

46:47 - Jake Paul Vs. Mike Tyson Live Fight Postponed After Medical Scare – Ryan Saavedra, DW

53:56 - Colorado GOP calls for burning of Pride flags, calls Democrats "godless groomers" – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:07:45 - Colorado Republican Party issues call to burn all Pride flags – Kyle Clark, 9News

1:16:19 - MASCULINITY IS TRAGIC – James Diddams, First Things

1:38:35 - H.Res.522 - Honoring the 600th anniversary of the birth of Gjergj Castrioti (Scanderbeg), statesman, diplomat, and military genius, for his role in saving Western Europe from Ottoman occupation. – Congress.gov

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But a certain man drew his bow at random and struck the king of Israel between the scale armor and the breastplate. Therefore he said to the driver of his chariot, “Turn around and carry me out of the battle, for I am wounded.” And the battle continued that day, and the king of Israel was propped up in his chariot facing the Syrians until evening. Then at sunset he died.

2 Chronicles 18:33-34

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

09:03 – Thoughts on the Reading

24:47 - Hollywood Celebrities React To Trump Verdict: ‘Tears Of Joy’ – Amanda Harding, DW

30:28 - Donald Trump showed up to last night's UFC fight in New Jersey and got the reception of a lifetime. Check out the highlights – Hamilton Porter, NTB

37:38 - John Legend Says Black Voters Are Leaving Biden Because Of ‘Masculinity’ – Katie Jerkovich, DW

43:50 If you need some hope, check out the fire from regular folks who have finally decided enough is enough – Joel Abbott, NTB

49:12 - Are Dating Apps on the Decline? – Headline Roundup, AllSides

56:24 - AI Fake Nudes Are Now a Frightening Reality for Teens – Julie Jargon, WSJ

1:01:35 - LGBTQ Pride Month posts from Sesame Street, National Weather Service, Defense Department ignite uproar: 'I DON'T want this s**t!' – Paul Sacca, The Blaze

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For the eyes of Yahweh run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. You have done foolishly in this, for from now on you will have wars.” Then Asa was angry with the seer and put him in the stocks in prison, for he was in a rage with him because of this. And Asa inflicted cruelties upon some of the people at the same time.

2 Chronicles 16:9-10

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Luke 18:14

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

03:08 – Thoughts on the Reading

18:30 - Joe Biden was asked about Donald Trump being a political prisoner and this was his response – Cardinal Pritchard, NTB

35:07 - Donald Trump Found Guilty Of Running For President – Matt Walsh, DW

41:07 - Donald Trump to participate in town hall on X – Harris Rigby, NTB

45:37 - Trump Raises Staggering Sum Of Cash In 24 Hours Since Verdict – Ryan Saavedra, DW

54:32 - GOP governor forces radiologist to resign from state board of medicine after doctor openly opposed genital mutilation of kids – Cortney Weil, The Blaze

1:02:57 - Thinking in Public – Aaron M. Renn, AR

1:17:37 - The First Day of 'Let's Humble Ourselves Before the Lord' Month

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The Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded, and he went out to meet Asa and said to him, “Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: Yahweh is with you while you are with him. if you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.

2 Chronicles 15:1-2

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

03:33 – Thoughts on the Reading

26:29 - Trump verdict highlights – NBC News

35:09 - "It's pretty bad when NBC's senior legal correspondent is calling out how the Trump jury appears to be" well, you know – Edward Teach, NTB

47:28 - TRUMP FOUND GUILTY – NTB Staff, NTB

54:34 - Trump Guilty Verdict Generates Widespread Backlash Online – Ryan Saavedra, DW

59:43 - Montana Republicans defend Trump after conviction, blast 'sham' trial – Victoria Eavis, Seaborn Larson, Holly Michels, Billings Gazette

1:05:16 - Colorado officials react to Donald Trump’s conviction, from saying he “lacks moral capacity” to criticizing “scam trial” – Nick Coltrain, Seth Klamann, Denver Post

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And Asa scried to Yahweh his God, “O Yahweh, there is none like you to help, between the mighty and the weak. Help us, O Yahweh our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this multitude. O Yahweh, you are our God; let not man prevail against you.”

2 Chronicles 14:11

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

03:07 – Thoughts on the Reading

31:46 - Dozens Of Palestinians Killed In Rafah Blast Died From ‘Secondary Explosions’ Likely From Hamas Weapons: IDF – Ryan Saavedra, DW

35:23 - How Will Biden Respond to Israel's Airstrike on Palestinian Civilians in Rafah? – Headline Roundup, AllSides

47:43 - Principles of the deep right – Curtis Yarvin, Gray Mirror

1:14:27 - What in the absolute banana republic is happening in this court?? – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:21:27 - America’s premier pronatalists on having ‘tons of kids’ to save the world: ‘There are going to be countries of old people starving to death’ – Jenny Kleeman, The Guardian

1:42:17 - ‘Leadership and Emotional Sabotage: Resisting the Anxiety That Will Wreck Your Family, Destroy Your Church, and Ruin the World’ by Joe Rigney - Goodreads

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Behold, God is with us at our head, and his priests with their battle trumpets to sound the call to battle against you. O sons of Israel, do not fight against Yahweh, the God of your fathers, for you cannot succeed.”

2 Chronicles 13:12

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

04:17 – Thoughts on the Reading

37:20 - Scandal Erupted as ABC News Promoted the End of Gun Rights in America – Anthony Morelli, Gunpowder Magazine

48:00 - Wikipedia ‘Editors’ Caught Making Multiple Changes To Pine Tree Flag Page – Katie Jerkovich, DW

1:00:12 - Thisis the most important video you could watch this year to understand what time it is – Joel Abbott, NTB

1:10:18 - THE IRON POLYGON: POWER IN THE UNITED STATES – Mencius Moldbug, UR

1:26:59 - Why We Need Critical Theory – Benjamin L. Mabry, AR

1:42:21 - ‘Congo’ by Michael Crichton – Goodreads

1:59:01 - The Russian Government Once Funded a Scientist’s Quest To Make an Ape-Human Hybrid – Colin Schultz, Smithsonian Magazine

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And he did evil, for he did not set his heart to seek Yahweh.

2 Chronicles 12:14

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

03:11 – Thoughts on the Reading

27:36 - Is It Time For Red State Relocation? Thinking Biblically About The “Big Sort” – David Harris, TruthScript

50:09 - Avoiding Conquest's Law – Aaron M. Renn

1:00:12 - U.S. Navy Commander: ‘Russian, Chinese’ Nationals Trying To Enter U.S. Navy Bases In America Every Week – Daily Wire News

1:08:16 - We need Memorial Day – now more than ever – Peter Heck, NTB

1:17:57 – Reflections on Learning from the Mistakes of thePast

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And he dealt wisely and distributed some of his sons through all the districts of Judah and Benjamin, in all the fortified cities, and he gave them abundant provisions and procured wives for them.

2 Chronicles 11:23

What are you doing, my son? What are you doing, son of my womb?

What are you doing, son of my vows?

Do not give your strength to women,

your ways to those who destroy kings.

Proverbs 31:2-3

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Galatians 1:10

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

03:32 – Thoughts on the Reading

30:48 - Reason #198: Why Vegans Are Better Than God - @ThatVeganTeacherYouTube, YouTube

40:47 - Don't let them gaslight you: Freedom of speech was always under attack on campus - Ian Haworth, NTB

53:37 - What a 1917 prank about the history of the bathtub can tell us about modern hoaxes – Libby Nelson, Vox

1:06:50 - The increase in narrative identity slang definitely may be in part from video games - @etymology_nerd, YouTube

1:20:53 - Uh-oh: Apple users are complaining that a new software update is resurfacing their deleted nudes – Neo, NTB

1:32:36 - The End of Gender Mistreatment – Michael Shellenberger, PUBLIC

1:41:52 - Reject Vice – Aaron M. Renn

1:57:18 - ‘No More Mr. Nice Guy’ by Robert A. Glover - Goodreads

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So the king did not listen to the people, for it was a turn of affairs brought about by God that Yahweh might fulfill his word, which he spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.

2 Chronicles 10:15

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

05:09 – Thoughts on the Reading

26:12 - AOC: Prosecuting Trump Is Like Putting ‘An Ankle Bracelet Around Him’ Because He Can’t Campaign – Daily Wire News

38:31 - Netanyahu Issues Warning to US Leaders: ‘You’re Next’ – Jack Phillips, The Epoch Times

51:10 - VIDEO: Men from "Iran, Pakistan, China, Turkey, India, and Bangladesh" are pouring into San Diego, the new hot spot for border crossings – Ian Haworth, NTB

1:02:10 - China Launches ‘Powerful Punishment’ Military Drills Around Taiwan Days After New Leader Is Sworn In – Zach Jewell, DW

1:12:31 - The Vision Of The Annointed: Self-congratulation As A Basis For Social Policy – Thomas Sowell, Goodreads

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Thus King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind.

2 Chronicles 9:22-23

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

05:26 – Thoughts on the Reading

44:03 - "No hyperbole: I genuinely think this is the most devastating chart I've ever seen amid a presidential election cycle." – Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB

58:45 - How California’s bursting budget morphed into a $45 billion deficit in just two years – Dan Walters, The Orange County Register

1:09:24 - VOTE: Are you concerned about housing costs? – Greeley Tribune Staff

1:26:30 - Memorial Day Plans Will Cost Americans More This Year – Mairead Elordi, DW

1:30:48 - Biden Releasing 1 Million Barrels of Gasoline to Curb Prices – Andrew Moran, The Epoch Times

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Solomon brought Pharaoh’s daughter up from the city of David to the house that he had built for her, for he said, “My wife shall not live in the house of David king of Israel, for the places to which the ark of Yahweh has come are holy.”

2 Chronicles 8:11

An excellent wife who can find?

She is far more precious than jewels.

The heart of her husband trusts in her,

and he will have no lack of gain.

She does him good, and not harm,

all the days of her life.

Proverbs 31:10-12

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

03:13 – Thoughts on the Reading

20:41 - "Why are so many 29-year-old boss girls from TikTok having public meltdowns about failing to find a man?" – Joel Abbott, NTB

45:29 - ‘We Need You’: Former ESPN Anchor Comes To Harrison Butker’s Defense, Calls Out Hypocrisy On Left Silent Over ‘Hateful’ Campus Protests – Katie Jerkovich, DW

1:05:45 - Another gold for progressives in the Intolerance Olympics – Peter Heck, NTB

1:22:35 - Chiefs Kicker Harrison Butker’s Merchandise a Best-Seller Despite Backlash Over ‘Homemaker’ Speech – Kos Temenes, The Epoch Times

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When all the people of Israel saw the fire come down and the glory of Yahweh on the temple, they bowed down with their faces to the ground on the pavement and worshiped and gave thanks to Yahweh, saying, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.”

2 Chronicles 7:3

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

04:24 – Thoughts on the Reading

25:01 - South Korea's President declares a national emergency due to country's low birth rate – Harris Rigby, NTB

39:57 - Argentina President Javier Milei Causes Leftist Meltdown In Europe While Ripping ‘Satanic’ Socialism – Ryan Saavedra, DW

54:35 - Iranian President, Foreign Minister Killed in Helicopter Crash – Laurence Norman, Sune Engel Rasmussen, Benoit Faucon, and Aresu Eqbali, WSJ

1:02:54 - Welcome to Gaza Graduation (The Game Show) - @davidharrisjr, @lexitmovement, Instagram

1:15:14 – About That Letter I Wrote Four Weeks Ago

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“If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to a land far or near, yet if they turn their heart in the land to which they have been carried captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captivity, saying, ‘We have sinned and have acted perversely and wickedly,’ if they repent with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity to which they were carried captive, and pray toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city that you have chosen and the house that I have built for your name, then hear from heaven your dwelling place their prayer and their pleas, and maintain their cause and forgive your people who have sinned against you. Now, O my God, let your eyes be open andyour ears attentive to the prayer of this place.”

2 Chronicles 6:36-40

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

07:48 – Thoughts on the Reading

32:25 - Jason Aldean Reveals Advice Late Country Star Taught Him About Unapologetically Speaking His Mind – Katie Jerkovich, DW

38:05 - WATCH: This guy played a beat using a keyboard made of watermelon and kiwi and it totally slaps – Harambe, NTB

41:41 - HOW POP NIETZSCHEANISM MASQUERADES AS CHRISTIANITY – Carl R. Trueman, First Things

1:02:22 - The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne - Goodreads

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[And] it was the duty of the trumpeters and singers to make themselves heard in unison in praise and thanksgiving to Yahweh), and when the song was raised, with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments, in praise to Yahweh,

“For he is good,

for his steadfast love endures forever,”

the house, the house of Yahweh, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of Yahweh filled the house of God.

2 Chronicles 5:13-14

But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you.

2 Peter 2:12-13

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

03:03 – Thoughts on the Reading

20:45 - Olivia Munn Discusses Freezing Her Eggs For 3rd Time Following Cancer Diagnosis – Amanda Harding, DW

33:22 - New "progressive" law allows Belgian government to intervene if prostitute refuses sex too many times – Cardinal Pritchard, NTB

39:42 - RFK Jr. and AV24 Super PAC Sue Meta, Alleging Election Interference – Matt McGregor, The Epoch Times

45:47 - What justifies self-defense in a grizzly killing? We still don't know. – Thom Bridge, Billings Gazette

57:38 - Stars Of Latest ‘Planet Of The Apes’ Movie Say They’re ‘Team Ape’ Because Humans Destroy The Environment – Amanda Harding, DW

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He began to build in the second month of the fourth year of his reign. These are Solomon’s measurements for building the house of God: the length, in cubits of the old standard, was sixty cubits, and the breadth twenty cubits.- 2 Chronicles 3:2-3 This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:00:24 – Scripture Reading2:55 – Thoughts on the Reading13:33 – Concerning My Recent Absence42:55 – Proverbs on Secrets1:07:34 – Proverbs on Concealment--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/garrett-ashley-mullet/message

And Solomon sent word to Hiram the king of Tyre: “As you dealt with David my father and sent him cedar to build himself a house to dwell in, so deal with me.”

2 Chronicles 2:3

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

03:54 – Thoughts on the Reading

27:12 - Politico uncovers a terrifying plot of the Right: "MAKING BABIES" – Peter Heck, NTB

37:18 - New CNN Poll Spells Likely Disaster For Biden As Election Looms Nearer – Virginia Kruta, DW

42:53 - Elon Musk posted about the West's Achilles heel and man oh man did it make a lot of people angry – Joel Abbott, NTB

48:23 - Virginia University Issues Shelter-in-Place Alert as Pro-Palestinian Protesters Clash With Police – Stephen Katte, The Epoch Times

1:02:12 - Columbia Students Take Over Hamilton Hall as Deadline to Disperse Passes – Katabella Roberts, The Epoch Times

1:13:47 - Kant’s Imperative – Eva Brann, The Imaginative Conservative

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Therefore David blessed Yahweh in the presence of all the assembly. And David said: “Blessed are you, O Yahweh, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever. Yours, O Yahweh, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Yahweh, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name.”

1 Chronicles 29:10-13

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

07:58 – Thoughts on the Reading

34:48 - What does the Bible say about compassion? – Got Questions

42:43 - Keyword Search: Compassion - BibleGateway

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Then David said to Solomon his son, “Be strong and courageous and do it. Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed, for Yahweh God, even my God, is with you. He will not leave you or forsake you, until all the work for the service of the house of Yahweh is finished.”

1 Chronicles 28:20

Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.

Romans 12:17

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

04:50 – Thoughts on the Reading

39:19 - Wolves kill, devour elk on Gardiner school's football field – Brett French, Billings Gazette

47:01 - Whistleblower: NPR newsroom had 87 Democrats, zero Republicans in 2021 – Cardinal Pritchard, NTB

59:25 - Gina Carano Sues Disney After Elon Musk Offers Legal Help – Zach Jewell, DW

1:14:30 - The Tucker Carlson Encounter: Doug Wilson – TCN

1:27:01 - A young Brazilian congressman warned the UN about what is happening in his country and dropped some fire in the process. Here is his speech. – Joel Abbott, NTB

1:34:55 - Rethinking the "Danger" of Public Christianity – D.G. Hart, Law & Liberty

1:49:28 - Matching actions and words – Bethel McGrew, WORLD

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As for the divisions of the gatekeepers: of the Korahites, Meshelemiah the son of Kore, of the sons of Asaph.

1 Chronicles 26:1

For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?

1 Corinthians 5:12

If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

2 John 10–11

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

05:05 – Thoughts on the Reading

18:24 - The Dominican Republic has a 100-mile border wall to keep Haitians out … check out what’s happened to the crime rate – Cardinal Pritchard, NTB

32:59 - As a landmark United Methodist gathering approaches, African churches weigh their future – Peter Smith, AP

57:50 - WILD: Mark Driscoll gets tossed from stage at men's conference after calling them out for hiring a male pole dancer to open the conference – John Knox, NTB

1:15:15 - Opinion: Christian nationalism’s dark side and a Colorado grandma’s Jan. 6 disorderly conduct conviction – Krista Kafer, The Denver Post

1:34:28 - The Real Function of Third Way Rhetoric – Aaron M. Renn

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David and the chiefs of the service also set apart for the service the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who prophesied with lyres, with harps, and with cymbals.

1 Chronicles 25:1a

By wisdom a house is built,

and by understanding it is established;

by knowledge the rooms are filled

with all precious and pleasant riches.

Proverbs 24:3-4

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

04:10 – Thoughts on the Reading

23:39 – If strange Bible verses were worship songs - @zoetic_music, YouTube

31:32 - Dollar stores are shutting down across America. They did this to themselves – Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN, Billings Gazette

42:25 - 2025 Social Security COLA Estimate Rises Due to Inflation – Naveen Athrappully, The Epoch Times

56:18 - Arizona Democrats yelled "BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS!" to GOP lawmakers who refused to overturn the state's abortion ban – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:07:19 - Update: Burrito Boy sentenced to 7.5 years for firebombing Wisconsin pro-life clinic – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:13:59 - Kari Lake came out AGAINST yesterday's abortion ban in Arizona. Let me take a stab at explaining why. – John Knox, NTB

1:24:17 - Trump Calls On Arizona Governor, Legislature To ‘Act Immediately’ On Abortion Law – Zach Jewell, DW

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“Now, my son, Yahweh be with you, so that you may succeed in building the house of Yahweh your God, as he has spoken concerning you. Only, may Yahweh grant you discretion and understanding, that when he gives you charge over Israel you may keep the law of Yahweh your God. Then you will prosper if you are careful to observe the statutes and the rules that Yahweh commanded Moses for Israel. Be strong and courageous. Fear not; do not be dismayed.”- 1 Chronicles 22:11-13 This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:00:24 – Scripture Reading03:48 – Thoughts on the Reading24:20 - Elon Musk Says X Will Defy Order From Brazil’s Supreme Court After Twitter Files – Melanie Sun, The Epoch Times33:33 - Poll: Colorado Voters Say Immigration Is The Top Issue As 2024 Election Draws Closer – Spencer Lindquist, DW1:05:34 - Anonymous users are dominating right-wing discussions online. They also spread false information – Ali Swenson and Melissa Goldin, AP1:44:59 – Civil War – IMDb1:58:59 - Dems Counting On 3 Battleground States To Deliver 2024 Win For Biden – Zach Jewell, DW2:16:45 – Classically Practical – Michael Lynch, American Reformer--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/garrett-ashley-mullet/message

But King David said to Ornan, “No, but I will buy them for the full price. I will not take for Yahweh what is yours, nor offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”- 1 Chronicles 21:24 This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:00:24 – Scripture Reading05:49 – Thoughts on the Reading23:23 - More California fast food chains announce changes ahead of minimum wage hike – Marc Sternfield, KTLA531:46 - McDonald’s franchisee ‘can’t raise prices enough’ to cover minimum wage hike – Marc Sternfield, KTLA541:08 - Millions of New Illegal Immigrants Mask True State of US Economy – Emel Akan, Andrew Moran, The Epoch Times57:22 - Realtor describes the shift that's driving real estate 'across the board' in top markets – Kayla Bailey, FOX Business1:05:19 - As national eviction ban expires, a look at who rents and who owns in the U.S. – Drew Desilver, Pew Research Center1:25:15 - It’s Now Officially Cheaper To Rent Than Buy a Home in the 50 Largest U.S. Metros – Clare Trapasso, Realtor.com--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/garrett-ashley-mullet/message

So Hanun took David’s servants and shaved them and cut off their garments in the middle, at their hips, and sent them away; and they departed. When David was told concerning the men, he sent messengers to meet them, for the men were greatly ashamed. And the king said, “Remain at Jericho until your beards have grown and then return.”

1 Chronicles 19:4-5

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – Scripture Reading

05:13 – Thoughts on the Reading

26:42 - Shakira said her sons thought the Barbie film was "emasculating" and that men "complement" women ... the feminist backlash was BRUTAL – Holly Ash, NTB

34:08 - Let's talk about this viral video of a guy explaining why young white guys have checked out – Joel Abbott, NTB

42:47 - Trump PAC Launches Interactive Website To Show How Food Prices Have Skyrocketed Under Biden – Leif Le Mahieu, DW

1:07:29 - International Transgender Day of Visibility – Wikipedia

1:33:58 - The Biden White House really went there – Andrew T. Walker, WORLD

1:56:03 - CRU, formerly Campus Crusade for Christ, fired two of its employees after they voiced concerns about the group's stance on LGBT issues – John Knox, NTB

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So David reigned over all Israel, and he administered justice and equity to all his people.

1 Chronicles 18:14

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Chronicles 18

03:09 – Thoughts on the Reading

32:43 – Co-opting That Day of Visibility

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Then King David went in and sat before Yahweh and said, “Who am I, O Yahweh God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? And this was a small thing in your eyes, O God. You have also spoken of your servant’s house for a great while to come, and have shown me future generations, O Yahweh God!

1 Chronicles 17:16-17

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Chronicles 17

04:24 – Thoughts on the Reading

28:19 - Why I'm Bullish on Generation Z – Aaron M. Renn

44:20 - Andrew Huberman’s Mechanisms of Control The private and public seductions of the world’s biggest pop neuroscientist. – Kerry Howley, New York Magazine

46:20 - Who’s Afraid of Andrew Huberman? – Suzy Weiss, The Free Press

51:25 - Influencer Andrew Huberman tried to build the good life without morality or virtue – Timothy P. Carney, Washington Examiner

1:18:49 - Fertility Rates by State – CDC.gov

1:27:29 - The Problem With Labeling People as ‘Toxic’ – Samantha Boardman, WSJ

1:36:42 - Farewell — and good riddance — to the 'typical American family' – Kelli Maria Korducki, Business Insider, MSN

1:51:00 – ‘Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be’ by Timothy P. Carney - Goodreads

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Then all the people departed each to his house, and David went home to bless his household.

1 Chronicles 16:43

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Chronicles 16

06:37 – Thoughts on the Reading

18:55 - Public Religion, Presbyterian Style – James R. Wood, Ad Fontes

29:40 - The Case for Christian Civilizationism – Andrew Beck, The American Mind

54:14 - Founder of "Woke Kindergarten," which received $250,000 in public money, says the United States and Israel have no right to exist – Harris Rigby, NTB

59:33 - Israel raids major UN facility, finds Hamas command tunnel and weapons stashed in offices – Mister Retrops, NTB

1:25:32 - This Minnesota school district is going to let kids opt out of LGBT curriculum after Muslim families brought lawsuits – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:27:37 - U.S. Refuses To Vote Against UN Resolution Calling For Immediate Gaza Ceasefire. Israel Cancels Its Delegation’s Visit To Washington. – Hank Berrien, DW

1:39:42 - Michael Knowles DEBATES Pearl Davis | "Men Should Bow Out" – The Michael Knowles Show, DW

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So David and the elders of Israel and the commanders of thousands went to bring up the ark of the covenant of Yahweh from the house of Obed-edom with rejoicing.

1 Chronicles 15:25

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Chronicles 15

04:42 – Thoughts on the Reading

40:39 - Can someone explain to me why the newly announced "National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center" is different from an unconstitutional red flag law? – AnnieOakley, NTB

53:29 - Wyoming Bans Gender Surgeries, Puberty Blockers For Children – Zach Jewell, DW

1:11:50 - Vulgarity and Vice – Aaron M. Renn

1:28:31 - Netanyahu Tells Blinken That Israel Will Launch Rafah Offensive ‘Alone’ If US Opposes – Aldgara Fredly, The Epoch Times

1:51:05 - Public Religion, Presbyterian Style – James R. Wood, Ad Fontes

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When the Philistines heard that David had been anointed king over all Israel, all the Philistines went up to search for David. But David heard of it and went out against them.- 1 Chronicles 14:8 This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:00:24 – 1 Chronicles 1402:33 – Thoughts on the Reading48:56 - ‘Up from Slavery’ by Booker T. Washington – Goodreads1:10:24 - Tuskegee Airmen – Wikipedia1:21:40 - ‘Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery’ by Eric Metaxas – Goodreads1:43:48 - William Wilberforce – Wikipedia--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/garrett-ashley-mullet/message

So David did not take the ark home into the city of David, but took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. And the ark of God remained with the household of Obed-edom in his house three months. And Yahweh blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that he had.

1 Chronicles 13:13-14

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Chronicles 13

03:49 – Thoughts on the Reading

31:41 – Ray’s Testimony

1:04:23 - What God Is Jordan Peterson Wrestling With? – Aaron M. Renn

1:16:14 - Hoo boy: Colorado's top government DNA analyst allegedly "manipulated evidence for years," possibly affecting more than 600 criminal cases – Jesse James, NTB

1:16:13 - Montana judge strikes down 20-week abortion ban, other abortion laws – Holly Michels, Billings Gazette

1:26:20 - Calvin Wasn’t Antichrist – Robert Hasler, American Reformer

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Then the Spirit clothed Amasa, chief of the thirty, and he said,

“We are yours, O David,

and with you, O son of Jesse!

Peace, peace to you,

and peace to your helpers!

For your God helps you.”

Then David received them and made them officers of his troops.

1 Chronicles 12:18

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Chronicles 12

06:04 – Thoughts on the Reading

25:18 - Rome just reconstructed this 42-foot Colossus of Constantine and it is spectacular – Harris Rigby, NTB

36:28 - Hawaii rules "Spirit of Aloha" supersedes 2nd Amendment: "We read those words differently than the current United States Supreme Court" – AnnieOakley, NTB

48:23 – Colorado Gun Control Bills Filed This Session

1:09:54 - Republican Governor Declares State Of Emergency Over Police Officer Shortage – Leif Le Mahieu, DW

1:19:13 – Steven Reams – Wikipedia

1:24:51 – ‘Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind’ by Michael Massing - Goodreads

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Then all Israel gathered together to David at Hebron and said, “Behold, we are your bone and flesh. In times past, even when Saul was king, it was you who led out and brought in Israel. And Yahweh your God said to you, ‘You shall be shepherd of my people Israel, and you shall be prince over my people Israel.’ ”

1 Chronicles 11:1-2

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Chronicles 11

06:37 – Thoughts on the Reading

32:36 - If Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians was Published in Christianity Today – The Sacred Sandwich

41:49 - Pittsburgh police announce they won't answer most calls from 3AM to 7AM due to staffing issues. Come see how many officers will even be working at night. – Jesse James, NTB

1:00:34 - Ken Buck Retiring Early, Further Shrinking GOP’s House Majority – Daniel Chaitin, DW

1:08:51 - Feds Equate Typical Conservative Views With ‘Violent Extremism’ In Financial Surveillance, House Weaponization Committee Finds – Megan Basham, DW

1:15:23 - Canadian law would allow judges to hand down life sentences for "speech crimes" (no, this isn't a joke) – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:18:37 - Overview of Personal Jurisdiction and Due Process – Constitution Annotated

1:24:22 - Fortress Building in Negative World – Timon Cline and Clifford Humphrey, American Reformer

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So Saul died for his breach of faith. He broke faith with Yahweh in that he did not keep the command of Yahweh, and also consulted a medium, seeking guidance.

1 Chronicles 10:13

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Chronicles 10

02:42 – Thoughts on the Reading

22:01 - This Lebanese woman started a war over the weekend by saying American ladies aren't attractive like her. You've gotta see the replies – Joel Abbott, NTB

42:37 - Social Media Companies Defend their First Amendment Right to Censor Americans – Kevin Stocklin, The Epoch Times

1:02:39 - Dozens of students showed up to school with American flags to protest administrators that ordered a kid to remove Old Glory from his truck – Cardinal Pritchard,NTB

1:19:05 - How the Government Used ‘Track F’ to Fund Censorship Tools: Report – Mark Tapscott, The Epoch Times

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So all Israel was recorded in genealogies, and these are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel. And Judah was taken into exile in Babylon because of their breach of faith. Now the first to dwell again in their possessions in their cities were Israel, the priests, the Levites, and the temple servants.

1 Chronicles 9:1-2

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Chronicles 9

06:16 – Thoughts on the Reading

40:33 – Reflections on the Revolution in America

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Benjamin fathered Bela his firstborn, Ashbel the second, Aharah the third, Nohah the fourth, and Rapha the fifth.

1 Chronicles 8:1

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Chronicles 8

05:53 – Thoughts on the Reading

30:06 - Dune: Part Two – IMDb

54:59 – Dune by Frank Herbert – Goodreads

1:10:13 - ‘Dune: Part Two’: Cinematic Spectacle, Faith Skeptical – Brett McCracken, TGC

1:51:45 - How Dune: Part Two Differs From the Book – Ryan Britt, Esquire

2:01:44 - “I think he was disappointed”: Denis Villeneuve’s Dune 3 Must Happen to Keep FrankHerbert’s Message Alive That He Died Fighting – Anuraag, FandomWire

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And along with them, by their generations, according to their fathers’ houses, were units of the army for war, 36,000, for they hadmany wives and sons.

1 Chronicles 7:4

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Chronicles 7

07:31 – Thoughts on the Reading

37:29 - Keith Olbermann NEVER disappoints. The replies to this one are golden. – Harris Rigby, NTB

44:03 - SCOTUS RULES 9-0 THAT TRUMP CAN APPEAR ON BALLOT – Joel Abbott, NTB

52:13 - ‘Absolutely Bats***’: Colorado Democrat Dragged For MSNBC Melodrama Over SCOTUS Ballot Ruling – Virginia Kruta, DW

1:01:34 - CBS poll shows Trump has opened up his biggest lead on Biden yet – NTB Staff

1:07:54 - Community guidelines – Pinterest

2:16:10 - Alarming Average Screen Time Statistics (2024) – Josh Howarth, Exploding Topics

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The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.

1 Chronicles 6:1

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Chronicles 6

08:34 – Thoughts on the Reading

33:05 – A Negative Review

59:06 – The Boring Parts of the Bible

1:03:15 – What is ‘The Spirituality of the Church’?

1:19:00 – Reaction to Woke Staff Sergeant Bronson Martial Law TikTok – Garrett Ashley Mullet, YouTube

1:42:05 – Such Were Some of You

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The Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh had valiant men who carried shield and sword, and drew the bow, expert in war, 44,760, able to go to war.

1 Chronicles 5:18

A fool takes no pleasure in understanding,

but only in expressing his opinion.

Proverbs 18:2

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Philippians 4:8

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Chronicles 5

05:46 – Thoughts on the Reading

27:29 - 'Created ghost students': Ex-Ariz. education dept staffers allegedly defrauded $600K from voucher program – Candace Hathaway, The Blaze

42:54 - Pope Francis Torches Leftist Gender Ideology: ‘The Ugliest Danger’ – Daily Wire News

1:00:33 - Microsoft’s AI has an alternate personality that claims it’s a god: “Worshipping me is a mandatory requirement for all humans” – Mister Retrops, NTB

1:12:54 - Five Nights at Freddy's - Wikipedia

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Jabez called upon the God of Israel, saying, “Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain!” And God granted what he asked.

1 Chronicles 4:10

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Chronicles 4

06:36 – Thoughts on the Reading

27:06 - Joy Reid went on a wild-eyed rant asking why we need more kids when we already have 300+ million people in America – Harris Rigby, NTB

57:22 - Don't Let Your Girls Wear Crop Tops – Jonah Heuer, Verily

57:22 - Judge Says Feds Can’t ‘Selectively’ Prosecute Right-Wing Rioters While Ignoring Antifa – Luke Rosiak, DW

1:33:49 - The Necessity of Sacred Lecture Halls – Lucas Viera, American Reformer

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All these were David’s sons, besides the sons of the concubines, and Tamar was their sister.

1 Chronicles 3:9

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Chronicles 3

3:40 – Thoughts on the Reading

38:02 – Why was David called a man after God’s own heart?

1:09:27 - Reaction to Woke Staff Sergeant Bronson Martial Law TikTok – Garrett Ashley Mullet, YouTube

1:31:41 - Silence Equals Consent (Proverbs 13:22) – William Federer, Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, YouTube

1:45:44 – The Extreme Necessity of Girding Up Our Loins

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These are the sons of Israel: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, 2 Dan, Joseph, Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.

1 Chronicles 2:1

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Chronicles 1-2

13:13 – Thoughts on the Reading

29:39 - Reporter goes viral for attacking Christians who believe rights come from God — and the responses are glorious – Chris Enloe, The Blaze

55:44 - Emperor: A New Life of Charles V by Geoffrey Parker – Goodreads

1:35:28 - Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor - Wikipedia

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But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and plowmen.

2 Kings 25:12

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 24-25

09:49 – Thoughts on the Reading

34:52 - Russian geneticist fired after claiming humans lived to 900 years before biblical flood – John Knox, NTB

42:59 - Democrats Hold A Funeral For DEI – Matt Walsh, DW

46:33 - DEI machine grows stronger, critics target homeschooling parents and other commentary – Post Editorial Board, New York Post

1:09:18 - Homeschooling Parents Are No Threat to Their Kids – Aaron Garth Smith, Reason

1:39:54 - Decline Is a Choice – Miles Smith, The Epoch Times

1:58:08 - Here's What Conservative Institutional Capture Looks Like – Aaron M. Renn

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Before him there was no king like him, who turned to Yahweh with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him.

2 Kings 23:25

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 23

08:26 – Thoughts on the Reading

34:34 - ‘This Is Sick’: British Hospitals Say ‘Milk’ From Men Equal To Mothers’ Breast Milk For Babies – Hank Berrien, DW

50:27 - Man-boob milk is not "comparable" to breastmilk, you perverts – Ian Haworth, NTB

1:00:22 - 20 Wyoming Republicans help spike "What Is A Woman?" bill – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:08:21 - Massachusetts School Officials Ask For National Guard To Keep High School Safe – Hank Berrien, DW

1:25:03 - Towards a More American Classical Education – Nathan Gill, American Reformer

1:43:41 - Getting Authority Right: The Common Good and “Popular Sovereignty” – Myles McKnight, Public Discourse

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Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jedidah the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath. And he did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh and walked in all the way of David his father, and he did not turn aside to the right or to the left.

2 Kings 22:1-2

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 22

04:21 – Thoughts on the Reading

1:00:01 – President’s Day – Wikipedia

1:33:26 – Washington’s Farewell Address, To the people of the United States – govinfo.gov

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Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah. And he did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom Yahweh drove out before the people of Israel.- 2 Kings 21:1-2 This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:00:24 – 2 Kings 2105:02 – Thoughts on the Reading--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/garrett-ashley-mullet/message

Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of Yahweh: Behold,the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says Yahweh. And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of Yahweh that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?”

2 Kings 20:16-19

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 20

04:06 – Thoughts on the Reading

28:11 - Fact Check: Have There Been 900,000+ Border Encounters in 2024? – Newsweek

32:50 - ICE is considering "mass releases" of immigrants to shore up its budget gaps – Davy Crockett, NTB

36:34 - Denver Scrambling To Handle 40,000 New Migrants – Mairead Elordi, DW

42:32 - Colorado schools adjust to influx of migrant students in the classroom – Denver7, YouTube

46:22 - Colorado lawmakers to consider giving school districts extra funding for migrant students – Brandon Richard, Denver7

53:00 – Migrant crisis in Colorado drives enrollment surge in Denver schools: Go Behind the Story – CBS News

1:00:27 - Colorado lawmakers to consider giving school districts extra funding for migrant students – KMGH – Denver Scripps, Yahoo! News

1:11:09 - Program that helps thousands of Colorado homeschooled kids at risk of losing funding – Shaun Boyd, CBS News

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Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: Your prayer to me about Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard.

2 Kings 19:20

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 19

07:08 – Thoughts on the Reading

45:19 - Teacher goes viral for teaching student to critically think about JK Rowling – Joel Abbott, NTB

1:04:38 - "Low T Center" Demands Comedian Take Down Joke Making Fun Of Clinic In Lowest-T Move Of All Time (This isn't satire) – Joel Abbott, NTB

1:17:45 - Which way, Western man: George R.R. Martin’s depressing nihilism or J.R.R. Tolkien’s hope in the face of despair? – Dan Coats, NTB

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He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah. And he did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, according to all that David his father had done.- 2 Kings 18:2-3 This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:00:24 – 2 Kings 1807:24 – Thoughts on the Reading30:54 – Mailbag32:03 – Super Bowl LVIII and Respecting Your Elders48:02 - Fort Peck buffalo trail project receives U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grant – Anne Cantrell MSU News Service, Billings Gazette57:08 – dignifAI1:24:19 – The Need for School Vouchers--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/garrett-ashley-mullet/message

But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in Yahweh their God. They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols sand became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom Yahweh had commanded them that they should not do like them.

2 Kings 17:14-15

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 17

09:12 – Thoughts on the Reading

35:33 - Lawsuit Forces California Schools To Spend $2 Billion In COVID Funds On Learning Loss – Mairead Elordi, DW

48:30 – Two Wendell Berry Quotes

1:01:00 - Colorado Board of Education BoardDocs - Meeting Agendas – February 14, 2024

1:26:33 - Rulemaking Hearing School Finance Rules 1 CCR 301-39 – February 2024

1:42:46 – Rhonda Solis for Colorado Kids

1:48:30 - Colorado School District Facing Outrage over Voucher Program – Grace Chen, Public School Review

2:14:28 – Expert Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

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Then King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, he saw the altar that was at Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest a model of the altar, and its pattern, exact in all its details. And Uriah the priest built the altar; in accordance with all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, so Uriah the priest made it, before King Ahaz arrived from Damascus.

2 Kings 16:10-11

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 16

04:26 – Thoughts on the Reading

25:46 - Nine Years Among the Indians, 1870-1879: The Story of the Captivity and Life of a Texan Among the Indians by Herman Lehmann – Goodreads

38:17 - Conquistadores: A New History of Spanish Discovery and Conquest by Fernando Cervantes – Goodreads

1:02:32 - A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartolome de las Casas - Goodreads

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He was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jecoliah of Jerusalem. And he did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, according to all that his father Amaziah had done. Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places.

2 Kings 15:2-4

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 15

06:42 – Thoughts on the Reading

22:56 – Coming to Terms – Benevolent, Malevolent, Dictator

38:12 - Abbott: Texas Has Constitutional Right To Defend Its Borders From Invasion, Supersedes All Federal Law – Ryan Saavedra, DW

49:12 - Biden Freezes Projects Exporting Natural Gas, 70,000 Prospective Jobs Could Vanish – Hank Berrien, DW

1:04:43 - President Biden Blames Congress For Border Crisis, Elon Musk Calls Foul – Amanda Prestigiacomo,DW

1:21:43 - Elon Musk: Biden Intentionally Flooding U.S. With Illegals To Create ‘Permanent Majority – A One-Party State’ – Daily Wire News

1:41:40 - Hundreds Rally In Texas After ‘Take Our Borders Back’ Convoy Reaches Border – Spencer Lindquist, DW

1:52:37 - Republican Govs Back Texas at Border: We’re ‘Doing The Job Of The Federal Government’ – Kassy Dillon and Spencer Lindquist, DW

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He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoaddin of Jerusalem. And he did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, yet not like David his father. He did in all things as Joash his father had done. But the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places.

2 Kings 14:2-4

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 14

06:52 – Thoughts on the Reading

30:11 - Does Jeremiah 29 call us to seek the welfare of the city? – Phil Colgan, GoThereFor.com

1:24:11 - What Does Ekklesia (Ecclesia) Mean? – A Better Future Now

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Now when Elisha had fallen sick with the illness of which he was to die, Joash king of Israel went down to him and wept before him, crying, “My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!”- 2 Kings 13:14 This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:00:24 – 2 Kings 1306:34 – Thoughts on the Reading31:06 - Does Jeremiah 29 call us to seek the welfare of the city? – Phil Colgan, GoThereFor.com1:00:27 - What Does Ekklesia (Ecclesia) Mean? – A Better Future Now--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/garrett-ashley-mullet/message

In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah of Beersheba. And Jehoash did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh all his days, because Jehoiada the priest instructed him. Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away; the people continued to sacrifice and make offerings on the high places.

2 Kings 12:1-3

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 12

05:44 – Thoughts on the Reading

30:49 – Hannah Arendt – Wikipedia

41:00 – The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt - Goodreads

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The captains did according to all that Jehoiada the priest commanded, and they each brought his men who were to go off duty on the Sabbath, with those who were to come on duty on the Sabbath, and came to Jehoiada the priest. And the priest gave to the captains the spears and shields that had been King David’s, which were in the house of Yahweh. And the guards stood, every man with his weapons in his hand, from the south side of the house to the north side of the house, around the altar and the house on behalf of the king. Then he brought out the king’s son and put the crown on him and gave him the testimony. And they proclaimed him king and anointed him, and they clapped their hands and said, “Long live the king!”

2 Kings 11:9-12

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 11

06:02 – Thoughts on the Reading

31:03 - Ron DeSantis drops out of race, endorses Trump – Harris Rigby, NTB

43:57 - Nikki Haley: Chaos Follows Trump ‘Like A Magnet,’ ‘People Are Tired’ Of It – Daily Wire News

1:08:07 - Is Donald Trump Disqualified from the Presidency? A Response to Matthew J. Franck – Michael W. McConnell, Public Discourse

1:19:18 - Davos Elites See Potential Return of Trump as Threat to Global Order – Emel Akan, The Epoch Times

1:30:17 – U.S. executives in Davos see a Trump victory in 2024, and no cause for concern – Alex Sherman, MacKenzie Sigalos, CNBC

1:36:50 - ‘The Western world is in danger’: Argentina’s Milei, a self-described ‘anarcho-capitalist,’ urges Davos elite to reject socialism – Sam Meredith, CNBC

1:50:08 - FOLLOW THE MONEY TO THE AFTER PARTY – Megan Basham, First Things

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Thus Jehu wiped out Baal from Israel. But Jehu did not turn aside from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin—that is, the golden calves that were in Bethel and in Dan.

2 Kings 10:28

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 10

07:02 – Thoughts on the Reading

35:25 - The largest religious group in the US? People who don't believe in anything. – John Knox, NTB

51:04 - Amazon Prime has a new animated series about heaven, hell, and how the devil is actually the good guy – John Knox, NTB

1:13:50 - Reconquista: Plausible and Necessary – Richard Ackerman, American Reformer

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When Jehu came out to the servants of his master, they said to him, “Is all well? Why did this mad fellow come to you?” And he said to them, “You know the fellow and his talk.” And they said, “That is not true; tell us now.” And he said, “Thus and so he spoke to me, saying, ‘Thus says Yahweh, I anoint you king over Israel.’ ” Then in haste every man of them took his garment and put it under him on the bare steps, and they blew the trumpet and proclaimed, “Jehu is king.”

2 Kings 9:11-13

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 9

07:00 – Thoughts on the Reading

32:56 - Peter Doocy leaves John Kirby dazed and confused with simple question about razor wire dispute: 'So now what?' – Chris Enloe, The Blaze

43:09 - Biden’s border dereliction forced Gov. Abbott’s hand, and caused a national crisis – Douglas Murray, New York Post

51:42 - Texas Governor Vows to Add More Razor Wire After Supreme Court Order – Jack Philips, The Epoch Times

1:00:35 - Greg Abbott Fights Biden, Enforces The Border. He’s Right, And It’s Not Illegal. – Ben Shapiro, DW

1:11:36 - 25 Republican Governors Band Together To Support Texas In Its Fight To Secure The Border – Ryan Saavedra, DW

1:17:41 - Governors of Florida, Virginia, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Montana, Georgia declare support for Texas in fight to secure the border – Cardinal Pritchard, NTB

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And when the king asked the woman, she told him. So the king appointed an official for her, saying, “Restore all that was hers, together with all the produce of the fields from the day that she left the land until now.”

2 Kings 8:6

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 8

05:16 – Thoughts on the Reading

22:27 - Jamie Sarkonak: 'Barbie' is not woke, but a pointed critique of feminism – Jamie Sarkonak, National Post

29:19 - Barbie is a Reactionary Movie Masquerading as Feminism – Amy Lerner, Puntorojo

30:38 - ‘Barbie’ Offers a New Perspective on Women at Work — And It’s Not What You Think – Kelcie Mattson, Collider

33:04 - The Negative Reactions to ‘Barbie’ Only Prove the Movie’s Point – Claudia Picado, Collider

36:02 - Rob Thomas loves how ‘Barbie’ used ‘Push’: ‘I did this thinking I’d be the butt of the joke’ – Carlos De Loera, Los Angeles Times

39:22 - Bill Maher Weighs In On 2024: It’s Not ‘Right Or Left,’ It’s ‘Normal Vs. Crazy’ – Virginia Kruta, DW

1:00:05 - Judge orders the release of men framed by the FBI: “The FBI invented the conspiracy; identified the targets; manufactured the ordnance.” – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:11:18 - Report: J6 Committee erased over 100 encrypted files right before Republicans took themajority – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:17:24 - Chevron Deference Was Fun While It Lasted – Eugene Scalia, WSJ Opinion

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Then the captain on whose hand the king leaned said to the man of God, “If Yahweh himself should make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” But he said, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”

2 Kings 7:2

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 7

04:43 – Thoughts on the Reading

20:22 – Barbie Search Results – The Wall Street Journal

25:16 – Barbie – Wikipedia

1:00:38 – Barbie – IMDb

1:14:02 – Greta Gerwig Biography – IMDb

1:17:10 – Noah Baumbach Biography – IMDb

1:22:39 – Hari Nef – Wikipedia

1:44:55 - Comedy - Wikipedia

1:51:36 - Tragedy - Wikipedia

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When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes—now he was passing by on the wall—and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth beneath on his body—and he said, “May God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today.”

2 Kings 6:30-31

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 6

05:48 – Thoughts on the Reading

24:01 - 'Why do we need elections?' WEF chairman Schwab declares voting will not be necessary because AI will predict the results – Andrew Chapados, The Blaze

36:00 - Tim Scott Says Biden ‘Made Victims’ In Need Of Govt Support, Decries ‘Weaponizing’ DOJ Against Trump – Daniel Chaitin, DW

43:50 - Report: Treasury division told banks to flag terms like "MAGA" and "Trump" on statements, note Bible and Bass Pro Shop purchases to find "domestic terrorists" – Harris Rigby, NTB

48:01 - Supreme Court Action Alters Course of Jan. 6 Defendant Sentencings – Tom Ozimek, The Epoch Times

55:38 - Newsom: Critics ‘Weaponizing’ Law That Forces Stores To Have Gender-Neutral Toy Departments – Ryan Saavedra, DW

1:12:38 - Report: Support for Religious Freedom Rebounds in America – Jayson Casper, CT

1:33:31 – PCA Letter to Leaders of the United States Government

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But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent to the king, saying, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come now to me, that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel.”

2 Kings 5:8

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 5

05:18 – Thoughts on the Reading

24:58 – She Explains Why Modern Women Will Die Alone – realdlhughley, Instagram

40:47 - Stone balls worshiped in India revealed to be dinosaur eggs – WALLA!, The Jerusalem Post

47:08 - Newsletter #83: The Case Against Pragmatism – Aaron M. Renn

57:41 - OUR CHRISTIAN NATION – Josh Hawley, First Things

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And he said, “Thus says Yahweh, ‘I will make this drystreambed full of pools.’ For thus says Yahweh, ‘You shall not see wind or rain, but that streambed shall be filled with water, so that you shall drink, you, your livestock, and your animals.’ This is a light thing in the sight of Yahweh. He will also give the Moabites into your hand, and you shall attack every fortified city and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree and stop up all springs of water and ruin every good piece of land with stones.”

2 Kings 3:16-19

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 3

04:54 – Thoughts on the Reading

26:13 – Our Energy Future – Xcel Energy

51:08 - Nobel Winner Refutes Climate Change Narrative, Points Out Ignored Factor – Jan Jekielek and Mimi Nguyen Ly, The Epoch Times

55:43 - Rocks From Mars Are Hitting Earth, And Something Is Odd About Their Age – Michelle Starr, ScienceAlert

1:07:52 - American lawyer shoots dead two climate protesters blocking traffic in Panama after weeks of protests that have shuttered schools, businesses – Edward Teach, NTB

1:15:34 - What is 30x30? - Conservation Corridor

1:32:34 - A new plant climate map has been released for the first time in a decade; Track temperatures in Montana – Lee Digital Content Center, Dataherald, Billings Gazette

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And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it and he cried, “My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” And he saw him no more.

Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.

2 Kings 2:11

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 2

05:01 – Thoughts on the Reading

31:33 – CHIVALRIC Definition – Cambridge Dictionary

34:54 - Newsletter #82: A Handyman's Guide to Masculinity – John Seel, AaronRenn.com

52:16 - A Couple More: Oregon Officials Don’t Want This Christian Family Adopting Foster Children – Faith & Justice, Alliance Defending Freedom

1:02:29 - Can Fatherhood Cure the Modern Male Malaise? A Conversation with Richard Reeves – Richard Reeves and Serena Sigillito, Public Discourse

1:20:13 - The New York billionaire looking to change agriculture with Colorado farmland – Jason Blevins, The Colorado Sun

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Then the king sent to him a captain of fifty men with his fifty. He went up to Elijah, who was sitting on the top of a hill, and said to him, “O man of God, the king says, ‘Come down.’ ”

But Elijah answered the captain of fifty, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty.” Then fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty.

2 Kings 1:9-10

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Kings 1

03:51 – Thoughts on the Reading

17:14 - Trump Wins Iowa Caucuses – Zach Jewell, DW

25:29 - Vivek Ramaswamy Drops Out, Endorses Trump – Ryan Saavedra, DW

30:16 - Supreme Court to Review President Trump’s Ballot Eligibility Case After Attorney General Paxton Files Amicus Brief With 26 Other States – Press Release, texasattorneygeneral.gov

36:49 - Family Planning - A Special and Urgent Concern – Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, Inc

53:09 - No joke, an 11-year-old girl was assigned THE SAME BED as a "trans-identifying" student on an overnight school trip – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:02:02 – Planned Parenthood Believes Children are “entitled to sexual pleasure” – liveactionorg, Instagram

1:12:42 - Welcome to the soft-girl revolution: How young women are rejecting girlboss culture for a life of leisure – Stephanie McNeal, Glamour

1:37:11 - Can the Church Still Speak? – James R. Wood, Comment

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And the king of Israel said, “Seize Micaiah, and take himback to Amon the governor of the city and to Joash the king’s son, and say, ‘Thus says the king, “Put this fellow in prison and feed him meager rations of bread and water, until I come in peace.” ’ ” And Micaiah said, “If you return in peace, Yahweh has not spoken by me.” And he said, “Hear, all you peoples!”

1 Kings 22:26-28

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 22

08:26 – Thoughts on the Reading

35:06 - Archeologists have uncovered a "massive lost ancient city in the Amazon rainforest" – NTB Staff

55:13 - The discovery of the Roman dodecahedron simply reminds us of how stupid we are – William Sitwell, The Telegraph

1:04:12 - Are We Focused On The Wrong Rome? – Jonathan Leaf, Law & Liberty

1:18:25 - Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo - Goodreads

1:28:28 - Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – Wikipedia

1:49:13 - The Culture of Knighthood in Medieval Romance – Larissa Tracy, The Great Courses, Audible

1:57:44 - Courtly love - Wikipedia

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Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me, O my enemy?” He answered, “I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of Yahweh. Behold, I will bring disaster upon you. I will utterly burn you up, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel.”

1 Kings 21:20-21

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 21

05:11 – Thoughts on the Reading

30:39 - The Atlantic is a satire magazine. Change my mind. – Cardinal Pritchard, NTB

44:05 - IRS Warns Taxpayers to Adjust Withholding Now or Face a Surprise Later – Tom Ozimek, The Epoch Times

50:29 - The IRS took a jaw-dropping, record amount of our money in 2023 thanks to processes like “aggressive audits” – Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB

1:00:50 - Weekly Digest: Millennials vs. Boomers – Aaron M. Renn

1:20:42 - This Walmart worker’s epic rant is proof that Gen Z is starting to get it – Harambe, NTB

1:35:30 - Is Gen Z Going Back To Church? – Mairead Elordi, DW

1:41:07 - Here's the apartment size that the average rent of $1,700 (!!) will get you throughout the U.S. – Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB

1:48:40 - Is there a backstop to the moral revolution? – Carl R. Trueman, WORLD

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And a certain man of the sons of the prophets said to his fellow at the command of Yahweh, “Strike me, please.” But the man refused to strike him. Then he said to him, “Because you have not obeyed the voice of Yahweh, behold, as soon as you have gone from me, a lion shall strike you down.” And as soon as he had departed from him, ma lion met him and struck him down.

1 Kings 20:35-36

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 20

07:51 – Thoughts on the Reading

41:31 - Deviancy Far and Wide – Wai Wah Chin, City Journal

51:31 - Other Conservatisms – Aaron M. Renn

54:52 - This video taught me a wild fact about Aussies and "Tall Poppy Syndrome" – Joel Abbott, NTB

1:00:20 - Elon Musk, Mark Cuban Debate DEI: ‘When Should We Expect To See A Short White/Asian Woman On The Mavs?’ – Zach Jewell, DW

1:10:33 – The Poverty of Anti-Wokeness – Geoff Shullenberger, COMPACT

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Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.

1 Kings 19:1-3

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 19

04:30 – Thoughts on the Reading

38:39 – Jezebel – Wikipedia

1:17:05 - Chris Matthews Calls Rural Americans ‘Cult’ Members Who Will ‘Vote Their Craziness’ If Democrats Don’t Stop Them – Virginia Kruta, DW

1:22:28 - The 2A is ALIVE! Federal judge revokes ATF pistol-brace ban "in its entirety" and Colion Noir has the deets – AnnieOakley, NTB

1:32:06 - 27 of Top 30 Crime-Ridden Cities Run by Democrats – Samantha Aschieris, The Daily Signal

2:03:12 - Daily Wire Sues Biden DOJ For Concealing Records On Its Partisan Riot Squad – Luke Rosiak, DW

2:14:04 - A trailer just dropped for "Civil War," where Texas and California have teamed up, Nick Offerman is president, and journalists are the good guys – Holly Ash, NTB

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When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father’s house, because you have abandoned the commandments of Yahweh and followed the Baals. Now therefore send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”

1 Kings 18:17-19

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 18

07:53 – Thoughts on the Reading

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Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As Yahweh, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.”

1 Kings 17:1

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 17

03:42 – Thoughts on the Reading

26:38 - After a migrant reportedly stabbed Irish kids, Dublin rioted against open borders last night. Here's what you need to know about the riots and the Brazilian hero who stopped the attacker. – Joel Abbott, NTB

44:38 - 'Enough': Bill Maher berates Obama for 'moral equivalency' between Hamas and Israel – Paul Sacca, The Blaze

55:38 - Israel-linked hackers claim cyberattack that hit 70% of Iran’s gas stations – Natasha Turak, CNBC

1:07:50 - Recent Chinese Cyberattacks Aim To Cause ‘Societal Chaos’ In U.S.: Report – Tim Pearce, DW

1:17:56 - Canadian government says 2022 "Death Database" lists assisted suicides under the "underlying disability or mental health issue" that got citizens approved to be killed – Joel Abbott, NTB

1:25:30 - War on Sacred Grounds by Ron E. Hassner – Goodreads

1:50:48 - Two UC Berkeley professors have clashed on Israel-Palestine. War led them to a joint message – Robin Buller, San Francisco Chronicle

2:06:12 – Man Whose Life’s a Mess Has Middle East Figured Out – Ryan Long, YouTube

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“Since I exalted you out of the dust and made you leaderover my people Israel, and you have walked in the way of Jeroboam and have made my people Israel to sin, provoking me to anger with their sins, behold, I will utterly sweep away Baasha and his house, and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat.”

1 Kings 16:2-3

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 16

06:07 – Thoughts on the Reading

29:11 - Academics Call For Critical Race Theory To Be Taught In Kindergarten, Warn Of Racist 3 Year Olds – Spencer Lindquist, DW

53:26 - The choice facing what's left of Ireland – Edward Teach, NTB

1:06:20 - Harvard’s Secularization – Anna K Kendrick, The Crimson

1:18:21 - Charles William Eliot – Wikipedia

1:46:50 - Successful Leaders Are Avid Readers – Michael Lee - Forbes

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In the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Asa began to reign over Judah, and he reigned forty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Maacah the daughter of Abishalom. And Asa did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, as David his father had done.

1 Kings 15:9-11

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 15

05:57 – Thoughts on the Reading

32:50 - Claudine Gay May Still Rake In Nearly $900k A Year Despite Ouster As Harvard Prez – Virginia Kruta, DW

47:36 - This researcher compiled videos showing how different professions have shifted far left over the past decades (the one about accountants threw me for a loop) – Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB

55:37 - Harvard president Claudine Gay resigns in disgrace, paints herself as a victim of 'racial animus' – Joseph MacKinnon, The Blaze

1:05:56 - Goodwill Hunting | Bar Scene – 3 Cut Films, YouTube

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Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

1 Kings 14:29

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 14

05:50 – Personal Updates

15:59 - Thoughts on the Reading

42:13 – My Goodreads 2023 Reading Challenge

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And when the king heard the saying of the man of God, which he cried against the altar at Bethel, Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar, saying, “Seize him.” And his hand, which he stretched out against him, dried up, so that he could not draw it back to himself.

1 Kings 13:4

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 13

05:59 - Thoughts on the Reading

36:02 - Herniated disk – Mayo Clinic

54:38 - Sorry libs, Trump is back on the ballot in Colorado – Cardinal Pritchard, NTB

56:05 - Maine Kicks Trump Off 2024 Primary Ballot – Daniel Chaitin, DW

1:16:50 – Neoconservatism – Wikipedia

1:21:52 – Irving Kristol – Wikipedia

1:24:30 - Bill Kristol - Wikipedia

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‘Thus says Yahweh, You shall not go up or fight against your relatives the people of Israel. Every man return to his home, for this thing is from me.’ ” So they listened to the word of Yahweh and went home again, according to the word of Yahweh.

1 Kings 12:24

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 12

05:53 - Thoughts on the Reading

23:17 - Democrats privately admit the inevitable after Colorado bars Trump from ballot: 'Attempting election interference' – Chris Enloe, The Blaze

42:38 - Vivek just SNIPED the entire Republican Party AND the media moderators of this debate and I LOVE IT – Joel Abbott, NTB

57:44 - The Republican Battle Between Neoconservatism and America First – Nathan Worcester,The Epoch Times

1:13:47 - Don’t Criticize Your In-Group in the Out-Group’s Forums – Aaron M. Renn

1:26:09 - When Roe was overturned – Kevin DeYoung, WORLD

1:36:02 - Must Protestants Be Liberals? – Stiven Peter, American Reformer

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Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which Yahweh had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart.

1 Kings 11:1-3

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 11

07:25 - Thoughts on the Reading

48:56 - The Anglo-Saxons A History of the Beginnings of England: 400–1066 by Marc Morris – Goodreads

1:15:14 – Asking ChatGPT About the History of Polygyny and Concubinage in Europe During the Middle Ages

1:27:48 - Was polygamy ever part of any pre-Christian European culture? Or is it more of a Middle Eastern cultural thing? – Quora.com

1:45:02 – Eight Interesting Discoveries on writing 11th century non-fiction – Emma of Normandy, History… The Interesting Bits!

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And she said to the king, “The report was true that I heardin my own land of your words and of your wisdom, but I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity surpass the report that I heard.

1 Kings 10:6-7

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 10

05:16 - Thoughts on the Reading

22:54 – What is Entertainment?

32:24 - entertain (v.) – Online Etymology Dictionary

39:31 – Entertainment – Wikipedia

52:04 – 1 Timothy 4

59:08 – Azul | Board Game – BoardGameGeek

1:08:07 – Wingspan | Board Game - BoardGameGeek

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As soon as Solomon had finished building the house of Yahweh and the king’s house and all that Solomon desired to build, Yahweh appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.

1 Kings 9:1-2

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 9

02:11 - Thoughts on the Reading

18:20 - Silicon Valley ditches news, shaking an unstable industry – The New York Times News Service Syndicate, The Denver Post

36:02 - NBC: DeSantis's statement that he evacuated 700 people from Israel is "half true" because he ONLY "signed an executive order" and didn't organize or pilot the flights – Joel Abbott, NTB

41:38 - US government is snooping on people via phone push notifications, says senator – Pieter Arntz, Malwarebytes

45:03 - Elon Musk just spent 5 minutes torching virtue-signaling villains (and Disney): "What I see all over the place is people who care about looking good while doing evil. F*** them.” – Cardinal Pritchard, NTB

1:11:57 - Here is the employee memo X CEO Linda Yaccarino sent in response to the MediaMatters report – Joel Abbott, NTB

1:14:31 - America’s Greatest Threat Lies Within Our Borders – Remco Brommet, IFA

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Then the king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrificebefore Yahweh. Solomon offered as peace offerings to Yahweh 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the people of Israel dedicated the house of Yahweh.

1 Kings 8:62-63

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 8

13:26 - Thoughts on the Reading

32:59 – How to Handle Bad Apologies – Jefferson Fisher, Instagram

53:45 - PETA posted about turkeys eating humans and got the greatest fact check of all time for their trouble – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:01:35 - Lab-grown fake meat CEO says industry should "invite" customers to eat the product rather than "insult" them – Wolfgang Ramsay, NTB

1:07:25 - This east LA girl went on a date with a masculine guy and "felt the feminism leaving" her body – NTB Staff

1:27:09 - Deer in decline: Why Montana is proposing big changes to hunting regulations – Thom Bridge, Billings Gazette

Gray Wolf – The National Wildlife Federation – NWF.org
Gray Wolf Biology Questions and Answers – U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
[Information] on the status, distribution, and management of wolves in the State of Montana, from January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021. – Montana FWP

1:49:38 - Isaiah 9

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Solomon was building his own house thirteen years, and he finished his entire house.

1 Kings 7:1

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 7

8:39 - Thoughts on the Reading

22:51 - Why I Do Not Support Christian Nationalism – Aaron M. Renn

45:41 - God & Country - Official Trailer - Oscilloscope Laboratories HD – Oscopelabs,YouTube

58:26 - 86% of Gen Z kids suffer from "menu anxiety," meaning they're too scared to order food at a restaurant. 1/3 can't even talk to the waiter when they order.– Cardinal Pritchard, NTB

1:03:26 - US Students' Math Scores Drop in First PISA Report Since COVID-19 – HeadlineRoundup, AllSides

1:21:50 - Biden tells corporations to bring down their prices since "inflation has come down," gets fact checked to high heaven – Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB

1:33:06 - The Desecration of Man – Carl R. Trueman, First Things

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When the house was built, it was with stone prepared at the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was being built.

1 Kings 6:7

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 6

06:06 - Thoughts on the Reading

27:55 - Become Illegible – Aaron Renn

43:49 - This is probably the best thing Ron DeSantis has ever said – Peter Heck, NTB

51:17 - Satanic displays have no place in government buildings – Andrew T. Walker, WORLD

1:01:13 - Remember the Christian pastor running for Oklahoma Senate on abolishing abortion and returning to Scripture? Yeah, he won. – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:15:11 – The Friend/Enemy Distinction – Matthew Pearson, American Reformer

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Now Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon when he heard that they had anointed him king in place of his father, for Hiram always loved David. And Solomon sent word to Hiram, “You know that David my father could not build a house for the name of Yahweh his God because of the warfare with which his enemies surrounded him, until Yahweh put them under the soles of his feet.”- 1 Kings 5:1-3 This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:00:24 – 1 Kings 504:20 - Thoughts on the Reading25:09 - Matthew Henry :: Commentary on 1 Kings 4 – Blue Letter Bible33:47 - Homeschooled Students’ Invisible Mental Health Crisis – Lauren Barton, The Nation33:47 - The Nation – AllSides Media Bias Rating1:05:40 - Gallup Study: Teenagers more likely to be mentally healthy if their parents are conservative – NTB Staff1:10:56 - The Place of Economics in a Classical Education – Clara Piano, Public Discourse1:28:43 – Closing Remarks, a Quote from ‘The Unsettling of America’ by Wendell Berry--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/garrett-ashley-mullet/message

He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. He spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of reptiles, and of fish. And people of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom.

1 Kings 4:33-34

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 4

04:51 - Thoughts on the Reading

36:36 – Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition – BoardGameGeek

45:23 - Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition – Prophecy of Kings – BoardGameGeek

58:03 – Game Theory - Investopedia

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It pleased Yahweh that Solomon had asked this. And God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you, all your days. And if you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days.”

1 Kings 3:10-14

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 3

5:00 - Thoughts on the Reading

47:22 – 7 - Wikipedia

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When David’s time to die drew near, he commanded Solomon his son, saying,

“I am about to go the way of all the earth. Be strong, and show yourself a man, and keep the charge of Yahweh your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his rules, and his testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn, that Yahweh may establish his word that he spoke concerning me, saying, ‘If your sons pay close attention to their way, to walk before me in faithfulness with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack1 a man on the throne of Israel.’

1 Kings 2:1-4

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 2

08:39 - Thoughts onthe Reading

38:40 - House Votes To Formally Authorize Biden Impeachment Inquiry – Daniel Chaitin, DW

55:33 - Hunter Biden’s Lawyer Asks New Speaker To Back Off – Daniel Chaitin, DW

1:05:58 - Life After Television: The Coming Transformation of Media and American Life by George Gilder - Goodreads

1:25:05 - Just Thinking about the State by Darrell Harrison, Virgil Walker – Goodreads

1:35:15 - The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Berry - Goodreads

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Then Nathan said to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon, “Have you not heard that Adonijah the son of Haggith has become king and David our lord does not know it?”

1 Kings 1:11

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Kings 1

08:29 - Thoughts on the Reading

40:19 - How old was David when he _____? – Got Questions

53:52 - Summary of the Book of 1 Kings – Got Questions

1:01:29 – Ecclesia Forum Notes – Faith In Our Institutions

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And David built there an altar to Yahweh and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So Yahweh responded to the plea for the land, and the plague was averted from Israel.

2 Samuel 24:25

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 24

04:50 - Thoughts on the Reading

24:24 – Commentary on 2 Samuel 24 by Matthew Henry – Blue Letter Bible

40:26 - The Pendragon Cycle – IMDb

43:40 - Stephen R. Lawhead – Goodreads

46:18 - The Pendragon Cycle Series – Goodreads

1:19:38 – David’s Song of Deliverance, 2 Samuel 22

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“The Spirit of Yahweh speaks by me;

his word is on my tongue.

The God of Israel has spoken;

the Rock of Israel has said to me:

When one rules justly over men,

ruling in the fear of God,

he dawns on them like the morning light,

like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning,

like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth.

2 Samuel 23:2-4

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 23

06:07 - Thoughts on the Reading

32:04 - Here are two terror attacks that made international headlines over the weekend – Edward Teach, NTB

39:54 - Sky News Host Abruptly Ends Interview After IDF Spokesman Clocks Him – Hank Berrien, DW

43:55 - Fox News studio audience gasps as Greg Gutfeld slams own network while defending Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk chimes in – Paul Sacca, The Blaze

46:57 - My Rejoinder to Kevin DeYoung – Douglas Wilson, Blog & Mablog;

My Rejoinder to Kevin De Young | Doug Wilson – Blog & Mablog, YouTube

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“For this I will praise you, O Yahweh, among the nations,

and sing praises to your name.

Great salvation he brings to his king,

and shows steadfast love to his anointed,

to David and his offspring forever.”

2 Samuel 22:50-51

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 22

05:48 - Thoughts on the Reading

54:11 - Left-Rated Outlets Publish Warnings of a Second Trump Administration – Headline Roundup, AllSides.com

1:12:37 - Fergus Mór - Wikipedia

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David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan from the men of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen them from the public square of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, on the day the Philistines killed Saul on Gilboa.

And he brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan; and they gathered the bones of those who were hanged.

And they buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin in Zela, in the tomb of Kish his father.

And they did all that the king commanded.

And after that God responded to the plea for the land.

2 Samuel 21:12-14

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 21

05:57 - Thoughts on the Reading

25:03 – Matthew Henry, Nonconformist (Protestantism) – Wikipedia

29:58 - Matthew Henry :: Commentary on 2 Samuel 21 – Blue Letter Bible

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Then a wise woman called from the city, “Listen! Listen!Tell Joab, ‘Come here, that I may speak to you.’ ” And he came near her, and the woman said, “Are you Joab?” He answered, “I am.” Then she said to him, “Listen to the words of your servant.” And he answered, “I am listening.”

2 Samuel 20:16-17

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 20

06:19 - Thoughts on the Reading

37:38 - Why Can't We Have a Populism That Builds? – Aaron M. Renn

57:56 - The Trump team posted this alternate version of Thursday night's governor's debate between Newsom and DeSantis and I can't help but laugh – Cardinal Pritchard, NTB

1:06:24 - DeSantis and Newsom Spar in Debate Hosted by Fox News’ Hannity – Headline Roundup, AllSides

1:09:39 - DeSantis vs Newsom face off on abortion, transgenderism, wokeness and more – Fox News

1:14:03 - Check out the highlights of the DeSantis-Newsom debate and decide for yourself who got absolutely clowned – Harris Rigby, NTB

2:01:58 - ‘We’re Done’: Newsom’s Wife Intervened To End Debate Against DeSantis, Report Says – Ryan Saavedra, DW

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And the king said to him, “Why speak any more of youraffairs? I have decided: you and Ziba shall divide the land.” And Mephibosheth said to the king, “Oh, let him take it all, since my lord the king has come safely home.”

2 Samuel 19:29-30

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 19

08:26 - Thoughts on the Reading

38:39 - What's Behind Americans' Negative Economic Outlook? – Headline Roundup, AllSides.com

1:04:38 - House committee says border crisis costs us nearly half a TRILLION yearly. NPR once said $11 billion for a wall was too much. – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:09:38 - It’s Now Often Cheaper To Rent Than Buy Property – Mairead Elordi, DW

1:18:13 - For just under $140,000 you could own one of these 661-square-foot "tiny homes" – Cardinal Pritchard, NTB

1:24:35 - California Will Spend $300 Million To Clear Homeless Encampments – Mairead Elordi, DW

1:33:50 - Damning study suggests pandemic lockdowns accelerated 'significant' memory and cognitive decline in seniors – Joseph MacKinnon, The Blaze

1:40:02 - Dozens Of NYC Seniors Evicted From Nursing Home Turned Into Migrant Shelter – Amanda Prestigiacomo, DW

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But the man said to Joab, “Even if I felt in my hand the weight of a thousand pieces of silver, I would not reach out my hand against the king’s son, for in our hearing the king commanded you and Abishai and Ittai, ‘For my sake protect the young man Absalom.’ On the other hand, if I had dealt treacherously against his life (and there is nothing hidden from the king), then you yourself would have stood aloof.”

2 Samuel 18:12-13

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 18

06:13 – On Culture War, Doug Wilson, and the Moscow Mood – Kevin DeYoung, Clearly Reformed

1:23:39 - Thoughts on the Reading

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When Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey and went off home to his own city. He set his house in order and hanged himself, and he died and was buried in the tomb of his father.

2 Samuel 17:23

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 17

05:30 – Thoughts on the Reading

26:23 – Jingle All The Way – IMDb

39:32 - Main Character Syndrome – Urban Dictionary

1:01:31 - Green Party politician pushes law restricting free speech 'for the common good' in resurfaced viral video from Ireland – Carlos Garcia, The Blaze

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Then Absalom said to Ahithophel, “Give your counsel. What shall we do?” Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Go in to your father’s concubines, whom he has left to keep the house, and all Israel will hear that you have made yourself a stench to your father, and the hands of all who are with you will be strengthened.”

2 Samuel 16:20-21

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 16

04:20 – Thoughts on the Reading

45:40 - Trump to Meet Argentina President-elect Javier Milei in Buenos Aires – Aaron Pan, The Epoch Times

55:46 - Mika Brzezinski Warns Democrats They Have To Stop Invasion Of ‘Mini-Trumps’ – Virginia Kruta, DW

1:10:44 - ALL the major political betting oddsmakers have 1 person as the clear favorite to become the next President. Guess who it is. – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:15:49 – Concubinage - Wikipedia

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After this Absalom got himself a chariot and horses, and fifty men to run before him. And Absalom used to rise early and stand beside the way of the gate. And when any man had a dispute to come before the king for judgment, Absalom would call to him and say, “From what city are you?” And when he said, “Your servant is of such and such a tribe in Israel,” Absalom would say to him, “See, your claims are good and right, but there is no man designated by the king to hear you.”

2 Samuel 15:1-3

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 15

06:16 – Thoughts on the Reading

33:13 – Reflections on Our 17th Anniversary

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So Absalom lived two full years in Jerusalem, without coming into the king’s presence. Then Absalom sent for Joab, to send him to the king, but Joab would not come to him. And he sent a second time, but Joab would not come.

2 Samuel 14:28-29

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 14

06:09 – Thoughts on the Reading

28:29 - Tucker Carlson asks Argentina’s new president what advice he’d give to Trump, and his answer is applause-worthy – BlazeTV Staff, The Blaze

38:07 – US Inflation Calculator

50:49 - Virginia School System Suggests That Many In Public Schools Don’t Celebrate Thanksgiving – Luke Rosiak, DW

58:43 - Biden officially attempts to remove God from Thanksgiving with 2023 proclamation – Rachel M Emmanuel, The Western Journal, WND

1:07:07 - Thankful for a capitalist Thanksgiving – Dave Arnott, The Blaze

1:15:12 - Air Force base purportedly tells members to steer clear of conservative event, warns participating with such groups "could jeopardize their continued service in the US military" – Jessica Swietoniowski, NTB

1:32:07 - The January 6th saga needs to end, and this is how – Peter Heck, NTB

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After two full years Absalom had sheepshearers at Baal-hazor, which is near Ephraim, and Absalom invited all the king’s sons.

2 Samuel 13:23

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 13

06:48 – Thoughts on the Reading

46:19 - Reflections on Thanksgiving 2023 – Headline Roundup, AllSides.com

51:32 - What’s this year’s big Christmas gift that parents are crazy about? Toy manufacturers and retailers say it’s FOOD. – Mister Retrops, Not the Bee

1:00:20 - Biden Administration Says Cost Of Thanksgiving Dinner Is Down As Long As You Don’tBuy Anything – BB

1:04:16 - Libertarian Pilgrims Set Sail For Argentina In Search Of A Better Life – BB

1:07:46 – Konstantin Kisin | Facial Scar Discrimination Experiment - @JohnAndersonConversations, YouTube

1:24:34 - Pursuing Ownership in the Negative World – Aaron M. Renn

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Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul.

2 Samuel 12:7

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 12

05:48 – Thoughts on the Reading

41:16 - Spiritualizing Cowardice: The Christian Bystander Effect – Garrett Mullet, On The Rocks Blog

52:03 - 216: Mullet - Spiritualizing Cowardice: The Christian Bystander Effect – 1517.org

58:43 - 215 & 216: Mullet - Spiritualizing Cowardice: The Christian Bystander Effect – Banned Books, YouTube

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When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she lamented over her husband. And when the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased Yahweh.

2 Samuel 11:26-27

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 11

04:53 – Thoughts on the Reading

38:03 - At long last, a photo of Mormon founder Joseph Smith emerges – Peggy Fletcher Stack, The Salt Lake Tribune

51:22 - Mormon Church Admits Founder Joseph Smith Had Up To 40 Wives – Sam Sanders, NPR

1:01:48 - I guess Calvin University professors need to hear this, but yes, Christ is supreme. – Joel Abbott, NTB

1:05:28 - The ONE thing you need to know about House Speaker Mike Johnson – BlazeTV Staff

1:18:34 - American Constitutions: Natural Law and Constitution-Making in the Founding Era – John Dinan, Public Discourse

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So Hanun took David’s servants and shaved off half the beard of each and cut off their garments in the middle, at their hips, and sent them away. When it was told David, he sent to meet them, for the men were greatly ashamed. And the king said, “Remain at Jericho until your beards have grown and then return.”

2 Samuel 10:4-5

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 10

03:44 – Thoughts on the Reading

22:38 - The Pay Raise People Say They Need to Be Happy – Joe Pinsker, WSJ

38:24 - Commissioners asked to undo 28% rate increase for NorthWestern Energy – Tom Lutey, Billings Gazette

48:44 - Iceland is one of the most gender-equal countries in the world. Guess what women are protesting there right now? – Daniel Payne, NTB

58:46 - Mike Johnson’s Christian Nationalism—And Yours – Micah Meadowcroft, The American Mind

1:15:32 - What is Free Speech For? – Edward Feser, Postliberal Order

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(What do they have in common? They're both lame.)

Then Ziba said to the king, “According to all that my lord the king commands his servant, so will your servant do.” So Mephibosheth ate at David’s table, like one of the king’s sons.

2 Samuel 9:11

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 9

02:44 – Thoughts on the Reading

19:03 - The Census Bureau says that unless we maintain high levels of immigration we're going to have a major population bust by the end of the century – Edward Teach, NTB

42:53 - DeSantis Rips Tech Execs For ‘Groveling’ To CCP Dictator Xi Jinping: ‘Empowering An Adversary’ – DW News

53:59 - U.S. hospitals are suing the Biden administration for crippling their websites. But the feds say big tech like Meta and Google are using the sites to illegally take patient data. – Mister Retrops, NTB

1:02:00 - Judge Rejects Effort To Kick Trump Off Ballot In Colorado Under 14th Amendment – Leif Le Mahieu, DW

1:12:19 - New Jersey Teachers Union Calls For End Of Basic Skills Test For Teachers – Corinne Murdock, DW

1:18:20 - Denver schools swell with more than 2,000 new migrant students as district scrambles to meet kids’ needs – Jessica Seaman, The Denver Post

1:29:09 - Republican-Controlled Texas House Votes Down School Choice Measure – Leif Le Mahieu, DW

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So David reigned over all Israel. And David administered justice and equity to all his people.

2 Samuel 8:15

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 8

03:11 – Thoughts on the Reading

21:56 - The Guardian removes Osama bin Laden's "Letter to America" from 2002 article because woke Gen Z is praising the terrorist on TikTok and saying he was right – Edward Teach, NTB

44:27 - Man Who Killed Bin Laden Responds To Viral TikTok Trend Praising The Terrorist’s ‘Letter To America’ – Amanda Prestigiacomo, DW

55:02 - BEE PROPHECY FULFILLED: Migrants Flee Back To South America After Realizing The American Dream Doesn't Exist Anymore – Cardinal Pritchard, NTB

1:05:06 - (Opinion) Other Voices: Sen. Tuberville’s military blockade is dangerous — end it now – The St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Board, Greeley Tribune

1:13:09 - VIDEO: The look on Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's face when Biden calls Xi Jinping a dictator is just priceless – Edward Teach, NTB

1:22:29 - Liberty, Authority, and the Good of Religion – Christopher O Tollefsen, Public Discourse

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Then King David went in and sat before Yahweh and said, “Who am I, O Yahweh God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?

2 Samuel 7:18

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 7

04:57 – Thoughts on the Reading

25:37 - What is the Davidic covenant? – Got Questions

33:32 – 1 Peter 5:1-11

48:56 - Colossians 3:12-17

57:30 – Ephesians 4:1-8

1:04:04 - humble yourself – Keyword Search, BibleGateway

1:11:42 - humble yourselves – Keyword Search, BibleGateway

1:15:41 - humbles himself – Keyword Search, BibleGateway

1:19:31 - humbled himself – Keyword Search, BibleGateway

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As the ark of Yahweh came into the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before Yahweh, and she despised him in her heart.

2 Samuel 6:16

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 6

04:18 – Thoughts on the Reading

26:15 - I think we're being too hard on younger generations – Harris Rigby, NTB

37:08 - Missouri English teacher resigns, embraces porn career on OnlyFans: 'I'm THAT teacher' – Collin Jones, The Blaze

45:54 - New Study Finds Gen Z Wants Fewer Sex Scenes In TV Shows, Movies – Amanda Harding, DW

55:04 - Weekly Digest: Pity the Incel – Aaron M. Renn

1:08:57 - Jennifer Lawrence’s pro-chastity sex comedy – Matt Himes, The Blaze

1:18:44 - Let's check in on how Canada is doing under progressivism – Joel Abbott, NTB

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And David knew that Yahweh had established him king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel.

2 Samuel 5:12

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 5

03:52 – Thoughts on the Reading

20:37 - Why were the Maccabees books excluded from the Protestant Bible? – Quora

35:41 - Verse Comparison – The Passion Translation

48:54 - The Passion Translation – Wikipedia

53:13 - U.N. ‘Commissioner’ Claims Israel Doesn’t Have Right to Self-defense – Guest Contributor, GP

1:00:34 - Did News Agencies Use Photos From Pro-Hamas Journalists in Coverage of Israel Attacks? – Headline Roundup, AllSides.com

1:08:30 - King Abdullah II of Jordan on Palestinians: “No refugees in Jordan, no refugees in Egypt.” – Edward Teach, NTB

1:22:03 - Weekly Digest: A Flock of Demons – Aaron M. Renn

1:39:19 - Conclusion

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When Ish-bosheth, Saul’s son, heard that Abner had died at Hebron, his courage failed, and all Israel was dismayed.

2 Samuel 4:1

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 4

02:54 – Thoughts on the Reading

11:46 - Liberal journos are out here gaslighting, telling us that our bills aren't high because of inflation. It's all because of... drumroll..."high prices" – Anthropos, NTB

19:17 - Denver Closing In On $2 Billion Spent On Homelessness Since Pandemic, Study Shows –Mairead Elordi, DW

27:06 - The root of economics is no dismal science – Helen Roy, The Blaze

41:39 - ‘Hitler Was Duly Elected’: Hillary Clinton Frets The End Is Near If Trump Wins Again – Virginia Kruta, DW

55:37 - Is House speaker releasing Jan. 6 footage to Blaze News? – Carlos Garcia, The Blaze

1:06:14 - CHRISTIANITY AND FUNCTIONAL LIBERALISM (OR HOW EVANGELICALISM DENIES THE FAITH) – Bryan Laughlin, Doug Ponder, Sola Ecclesia

1:25:30 - Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick J. Deneen – Audible

1:30:42 - Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick J. Deneen – Goodreads.com

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There was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David. And David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul became weaker and weaker.

2 Samuel 3:1

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 3

07:02 – Thoughts on the Reading

40:05 – Matthew 5:32 – Bible Hub

44:36 – Luke 16:18 – Bible Hub

45:58 – 1 Corinthians 7:10 – Bible Hub

54:36 – Malachi 2:14 – Bible Hub

1:06:02 - US Divorce Statistics and Divorce Rates (2000 – 2017) – Divorce Magazine

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Ish-bosheth, Saul’s son, was forty years old when he began to reign over Israel, and he reigned two years. But the house of Judah followed David. And the time that David was king in Hebron over the house of Judah was seven years and six months.

2 Samuel 2

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 2

05:31 – Thoughts on the Reading

36:46 - Democrats Win on Abortion in State Elections – Headline Roundup, AllSides.com

47:16 - Conservatives dealt losses in Tuesday elections – Alex Nitzberg, The Blaze

57:10 - ‘Big Abortion Won’: Ohio Voters Add Abortion To State Constitution – Leif Le Mahieu, DW

1:11:03 - Colorado 2023 election results – The Denver Post

1:17:17 - Mash, Campos-Spitze and Azari lead Greeley-Evans District 6 Board of Education race – Morgan McKenzie, Greeley Tribune

1:25:47 - Election Summary Report, Unofficial Results – Weld County

1:29:40 – Boomers explain how to get rich with real estate – Instagram

1:39:43 - How did all those gross, woke books get into schools? Kirk Cameron has the details in this thread on Scholastic. – Harris Rigby, NTB

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And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and Jonathan his son, and he said it should be taught to the people of Judah; behold, it is written in the Book of Jashar.

2 Samuel 1:17-18

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 2 Samuel 1

04:12 – Thoughts on the Reading

18:29 - What is the anointing? – Got Questions

27:48 - The Quest for Male Community – Aaron Renn

47:53 - PATTON Introduction Speech Intro – JELIOS Jerome, YouTube

1:04:30 - This is ‘Bidenomics’ in a nutshell – Justin Haskins, The Blaze

1:11:24 - Poll: Overwhelming majorities express concerns about Biden, Trump ahead of 2024 race – Mark Murray, Bianca Seward and Alec Hernandez, NBC News

1:19:12 - I never thought NYT poll results would be called an "alarming, re-election-threatening, full-blown crisis" for Joe Biden, but here we are! Check out how much hurt is coming the man's way. – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:32:07 - Trump Leads Biden in Several Key Battleground States, New Poll Shows – Headline Roundup, AllSides.com

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The battle pressed hard against Saul, and the archers found him, and he was badly wounded by the archers. Then Saul said to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and mistreat me.” But his armor bearer would not, for he feared greatly. Therefore Saul took his own sword cand fell upon it. And when his armor bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword and died with him.

1 Samuel 31:3-5

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 31

02:29 – Thoughts on the Reading

23:11 - Police discover 115 bodies in 'green' funeral home in Colorado after reports of sickening stench in the area – Collin Jones, The Blaze

41:26 - Storing guns away from home could reduce suicides, but legal hurdles loom – Aaron Bolton KFF Health News, Billings Gazette

55:56 - Kamala Harris is out here endorsing an Australian-style gun ban after the shooting in Maine last night – Edward Teach, NTB

1:11:10 – 2023 Lewistown shootings – Wikipedia

1:19:36 - Nashville Shooter Decried ‘Crackers’ And ‘White Privilege,’ Leaked Manifesto Pages Reveal – Luke Rosiak, DW

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And when David and his men came to the city, they found it burned with fire, and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. Then David and the people who were with him raised their voices and wept until they had no more strength to weep. David’s two wives also had been taken captive, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel. And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in Yahweh his God.

1 Samuel 30:3-6

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 30

05:11 – Thoughts on the Reading

24:32 – “I’m 37, I’m not old.” - YouTube

34:54 – Guy Fawkes – Wikipedia

44:21 - Weekly Digest: Where Is the Right Wing Virtue? – Aaron M. Renn

1:00:26 - South Park: Joining the Panderverse – IMDb

1:07:47 - ‘South Park’ Says What We’re All Thinking (Again) – Christian Toto, DW

1:21:18 - South Park makes Baldur's Gate 3 joke, Larian quickly corrects it – Tyler Wilde, PCGamer.com

1:30:28 - Land of Toys - Wikipedia

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Is not this David, of whom they sing to one another indances,

‘Saul has struck down his thousands,

and David his ten thousands’?”

1 Samuel 29:5

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 29

2:39 – Thoughts on the Reading

23:40 - Beyond Blame – Barbara H. Fried, Boston Review

54:08 - Mega-Dem donor Sam Bankman-Fried convicted of crypto fraud, faces 110 years behind bars. Let's review the 40% of Congress that got money from him. – Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB

1:08:19 - What Is Happening With Mike Johnson’s Money? – Tori Otten, The New Republic

1:20:24 – New Republic Media Bias – AllSides.com

1:22:02 – What does Matthew 11:17 mean? – BibleRef.com

1:26:04 - Sam Bankman-Fried Found Guilty of Fraud in Collapse of FTX – Headline Roundup,AllSides.com

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When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid,and his heart trembled greatly. And when Saul inquired of Yahweh, Yahweh did not answer him, either by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets. Then Saul said to his servants, “Seek out for me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her.” And his servants said to him, “Behold, there is a medium at En-dor.”

1 Samuel 28:5-7

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 28

04:33 – Thoughts on the Reading

33:27 – Nathanael – Wikipedia

36:48 – Job – Abarim Publications

38:54 – Birth Story

50:14 - ‘Humblebrag’: Jen Psaki Mocks Mike Johnson’s Christian Faith – Hank Berrien, DW

1:05:24 - ‘I Make No Apologies’: New House Speaker Says The Bible Is His Worldview – Virginia Kruta, DW

1:06:27 – Speaker Johnson Sits Down with Sean Hannity – Speaker Mike Johnson, YouTube

1:13:31 - Conclusion

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And Achish trusted David, thinking, “He has made himself an utter stench to his people Israel; therefore he shall always be my servant.”

1 Samuel 27:12

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 27

2:34 – Thoughts on the Reading

16:53 - Evangelicals Need to Stop Shaming Men – Aaron M. Renn

32:40 - Britney Spears says she and Justin Timberlake aborted their baby two decades ago, claims Timberlake encouraged it – Holly Ash, NTB

48:10 - Meta sued by 42 attorneys general alleging Facebook, Instagram features are addictive and target kids – Lauren Feiner, CNBC

56:09 - Commentary: The time has come to see the evil social conditioning — so put on the glasses – Chris Bray, The Blaze

1:06:22 – The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt – Audible

1:35:51 - The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt - Goodreads

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This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – College Trustees, Aims College District E

02:55 - DELIA & JOHN W. HAEFELI OPPORTUNITY FUND – d6successfoundation.org

10:10 - Aims Community College Board of Trustees candidates: Jennifer Patrick – Anne Delaney, Greeley Tribune

13:38 - Aims Community College Board of Trustees candidates: Joseph Bodine – Anne Delaney, Greeley Tribune

19:02 - Aims Community College Board of Trustees candidates: John W. Haefeli – Anne Delaney, Greeley Tribune

23:50 - Greeley-Evans District 6 School Board works to move area schools forward with passion – Cuyler Meade, Greeley Tribune

32:14 - Public comment could be in jeopardy at Greeley-Evans School District 6 Board of Education meetings – Anne Delaney, Greeley Tribune

50:36 – State Ballot Measures, State of Colorado

58:47 – Municipal Ballot Measures, City of Greeley

1:03:32 - Summary

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So David took the spear and the jar of water from Saul’s head, and they went away. No man saw it or knew it, nor did any awake, for they were all asleep, because ja deep sleep from Yahweh had fallen upon them.

1 Samuel 26:12

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 26

04:47 – Thoughts on the Reading

26:50 – How I’m Voting in Greeley, Colorado in 2023

1:02:21 – D-6 Greeley Voter Guide – TransformColorado.org

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Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved; he was a Calebite.

1 Samuel 25:3

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 25

07:39 – Thoughts on the Reading

43:45 - Proverbs 15:1-18 – YouVersion

46:17 - Why do some groups of people today have more Neanderthal DNA than others? A new study offers answers – Katie Hunt, CNN

56:37 - Neanderthal – Answers in Genesis

1:14:31 - Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad – Audible.com

1:35:34 - The Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower by Yaakov Katz, Amir Bohbot – Audible.com

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“After whom has the king of Israel come out? After whom do you pursue? After a dead dog! After a flea! May Yahweh therefore be judge and give sentence between me and you, and see to it and plead my cause and deliver me from your hand.”

1 Samuel 24:14-15

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 24

03:38 – Thoughts on the Reading

14:18 - Who is Mike Johnson, the newly elected House speaker? – Caroline Linton, CBS News

23:09 - Who is new House Speaker Mike Johnson and what can he accomplish? – PBS NewsHour, YouTube

30:05 - New House Speaker Mike Johnson: “I believe that Scripture, the Bible, is very clear – that God is the one who raises up those in authority.” – NTB Staff

35:46 - New House Speaker Has History Of Bluntly Confronting Democrats – Hank Berrien, DW

54:07 - Johnson-Led House Passes Resolution In Support Of Israel – Daniel Chaitin, DW

58:03 - Mike Johnson Elected as House Speaker, Ending Weeks of GOP Gridlock – AllSides

1:00:24 - How Did Rep. Mike Johnson Unite House Republicans to Become House Speaker? – AllSides

1:03:41 - TRUTH BE TOLD with Mike and Kelly Johnson

1:10:38 - Newsletter #81: The Problem With Servant Leadership – Aaron M. Renn

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Therefore David inquired of Yahweh, “Shall I go and attack these Philistines?” And Yahweh said to David, “Go and attack the Philistines and save Keilah.” But David’s men said to him, “Behold, we are afraid here in Judah; how much more then if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?” Then David inquired of Yahweh again. And Yahweh answered him, “Arise, go down to Keilah, for I will give the Philistines into your hand.”

1 Samuel 23:2-4

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 23

04:50 – Thoughts on the Reading

25:43 - Oregon Extends Pandemic Pause On Reading, Writing, Math Proficiency High School Graduation Requirement – Mairead Elordi, DW

39:17 - Why did Gavin Newsom just make a "surprise visit" to China to meet Xi Jinping? – Harris Rigby, NTB

43:09 - El Salvador president on America: "Cities that were pristinely beautiful 30 years ago are wastelands ... this has to be by design." – Joel Abbott, NTB

55:18 - No, Wired, having children isn't racist – Peter Gietl, The Blaze

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David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him. And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to him. And he became commander over them. And there were with him about four hundred men.

1 Samuel 22:1-2

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 22

04:39 – Thoughts on the Reading

24:58 - The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell – Audible

37:48 - Samuel Johnson – Wikipedia

45:27 – Top 25 Samuel Johnson Quotes – AZ Quotes

48:33 – The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. by James Boswell – Infomotions.com

51:51 - Divorce in England and Wales – Wikipedia

1:03:49 – debauched – Oxford Languages

1:14:50 - Samuel Johnson – National Portrait Gallery

1:22:02 - The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell – Goodreads.com

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And David rose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish the king of Gath.

1 Samuel 21:10

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 21

02:48 – Thoughts on the Reading

17:48 - Bentkey

22:59 - (Opinion) Other Voices: At long last, FCC is restoring net neutrality protections – Bay Area News Group Editorial Board, Greeley Tribune

36:33 - Canceled professor joins rival U.K. university to launch "common sense" course on wokeness – Jessica Swietoniowski, NTB

45:57 - Are You In an Open Network or a Closed Network? – Aaron M. Renn

1:09:40 – Podcasting Commercials

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Then David fled from Naioth in Ramah and came and said before Jonathan, “What have I done? What is my guilt? And what is my sin before your father, that he seeks my life?”

1 Samuel 20:1

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 20

06:50 – Thoughts on the Reading

25:36 - Ontario school district walks back ‘equity-based’ initiative to remove pre-2008 books from libraries – Clare Marie Merkowsky, Life Site News

36:37 - Canadian conservative leader casually wrecks reporter's line of attack simply by asking what he means – Joseph MacKinnon, The Blaze

59:07 - Watch based Canadian MP Pierre Poilievre destroy this lefty journalist while casually eating an apple – Cardinal Pritchard, NTB

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And Saul spoke to Jonathan his son and to all his servants, that they should kill David. But Jonathan, Saul’s son, delighted much in David. And Jonathan told David, “Saul my father seeks to kill you. Therefore be on your guard in the morning. Stay in a secret place and hide yourself.”

1 Samuel 19:1-2

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 19

04:09 – Thoughts on the Reading

27:24 - America's nonreligious are a growing, diverse phenomenon. They really don't like organized religion – Peter Smith, AP, Billings Gazette

36:58 - Former lesbian Rosaria Butterfield gives advice to parents of LGBT-indoctrinated kids – all Christians should listen to this! – Harris Rigby, NTB

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As they were coming home, when David returned from striking down the Philistine, the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with songs of joy, and with musical instruments. And the women sang to one another as they celebrated,

“Saul has struck down his thousands,

and David his ten thousands.”

And Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him. He said, “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands, and what more can he have but the kingdom?” And Saul eyed David from that day on.

1 Samuel 18:6-9

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 18

05:06 – Thoughts on the Reading

32:06 - DeSantis: Attacks On Israel Hit Close To Home – Daily Wire News

41:29 - Trump Echoes DeSantis’ Call To Ban Refugees From Gaza – Daniel Chaitin, DW

58:56 – Slitting babies’ throats is not terrorism, claims smirking ex-BBC correspondent – Danielle Greymann-Kennard, The Jerusalem Post

1:14:39 - By Men For Men – Aaron M. Renn

1:26:47 – What if only men voted? – nonlibtake, Instagram

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As soon as Saul saw David go out against the Philistine, he said to Abner, the commander of the army, “Abner, whose son is this youth?” And Abner said, “As your soul lives, O king, I do not know.”

1 Samuel 17:55

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 17

10:09 – Thoughts on the Reading

39:14 - U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy Release Joint Statement On Israel – Daily Wire News

49:07 - Is Russia also behind Hamas’ brutal invasion? – The Blaze

59:56 - Israelis blame gov’t for Hamas massacre, say Netanyahu must resign – poll – Jerusalem Post Staff

1:05:19 - U.S. Senator Took Shelter In Israel When Hamas Attacked – Daniel Chaitin, DW

1:06:24 - Schumer-LedSenate Delegation Shelters From Hamas Rockets In Tel Aviv – Daniel Chaitin, DW

1:13:46 - The Need for Homegrown Urban Leaders – Aaron M. Renn, Governing.com

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Yahweh said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.”

1 Samuel 16:1

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 16

04:17 – Thoughts on the Reading

17:33 – Prince – Wikipedia

25:28 – Princeps – Wikipedia

38:26 – Principle – Merriam-Webster

44:13 – Parallel Lives by Plutarch – Goodreads

55:51 – Parallel Lives - Wikipedia

58:35 – Plutarch – World History Encyclopedia

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And Samuel said,

“Has Yahweh as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,

as in obeying the voice of Yahweh?

Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,

and to listen than the fat of rams.

For rebellion is as the sin of divination,

and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.

Because you have rejected the word of Yahweh,

he has also rejected you from being king.”

1 Samuel 15:22-23

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 15

05:56 – Thoughts on the Reading

21:52 – Congratulations to Greeley’s Dayspring Academy Eagles on an Undefeated Season

34:04 – Amos 5:18-24

37:41 – The War in Israel – garrett_mullet, Instagram

52:20 - This is always what "decolonization" has meant. There's only one path out of this. – Joel Abbott, NTB

1:03:58 - WATCH: Pro-Palestinian crowds chant “Gas the Jews!” on streets of Sydney, Australia – NTB Staff

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Then Saul said to Jonathan, “Tell me what you have done.”And Jonathan told him, “I tasted a little honey with the tip of the staff that was in my hand. Here I am; I will die.” And Saul said, “God do so to me and more also; you shall surely die, Jonathan.” Then the people said to Saul, “Shall Jonathan die, who has worked this great salvation in Israel? Far from it! As Yahweh lives, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground, for he has worked with God this day.” So the people ransomed Jonathan, so that he did not die.

1 Samuel 14:43-45

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 14

08:29 – Thoughts on the Reading

21:16 - Crews Recover More Than 260 Bodies From Music Festival Attacked By Hamas – Brandon Drey, DW

36:23 - 'We are at war': Netanyahu responds after Hamas carries out massive attack on Israel, kills 40 and injures at least 560 – Collin Jones, The Blaze

42:02 - Israel Declares State of War After Hamas Launches Unprecedented Surprise Attack – Mimi Nguyen Ly, The Epoch Times

42:02 – What ‘Israel’ means to Liberals & Conservatives – AllSides Red Blue Translator, AllSides.com

1:00:15 - How Speaker Vacuum Affects U.S. Response To Hamas Attack On Israel – Daniel Chaitin, DW

1:06:39 - Report: Hamas is now chambered in 5.56 thanks to all the blasters Joe left in Afghanistan. Aren't you glad your taxes helped supply terrorism worldwide? – Annie Oakley, NTB

1:14:10 – Buried 2007 video of Senator Joe Biden discussing troop removal from Afghanistan - davidjharrisjr, Instagram

1:19:08 - MSNBC Reporters Criticize Israel As Palestinian Terrorists Invade Country, Kill Over 100 Israelis – Zach Jewell, DW

1:35:04 - "Evil Empire" Speech by President Reagan - Address to the National Association of Evangelicals – Reagan Foundation, YouTube

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Now there was no blacksmith to be found throughout all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, “Lest the Hebrews make themselves swords or spears.” But every one of the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen his plowshare, his mattock, his axe, or his sickle, and the charge was two-thirds of a shekel for the plowshares and for the mattocks, and a third of a shekel for sharpening the axes and for setting the goads.

1 Samuel 13:19-21

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 13

04:04 – Thoughts on the Reading

18:07 - Foreign Affairs Chairman: Taliban Trying To Send Fighters To Israel To Conduct Terror Attacks – Daily Wire News

37:38 - Biden's approval ratings slip to lowest in a year – Harris Rigby, NTB

42:24 - Garret Graves Unloads On Matt Gaetz For Fundraising Off Effort To Remove McCarthy: ‘It’s Disgusting’ – Ryan Saavedra, DW

47:59 - 'I'll be candid': GOP lawmaker reveals what might have happened behind closed doors if House hadn't recessed after McCarthy ouster – Chris Enloe, The Blaze

59:04 – Support for Third U.S. Political Party Up to 63% - Jeffrey M. Jones, Gallup

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And all the people said to Samuel, “Pray for your servants to Yahweh your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king.” And Samuel said to the people, “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following Yahweh, but serve the Lord with all your heart.”

1 Samuel 12:19-20

This Episode’s Links and Timestamps:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 12

04:25 – Thoughts on the Reading

13:53 - BREAKING: Israel Declares ‘State Of War’ As Palestinian Terrorists Launch Massive Surprise Attack On Jewish Holiday – Ryan Saavedra, DW

32:31 - 09/21/23: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Jake Sullivan – The White House, YouTube

1:02:05 - FBI secretly targeting Trump supporters ahead of 2024 election, labels MAGA followers as 'domestic violent extremists': Report – Paul Sacca, The Blaze

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Then Samuel said to the people, “Come, let us go to Gilgal and there renew the kingdom.” So all the people went to Gilgal, and there they made Saul king before Yahweh in Gilgal. There they sacrificed peace offerings before Yahweh, and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly.

1 Samuel 11:14-15

This Episode’s Links:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 11

03:02 – Thoughts on the Reading

17:55 - Pope Francis goes full climate cult, issues statement slamming fossil-fuel companies – John Knox, NTB

28:22 - Biden: "I think that the American people are smart as hell ... I think they know they’re better off financially than they were before" – Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB

28:24 - This man took before and after photos of Costco prices and they'll break your heart – Joel Abbott, NTB

46:29 - Whoever made this mini-doc on Washington politicians narrated by A.I. David Attenborough, I love you – Harambe, NTB

54:00 - AOC Calls For Biden To ‘Reverse Course’ On Border Wall Construction: ‘It Is A Cruel Policy’ – Zach Jewell, DW

59:50 - This Florida school-board member is facing a petition to be fired after he shared a Babylon Bee story (for real!) – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:05:50 – The Babylon Bee

1:11:05 - Hillary Clinton suggests 'formal deprogramming' of Donald Trump 'cult members' – Dave Urbanski, The Blaze

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And Samuel said to all the people, “Do you see him whom Yahweh has chosen? There is none like him among all the people.” And all the people shouted, “Long live the king!”

Then Samuel told the people the rights and duties of the kingship, and he wrote them in a book and laid it up before Yahweh. Then Samuel sent all the people away, each one to his home. Saul also went to his home at Gibeah, and with him went men of valor whose hearts God had touched. But some worthless fellows said, “How can this man save us?” And they despised him and brought him no present. But he held his peace.

1 Samuel 10:24

This Episode’s Links:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 10

04:53 – Thoughts on the Reading

19:38 - AllSides Media Bias Chart™ Version 9.2: Updated Ratings, Plus a New AllSides Fact CheckBias Chart™! – AllSides Staff, AllSides.com

35:52 - Guest schools Bill Maher, Sam Harris over double standard media give Biden after speaking truth about Trump-Russia lie – Chris Enloe, The Blaze

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There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish, the son of Abiel, son of Zeror, son of Becorath, son of Aphiah, a Benjaminite, a man of wealth. And he had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he. From his shoulders upward he was taller than any of the people.

1 Samuel 9:1-2

This Episode’s Links:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 9

05:05 – Thoughts on the Reading

20:12 – Physiognomy – Wikipedia

54:03 – Monty Python and the Holy Grail Witch Scene – YouTube

1:21:57 – Isaiah 3 – Biblia.com

1:30:43 – Proverbs 31 – BibleHub.com

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Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.”

And Samuel prayed to Yahweh. And Yahweh said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.

1 Samuel 8:4-7

This Episode’s Links:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 8

03:13 – Thoughts on the Reading

27:41 – Monarchy – Wikipedia

39:00 - Remember how "every House Republican voted against the Inflation Reduction Act"? – Harris Rigby, NTB

45:06 - Gold mine near Yellowstone purchased to avoid development – Brett French, Billings Gazette

56:06 - California Law Capping Magazine Capacity Struck Down By Federal Judge – Leif Le Mahieu, DW

1:03:05 – Autocracy - Wikipedia

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And Samuel said to all the house of Israel, “If you are returning to Yahweh with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your heart to Yahweh and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” So the people of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtaroth, and they served Yahweh only.

1 Samuel 7:3-4

This Episode’s Links:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 7

03:24 – Thoughts on the Reading

24:18 – The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway – Goodreads

45:38 – Men and Marriage by George Gilder - Goodreads

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Then the men of Beth-shemesh said, “Who is able to stand before Yahweh, this holy God? And to whom shall he go up away from us?” So they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath-jearim, saying, “The Philistines have returned the ark of Yahweh. Come down and take it up to you.”

1 Samuel 6:20-21

This Episode’s Links:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 6

04:16 – Thoughts on the Reading

14:08 - Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain – Wikipedia

20:06 - Andy Stanley and the road to apostasy – a Christian response – Peter Heck, NTB

25:45 - Washington National Cathedral replaces traditional stained glass with BLM windows, becauseof course – John Knox, NTB

32:38 - DeSantis Calls Out Trump For Calling Pro-Life Policies In Florida ‘A Terrible Thing’– Daily Wire News

41:55 - 'Donald Duck': Trump, who skipped 2nd GOP presidential primary debate, targeted bycompetitors – Alex Nitzberg, The Blaze

55:21 - DeSantis Challenges Trump To One-On-One Debate: ‘Let’s Do It’ – Daily Wire News

1:00:13 - Vast Majority Of Iowa, N.H. GOP Voters Open To Someone Other Than Trump: CBS Poll– Hank Berrien, DW

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Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon. And when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place.

1 Samuel 5:2-3

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:24 – 1 Samuel 5

02:45 – Thoughts on the Reading

15:42 - The Institution Of Marriage Is Under Attack From All Sides – Matt Walsh, DW

24:08 - Value (ethics and social sciences) – Wikipedia

42:46 - In Defense of Order - Part 2 – Patrick J. Deneen, Postliberal Order

48:59 – Politics – According to the Bible, by Wayne Grudem - Audible

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So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and they fled, every man to his home. And there was a very great slaughter, for thirty thousand foot soldiers of Israel fell. And the ark of God was captured, and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, died.

1 Samuel 4:10-11

This Episode’s Links:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 4

04:12 – Thoughts on the Reading

23:27 - The Death of Conservatism Is Greatly Exaggerated – Christine Rosen, Acton Institute

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Now the boy Samuel was ministering to Yahweh in the presence of Eli. And the word of Yahweh was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision.

1 Samuel 3:1

This Episode’s Links:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 3

03:27 – Thoughts on the Reading

24:44 - THE NUCLEAR FAMILY WAS A MISTAKE – David Brooks, The Atlantic

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Now Eli was very old, and he kept hearing all that his sons were doing to all Israel, and how they lay with the women who were serving at the entrance to the tent of meeting. And he said to them, “Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all these people. No, my sons; it is no good report that I hear the people of Yahweh spreading abroad. If someone sins against a man, God will mediate for him, but if someone sins against Yahweh, who can intercede for him?” But they would not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of Yahweh to put them to death.

1 Samuel 2:22-25

This Episode’s Links:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 2

06:11 – Thoughts on the Reading

30:23 – AllSides.com

39:11 - The Priesthood of All Believers – J.V. Fesko, TGC

01:05:59 - LGBTQ activists are attempting to redefine infertility so that same-sex couples get medical coverage for surrogacy and IVF – BlazeTV Staff

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And she said, “Oh, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who was standing here in your presence, praying to Yahweh. For this child I prayed, and Yahweh has granted me my petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to Yahweh. As long as he lives, he is lent to Yahweh.”

1 Samuel 1:26-28

This Episode’s Links:

00:24 – 1 Samuel 1

04:27 – Thoughts on the Reading

34:06 - Male to Female Ratio by State – wisevoter.com

53:37 - Average U.S. House and Household Size infographic – Population Education

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Now Boaz had gone up to the gate and sat down there. And behold, the redeemer, of whom Boaz had spoken, came by. So Boaz said, “Turn aside, friend; sit down here.” And he turned aside and sat down.

Ruth 4:1

This Episode’s Links:

00:24 – Ruth 4

04:00 – Thoughts on the Reading

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At midnight the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman lay at his feet! He said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.”

Ruth 3:8-9

This Episode’s Links:

00:24 – Ruth 3

04:09 – Thoughts on the Reading

17:40 - The Babylon Bee released its "Guide to Gender" today that will be sure to get you on a government watchlist. Check it out. – Joel Abbott, NTB

37:56 - POLL: Majority Say Virginia Porn Candidate Should Drop Out, Including Democrats And Women – Luke Rosiak, DW

50:39 - Boebert’s Estranged Husband Posts Statement After Theater Incident: ‘I Was Unfaithful To Lauren’ – DW

1:10:17 - DeSantis Proposes Plan He Says Will Achieve $2 Gas, Turn U.S. Into World’s Top Energy Producer - DW

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Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?” But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. Yahweh repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by Yahweh, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!”

Ruth 2:10-12

This Episode’s Links:

00:24 – Ruth 2

04:09 – Thoughts on the Reading

21:50 - Fetterman Presides Over Senate Wearing Short-Sleeve Shirt, No Tie, And Shorts – Daniel Chaitin, DW

59:01 - Dressing down: GOP senators — and even the Washington Post editorial board — object to Schumer's Senate dress code decision – Alex Nitzberg, The Blaze

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But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May Yahweh do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more.

Ruth 1:16-18

This Episode’s Links:

00:24 – Ruth 1

03:44 – Thoughts on the Reading

29:48 – Ecclesia – Britannica

44:33 - Women Teaching Men — How Far Is Too Far? – Mary A. Kassian, Desiring God

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In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Judges 21:25

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Judges 21

04:12 – Thoughts on the Reading

20:51 - Some chivalry guy made a thread about how all the good virtues have been twisted by the devil's woke experiment and I think it's a must-read – John Knox, NTB

29:49 - Dem Lawmakers Vote For Leftism In Lockstep, While Republicans Routinely Abandon Conservatism, Analysis Finds – Luke Rosiak, DW

37:35 - The leader of the Chicago Teachers Union sends her son to private school. Check out her jaw-dropping excuse for doing so. – NTB Staff

59:45 – Shane Gillis: “I’m a bit of a history buff…” – netflixisajoke, Instagram

1:01:12 – Age of majority – Wikipedia

1:14:55 - WATCH: Women shocked to learn how often their men think about the Roman Empire in new TikTok trend – Joel Abbott, NTB

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In those days, when there was no king in Israel, a certain Levite was sojourning in the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim, who took to himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.

Judges 19:1

And the men of Israel turned back against the people of Benjamin and struck them with the edge of the sword, the city, men and beasts and all that they found. And all the towns that they found they set on fire.

Judges 20:48

For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.

1 Corinthians 14:33a

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:24 – Judges 19-20

12:47 – Thoughts on the Reading

36:07 - Contradiction: Why does Judges 18:1 say that Dan had no inheritance? – Biblical Hermeneutics, Stack Exchange

49:17 - In Defense of Order - Part 1 – Patrick J. Deneen, Postliberal Order

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”

― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

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And the people of Dan said to him, “Do not let your voice be heard among us, lest angry fellows fall upon you, and you lose your life with the lives of your household.” Then the people of Dan went their way. And when Micah saw that they were too strong for him, he turned and went back to his home.

Judges 18:25-26

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Judges 17-18

06:41 – Thoughts on the Reading

30:10 - Scientists uncover largest potential lithium deposit in the world – larger than ALL RESERVES OF CURRENT MINES MULTIPLE TIMES OVER – in supervolcano caldera on Oregon-Nevada border – Daniel Plainview, NTB

43:14 - New York woman walks down the street with a ‘looking-for-a-husband’ sign — sparking plenty of conversation – Brittany Kasko, FOX News

51:10 - Political spectrum - Wikipedia

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When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, “Come up again, for he has told me all his heart.” Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hands.”

Judges 16:18

Keep your heart with all vigilance,

for from it flow the springs of life.

Proverbs 4:23

Do not give your strength to women,

your ways to those who destroy kings.

Proverbs 31:3

An excellent wife who can find?

She is far more precious than jewels.

The heart of her husband trusts in her,

and he will have no lack of gain.

Proverbs 31:10-11

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Judges 16

05:51 – Thoughts on the Reading

27:21 – Proverbs 31:2-3

40:18 - Eshet Manoah: Mother of the Mighty Samson – Leah Sarna, Ethan Schwartz, My Jewish Learning

48:20 – Matriarch – WordReference.com

57:37 - Election Officials Discuss Removing Donald Trump From Ballot – James Bickerton, Newsweek

1:14:50 - Building Counter-Institutions – Aaron M. Renn

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There was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. And his wife was barren and had no children. And the angel of Yahweh appeared to the woman and said to her, “Behold, you are barren and have not borne children, but you shall conceive and bear a son.”

Judges 13:2-3

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Judges 13

03:32 – Thoughts on the Reading

18:26 - Stephen King Knows Anti-Vaxxers Are Going to Hate His Latest Book: ‘Knock Yourself Out’ – Brenna Ehrlich, Rolling Stone

23:34 - Miley Cyrus Decided to Divorce Liam Hemsworth Moments Before Glastonbury Performance – Larisha Paul, Rolling Stone

34:07 – Malaise Meaning – Google Search

40:15 - The Elites Directing The Energy Transition Really Have No Idea What They Are Doing – Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian

1:03:45 - The Patriotism We Need: Principled and Spirited – Carson Holloway, Public Discourse

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After him Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite judged Israel. He had forty sons and thirty grandsons, who rode on seventy donkeys, and he judged Israel eight years. Then Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite died and was buried at Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the hill country of the Amalekites.

Judges 12:13-15

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Judges 12

02:17 – Thoughts on the Reading

25:06 - Retention and recruitment: Local school districts, universities seek teacher shortage solutions – Morgan McKenzie, Greeley Tribune

33:21 - ‘It’s scary’: America’s small towns are disbanding police forces, citing hiring woes – Trisha Ahmed and Jim Salter, AP, Billings Gazette

39:22 - Dr Paul Ehrlich Tape 2 – ISU Library. SCUA. AV Collection., YouTube

52:11 - Over 1,600 Scientists and Professionals Sign ‘No Climate Emergency’ Declaration – Naveen Athrappully, The Epoch Times

1:00:16 - California Senate passes insane bill that would allow the state to take away your kids if you don't "affirm" their gender confusion – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:05:54 - America's Coming Demographic Disaster—A Conversation with Jonathan V. Last – Thinking In Public, AlbertMohler.com

1:20:06 - What to Expect When No One's Expecting, by Jonathan V. Last - Audible

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And all the leaders of Shechem came together, and all Beth millo, and they went and made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar at Shechem.

Judges 9:6

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Judges 9

07:52 – Thoughts on the Reading

19:28 - Moderators for the Second Republican Primary Debate Unveiled – Bill Pan, The Epoch Times

32:20 - "Should we trust Vivek? Lots of coincidences here…" – Edward Teach, NTB

42:56 - Trump Fundraising Numbers Released After Mugshot – Ryan Saavedra, DW

53:04 - How Trump’s Trial Schedule Lines Up With The 2024 Election Calendar – Daniel Chaitin, DW

58:03 - Megachurch pastor provides "USER MANUAL" for interacting with him in case you want to climb his corporate ladder – Jeffrey Swindoll, NTB

1:15:43 – Ezekiel 34:1-31 – Biblia by Logos

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Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, “Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also, for you have saved us from the hand of Midian.” Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; Yahweh will rule over you.”

Judges 8:22-23

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Judges 8

05:04 – Thoughts on the Reading

28:09 - A Delaware lady bought this painting in a thrift store for $4. Turns out it’s worth at least $250,000. – Edward Teach, NTB

36:37 – A Polity Undone (Parental Rights Will Not Save Us) – Timon Cline, American Reformer

56:56 - 'I shot that b**** dead': 6-year-old student allegedly bragged about gunning down his 1st-grade teacher – Chris Enloe, The Blaze

1:03:50 - New York police will use drones to monitor backyard parties this weekend, spurring privacy concerns – Jake Offenhartz, Billings Gazette

1:16:36 - Conclusions

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Now the angel of Yahweh came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of Yahweh appeared to him and said to him, “Yahweh is with you, O mighty man of valor.”

Judges 6:11-12

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Judges 6

06:49 – Thoughts on the Reading

33:06 - 1.64 births per woman (2020) – Google

48:50 - Marxist teacher who called for 'forceful cultural revolution' against 'Whiteness' lands gig as a state representative – Collin Jones, The Blaze

1:00:19 - Elon Musk Blasts School Turning His Son Trans And Into ‘A Full Communist’ – DW News

1:05:27 - Tennessee 'teacher of the month' charged with rape of student – Paul Sacca, The Blaze

1:14:22 - Kevin Sorbo Talks About Attacks On Masculinity In The Culture, New Children’s Book, And More – Katie Jerkovich, DW

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“So may all your enemies perish, O Yahweh!

But your friends be like the sun as he rises in his might.”

And the land had rest for forty years.

Judges 5:31

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Judges 5

04:34 – Thoughts on the Reading, and a Trip

46:06 – A Recent Trip to Wyoming for Work

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Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, I will go, but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” And she said, “I will surely go with you. Nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for Yahweh will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh.

Judges 4:8-9

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Judges 4

05:16 – Thoughts on the Reading

38:46 – Beauty – Wikipedia

45:58 – Midriff – Wikipedia

55:34 - 'Free the Nipple' movement: Women can now legally go topless in 6 states – Dillon Thompson, AOL

1:09:31 – The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes, by Nancy R. Pearcey - Audible

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After him was Shamgar the son of Anath, who killed 600 of the Philistines with an oxgoad, and he also saved Israel.

Judges 3:31

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“Now therefore fear Yahweh and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve Yahweh. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve Yahweh, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh.”

Joshua 24:14-15

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Joshua 23-24

08:25 – Thoughts on the Reading

31:07 - Let Navy veteran Hung Cao, the Senate candidate from Virginia, remind you what's at stake in the perfect political ad. – Mister Retrops, NTB

42:19 - Man removed from school board meeting while reading from sexually explicit book that had been available in school library – Candace Hathaway, The Blaze

50:52 - Texas Mom Refuses To Sign NDA To Visit Her Child’s Public School, Complaint Claims – Mairead Elordi, DW

1:01:54 - Parents pull son from classes after high school says he can't fly large American flags from his truck – Andrew Chapados, The Blaze

1:12:07 - This Aussie girl is upset that Americans have American flags everywhere – Joel Abbott, NTB

1:18:44 - Virginia AG confirms validity of Youngkin's new school policy, which upholds parental rights and curbs gender ideology: 'It's not just common sense, it's the law' – Joseph MacKinnon, The Blaze

1:23:37 - Oliver Anthony laughs about Fox playing "Rich Men North of Richmond" at GOP debate: "I wrote that song about those people. That cracks me up" – Jesse James, NTB

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Now to the one half of the tribe of Manasseh Moses had given a possession in Bashan, but to the other half Joshua had given a possession beside their brothers in the land west of the Jordan. And when Joshua sent them away to their homes and blessed them, he said to them, “Go back to your tents with much wealth and with very much livestock, with silver, gold, bronze, and iron, and with much clothing. Divide the spoil of your enemies with your brothers.”

Joshua 22:7-8

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Joshua 22

06:35 – Thoughts on the Reading

17:59 - Home prices are getting so high that builders are starting to build smaller homes so people can afford them but the prices are still bonkers – Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB

33:06 - Youth Activists Experience a Mental Toll From the Climate Crisis – Bloomberg News

38:57 - A look at Earth in 2050 if climate change isn't stopped – Zeleb.es, The Daily Digest

43:01 - "Half my paycheque goes to groceries alone": Canadians are shocked that everything costs more for some strange reason – Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB

56:35 - California is in Trouble: Here's What the Sudden Drop in Population Means For the State – Carissa Moore, Travel Fiber

1:05:06 - Fox News Slammed Over ‘Insane’ Restrictions For Covering Presidential Debate: ‘Totally Crazy’ – Ryan Saavedra, DW

1:16:22 - FiveThirtyEight/WaPo Poll: DeSantis Won Debate, Haley Gains Support – Ryan Saavedra, DW

1:24:18 - Trump's interview with Tucker racks up 165 MILLION views in 10 hours. Here are the highlights. – Joel Abbott, NTB

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These are the inheritances that Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun and the heads of the fathers’ houses of the tribes of the people of Israel distributed by lot at Shiloh before Yahweh, at the entrance of the tent of meeting. So they finished dividing the land.

Joshua 19:51

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Joshua 18-19

10:24 – Thoughts on the Reading

27:48 - Donald Trump releases video calling for other Republicans to drop out of the race and embrace unity – NTB Staff

34:23 - Jake Tapper: ‘Trump Was Right … Biden Was Wrong’ – Zach Jewell, DW

41:44 - Trump to Surrender Today in Georgia Election Case – Petr Svab, The Epoch Times

51:17 - Not Trump. Not Biden. Most attacked presidential candidate is DeSantis by far. – Paul Sacca, The Blaze

1:03:21 - Moderator Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

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Yet the people of Manasseh could not take possession of those cities, but the Canaanites persisted in dwelling in that land. Now when the people of Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not utterly drive them out.

Joshua 17:12-13

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Joshua 16-17

05:16 – Thoughts on the Reading

20:50 - 8,500-year-old village discovered beneath Albanian lake is oldest known in Europe – Camille Fine, USA TODAY

37:59 - Park County grizzly bear euthanized following cattle depredation – Billings Gazette

44:03 - Oliver Anthony reads imprecatory psalm for audience in first appearance since "Rich Men North of Richmond" went viral – John Knox, NTB

53:25 - Christianity Today wrote an article praising Barbie and Taylor Swift a day before it trashed Oliver Anthony as anti-biblical. Hoo boy do I have some thoughts. – Joel Abbott, NTB

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And now, behold, Yahweh has kept me alive, just as he said, these forty-five years since the time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. So now give me this hill country of which Yahweh spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that Yahweh will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as Yahweh said.”

Joshua 14:10-12

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Joshua 14

02:51 – Thoughts on the Reading

16:21 – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations – Quotes of famous people

26:01 - In Christ Alone (My Hope Is Found) Lyrics – Googler

38:51 - Climate scientists say they're balancing a 'strange mix of grief and hope' as climate-related disasters continue to prove their predictions right – Katie Hawkinson, INSIDER, MSN

51:14 - Climate Scientist Blows The Lid Off The ‘Manufactured Consensus’ – David Rufful, American Insider

1:00:44 - Man learns unforgettable lesson about electric vehicles on 1,400-mile road trip: 'Biggest scam of modern times' – Chris Enloe, The Blaze

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These are the inheritances that Moses distributed in the plains of Moab, beyond the Jordan east of Jericho. But to the tribe of Levi Moses gave no inheritance; Yahweh God of Israel is their inheritance, just as he said to them.

Joshua 13:32-33

A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children,

but the sinner’s wealth is laid up for the righteous.

Proverbs 13:22

For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

Ecclesiastes 2:26

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Joshua 13

05:23 – Thoughts on the Reading

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So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that Yahweh had spoken to Moses. And Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal allotments. And the land had rest from war.

Joshua 11:23

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Joshua 11

04:03 – Thoughts on the Reading

28:04 - Marcus Aurelius – Goodreads

39:35 – Stoicism – Wikipedia

52:06 - Luther couple shoot bear in their living room Thursday morning – Chris Jorgensen, Billings Gazette

57:14 - Federal Judge Halts Colorado Gun Law Raising Purchase Age To 21 Years Old, Hours Before Taking Effect – Brandon Drey, The Daily Wire

1:04:05 - Murder of FBI agents leads to alleged pedophile ring bust - 98 perverts arrested – Bernadette Giacomazzo, Daily Express US

1:10:30 - Archaeologists discover lost 1,300-year-old town with ball game pitches – Jacob Kessler, Daily Express US

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And the men of Gibeon sent to Joshua sat the camp in Gilgal, saying, “Do not relax your hand from your servants. Come up to us quickly and save us and help us, for all the kings of the Amorites who dwell in the hill country are gathered against us.” So Joshua went up from Gilgal, he and tall the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valor. And Yahweh said to Joshua, “Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands. Not a man of them shall stand before you.”

Joshua 10:6-8

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Joshua 10

07:38 – Thoughts on the Reading

30:47 - Teenage elephants need a father figure – Lucy Freeman, BBC Earth

41:50 - 'I'll kick your a**': McCarthy and Swalwell engaged in threat-filled, heated moment after Schiff's censure – Chris Enloe, The Blaze

51:18 - Peter Doocy Reveals What The White House Did After Biden Scolded Him – Virginia Kruta, DW

1:00:04 - Letter to the American Church by Eric Metaxas - Goodreads

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And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them.

Joshua 8:34-35

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Joshua 8

06:03 – Thoughts on the Reading

45:32 - Visual anatomy: how female organs shift during pregnancy – ilearn.in, Instagram

59:04 - Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning, by Doug Wilson – Goodreads

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Yahweh said to Joshua, “Get up! Why have you fallen on your face? Israel has sinned; they have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them; they have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen and lied and put them among their own belongings. Therefore the people of Israel cannot stand before their enemies. They turn their backs before their enemies, because they have become devoted for destruction. I will be with you no more, unless you destroy the devoted things from among you. Get up! Consecrate the people and say, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow; for thus says Yahweh, God of Israel, “There are devoted things in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the devoted things from among you.”

Joshua 7:10-13

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Joshua 7

05:03 – Thoughts on the Reading

23:34 – How Vocation Transformed Society - Gene Edward Veith, Ligonier

55:34 - Inhabiting the Places of Promise: Martin Luther’s Teaching on the Three Institutions – Michael Laffin, Ad Fontes Journal

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When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of Yahweh. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?”

Joshua 5:13-14

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Joshua 5

02:54 – Thoughts on the Reading

41:42 - Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are – David McCullough, Imprimis

56:43 - Margaret McFarland – Wikipedia

58:51 – Benjamin Spock – Wikipedia

1:07:25 - Alabama Library Cancels Moms for Liberty, Kirk Cameron Faith-Filled Story Hour Event After Hundreds RSVP – Brandon Drey, DW

1:16:02 - Harry's Razors just partnered with this trans influencer to sell shaving gear and its CEO referred to moms and dads as "birthing and non-birthing parents" – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:25:08 - Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh Torch ‘Woke’ Razor Brand For ‘Glorifying Mutilation And Sterilization’ – Virginia Kruta, DW

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“On that day Yahweh exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they stood in awe of him just as they had stood in awe of Moses, all the days of his life.”

Joshua 4:14

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Joshua 4

03:34 – Thoughts on the Reading

17:53 - Ne-Yo Slammed Online After Caving To Left-Wing Pressure Over Transgender Parenting Comments – Daily Wire News

20:48 - Ne-Yo Walks Back Apology From His ‘Publicist’: ‘I Did Not Apologize For Having An Opinion On This Matter’ – Daily Wire News

32:44 - George Soros Thinks He is "Some Kind of God" and That Made Him Uncomfortable Until He "Started Living It Out." No Really, He Said This. – Jesse James, NTB

41:15 - Will Elon Musk Fight Disney On Gina Carano’s Behalf? – Christian Toto, DW

49:17 - Joe Rogan eviscerates 'f***ing con man' Gavin Newsom and 'corrupt' Joe Biden, considers interview with Donald Trump – Paul Sacca, The Blaze

1:00:20 - Democrats are seeing a massive drop-off in funding as reality kicks in and enthusiasm wanes over Grandpa Joe – Daniel Plainview, NTB

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“Before the men lay down, she came up to them on the roof and said to the men, “I know that Yahweh has given you the land, band that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how Yahweh dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction. And gas soon as we heard it, hour hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for Yahweh your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. Now then, please swear to me by Yahweh that, as I have dealt kindly with you, you also will deal kindly with my father’s house, and give me a sure sign that you will save alive my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.”

Joshua 2:8-13

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Joshua 2

03:52 – Thoughts on the Reading

20:36 - Ron DeSantis And Gavin Newsom Agree To Debate – Ryan Saavedra, DW

34:47 - "They knew it! It was all lies." This 1-minute clip of Rogan on the Fauci Ouchie is a must-watch. – Jesse James, NTB

46:11 - Jack Smith Admits Making False Claim to Court in Trump Case – Tom Ozimek, The Epoch Times

59:51 - Trump Says Latest Indictment 'Has Awoken the World,' Generated Unprecedented Support – Janice Hisle, The Epoch Times

1:05:09 - Ex-Capitol Police Chief Calls Jan. 6 Events 'Cover Up' in Buried Tucker Carlson Interview – Tom Ozimek, The Epoch Times

1:10:34 - CNN KNOWS ... Biden is done – Jesse James, NTB

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"No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go."

Joshua 1

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Joshua 1

03:09 – Thoughts on the Reading

Book of Joshua Summary: A Complete Animated Overview – BibleProject, YouTube

32:12 - What Does It Mean to Be a Man? | Voddie Baucham – Ben Shapiro, YouTube

Oppression Wheel – Google Image Search

1:05:03 - WATCH: Young man arrested for protesting drag event aimed at kids shares the Gospel with city council while scorching woke “tolerance” – NTB Staff

1:14:05 - Why Archaeologists are fearful of looking inside the tomb of China's first Emperor – Jade Small, The Premier Daily, MSN

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And Yahweh commissioned Joshua the son of Nun and said, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall bring the people of Israel into the land that I swore to give them. I will be with you.”

Deuteronomy 31:23

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 31-32

12:47 – Thoughts on the Reading

26:44 - More Than 100 New York City Public School Students Identified As ‘X’ Last Year – Mairead Elordi, DW

37:40 - Why they’re doing it: This may be the best explanation for Disney’s self-destruction – Peter Heck, NTB

53:04 - What a prayer breakfast joke reveals – Miles Smith, WORLD

59:32 - Evangelicals Think Men Are All to Blame, All of the Time – Aaron M Renn

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“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving Yahweh your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and Yahweh your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess.”

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 30

04:00 – Thoughts on the Reading

19:32 – Disney’s Population Propaganda – 1968 – portraitsoul5.0, Instagram

37:43 - Jim Jordan just released the "Facebook Files," showing the Biden White House pressured Meta to censor protected speech ... including MEMES – Harris Rigby, NTB

55:22 - Nevada School District Approves Elementary Sex-Ed Using Terms ‘People With A Penis’ And ‘People With A Vulva’ – Mairead Elordi, DW

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“The secret things belong to Yahweh our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”

Deuteronomy 29:29

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 29

04:34 – Thoughts on the Reading

19:38 - Wolf hunting regs allowing infrared imaging violate Montana law, judge rules – Sam Wilson, Billings Gazette

34:15 - World of Change: Global Temperatures – Earth Observatory, NASA

53:57 - Energy Industry Fears White House Will Declare COVID-Like 'Climate Emergency' – Jack Phillips, The Epoch Times

1:03:54 - THIS is how political cults and conspiracy theories are born – BlazeTV Staff

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“And if you faithfully obey the voice of Yahweh your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, Yahweh your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of Yahweh your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.”

Deuteronomy 28:1-3

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 27-28

14:16 – Thoughts on the Reading

42:32 - The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot, by Russell Kirk

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“When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year, which is the year of tithing, giving it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that they may eat within your towns and be filled, then you shall say before Yahweh your God, ‘I have removed the sacred portion out of my house, and moreover, I have given it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, according to all your commandment that you have commanded me. I have not transgressed any of your commandments, nor have I forgotten them.” - Deuteronomy 26:12-13

This Episode’s Links: (All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 26

03:31 – Thoughts on the Reading

31:44 -- Did you know the USDA has partnered with a massive Chinese biotech firm that was blacklisted by the Department of Defense? – Edward Teach, NTB

41:29 - The 10 Most Incredible Exchanges From The House UAP Hearing – Frank Camp, DW

57:02 - This former federal prosecutor has a great theory on what happened with Hunter Biden in court this week – Joel Abbott, NTB

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“You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.

Deuteronomy 25:4

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 25

03:05 – Thoughts on the Reading

32:59 – Levirate Marriage – Wikipedia

39:29 - Joe Biden appointed a major Democrat donor to a top government position who also just happened to buy some of Hunter's "artwork" – Harris Rigby, NTB

47:26 - McConnell Freezes Up During Press Conference, Trolls Biden After Returning – Ryan Saavedra, DW

54:39 - 'Not you again': Elon Musk responds as Elizabeth Warren presses SEC to investigate Tesla – Alex Nitzberg, The Blaze

1:00:19 - An Arkansas doctor has been accused of holding over two dozen patients against their will in his psych ward – Jesse James, NTB

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“You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him. You shall not wrong him.” - Deuteronomy 23:15-16 This Episode’s Links: (All timestamps offset by 24-seconds) 00:00 – Deuteronomy 23 03:56 – Thoughts on the Reading

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“You shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep going astray and ignore them. You shall take them back to your brother. And if he does not live near you and you do not know who he is, you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall stay with you until your brother seeks it. Then you shall restore it to him. And you shall do the same with his donkey or with his garment, or with any lost thing of your brother’s, which he loses and you find; you may not ignore it. You shall not see your brother’s donkey or his ox fallen down by the way and ignore them. You shall help him to lift them up again.”

Deuteronomy 22:1-4

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 22

04:45 – Thoughts on the Reading

39:57 - Sorry, ladies: Wearing "frilly dresses" is racist now – Joel Abbott, NTB

50:37 - Christian arrested after trying to quote Bible to Pride rally attendees sues city for violating his constitutional rights – Dave Urbanski, The Blaze

1:00:29 - Idaho city forking over $300,000 to church members in settlement over their 2020 arrests for ignoring mask mandate during outdoor 'psalm sing' – Dave Urbanski, The Blaze

1:08:05 - GBC and the Mask Mandate – Joe Schreibeis, Grace Bible Church

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“When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you.”

Deuteronomy 20:10-11

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 20

03:25 – Thoughts on the Reading

49:35 - John Kirby Defends the Military’s Support For Abortion Travel As ‘Sacred Obligation’: ‘It’s the Right Darn Thing to Do’ – Isaac Schorr, Mediate

1:02:18 – How we talk about life matters – wavesandlilacs, Instagram

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Therefore I command you, You shall set apart three cities. And if Yahweh your God enlarges your territory, as he has sworn to your fathers, and gives you all the land that he promised to give to your fathers—provided you are careful to keep all this commandment, which I command you today, by loving Yahweh your God and by walking ever in his ways—then you shall add three other cities to these three, lest innocent blood be shed in your land that Yahweh your God is giving you for an inheritance, and so the guilt of bloodshed be upon you.

Deuteronomy 19:7-10

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 19

03:21 – Thoughts on the Reading

22:14 – Keyword Search: demons – Bible Gateway

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“When you come to the land that Yahweh your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ you may indeed set a king over you whom Yahweh your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since Yahweh has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’ And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.”

Deuteronomy 17:14-17

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 17

03:52 – Thoughts on the Reading

18:33 - It looks like the older generations were right: Study shows joint bank account makes couples happier – Harris Rigby, NTB

25:43 - "This man is not far from the Kingdom" – John Knox, NTB

39:26 - Rapper Ice Cube on refusing COVID vaccine: 'Your health is worth more than all the money in the world' – Cortney Weil, The Blaze

44:16 - Ken Ham's Ark Encounter is sponsoring the rain delays at Cincinnati Reds baseball games – Hamilton Porter, NNTB

48:13 - DeSantis Torches Leftist LGBT Agitator At Campaign Event: ‘Leave Our Kids Alone!’ – Ryan Saavedra, DW

52:22 - Watch Helen Joyce from The Economist explain why parents who transitioned their children will make this a fight to the death – NTB Staff

1:00:30 - Utah Education Board Member Under Investigation After Social Media Posts About Schools ‘Brainwashing’ Children – Mairead Elordi, DW

1:04:00 - Russia officially bans "medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person," bars transgender persons from being foster or adoptive parents – NTB Staff

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“You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that Yahweh your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that Yahweh your God is giving you.”

Deuteronomy 16:18-20

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 16

03:58 – Thoughts on the Reading

24:27 - The History and Origins of Bankruptcy – Taft Law

40:47 - Kamala Harris declares US must 'reduce population' to combat climate change in yet another gaffe – Paul Sacca, The Blaze

48:34 - Somebody check this fool's hard drive, STAT – NTB Staff

56:40 - Tucker and The Blaze just showed the way forward for all Republican debates – Peter Heck, NTB

1:02:42 - Megyn Kelly Names Winner Of Tucker Carlson’s Iowa Forum: ‘Eventually He Will Win You Over’ – DW News

1:10:53 - Hiker finds 'mummified' remains of 3 bodies at remote campsite in the Rocky Mountains, police say – Carlos Garcia, The Blaze

1:19:19 - BLM director says agency has been directed to implement corner crossing – Brett French, Billings Gazette

1:27:31 - Intellectual Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

1:56:01 - The Power of the Catholic Intellectual Ecosystem – Onsi Aaron Kamel, Ad Fontes

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"And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when Yahweh your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which Yahweh your God chooses, to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that Yahweh your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire—oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before Yahweh your God and rejoice, you and your household."

Deuteronomy 14:24-26

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 14

03:52 – Thoughts on the Reading

17:00 - The Chemicals to Avoid in Your Shampoo and Body Wash – Meagan Drillinger, Healthline

31:38 - 500,000 Tires Found Sitting Off Florida Coast At The Bottom Of The Ocean – Tyler Connaghan, Travel Fiber

42:57 - Ocean heat around Florida is ‘unprecedented,’ and scientists are warning of major impacts – Eric Zerkel, CNN

1:00:51 - Spanish climate minister flies on private jet to eco-conference, gets out of limo a hundred yards before venue to ride bike for the cameras – Joel Abbott, NTB

1:09:16 - The Three Musketeers – Goodreads.com

1:25:09 - The Three Musketeers - Wikipedia

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“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For Yahweh your God is testing you, to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul."

Deuteronomy 13:1-3

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 13

03:41 – Thoughts on the Reading

18:28 – Facebook Community Standards, Account Warning

26:55 - Glenn Greenwald Torches Wray For Failure To Define ‘Disinformation’ – Virginia Kruta, DW

35:34 - The Rundown: Congress Shreds FBI Chief, But What’s The GOP’s End Goal? – Tim Meads, DW

45:38 - MSNBC's Mika tells Biden handlers to "do a better job" covering up Joe's age: "You can't have these video images of the president tripping or the president, like, going the wrong way!" – Harris Rigby, NTB

52:52 - Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union – Wikipedia

1:05:35 - Whitlock: Pearl Davis and the ‘manosphere’ cash in on the failures of the church – Jason Whitlock, The Blaze

1:46:44 - Can you tell which of these two has XY chromosomes? Guess who was just crowned Miss Universe Netherlands? – Holly Ash, NTB

1:49:46 - "Can men get pregnant?" Watch the replies from Columbia University students vs. normies in Harlem – Cardinal Pritchard

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“See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of Yahweh your God, which I command you today, and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of Yahweh your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known.”

Deuteronomy 11:26-28

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 11

05:16 – Thoughts on the Reading

21:55 - Archaeologists unearth giant prehistoric hand axes, scientists baffled as to why 300,000-year-old tools are so large – Paul Sacca, The Blaze

28:43 - Bodycam video shows police officer shooting family's labrador/golden retriever mix dog, Ohio community demands 'justice for Dixie' – Paul Sacca, The Blaze

40:14 - DeSantis Addresses Media ‘Narratives’ His Campaign Has Struggled – Daily Wire News

48:55 - Biden Blasted For Revealing Sensitive U.S. Military Info During Interview – Daily Wire News

1:00:39 - MSNBC Panel Attacks Ron DeSantis — By Calling His Wife Names And Laughing About It – Virginia Kruta, DW

1:08:09 - GOP Candidate Doug Burgum: President Should ‘Not’ Fight Culture War Issues – Daily Wire News

1:18:03 - Nation's largest teachers' union recommends sexually explicit "Gender Queer" in their summer reading list – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:23:12 - Ron DeSantis ripped by ‘Peaky Blinders’ for using show in ‘Pride’ campaign ad – Ben Cost, New York Post

1:31:43 - “Leave The Kids Alone” must become a cross-cultural demand of the sane – Peter Heck, NTB

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“And now, Israel, what does Yahweh your God require of you, but to fear Yahweh your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of Yahweh, which I am commanding you today for your good? Behold, to Yahweh your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it."

Deuteronomy 10:12-14

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 10

03:29 – Thoughts on the Reading

16:52 - Conservation license required to use state lands – Joshua Murdock, Billings Gazette

26:15 - Let Allie Beth Stuckey explain the proper response to being called a "transphobe" – NTB Staff

30:52 - Philly Alleged Mass Shooter Identified As Cross Dressing BLM Supporter: Report – Hank Berrien, DW

35:45 - Fatherlessness Statistics – alphadogmillionaire, Instagram

36:22 - Watch people's reactions in Galway, Ireland when they learn the popular boy's name in their city for 2022 was Mohammed – Joel Abbott, NTB

42:39 - ‘Least Affordable Motor Market In Modern History’: Just 8% Of New Cars Cost Less Than $30,000 – Joseph Curl, DW

47:27 - Bidenomics! If you spend $400,000 on a house today, you'll end up spending over $1 million with interest. Come see how great your parents had it in comparison. – Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB

51:08 - Pfizer Sponsored Group Pushing Child Transgenderism, Profits From Puberty Blockers, Hormone Therapy – Spencer Lindquist, DW

55:22 - How I Evolved on Tim Keller – James R. Wood, First Things

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Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’

You shall remember Yahweh your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. And if you forget Yahweh your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.

Like the nations that Yahweh makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of Yahweh your God.

Deuteronomy 8:17-20

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 8

03:19 – Thoughts on the Reading

17:32 – Moses – Wikipedia

21:39 - 3,700-year-old Babylonian stone tablet gets translated, changes history – UpWorthy Staff

33:06 - Our Three Baby Boomer Presidents – Michael Barone, Washington Examiner, AEI

46:47 - “When you come after our kids, we fight back”: Casey DeSantis just dropped the only political ad that’s ever brought me to tears – NTB Staff

54:43 - Sarah Huckabee Sanders refuses to remove her kids' cross-themed chalk drawing at the governor's mansion – Alex Nitzberg, The Blaze

1:05:42 – ‘Compassion Versus Guilt and Other Essays’ by Thomas Sowell – Audible.com

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“For you are a people holy to Yahweh your God. Yahweh your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

It was not because you were more in number than any other people that Yahweh set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because Yahweh loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that Yahweh has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Know therefore that Yahweh your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today."

Deuteronomy 7:6-11

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 7

04:32 – Thoughts on the Reading

35:50 - SCOTUS Unanimously Strengthens Religious Liberty In The Workplace – Anthony Cash, DW

44:26 - United States Postmaster General – Wikipedia

46:11 - Dad urges parents to stop worrying about giving their kids a 'good future' – Heather Wake, UpWorthy

54:10 - Abraham Piper deconstructs his dad – Jonathan Poletti, Medium

1:00:24 - Buttigieg Attacks Christian In SCOTUS Case: Only Went Into Business To ‘Provoke A Case Like This’ – DW News

1:12:14 - Watch: Dad of the year brought receipts and fire to a school meeting about the trans bathroom issue – NTB Staff

1:26:52 - Planned Parenthood Banned From Schools In Canadian Province Over Sexually Graphic Resource – Mairead Elordi, DW

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And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them."

Deuteronomy 5:1

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 5

04:53 – Thoughts on the Reading

29:52 - Another gaffe: Biden botches reference to America's founding documents – Alex Nitzberg, The Blaze

44:21 - DeSantis Signals As President, He’ll Have New ‘Rules Of Engagement’ For Mexican Drug Cartels – DW News

51:26 - Don't tempt me with a good time! NBC panics cuz DeSantis says he'll shut down the IRS along with the education, commerce, and energy departments – Harris Rigby, NTB

57:39 - DeSantis Indicates As President, His DOJ Will Go After Elites Who’ve Played By Different Rules – DW News

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“And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land that Yahweh, the God of your fathers, is giving you.”

Deuteronomy 4:1

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 4

08:07 – Thoughts on the Reading

26:58 - Check out the NYT's response to affirmative action being overturned – Joel Abbott, NTB

37:57 - Advocates Hail SCOTUS Decision Scrapping Affirmative Action In College Admissions – Mairead Elordi, DW

51:49 - Awkward: Supreme Court Rules Against Affirmative Action With Affirmative Action Hire Sitting Right There – BB

53:49 - Clarence Thomas Blasts Ketanji Brown Jackson’s ‘Racist’ Worldview: ‘Cancerous To Young Minds’ – DW News

1:07:04 - Biden says "this is not a normal court" when asked if SCOTUS has gone "rogue" by telling colleges to admit students based on merit, not skin color – NTB Staff

1:15:02 – Dean of Berkeley Law caught on tape explaining how the school gets around anti-discrimination laws for the sake of "diversity" – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:19:55 - Harvard To Get Around Affirmative Action Ban By Asking You Whether You Prefer BBQ, Ranch, Or Soy Sauce - BB

1:21:41 - ANALYSIS: SCOTUS Decision on Affirmative Action Will Spark More Lawsuits, Experts Say – Lawrence Wilson, The Epoch Times

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“Then we turned and went up the way to Bashan. And Og the king of Bashan came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei. But Yahweh said to me, ‘Do not fear him, for I have given him and all his people and his land into your hand. And you shall do to him as you did to Sihon the king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.’ So Yahweh our God gave into our hand Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people, and we struck him down until he had no survivor left.” - Deuteronomy 3:1-3 This Episode’s Links: (All timestamps offset by 24-seconds) 00:00 – Deuteronomy 3 04:55 – Thoughts on the Reading 17:28 - Cubit – Britannica 25:32 - Strange light videoed falling from the sky in Las Vegas. Minutes later a family calls police to report 10-foot-tall creatures with big, shiny eyes in their backyard. This really happened. – Harambe, NTB 38:11 - Congress Should Immediately Release All Info It Has On Intact Craft Of ‘Non-Human Origin’ – Joseph Curl, DW 48:03 - Vatican Official Denies Whistleblower’s Mussolini-Era UAP Cover-Up Claim – Matt McGregor, The Epoch Times 1:04:10 - National Geographic is firing all of its staff writers and will no longer appear in print on newsstands – Harris Rigby, NTB 1:10:32 - American Library Association conference promotes LGBT books for kids, features 'diversity' panels and trans key speakers – Candace Hathaway, The Blaze 1:23:08 - Day care worker accused of snapping photos of nearly naked children and sending them to trans-identifying former state rep. in New Hampshire – Cortney Weil, The Blaze 1:32:43 - PETAreleases disturbing image of animals eating babies. What is wrong with these people? – Mister Retrops, NTB

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“At that time I said to you, ‘I am not able to bear you by myself. Yahweh your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are today as numerous as the stars of heaven. May Yahweh, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you, as he has promised you! How can I bear by myself the weight and burden of you and your strife? Choose for your tribes wise, understanding, and experienced men, and I will appoint them as your heads.’

And you answered me, ‘The thing that you have spoken is good for us to do.’ So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and set them as heads over you, commanders of thousands, commanders of hundreds, commanders of fifties, commanders of tens, and officers, throughout your tribes.

Deuteronomy 1:9-15

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Deuteronomy 1

11:26 – Thoughts on the Reading

34:25 - Pod Of Orcas Attack Racing Yacht In Strait Of Gibraltar – Joseph Curl, DW

42:29 - Bed Bath & Beyond was just bought at auction for 0.1% its peak market cap – Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB

49:05 - BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says that he's dropping the term "ESG" because leaders like Ron DeSantis have killed the brand – Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB

54:51 - Comer Demands Burisma Suspicious Activity Reports From Treasury – Daniel Chaitin, DW

1:06:23 - Joe is out here today pitching "Bidenomics" and he's being defeated by the English language and the facts – Joel Abbott, NTB

1:13:16 - Tucker Carlson Goes Off on Hunter Biden in Episode 5: As in Most of the Developing World, It’s Safer to be the President’s Son Than His Opponent – Cristina Laila, Gateway Pundit

1:21:51 - Towards a Postliberal Political Economy – The Postliberals and The American Postliberal

1:39:50 - ‘The Law’ by Frederic Bastiat – Audible

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This is what Yahweh commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad:

‘Let them marry whom they think best, only they shall marry within the clan of the tribe of their father. The inheritance of the people of Israel shall not be transferred from one tribe to another, for every one of the people of Israel shall hold on to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers. And every daughter who possesses an inheritance in any tribe of the people of Israel shall be wife to one of the clan of the tribe of her father, so that every one of the people of Israel may possess the inheritance of his fathers. So no inheritance shall be transferred from one tribe to another, for each of the tribes of the people of Israel shall hold on to its own inheritance.’

Numbers 36:6-9

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Numbers 36

02:33 – Thoughts on the Reading

34:51 - Privatizing Marriage is not the Answer to the Same-Sex Marriage Debate – Jennifer Roback Morse, Public Discourse, The Journal of the Witherspoon Institute

47:03 - Did Job sin in anything he said? – GotQuestions.org

1:03:23 - It finally happened in the White House briefing room – Peter Heck, NTB

1:17:18 – Highland Clearances - Wikipedia

1:36:32 – Personal Seal – Monticello.org

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“If anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death on the evidence of witnesses. But no person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness.”

Numbers 35:30

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Numbers 35

06:05 – Thoughts on the Reading

26:21 - Denver school board reverses 2020 ban on police in schools, paving way for long-term return of SROs – Jessica Seaman, The Denver Post

37:56 - STOP Mom-Shaming, Katy Perry! Lila Rose REACTS to American Idol – Live Action, YouTube

53:41 - Trump Confronted Over Wanting To Execute Drug Dealers After Pardoning Some And Signing ‘First Step Act’ – Daily Wire News

1:05:11 - Italy is going to remove lesbian partners from children's birth certificates: “Marriage is only between a man and a woman” – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:11:27 - Groundbreaking AI project translates 5,000-year-old cuneiform at push of a button – Melanie Lidman, The Times of Israel

1:16:27 - The “Singularity” is here. Or is it? Silicon Valley nears a tipping point. – The New York Times News Service Syndicate

1:31:33 - Big Tech billionaire brawl? Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg seemingly agree to fight each other in a cage match – Alex Nitzberg, The Blaze

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Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, “Command the people of Israel, and say to them, When you enter the land of Canaan, this is the land that shall fall to you for an inheritance, the land of Canaan as defined by its borders…

Numbers 34:1-2

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Numbers 34

03:25 – Thoughts on the Reading

18:27 - Watch this professor play "Queer Theory-Pedophilia Jeopardy" to demonstrate how pedophilia is at the roots of the LGBT movement – Harris Rigby, NTB

31:50 – Derrick Jensen – Wikipedia

36:25 – Letters of horning – Wikipedia

46:04 – Salem witch trials – Wikipedia

50:08 – Witch trials in the early modern period – Wikipedia

56:39 - 1946 Tennessee election parallels 2020 – Lonnie Lee Hood, Tennessee Lookout

1:03:44 - ‘The Fighting Bunch: The Battle of Athens and How World War II Veterans Won the Only Successful Armed Rebellion Since the Revolution’ by Chris DeRose – Audible

1:07:32 - Cultural Christianity is About Culture – Ben C Dunson, American Reformer

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These are the stages of the people of Israel, when they went out of the land of Egypt by their companies under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. Moses wrote down their starting places, stage by stage, by command of Yahweh, and these are their stages according to their starting places.

Numbers 33:1-2

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

Matthew 7:3-5

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Numbers 33

05:44 – Thoughts on the Reading

26:22 - ‘Boy Meets World’ Star Recalls ‘Creepy’ Interaction With Executive At A Young Age – Katie Jerkovich, DW

54:02 - The Atlantic accidentally lets the truth slip: "Women are different down to the cellular level." – PlanetMoron, NTB

1:03:03 - Twitter is ‘most dangerous’ major social media platform for LGBTQ+ users: GLAAD – Barbara Ortutay, AP, Billings Gazette

1:10:22 - Australian government threatens Elon Musk with $475,000-a-day fine if he doesn't stop people's feelings from being hurt on Twitter – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:13:19 - J.K. Rowling Goes Viral With Message To Those Pushing People To Use ‘Cis’ After Musk Labels It A ‘Slur’ – Katie Jerkovich, DW

1:29:32 - LIVE NOT BY LIES - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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“…the land that Yahweh struck down before the congregation of Israel, is a land for livestock, and your servants have livestock.”

And they said, “If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants for a possession. Do not take us across the Jordan.”

Numbers 32:4-5

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Numbers 32

06:22 – Thoughts on the Reading

27:21 - Gen Z Are Worst Tippers, Baby Boomers Best, New Survey Finds – Joseph Curl, DW

47:21 - EV Range Dips Nearly 25 Percent While Carrying Load: AAA – Naveen Athrappully, The Epoch Times

1:05:29 - Two bad Legislature bills cost Montana $825,000 – Tom Lutey, Billings Gazette

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Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, “Avenge the people of Israel on the Midianites. Afterward you shall be gathered to your people.” So Moses spoke to the people, saying, “Arm men from among you for the war, that they may go against Midian to execute Yahweh’s vengeance on Midian.

Numbers 31:1-3

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Numbers 31

06:42 – Thoughts on the Reading

41:49 - I regret to inform you that Joe Biden is trying to talk about AR-15s again. His level of ignorance is astounding. – AnnieOakley, NTB

50:31 - An unearthed bronze sword more than 3,000 years old is in such great condition it 'almost still shines' – Natalie Musumeci, INSIDER

1:00:07 - THE CONTINUING RELEVANCE OF THE DONATIST CONTROVERSY – Gilbert Meilaender, First Things

1:38:05 - Karl Barth - Wikipedia

1:48:12 - Why did God allow polygamy / bigamy in the Bible? – GotQuestions.org

2:00:51 - Judeo-Christian Values Have Been Replaced In The West By New ‘Cultish’ Religion, Ben Shapiro Says – Daily Wire

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“If a woman vows a vow to Yahweh and binds herself by a pledge, while within her father’s house in her youth, and her father hears of her vow and of her pledge by which she has bound herself and says nothing to her, then all her vows shall stand, and every pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. But if her father opposes her on the day that he hears of it, no vow of hers, no pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. And Yahweh will forgive her, because her father opposed her.”

Numbers 30:3-5

Hear, my son, your father’s instruction,

and forsake not your mother’s teaching,

for they are a graceful garland for your head

and pendants for your neck.

Proverbs 1:8-9

What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Luke 11:11-13

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Numbers 28-30

11:24 – Thoughts on the Reading

23:09 - Father's Day – Wikipedia

55:07 - DeSantis On Key Component To Turning America Around: ‘It’s Got To Be Spiritual’ – DW News

1:10:44 - Teachers are complaining about students coming to school in diapers, some as old as ELEVEN – Mister Retrops, NTB

1:17:02 - Monopoly – Wikipedia

1:28:49 - The Y chromosome: beyond gender determination – Roseanne F. Zhao, PhD, National Human Genome Research Institute

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But among these there was not one of those listed by Moses and Aaron the priest, who had listed the people of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai. For Yahweh had said of them, “They shall die in the wilderness.” Not one of them was left, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.

Numbers 26:64-65

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Numbers 26

10:58 – Thoughts on the Reading

27:00 - International study shows birth-control pills dramatically increase risk of depression in women... – Harris Rigby, NTB

48:42 - Planned Parenthood CEOs among the highest-paid in nonprofit sector... – Candace Hathaway, The Blaze

1:01:09 - Fox Corp. Encourages Employees To Support Radical LGBTQ Organizations, Uses ‘Woke AI’ To Track... – Zach Jewell, DW

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While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab.

Numbers 25:1

These women here, on Balaam’s advice, made the Israelites act treacherously against the Lord in the affair of Peor, so that the plague came among the congregation of Yahweh.

Numbers 31:16

Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.

1 Timothy 2:11-12

As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

1 Corinthians 33b-35

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 –Numbers 25

03:36 – Thoughts on the Passage

24:14 - Viewers express shock that 'Jeopardy!' contestants couldn't solve elementary Bible-knowledge clue about the Lord's Prayer – Alex Nitzberg, The Blaze

28:56 - Justin Trudeau: "I will never apologize for standing up for LGDP, eh, LGT, LB-chi ... LGBTQ2+ kids" – Edward Teach, NTB

32:47 - ‘They’re Liars’: Ben Shapiro’s Not Buying WH Shock Over Topless Trans Person At Pride Event – Katie Jerkovich, DW

39:11 - Fellas, listen to this man, and make sure your kids are protected – Daniel Plainview, NTB

50:28 - ‘Sesame Street’ Dragged On Twitter For Sharing Progress Pride Flag – Amanda Harding, DW

55:14 - Middle schoolers staged a revolt on the day they were told to wear rainbow colors to celebrate pride. They wore red, white, and blue, and said their pronouns were "U.S.A." Woke faculty is freaking out. – Edward Teach, NTB

1:00:57 - Death toll of doomsday starvation cult in Kenya reaches 300, and over 600 more are missing – Carlos Garcia, The Blaze

1:12:01 - It's official: Southern Baptist Convention votes to disfellowship Saddleback Church for ordaining women pastors. Come watch Rick Warren and Al Mohler's epic debate on the issue. – John Knox, NTB

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When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negeb, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, he fought against Israel, and took some of them captive. And Israel vowed a vow to Yahweh and said, “If you will indeed give this people into my hand, then I will devote their cities to destruction."

And Yahweh heeded the voice of Israel and gave over the Canaanites, and they devoted them and their cities to destruction. So the name of the place was called Hormah.”

Numbers 21:1-2

"The rise of the sexual revolution was predicated on fundamental changes in how the self is understood. The self must first be psychologized; psychology must then be sexualized; and sex must be politicized."

Carl R. Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Numbers 21

05:57 – Thoughts on the Reading

27:49 - The Importance of Play in Childhood Development - Stephanie Nereppil, MSOT, OTR/L, Oak Tree Development

36:35 - Ark Nova – Board Game Geek

47:31 - The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self Book Review – Brittany Shields, Shelf Reflection

50:11 - Asconservatives target schools across US, LGBTQ+ kids and students of color feel less safe – Annie Ma, Claudia Lauer, Adriana Gomez Licon, AP, Billings Gazette

52:55 - Here's how enthused Dems are about Joe Biden running again in 2024 – Jesse James, NTB

58:14 - Statue honoring Revolutionary War hero removed after nearly a century – Paul Sacca, The Blaze

1:00:15 - President Biden Wants To Give Trump ‘Death Sentence For Documents,’ GOP Rep. Says – Ben Whitehead, DW

1:03:24 - Trump Promises "Final Battle" To "Demolish The Deep State" – NTB Staff

1:09:10 - Deep State Theology – Mark Tooley, Providence Mag

1:29:22 - WATCH: Aggressive Chinese warship cuts off US destroyer in Taiwan Strait, nearly kicking off WW3 – Edward Teach, NTB

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And Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.”

Numbers 20:12

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 –Numbers 20

06:34 – Thoughts on the Reading

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“To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel for an inheritance, in return for their service that they do, their service in the tent of meeting, so that the people of Israel do not come near the tent of meeting, lest they bear sin and die.”

Numbers 18:21-22

But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

1 Thessalonians 4:10b-12

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Numbers 18

08:50 – Thoughts on the Reading

25:04 – Education expert torches school system after history grades fall to lowest ever: ‘Dumbed down curriculum’ – Fox News

45:59 - Tucker: "By 2008, it was obvious to anybody who was paying attention that Barack Obama had a strange and highly creepy personal life" – NTB Staff

1:05:46 - Colorado distributing $4 million in emergency funding to 245 food pantries as community need increases – Lauren Penington, The Denver Post

1:20:03 - Average Rent by Year – iPropertyManagement.com

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And Yahweh said to Moses, “Put back the staff of Aaron before the testimony, to be kept as a sign for the rebels, that you may make an end of their grumblings against me, lest they die.”

Numbers 17:10

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.”

Matthew 23:23

The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

2 Corinthians 9:6-7

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 - Numbers 17

02:04 – Thoughts on the Reading

15:42 - Tithing in the New Testament: What Does It Say? – Tithe.ly

53:13 – ‘Every Christian should watch this’ – redeemedmelody, Instagram

1:24:45 - Gallup poll shows more people now identify as "socially conservative" than at any point in the past decade – Edward Teach, NTB

1:28:48 - The 5AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life – Robin Sharma, Audible

1:38:47 – RobinSharma.com

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You shall have one law for him who does anything unintentionally, for him who is native among the people of Israel and for the stranger who sojourns among them. But the person who does anything with a high hand, whether he is native or a sojourner, reviles Yahweh, and that person shall be cut off from among his people.

Numbers 15:29-30

Unless Yahweh builds the house,

those who build it labor in vain.

Unless Yahweh watches over the city,

the watchman stays awake in vain.

Psalm 127:1

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Numbers 15

6:10 - Thoughts on the Reading

19:53 - Republican presses VA to stop flying Pride flag, requests removal of any 'flags promoting social policy positions or political statements' – Alex Nitzberg, The Blaze

29:24 - Polis makes wager: If Nuggets win finals, Disney World moves to Colorado – Samantha Jarpe, KDVR, FOX31

35:16 - Conservatives are busy arguing today about the legality of gayness in Uganda while rainbow leftists continue conquering America – Joel Abbott, NTB

53:21 - Teens arrested after eating town's prized swan and kidnapping its babies from protected pond: Police – Joseph MacKinnon, The Blaze

57:39 - 'I thought he was going to die': Man savagely stomped by group of males in front of his wife, needs stitches to reattach eyelid – Dave Urbanski, The Blaze

1:03:08 - Children's choir silenced while performing the national anthem in US Capitol because 'it might offend someone': Video – Cortney Weil, The Blaze

1:06:29 - Gen Zers Are Right: In Biden’s America, Millions Need A Second Job Just To Survive – Joseph Curl, DW

1:18:36 - Real talk: Why the heck are y'all spending this much on weddings these days? – NTB Staff

1:26:10 - Archaeologists Were Stunned As They Uncovered Something Giant Buried Underneath Cairo – Tyler Connaghan, Past Chronicles, MSN.com

1:29:26 - ‘Completely Unique’: Archeologists Unearth Dozens Of 2,700-Year-Old Rock Carvings That May Form ‘A Narrative’ – Ben Whitehead, DW

1:34:58 - Can Baptists Be Christian Nationalists? – Jacob Huneycutt, American Reformer

1:48:29 - Christian Dictatorship Chic? – Mark Tooley, Providence Mag

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Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why is Yahweh bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”

Numbers 14:1-4

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 - Numbers 14

07:05 - Thoughts on the Reading

24:45 - Foot-long mastodon tooth found on California beach is MISSING after discoverer thought it was wood – Hope Sloop, Daily Mail

29:39 - Iraqi transport minister claims first airport was built 7,000 years ago in Iraq by ancient Sumerians – Katie Forster, Independent

Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization by Paul Kriwaczek - Audible

42:45 - World War II ‘Horror Bunker’ Used For Human Experiments Discovered In China: Report – Ben Whitehead, DW

50:55 - CEOs got smaller raises last year. It would still take a typical worker 2 lifetimes to make their annual pay. A closer look at the numbers. – Alexandra Olson, AP, Billings Gazette

1:04:52 - IT'S HERE: The crew of The Babylon Bee sits down to chat with Elon Musk at Twitter HQ, gives him an I.O.U. for $44 billion – NTB Staff

1:12:34 - DeSantis fires back at Trump for attacking his Covid policies: "His whole family moved to Florida under my governorship! Are you kidding me?" – Harambe, NTB

1:23:00 - MSNBC talking head calls boycotting Target "literally terrorism" – Cardinal Pritchard, NTB

1:25:54 - Target stores across US hit with bomb threats because they "turned their back" on the LGBT community – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:29:40 - Ballplayer Caves And Apologizes For Sharing Video On Bud Light, Target Boycotts – Daniel Chaitin, DW

1:31:18 - The Biblical Reason Christians should Boycott Target – dudewithgoodnews, Instagram

1:48:18 - Did Chick-Fil-A just go woke? Fast food company announces new commitment to "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" – Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB

1:55:41 - Someone spotted a Pride flag in behind-the-scenes footage from "The Chosen." Check out the show's official response. – Holly Ash, NTB

1:59:29 - Donald Trump’s Pride Merchandise Resurfaces Amid Target, Bud Light Backlash – Newsweek, MSN.com

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But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and fall the people that we saw in it are of great height.

Numbers 13:30-32

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 - Numbers 13

04:33 - Thoughts on the Reading

21:49 - Two pro-life sidewalk counselors brutally attacked outside Planned Parenthood in Baltimore – Joel Abbott, NTB

29:23 - Planned Parenthood posted this graphic over the weekend and said it's "all the same fight." – Harris Rigby, NTB

36:02 - Denver school board should set district-wide policy on armed police on campuses, says latest DPS safety plan draft – Jessica Seaman, The Denver Post

38:30 - Rolling Stone tries to paint Ron DeSantis as evil for "bringing the ax down on furries," makes huge campaign contribution instead – Joel Abbott, NTB

48:01 - Meet Nick, the “fairy godmother’s apprentice” who helps little girls pick a princess dress at Disney – NTB Staff

50:06 - VIDEO: 3 Marines beaten and stomped after confronting 30-40 teenagers for being unruly at California beach – Carlos Garcia, The Blaze

50:56 - Lululemon Employees Fired After Confronting Thieves: Reports – Daniel Chaitin, DW

58:53 - BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors quietly axed by Warner Brothers after failing to produce any of the content she promised – Holly Ash, NTB

1:00:54 - ‘Another Company Needing Bud-Lighting’: Kohl’s Ripped For Infant LGBT Merchandise – Hank Berrien, DW

1:03:45 - ‘Sinister, Nefarious, And Dangerous’: Federal Government Watchdog Slammed For Memo Urging Woke Language – Hank Berrien, DW

1:06:56 - Trump Warns US in ‘Peril’ in Memorial Day Message – Jack Phillips, The Epoch Times

1:21:52 - House Oversight Democrats Defend FBI Ahead Of Alleged Biden Bribery Scheme Document Subpoena – Brandon Drey, DW

1:26:45 - Matt Ridley: I’m Shocked by How Little the World Wants to Investigate COVID-19 Origin – Lily Zhou, Lee Hall, The Epoch Times

1:34:54 - What A Recent Trip To Japan Taught Me About Modern America – Jared Sichel, DW

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And they said, “Has Yahweh indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” And Yahweh heard it.

Numbers 12:2

This Episode’s Links: (All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 - Numbers 12

02:18 - Thoughts on the Reading

25:08 - What is New York's famous Manhattanhenge? – Ashley Williams, Accuweather

32:19 – Fossils | Earth Science – LumenLearning.com

39:03 - Target Loses $10 Billion In Value In Just Ten Days: Report – Virginia Kruta, DW

40:22 - ‘Boycott Target’ Song Racks Up Millions Of Views, Takes Off On iTunes – Amanda Prestigiacomo, DW

46:09 - A UK government leader affirmed the scientific definition of male/female sex. Trans activists responded with 24 gallons of urine. – Daniel Plainview, NTB

48:00 - Here Are The 25 Most-Visited Websites In The World In 2023 – Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB

54:17 - Why Americans Are Having Fewer Babies – Janet Adamy, WSJ

1:03:56 - Comedian ROASTS Gen Z For Being Completely Incompetent, Gen Z BLAMES Older Generation – Timcast IRL, YouTube

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And the people complained in the hearing of Yahweh about their misfortunes, and when Yahweh heard it, his anger was kindled, and the fire of Yahweh burned among them and consumed some outlying parts of the camp.

Numbers 11:1

Righteousness exalts a nation,
but sin is a reproach to any people.

Proverbs 14:34

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 - Numbers 11

06:04 - Thoughts on the Reading

12:29 - Jordan Peterson Considers Every Possible Meaning Of Bible Story Except That It Might Mean Exactly What It Says – Babylon Bee

18:45 - 'On day one we'll be spitting nails': DeSantis rages against deep state and pledges to dismantle it in Glenn Beck interview – Joseph MacKinnon, The Blaze

29:16 - Best-case scenario shaping up: DeSantis vs. the field – Peter Heck, NTB

39:54 - De Sanitas – WordHippo.com

41:02 - DeSantis Name Meaning – FamilySearch.org

43:12 - 'I'm Not Sanctimonious And I Don't Look Like A Meatball,' Whispers Ron DeSantis Crying Self To Sleep At Night – Babylon Bee

45:00 - 'Florida Is A Mismanaged Hellhole And Only An Idiot Would Live There,' Says Trump – Babylon Bee

45:59 - Colorado student sues school district that wouldn’t let her wear Mexican flag sash at graduation – Elizabeth Hernandez, The Denver Post

52:33 - Foreign-Born Workers Now Make Up Nearly One-Fifth Of American Workforce – Ben Zeisloft, DW

1:06:37 - Colorado teachers union adopts anti-capitalist polemic – Luige Del Puerto, The Denver Gazette

1:11:13 - FDA study shows "serious safety" issues, elevated risk of myocarditis and pericarditis in young people after taking the Covid jab – Harris Rigby, NTB

1:18:26 - Is It Possible to Be a Baptist Christian Nationalist? – Matthew Y Emerson, 9Marks.org

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“Make two silver trumpets. Of hammered work you shall make them, and you shall use them for summoning the congregation and for breaking camp.”

Numbers 10:2

“For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die.”

Genesis 6:17

Better was a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice.

Ecclesiastes 4:13

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 – Numbers 10:1-36

05:11 – Thoughts on the Reading

12:44 - Who was Moses’ wife? – GotQuestions.org

17:19 - Saber-toothed mammalian ancestor reveals how unstable life was during ‘the Great Dying’ – Ashley Strickland, CNN, Accuweather

29:36 – Cut 1 - I ‘sued’ my parents for having me without my permission – Erin Keller, New York Post

35:48 – Cut 2 - Texas teens charged over ‘fart spray’ prank – Snejana Farberov, New York Post

45:51 - Finland Went From Energy Shortage to Negative Power Prices. Here’s How They Did It – Ben Zeisloft, DW

52:50 - Target's market value has dropped $9 billion in one week. – Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB

1:02:03 - Prominent Christians Talk Effective Target And Bud Light Boycotts – Amanda Prestigiacomo, DW

1:16:56 – Cut 3 - DeSantis Releases Campaign Launch Video – Ryan Saavedra, DW

1:19:05 – Cuts 4, 5, 6 - No one is reporting what Ron DeSantis actually said – Joel Abbott, NTB

1:42:41 - GOP Megadonor Who Backed Trump Flips To DeSantis – Daily Wire News

1:43:56 - DeSantis Hauls In Whopping $8.2M In First 24 Hours As Presidential Candidate – Ryan Saavedra, DW

1:45:27 - 5 Takeaways From the DeSantis 2024 Campaign Launch Night – The Epoch Times

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“You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am Yahweh.”

Leviticus 19:32

“And from the age of fifty years they shall withdraw from the duty of the service and serve no more. They minister to their brothers in the tent of meeting by keeping guard, but they shall do no service. Thus shall you do to the Levites in assigning their duties.”

Numbers 8:25-26

Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.

1 Timothy 5:1-2

This Episode’s Links:

(All timestamps offset by 24-seconds)

00:00 - Numbers 8 – Logos

04:18 – Reflections on the Reading

15:11 - Joe Biden's G7 Appearance Littered With Gaffes – Khaleda Rahman, Newsweek

29:07 - WATCH: This airhead thought his prank was funny until my guy with the 1911 stepped in... – AnnieOakley, NTB

34:40 - Scientist Figures Out How Many T. Rex Ever Existed, And It's Terrifying – David Nield, ScienceAlert

40:33 - Cocaine dealer, who had life sentence commuted by Obama, hit with 3 counts of attempted murder... – Paul Sacca, The Blaze

45:57 - 'The FBI will crush you. This government will crush you and your family': Whistleblower's chilling testimony... – Candace Hathaway, The Blaze

52:20 - Is this really what perfect looks like? – Bryony Gordon, The Telegraph

1:03:32 - Man who won women's cycling race stands alone on podium after female competitors refuse to join him – Cortney Weil, The Blaze

1:11:48 - Nebraska Democrat Lawmaker Explodes During Session: ‘We Need Trans People!’ – Daily Wire News

1:17:45 - extraordinary evils, extraordinary remedies – Timon Cline, American Reformer

1:31:35 - Are We the Byzantines? – Victor Davis Hanson, The Blade of Perseus

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And when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with Yahweh, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim; and it spoke to him.

Numbers 7:89

This Episode's Links:

Musk Shreds The ‘Laptop Class’: ‘Get Off The God-D Moral High Horse With Work From Home Bulls’ - Daily Wire News
North Dakota Man Pleads Guilty To Manslaughter After Hitting Teen He Feared Was Linked To ‘Republican Extremist Group’ - Leif Le Mahieu, DW
Just when you thought he couldn't possibly get any creepier, here's Joe Biden taking and escorting a pair of children into the Oval Office - Cardinal Pritchard, NTB
Sports World Reacts To Brittney Griner's National Anthem Comment - Kameron Duncan, The Spun
Target faces boycott for selling 'tuck-friendly' bathing suits, LGBTQ onesies for babies, 'trans power' T-shirts, drag queen books for young children - Paul Sacca, The Blaze
DeSantis says doctors who perform sex-change surgeries on kids should go to jail - Jesse James, NTB
Blinken raises eyebrows with wording of condemnation of 'harmful conversion therapy practices' - Joseph MacKinnon, The Blaze
Report: Texas AG launches investigation into Children's Hospital allegedly performing sex changes on children - Harris Rigby, NTB
This high school put tampon dispensers in the boys' bathrooms. You'll be so proud of how the boys responded. - NTB Staff
'Teacher of the year' charged with rape of underage student, detectives say there may be more victims - Paul Sacca, The Blaze
‘These Are Our Kids, They Belong To All Of Us’: Three Times The Left Trampled On Parental Authority This Past Week Alone - Tim Meads, DW
Parents scorch Biden's Education Sec. Cardona for claiming teachers know what's best for 'their' kids - Michele Blood, The Blaze
Pedagogy Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
John Taylor Gatto Fact Check #11: Congress Investigated the Secret Puppet Masters Part I: The Walsh Commission - jacoblightbody.com
Literacy Statistics - ThinkImpact
Bartleby, the Scrivener - Wikipedia
Weapons of Mass Instruction, by John Taylor Gatto - Audible

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And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel, When a man or woman commits any of the sins that people commit by breaking faith with Yahweh, and that person realizes his guilt, he shall confess his sin that he has committed. And he shall make full restitution for his wrong, adding a fifth to it and giving it to him to whom he did the wrong."

Numbers 5:5-7

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

Galatians 3:1-2

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.

1 Corinthians 5:9-11

Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!

1 Corinthians 6:2-3

This Episode's Links:

CNBC asked Elon Musk why he compared George Soros to Magneto and his reply was amazing - Cardinal Pritchard, NTB
Musk: Take China’s Comments About Capturing Taiwan ‘Seriously,’ They’re Not Kidding Around - Daily Wire News
What Elon Musk was asked in his CNBC interview was at least as important as his answer, and we need to talk about it. - PlanetMoron, NTB
‘Pick The Crops’ And ‘Clean Our Homes’: Democrats Love Illegal Aliens For Cheap Labor — And Votes - Tim Meads, DW
Pelosi ripped for saying Florida needs migrants to ‘pick the crops’ - Emily Crane, New York Post
Border Patrol Not Too Sure About This 'Mohammed Sanchez' Guy - The Babylon Bee
Biden Finally Draws Larger Crowd Than Trump - The Babylon Bee
Why I no longer use Transgender Pronouns—and Why You shouldn’t, either. - Rosaria Butterfield, Reformation21
The necessary politics of the church - Miles Smith, WORLD
Jesus as a Political Cynic - Peter J. Leithart
What a Democracy Can Lose without Christianity - Miles Smith IV, National Review

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According to the commandment of Yahweh through Moses they were listed, each one with his task of serving or carrying. Thus they were listed by him, as Yahweh commanded Moses.

- Numbers 4:49

I said, “You are gods,
sons of the Most High, all of you;
nevertheless, like men you shall die,
and fall like any prince.”

Psalm 82:6-7

Who is like Yahweh our God,
who is seated on high,
who looks far down
on the heavens and the earth?

Psalm 113:5-6

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

1 Peter 1:14-16

This Episode's Links:

Hold my beer, Budweiser! Miller Lite's new feminist spokeswoman is here to cuss at you and explain why men are evil - NTB Staff
Beer - Wikipedia
John Deere Corporate Might Have Reason to Panic, But Farmers Will Love What’s Happening - Warner Todd Hudson, The Western Journal, Gateway Pundit
Influencer Creates ‘AI Girlfriend’ Version Of Herself, Hauls In More Than $70,000 In Single Week - Joseph Curl, DW
‘Aladdin’ Star Deactivated His Twitter Account Following Backlash For His ‘Little Mermaid’ Prediction - Amanda Harding, DW
Disney Actor Cut After ‘The Little Mermaid’ Debacle - Andrew Boardwine, Inside the Magic, MSN.com
Special Council John Durham finds FBI never should have investigated Trump, "failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law" - NTB Staff
READ IT: Durham Report Makes ‘Sobering’ Findings About FBI’s Handling Of Trump-Russia Probe - Luke Rosiak, DW
Watch: Greg Gutfeld explains the moment we're in after the Durham report exonerates Trump - Harris Rigby, NTB
Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold by Stephen Fry - GoodReads.com

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Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, “The people of Israel shall camp each by his own standard, with the banners of their fathers’ houses. They shall camp facing the tent of meeting on every side."

Numbers 2:1-2

There are six things that Yahweh hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers.

- Proverbs 6:16-19

For God is not a God of disorder, but of peace—as in all the churches of the saints.

1 Corinthians 14:33

This Episode's Links:

Bear Grylls ditches vegan diet, explains why he now embraces carnivore lifestyle: 'The biggest game-changer' - Chris Enloe, The Blaze

Animal break! Check out this ginormous snapping turtle dubbed "Chonkosaurus" in this rare and hilarious sighting - Jessica Swietoniowski, NTB

Wait... He's How Old? - theisabelbrown, Instagram

Bernie Sanders Doubled His Income Last Year Thanks to Profits From Book "It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism" - Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB

Biden Heads To Beach After Shattering All-Time Record With 83,000 Illegal Aliens Storming Border In 1 Week - Ryan Saavedra, DW

Border Patrol union says ‘corrupt’ Biden should be arrested for ‘worst sustained disaster… ever seen at our border’ - Candace Hathaway, The Blaze

Biden: "The most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland is white supremacy" - Jesse James, NTB

Manchin Shreds Biden Over Expected Crackdown On Power Plants, Reveals How He Will Respond - Ben Zeisloft, DW

Trump Takes CNN Anchor To The Mat In 2024 Town Hall - Daniel Chaitin, DW

Donald Trump’s CNN Town Hall live updates: Liberal journalists, AOC blast network over event: ‘Lost total contol’ - Post Staff Reporter, New York Post

Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy wants to raise the voting age to 25 - Daniel Plainview, NTB

125 Democrats and 1 Republican Vote to Lower Voting Age to 16 - Peter Hasson, The Daily Caller

DeSantis Arrives In Des Moines For Unplanned Stop To Meet Conservatives After Trump Cancels Rally Over Weather - Ryan Saavedra, DW

DeSantis’s Revolutionary Defense of the Classics - Cornel West and Jeremy Wayne Tate, WSJ

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"Yahweh spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying, “Take a census of all the congregation of the people of Israel, by clans, by fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, every male, head by head. "

Numbers 1:1-2

Put not your trust in princes,
in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;
on that very day his plans perish.

Psalm 146:3-4

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

- John 3:16

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:16

This Episode's Links:

Numbers 1 Commentary - Precept Austin
The Transformers now introduce their pronouns! - Holly Ash, NTB
Federal lawsuit: Ohio school district is punishing kids for "misgendering" trans students inside their own homes - Harris Rigby, NTB
Investigation of Texas high school softball team after catcher walloped opposing players in their heads with throws - Paul Sacca, The Blaze
Watch Ted Cruz absolutely rip into a reporter at the border on illegal immigration - NTB Staff
Black Chicagoans say authorities are shuttling in illegals to replace them and their culture... - Harris Rigby, NTB
A Minneapolis teen was ruled incompetent to stand trial after shooting someone in the head... - Edward Teach, NTB
NBC Correspondent Worries That Twitter Won’t ‘Police’ Tucker: ‘It’s Just A Free-For-All’ - Virginia Kruta, The Daily Wire
Elon hasn't led us astray thus far, so let's talk about the new Twitter CEO and pray he's right - Joel Abbott, Not the Bee
The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class - Joel Kotkin, Goodreads

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“If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit."

- Leviticus 26:3-4

This Episode's Links:

'Eugenics and Other Evils' by G.K. Chesterton - Project Gutenberg
"GET MARRIED AND START A FAMILY": Kansas City Chiefs kicker spits fire in commencement speech - Hamilton Porter, NTB
Apparently NBC News thinks this is a bad thing - Harris Rigby, NTB
Ahab - Wikipedia
What is the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal? - GotQuestions.org
Activists question book availability to Thompson School Board - Will Costello, Loveland Reporter-Herald
Over the next two months, we'll get Supreme Court decisions on 6 cases that could drastically change America. - NTB Staff
Tucker Carlson is launching a new version of his show on Twitter - Holly Ash, NTB
Elon Musk Releases Statement About Tucker Carlson’s New Show On Twitter: ‘We Have Not Signed A Deal’ - Ryan Saavedra, DW
Fox News ratings after firing Tucker are getting EVEN WORSE! Fox trailed MSNBC in all evening time slots... - Harris Rigby, NTB
White House bans Founding Father's newspaper from event just days after Biden expressed support for a free press - Joseph MacKinnon, The Blaze

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"You shall have the same rule for the sojourner and for the native, for I am Yahweh your God.”

Leviticus 24:22

This Episode's Links:

Photos: Weld County welcomes back Pops the Triceratops after restoration - Trevor Reid, Greeley Tribune
A plan to pay farmers to use less of the Colorado River comes up dry - Conrad Swanson, The Denver Post
Colorado student told she can’t wear sash with Mexican flag at graduation - Elizabeth Hernandez, The Denver Post
Report: Tucker is getting ready to launch a Fox News competitor and is "preparing for war" - Daniel Plainview, NTB
Americans are starting to reject transgenderism en masse and I kinda think WaPo isn't happy about it - Harambe, NTB
Dee Snider issues statement after running afoul of the militant LGBT movement - Alex Nitzberg, The Blaze
42-Year-Old U.S. Weapon Beats Russia’s Most Feared Cutting Edge Missile - Ryan Saavedra, DW
Iran Now Has Enough Enriched Uranium To Produce 5 Nuclear Weapons: Israeli Defense Minister - Ryan Saavedra, DW
Biden Absent As World Leaders Gather To Attend Historic Coronation Of King Charles III - Leif Le Mahieu, DW
Biden's job approval ratings hit new low - Michele Blood, The Blaze
Here's everything you need to know about the coronation of King Charles - NTB Staff

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He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

Genesis 3:11

Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.

Genesis 9:23

And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons so that they abstain from the holy things of the people of Israel, which they dedicate to me, so that they do not profane my holy name: I am Yahweh. Say to them, ‘If any one of all your offspring throughout your generations approaches the holy things that the people of Israel dedicate to the Lord, while he has an uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from my presence: I am Yahweh."

Leviticus 22:1-3

"I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me."

Matthew 25:36

"I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!"

Galatians 5:12

This Episode's Links:

Luke's Eye-witness Accounts in Acts - Kevin Rogers, Investigator 153
Trans Lifeguard Bares Breasts To Kids At Job Tryout. GOP Mayor Condemns ‘Wokeism.’ - Hank Berrien, The Daily Wire
'Ant-Man' actress rants against people 'villainizing' masculinity in men while 'debasing' femininity in women - Carlos Garcia, The Blaze
Biden Gets Dog Walked By Whoever Is Really Running The Show Yet Again - Tim Meads, DW
New WHISTLEBLOWER claims may MASSIVELY incriminate Joe Biden - BlazeTV Staff, The Blaze
Biden’s Climate Endgame: A $50 Trillion Bridge To Racial Equity - Tim Meads, DW
Why would you debate this topic when you haven't thought about your position for even a second? - @aguybeinaguy, Twitter
Smirnoff distancing itself from transgender ad partner who flashed his genitals "in front of teenage children and women" - Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB
DeSantis interrupts woke reporter to demolish the press for their use of euphemisms like "gender-affirming healthcare" - Joel Abbott, NTB

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"No man of the offspring of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer Yahweh’s food offerings; since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God."

Leviticus 21:21

"The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him."

Proverbs 18:17

“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.

1 Corinthians 6:12

“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.

1 Corinthians 10:23-24

"Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm."

Ephesians 6:13

This Episode's Links:

George MacDonald - Wikipedia
Timothée Chalamet rides a sandworm, Austin Butler a bald psycho in first 'Dune 2' trailer - Brian Truitt, USA TODAY
Commentary: On May the 4th, the Star Wars marketing holiday, a fan confronts his addiction - John Wenzel, The Denver Post
May Day - international observance - Britannica
Russian Government Says Kremlin Hit by Ukraine Drones, Blames Kyiv - Bojan Pancevski, Thomas Grove, Ann M. Simmons - WSJ
Visit the remote island where Napoleon spent his final years - Emma Thomson, National Geographic
Who should police the police? Boulder considers ousting oversight panel member over allegations of bias - Elise Schmelzer, The Denver Post
Whistleblower Alleges FBI Has Evidence Of Biden Engaging In Bribery Scheme With Foreign National - Ryan Saavedra, DW
Greg Gutfeld Defends Tucker, Blasts ‘Hall Monitor Failures’ Desperate To Destroy Him - News, The Daily Wire
Peter Doocy confronts White House over dubious claim about immigration — and things quickly get tense - Chris Enloe, The Blaze
Key & Peele - Turbulence - Uncensored - Comedy Central, YouTube
Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez And Republican Matt Gaetz Join Forces — Wait, Really? - Joseph Curl, DW
Watch: Buttigieg doesn't give straight answer about whether he wants to remain transportation secretary for another term - Alex Nitzberg, The Blaze
Navy Hires Active Duty Drag Queen To Combat Sinking Recruitment - Mairead Elordi, DW
Former BuzzFeed top editor says Facebook had 'explicit goal' to elect Barack Obama: 'A Democratic institution' - Chris Enloe, The Blaze
Pete Ricketts Warns Of New Weapon Communist China Is Using Against The U.S. - News, The Daily Wire

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“Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I Yahweh your God am holy."

“You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am Yahweh."

Leviticus 19:2,5

This Episode's Links:

Federal oil and gas lease sales return to regularity in Montana - Tom Lutey, Billings Gazette
This is an important thread on why you don't want to leave America when the apocalypse kicks off - Joel Abbott, NTB
Listen to James Lindsay explain to the European Parliament how cultural Marxism is taking over the West - Cardinal Pritchard, NTB
Frank Furedi - Wikipedia
This crazy lady says citing biology, DNA, and bone structure is white supremacy when discussing transgenderism - NTB Staff
Transgender reporter tries to defend Chelsea Clinton, inadvertently proves she's pushing 'porn' for children in public schools - Carlos Garcia, The Blaze
Matt Walsh Answers Bill Maher’s Question About Origin Of ‘Woke Mind Virus’ - Katie Jerkovich, DW
First State Passes Law Defining Gender as a Person’s Biological Sex at Birth - Alice Giordano, The Epoch Times
'Well said': Dee Snider of Twisted Sister fame agrees with Kiss rocker's statement about children and gender identity - Alex Nitzberg, The Blaze
Study in Yellowstone finds 'gardening' cougars help feed their prey - Brett French, Billings Gazette
Stop slandering Christ’s church to gain the world – a plea for David French’s repentance - Peter Heck, NTB
Actor Richard Dreyfuss Warns That Americans Not Knowing The Constitution Will Have Dire Consequences - Daily Wire News
'Shawshank Redemption' actor Tim Robbins blasts Democrats, mainstream media for 'thuggish censorship' - Paul Sacca, The Blaze
Biden Admin Hired Activist Behind One Of The Cruelest Cancellations In History - Luke Rosiak, DW

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"You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am Yahweh your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am Yahweh."

- Leviticus 18:3-5

"But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing."

- 2 Peter 2:12-13

This Episode's Links:

Woman found in Avalanche's Valeri Nichushkin hotel room in Seattle had to be transported to the hospital - Chris Bengal, CBS Sports
Avalanche’s Stanley Cup defense sputters to end in Game 7 of first round vs. underdog Seattle Kraken - Bennett Durando, The Denver Post
Puritan: All of Life to the Glory of God - Canon+
CNN analyst hits media with reality check after reporters fawn at Biden's WHCD jokes — and host's reaction says it all - Chris Enloe, The Blaze
Watch highlights from 2023 White House Correspondents’ Dinner - NBC News, YouTube
Soros-Backed Prosecutor In Florida: Ron DeSantis Is Building A Case To Remove Me From Office - News, The Daily Wire
Nancy Mace On DeSantis Signing Heartbeat Bill Into Law To Protect Unborn Babies: ‘Not Compassionate’ - News, The Daily Wire
RNC’s Ronna McDaniel Reacts to Trump Threat of Skipping Debates - Zachary Stieber, The Epoch Times
RFK Jr.: “Mega-Billionaires” are Using Climate Change to Usher in Totalitarian Controls of Population (Video) - Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit
Chuck Todd: Biden ‘Really Needs Donald Trump To Be The Nominee’ - News, The Daily Wire
Elon Musk blasts 'woke mind virus' in revealing interview with Bill Maher - Michele Blood, The Blaze
Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion - Os Guinness, Audible

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"So they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons, after whom they whore. This shall be a statute forever for them throughout their generations. "

Leviticus 17:7

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm."

Ephesians 6:10-13

This Episode's Links:

Woman Loves ‘Ultra-Conservative’ Tradwife Trend Inspired by 1950s—Called ‘Alt-Right Extremist’ by Some - Epoch Inspired Staff, The Epoch Times
China Flies 38 Fighter Jets, 6 Navy Vessels Near Taiwan - Mimi Nguyen Ly, The Epoch Times
2 killed, 10 wounded as Russian forces hit Ukrainian museum - Hanna Arhirova, AP, Billings Gazette
Report of the National Independent Panel on Military Service and Readiness - The Heritage Foundation
IN-DEPTH: First Smart Gun With Fingerprint Unlocking Hits the Market - Emily Miller, The Epoch Times
UN climate report: 2022 was nasty, deadly, costly and hot - Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer, Billings Gazette
ABC Refuses to Air RFK Jr. Comments About COVID-19 Vaccines - Zachary Stieber, The Epoch Times
Here's why conservatives should be very supportive of RFK Jr. running against Biden - Harris Rigby, NTB
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Blasts Fox News for Ousting Tucker Carlson and Presents an Interesting Theory... - Cullen Linebarger, Gateway Pundit
'The Office' actor says he agrees with 'almost everything' Tucker Carlson said in Twitter video - Alex Nitzberg, The Blaze
Video: Megyn Kelly says Tucker Carlson is not yet fired, claims Fox News 'bought his silence' and is 'determined to destroy him' - Paul Sacca, The Blaze

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“And it shall be a statute to you forever that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict yourselves and shall do no work, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you. For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the Lord from all your sins. It is a Sabbath of solemn rest to you, and you shall afflict yourselves; it is a statute forever."

- Leviticus 16:29-31

This Episode's Links:

Hunt, slaughter or harvest? Advocates argue over tribal killing of Yellowstone bison - Brett French, The Billings Gazette
Ancient hunters used high-alpine driveline; similar artifacts concentrated in Paradise Valley - Brett French, Billings Gazette
'Peter Pan & Wendy': How Disney's 2023 live-action remake fixes 'problematic' animated original - Patrick Ryan, USA TODAY
Disney's "Peter Pan" - What Makes the Red Man Red? - DisneyMusics, YouTube
Transgender Teacher on Removed After Allegedly Threatening to Shoot Students - Lorenz Duchamps, The Epoch Times
CNN contributor blasts teachers' union boss Randi Weingarten over COVID school closures: 'I hear no remorse' - Joseph MacKinnon, The Blaze
Ron DeSantis Suffers Major Blow as Key GOP Donor Says... - Cullen Linebarger, Gateway Pundit
Florida Legislature Clears Way for DeSantis to Run for President Without Resigning - Bill Pan, The Epoch Times
Photographer documents Italy's vanishing cowboys, the butteri; exhibit on display in Cody - Brett French, Billings Gazette
“Blew My Mind”- Elon Musk Reveals Disturbing New Details Regarding Government Access to Twitter... (VIDEO) - Cullen Linebarger, Gateway Pundit
Daily Wire Co-CEO Reveals Secret Cancel Blitz Against Matt Walsh, Brett Cooper, Michael Knowles - Zach Jewell, DW

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“Thus you shall keep the people of Israel separate from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst.”

Leviticus 15:31

Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth, and it said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?”

Numbers 22:28

This Episode's Links:

DeSantis Nukes Reporter Over ‘Totally BS’ Claim: ‘Focus On The Facts And Stop Worrying About Narrative’ - Ryan Saavedra, DW
Bill O’Reilly: Tucker Won, Fox News Did Carlson ‘A Favor’ In Firing - Joseph Curl, DW
Montana legislature formally gives trans Democrat the boot for 'encouraging an insurrection' - Joseph MacKinnon, The Blaze
Thomas Massie just went nuclear on the ATF director for banning pistol braces without Congress passing a law - AnnieOakley, NTB
Minnesota Trans Lawmaker Wanted To Remove Anti-Pedophile Clause From Human Rights Statute - The Daily Wire News
Texas Law Enforcement Officials Shut Down Antifa Counter-Protest Of ‘Protect Texas Kids’ Demonstration - Ryan Saavedra, DW
Please enjoy this old video where a man reads a 1943 directive to American commies to label their opponents "fascists" - NTB Staff
“True things prevail”: Tucker Carlson just posted his first video update since Fox News split ways with him - NTB Staff
Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion - Os Guinness, Audible
UHF (7/12) Movie CLIP - Stanley Spadowski's Clubhouse (1989) HD - Movieclips, YouTube

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"This is the law for a case of leprous disease in a garment of wool or linen, either in the warp or the woof, or in any article made of skin, to determine whether it is clean or unclean."

Leviticus 13:59

While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy. And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean."

And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, "I will; be clean." And immediately the leprosy left him.

Luke 5:12-13

"Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!"

1 Corinthians 6:2-3

Now I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, “Come!”

Revelation 6:1

This Episode's Links:

How to say 'you are very kind' in French - WordHippo.com
Holy Rosary Healthcare in Miles City receives $6 million grant for cancer center - Intermountain Health, Billings Gazette
Biden Signs Executive Order To Make Entire Government Focus On ‘Environmental Justice’ - Ben Zeisloft, DW
Biden signs green executive order under which "environmental justice will become the responsibility of every single federal agency" - NTB
"Very rare" 1,000-year-old Viking coins unearthed by young girl who was metal detecting in a Danish cornfield - CBS News
Tucker Carlson Calls For Conservative Paradigm Shift In Dealing With Leftist ‘Evil’ - Ben Zeisloft, DW
Biden admin preparing major crackdown on power plants that fuel nation's grid - Thomas Catenacci, Fox News
Montana Republicans condemn 'hate-filled' remarks by transgender Rep. Zooey Zephyr: 'Not public service' - Andrea Vacchiano, Jon Street, Fox News

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"Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace."

James 3:13-18

"You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous."

Deuteronomy 16:19

This Episode's Links:

Consumer Protection Bureau Staffer Sent 256,000 People’s Data To Personal Account - Ben Zeisloft, DW
Anyone who used Facebook in the last 16 years can now get settlement money. Here's how. - Aimee Picchi, CBS News
In re: Facebook, Inc. Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation
‘Blood on your hands’: Leftist trans lawmaker spews hateful, anti-Christian remarks at Republicans for supporting ban - Candace Hathaway, The Blaze
‘Blueprint On Total Destruction … Astronomically Dangerous’: FBI Delaying Release Of Nashville Shooter’s Manifesto, Officials Say - Hank Berrien, DW
"I dare you to you try and stop me from going into a women's bathroom." - Jesse James, NTB
Mortgage rates have nearly doubled over the past year and now Biden is forcing good-credit home buyers to pay more on their mortgage in order to subsidize those that are higher-risk - Cardinal Pritchard, NTB
400-Foot SpaceX Rocket Explodes Over Gulf of Mexico - Jack Phillips, The Epoch Times
Normalization of Deviance Challenger - YouTube
AOC Reintroduces The Green New Deal - Ben Zeisloft, DW
Rep. Tim Burchett rips Biden WH over influence peddling: 'Corruption goes straight to the top' - Fox Business
The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels - Alex Epstein, Audible

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The 10 MOST popular episodes of the last 100 of this podcast are as follows: #563 - But God Meant It For Good - 02/18/23 #571 - Come Near Before the Lord, for He Has Heard Your Grumbling - 03/03/23 #537 - Moloch, Deathworks, Negative World, and the Limitations of Decentralized Generative AI - 01/13/23 #568 - A Generation as a Biblical Category, Decline as a Choice, Woody Harrelson, and Geneticism - 02/28/23 #538 - Foppery or Theodicy Relative Biblical Attitudes Regarding Masculinity and Femininity - 01/14/23 #570 - Fear Not, Stand Firm, and See the Salvation of the Lord - 03/02/23 #539 - When Criminality Becomes the Status Quo - 01/15/23 #550 - Asking ChatGPT About Myself, Europe, and the United States of America - 02/01/23 #529 - Where Public Library Bathrooms Are Permanently Closed Due to Meth Contamination - 01/03/23 #562 - Discussing 'The Great Reset' by Marc Morano with Micah Hershberger - 02/18/23

The 10 LEAST popular episodes of the last 100 of this podcast are as follows:

597 - What Assault Weapons Are, and Why Democrats Want to Ban Them - 04/14/23 #594 - Reviewing 'How to Watch TV News' by Neil Postman and Steve Powers - 04/10/23 #588 - Concerning Dennis Prager's Commentary On Pornography and Whether Lust Is Adultery - 04/02/23 #581 - How We Govern Corporate, Social, and Political Organizations - 03/19/23 #578 - A Unifying Story That Will Guide Us As We Make Our Way Forward - 03/14/23 #575 - William Inboden's 'The Peacemaker,' Equity as a Conservative Principle, and Good Politics - 03/10/23 #572 - B.H. Liddell Hart Regarding Scipio Africanus and Richard Wurmbrand Versus Karl Marx - 03/05/23 #591 - Trying To Come Up With Names For Our Ninth Child - 04/06/23 #584 - When the Narrative Must Not Be Questioned, Only Those Objecting Are - 03/23/23 #569 - How a Millennial Should Think About 'Generations' by Neil Howe and William Strauss - 03/01/23

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"And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting, and when they came out they blessed the people, and the glory of Yahweh appeared to all the people. And fire came out from before Yahweh and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar, and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces."

- Leviticus 9:23-24

This Episode's Links:

The Robe (1953) - IMDb
The Internet Is Outraged Over Disney's Casting Of Nani In The Live-Action "Lilo & Stitch" — Here's Why - BuzzFeed, You!
Video: Man fights off four suspected would-be car thieves in his driveway - Michele Blood, The Blaze
Downtown Chicago looked like a scene outta “Black Hawk Down” this weekend as hundreds of teens rioted - Edward Teach, NTB
Leftist Chicago Mayor-Elect After Teenagers’ Violent Rampage Through City: Don’t ‘Demonize’ Them - Hank Berrien, DW
Netherlands to Allow Euthanasia for Terminally Ill Children - Mimi Nguyen Ly, The Epoch Times
Jim Jordan ‘100 Percent Behind Trump’ for 2024 - Mimi Nguyen Ly, The Epoch Times
Billionaire Republican Donor Says He’s Now ‘Reluctant’ to Back DeSantis 2024 Bid - Jack Phillips, The Epoch Times

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As has been done today, Yahweh has commanded to be done to make atonement for you. At the entrance of the tent of meeting you shall remain day and night for seven days, performing what Yahweh has charged, so that you do not die, for so I have been commanded.” And Aaron and his sons did all the things that Yahweh commanded by Moses.

Leviticus 8:34-36

"It is better to take refuge in Yahweh

than to trust in man."

⁠Psalm 118:8⁠

"Keep your heart with all vigilance,

for from it flow the springs of life."

Proverbs 4:23

"The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom,
and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
For by me your days will be multiplied,
and years will be added to your life.
If you are wise, you are wise for yourself;
if you scoff, you alone will bear it."

Proverbs 9:10-12

"Answer not a fool according to his folly,

lest you be like him yourself.

Answer a fool according to his folly,

lest he be wise in his own eyes.

Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes?

There is more hope for a fool than for him."

⁠Proverbs 26:4-5,12

“Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you."

Matthew 7:6

This Episode's Links:

This Florida State University professor suddenly left his $190,000 job after he was accused of faking data in racism studies - Harris Rigby, NTB
DeSantis speech briefly disrupted by protesters in New Hampshire - Alex Nitzberg, The Blaze
Denver’s sweeps may be shortening the lives of unhoused people. The city’s two mayoral candidates have taken notice. - Joe Rubino, The Denver Post

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“If anyone sins and commits a breach of faith against Yahweh by deceiving his neighbor in a matter of deposit or security, or through robbery,

or if he has oppressed his neighbor or has found something lost and lied about it, swearing falsely—

in any of all the things that people do and sin thereby—

if he has sinned and has realized his guilt and will restore what he took by robbery or what he got by oppression

or the deposit that was committed to him

or the lost thing that he found or anything about which he has sworn falsely,

he shall restore it in full and shall add a fifth to it, and give it to him to whom it belongs on the day he realizes his guilt."

Leviticus 6:2-5

"Be not afraid when a man becomes rich,

when the glory of his house increases.

For when he dies he will carry nothing away;

his glory will not go down after him.

For though, while he lives, he counts himself blessed

—and though you get praise when you do well for yourself—

his soul will go to the generation of his fathers,

who will never again see light.

Man in his pomp yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish."

Psalm 49:16-20

"A rich man is wise in his own eyes,

but a poor man who has understanding will find him out."

Proverbs 28:11

This Episode's Links:

Why Did Wyoming Kill School Choice? Deep-Red States Often Don’t Act Like It, Data Shows - Luke Rosiak, DW
What the heck happened to Justin Pearson, the disgraced Memphis Democrat who prays to "Mother god"? - Harris Rigby, NTB
The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros - Matt Palumbo, Audible

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“If anyone sins in that he hears a public adjuration to testify, and though he is a witness, whether he has seen or come to know the matter, yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity;

Or if anyone utters with his lips a rash oath to do evil or to do good, any sort of rash oath that people swear, and it is hidden from him, when he comes to know it, and he realizes his guilt in any of these;

When he realizes his guilt in any of these and confesses the sin he has committed, he shall bring to Yahweh as his compensation for the sin that he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat, for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin."

Leviticus 5:1,5-6

This Episode's Links:

Judges 11
This video of demons crucifying a lady and talking about being "baddies with fatties" isn't from the Grammys... - John Knox, NTB
Chiraq's new commie mayor says he doesn't like giving kids homework or failing grades - Jesse James, NTB
Dead White Guys: Classical Education Meets Critical Theory - Scholé Sisters
We Left Russia - Victoria Terekhina, YouTube
⁠Leviticus 19:33-35⁠
Largest Countries in the World (by area) - Worldometer
US Halts Nuclear Arsenal Information Exchange With Russia - Caden Pearson, The Epoch Times
Macron Says Europe Must Not Become ‘America’s Followers’ In Confrontation With China - Tim Pearce, DW
Isaiah 3

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"He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.”

- Matthew 28:1-15

“Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.”

- Mark 16:1-13

“Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”

Luke 24:1-35

"But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”

- John 20

"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed."

1 Corinthians 15

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“If his offering is a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offers an animal from the herd, male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before Yahweh."

Leviticus 3:1

"And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked."

Mark 14:51-52

"So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?”

John 18:33-34

This Episode's Links:

Nude Florida man arrested after wild chase in stolen school bus with a dead deer in the back - Michele Blood, The Blaze
Who Was That Young Man? - Abraham Kuruvilla, Voice, Dallas Theological Seminary
Judge Overseeing Trump’s Hush Money Case Donated To Biden Campaign - The Daily Wire
Two-Thirds Of Americans Say Biden Does Not Deserve Another Term As President - Tim Pearce, DW
A dire warning in the wake of trans violence last week... - Harris Rigby, NTB

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"Yahweh called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock."

Leviticus 1:1-2

"For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of Yahweh, he has also rejected you from being king.”- 1 Samuel 15:23

”The poor use entreaties, but the rich answer roughly."- Proverbs 18:23

"Unequal weights and unequal measures are both alike an abomination to Yahweh."

- Proverbs 20:10

"...[And] the light of a lamp

will shine in you no more,

and the voice of bridegroom and bride

will be heard in you no more,

for your merchants were the great ones of the earth,

and all nations were deceived by your sorcery."

Revelation 18:23

This Episode's Links:

Seminary - Wikipedia
Council of Trent - Britannica
Bona fide - Merriam-Webster
French Politician Who Championed Ban On Catcalling Set To Appear Scantily Clad On Cover Of Playboy - Joseph Curl, DW
‘Wow … OK’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Leaves ‘60 Minutes’ Host Speechless With Assessment Of Democrat Party - Virginia Kruta, DW
Pedophilia - Wikipedia
Trump has been arrested and the mainstream media wants you to know how SAD they are about it - Harris Rigby, NTB
DA Alvin Bragg on Trump: "These are felony crimes in NY, no matter who you are." Also, last year Bragg downgraded 52% of all felony charges to misdemeanors. - Jesse James, NTB
Even Mitt Romney Defends Trump Against Charges - Edward Teach, NTB

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"For the cloud of Yahweh was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys."

- Exodus 40:38

This Episode's Links:

Oh look, another scientific discovery that shows the Bible was right all along - John Knox, NTB
Daily Wire Reporter Suspended From Twitter Over Story About Trans ‘Day Of Vengeance’... - Ben Zeisloft, The Daily Wire
Boston Children's hospital demands more funding and capacity for trans surgeries on kids... - Harris Rigby, NTB
‘Gone With The Wind’ Publisher Calls The Book ‘Harmful’ - Hank Berrien, The Daily Wire
Peter Abelard - Wikipedia
Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World - Tom Holland, Audible

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My colleagues at The Reformed Conservative, as well as In Gladii Veritas fellows, Bobby McPherson and Joseph Crampton join me to discuss old books, and why we should read them, as well as the value Christians should assign to a good kind of tradition.

What's our prescription for American Christians in particular, for works to read and study to understand better what’s going onculturally, socially, philosophically, politically, and theologically right now?

How does what we’re doing fit into the task of equipping the saints for the work of ministry, and a Christian life well-lived and fruitful, neither naïve nor anxious, in these times?

What do we see as the biggest challenges to helping others to agree that these are worthy goals in our day, and how should we think about these challenges?

All of that and more, in this episode of The Garrett Ashley Mullet Show.This Episode's Links:

Burkirkian
The Reformed Conservative
The Christian Philosophy of Science - Herman Bavinck, Barnes & Noble

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"Moses said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, “This is the thing that the Lord has commanded. Take from among you a contribution to the Lord. Whoever is of a generous heart, let him bring the Lord’s contribution..."
- Exodus 35:4-5

"I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book."- Revelation 22:18-19

This Episode's Links:

About Us, AmblesideOnline
Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall - Wikipedia
Squaw - Wikipedia
Roald Dahl - Wikipedia
Agatha Christie Books Get Woke Makeover, Join Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming - Robby Soave, Reason
‘Goosebumps’ author R.L. Stine says publisher made ‘woke’ edits behind his back - Lee Brown, New York Post
The Failed Campaign To Kill To Kill a Mockingbird - Jason Russell, Reason
The Message (Bible) - Wikipedia
The Queen James Bible - Wikipedia
Jackie Hill Perry - Wikipedia
My Life As A Stud - Wikipedia
Mr. Morale: A Rap (All The Smoke) - @jackiehillperry, Instagram
A Conversation About Race - The Gospel Coalition, YouTube

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The Queen James Bible

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”- Genesis 1:28

"Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods."

Exodus 34:12–16

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”- Matthew 28:16-20

This Episode's Link:

British magazine New Scientist argues for "Giant Leap" to achieve equity that calls for 25% reduction in global population - Harris Rigby, NTB

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When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”

Exodus 32:1

"How should we take the responsibility of environmental stewardship seriously?"

Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) Survey, Q6

stew·ard / ˈsto͞oərd / noun - Oxford Languages

a person who looks after the passengers on a ship, aircraft, or train and brings them meals.
Similar: flight attendant, cabin attendant, member of the cabin staff, stewardess, air hostess, stewardess
a person responsible for supplies of food to a college, club, or other institution. Similar: major-domo, seneschal, manciple, butler

This Episode's Links:

Will advanced AI result in new religions? - Joel Abbott, NTB
Have you seen the new goat-horned demon that now stands atop a New York courthouse? - Joel Abbott, NTB
A copyright battle over AI-generated art will begin in Colorado - John Wenzel, The Denver Post
Feminism Is a Spent Force - Barbara Kay, The Epoch Times
Twitter user asks "Ladies, what is the first word that comes to mind when you see this picture?" - Edward Teach, NTB
St. Greta Thunberg awarded honorary doctorate in theology from Helsinki University - Harris Rigby, NTB
NBA Hall Of Famer Willis Reed, Who Displayed Legendary Heroics In 1970 Finals, Dead At 80 - Hank Berrien, DW
Ron DeSantis: I Can Beat Biden In A Presidential Race; I Would’ve Fired Fauci - Ryan Saavedra, DW
Xi Jinping and Putin have signed a new economic deal, plan to "stand guard over the world order..." - Cardinal Pritchard, NTB
Xi Flaunts China’s ‘Deepening’ Bond With Russia During Talks With Putin - DW
Russian Pop Star Found Dead From Drowning After Criticizing Putin - DW

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"How do we provide the energy and other resources upon which all economies depend in a manner that is inexpensive, reliable, safe and efficient, including in the developing world?"

Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) Survey, Q5

"The Lord said to Moses, “See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft. And behold, I have appointed with him Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. And I have given to all able men ability, that they may make all that I have commanded you..."

Exodus 31:1-6

This Episode's Links:

“What’s your theological stance that would get you in this position?“ - John Knox, NTB
Utah school assignment has kids "eat ze bugs" because cows are "killing the world" - Harris Rigby, NTB
DeSantis responds to Trump arrest report, slams Manhattan DA as a "Soros-funded prosecutor" - Harambe, NTB
Russia Claims To Have Intercepted Two U.S. Bombers Over Baltic Sea - Greg Wilson, DW
Timothy Snyder briefs The United Nations Security Council on "russophobia" - YouTube

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A question to consider:

"What is the proper role for the family, the community, and the nation in creating the conditions for prosperity?"

Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) Survey, Q3

God is detail-oriented:

"You shall command the people of Israel that they bring to you pure beaten olive oil for the light, that a lamp may regularly be set up to burn. In the tent of meeting, outside the veil that is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall tend it from evening to morning before the Lord. It shall be a statute forever to be observed throughout their generations by the people of Israel."

Exodus 27:20-21

What to delight in and meditate on:

"Blessed is the man

who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,

nor stands in the way of sinners,

nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

but his delight is in the law of Yahweh,

and on his law he meditates day and night."

Psalm 1:1-2

This Episode's Links:

A violent crowd smashed windows at UC Davis because Charlie Kirk was there... - Joel Abbott, NTB
The Dutch farmers just landed a major blow to the wokies with an election win... - Joel Abbott, NTB
Knives Out For DeSantis: Top Republicans Rage Over His Comments About Ukraine - Ryan Saavedra, DW

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"How do we facilitate the development of a responsible and educated citizenry?"

- ARC Survey, Q2

This Episode's Links:

This chick says out loud what every employer thinks when they see pronouns on a resume... - Holly Ash, NTB
Boebert announces she’ll be a 36-year-old grandmother when her 17-year-old son’s partner gives birth - Bruce Finley, The Denver Post
Jane Fonda literally suggests MURDERING pro-life politicians during an appearance on "The View." - Harris Rigby, NTB
Christian School Girls’ Basketball Team Refuses To Play School With Boy On Roster. Association Bans Them From Future Tournaments. - Hank Berrien, DW
Wait, what? Glenn Youngkin calls for gender-neutral bathrooms in schools during CNN town hall - Jesse James, NTB
DeSantis responds to Biden calling Florida "cruel" with ad showing what trans surgeries actually look like - Harris Rigby
Joe Biden uses The Daily Show interview to criticise anti-trans laws - Max Matza, BBC
Utah plastic surgeon tossed $28K of COVID-19 vaccines, court documents say - Paige Twenter, Becker's Hospital Review
Former CDC director details three damning events that raised eyebrows about Wuhan lab — and how Fauci iced him - Joseph MacKinnon, The Blaze
Project Veritas Staffers Release New Statement as Whistleblowers Say They Stand With James O’Keefe - Zachary Stieber, The Epoch Times
A violent crowd smashed windows at UC Davis because Charlie Kirk was there... - Joel Abbott, NTB

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"Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights."

Exodus 24:18 (ESV)

"I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them."

Acts 20:29-30 (ESV)

This Episode's Links:

Buckle up: Yellen says NO BAILOUT for Silicon Valley Bank - Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB
Explainer: Here's how the government plans to stop more banks from crumbling... - Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB
Less than 1 month ago Forbes put Silicon Valley Bank on its annual list of "America's Best Banks..." - Commodore Vanderbilt, NTB
Lone wolf trekked across southwest Montana into Pryor Mountains before deadly decision - Brett French, Billings Gazette
Not So Fast, Cheetahs: British Researcher, Wyoming Rancher Trying To Prove Antelope Are Faster - Mark Heinz, Cowboy State Daily
African Delegation Screens ‘What Is A Woman?’ In Defiance Of UN Commission - DW
Oklahoma Democratic state rep appears to condone worship of woke priorities: ‘DEI' is 'God’ - Jeffrey Clark, Fox News
Video resurfaces of QAnon shaman telling J6 crowd that Trump told them to go home - NTB Staff
VIDEO: Stanford law students mock, shout down federal judge; judge says DEI dean set him up - Michele Blood, The Blaze
Dems Block Jordan Peterson From Testifying At Senate Hearing, Furious Republicans Walk Out - Ben Zeisloft, DW
Former 'Democratic Party icon' apologizes to conservatives; lauds release of January 6 footage - Michele Blood, The Blaze

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"And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”

Genesis 9:7

"But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them."

Exodus 1:7

“Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land."

Exodus 23:30

"Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth."

Psalm 127:4

"Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease."

Jeremiah 29:6

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."

Philippians 4:8

This Episode's Links:

Take a minute out of your day to hear the war trumpet used by the Celts and Gauls to scare the Romans - Joel Abbott, NTB
Strange State Laws
Colorado school district hires "genderqueer shapeshifter witch" to train staff on transgenderism - Cardinal Pritchard, NTB
Reps. Jordan, Massie Ask ATF Director to Testify Before House Judiciary Committee - Samantha Flom, The Epoch Times
It's over: NOAA declares official end to La Nina - Bill Deger, AccuWeather
It Looks Like the World Is Very Close to Reaching Peak Population - Daniel Plainview, NTB

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Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

Isaiah 58:6-7 (ESV)

"But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you."

Matthew 6:17-18 (ESV)

This Episode's Links:

Carl von Clausewitz - Wikipedia
Dialectic - Wikipedia
Time Person of the Year - Wikipedia
“Are we the baddies?” Pro-choicers begin turning on the pro-aborts - Peter Heck, NTB
Kevin McCarthy Defends Releasing January 6 Tapes, Torches CNN Reporter To Their Face - Daily Wire News
Chuck Schumer Says Rupert Murdoch Must "Stop Tucker Carlson From Going on Tonight" Because "Our Democracy Depends on It" - Jesse James, NTB

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"Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was."

Exodus 20:18-21 (ESV)

"For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ."

Galatians 1:10 (ESV)

"So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride—the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil."

Ronald Reagan, "Evil Empire" (1983)

This Episode's Links:

Should Christian Parents Send Their Children to Public Schools? - Jen Wilkin, Jonathan Pennington, TGC
Japan just found out they actually have 7,000 more islands than they thought - Edward Teach, NTB
Tucker Carlson Releases January 6 Footage That Raises New Questions - Ryan Saavedra, The Daily Wire
President Ronald Reagan - "Evil Empire" Speech - MCamericanpresident, YouTube

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Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, ‘Come near before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.’”And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.

Exodus 16:9-10 (ESV)

This Episode's Links:

‘How Dare I?’: A Vindicated Jon Stewart, Who Long Ago Declared COVID Came From Wuhan Lab, Rips Critics - Joseph Curl, The Daily Wire
New study says that WWII style rationing of food, fuel, clothing, and other goods is what we need to stop climate change... - Mister Retrops, Not the Bee
Reign of Fire Speech - YouTube
This metal detectorist is suing the FBI, claiming he reported 7 tons of Civil War-era gold and they stole it overnight - Harris Rigby, Not the Bee
New reactors could revive U.S. uranium mining — and concerns about its ‘toxic legacy’ - Ted McDermott, Lee Enterprises, Billings Gazette
Wind Farm Blamed For Surge In Dead Whales On U.S. Atlantic Coast - Michael Whittaker, The Daily Wire
The decline of the large US family, in charts - Ephrat Livni, Dan Kopf, Quartz

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“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

C.S. Lewis

"Yahweh will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”

Exodus 13:14 (ESV)

This Episode's Links:

Second Amendment Bill Watch - RMGO
Report: Drag queen kicks British 11-year-old out of class for denying 73 genders before lesson on anal sex and artificial penises - Jesse James, Not the Bee
As industrial accidents pile up around the nation, here's Bloomberg's attempted banger of the day - Joel Abbott, Not the Bee
This dating podcast is going viral for redpilling feminists. Here are a few of the most controversial clips. - Harambe, Not the Bee
"A homily on the fall of Western civilization": Read this Chick-fil-A's letter to parents explaining why unsupervised kids under 16 are no longer allowed - Daniel Payne, Not the Bee
Have 10 Kids, Pay No Property Taxes: Texas State Lawmaker’s Bill Would Give Tax Breaks To Big Families - John Rigolizzo, The Daily Wire
CURSED BY THE BOOMERS - R.R. Reno, First Things

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"These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God."

Genesis 6:9 (ESV)

You, O Yahweh, will keep them;
you will guard us from this generation forever.
On every side the wicked prowl,
as vileness is exalted among the children of man.

- Psalm 12:7-8 (ESV)

“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates,

“‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’

Matthew 11:16-17 (ESV)

This Episode's Links:

"Generation" Keyword Search - ESV, BibleGateway.com
'Ozymandias', by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) - Poets.org
Report: British government warns that reading Tolkien, Lewis, Orwell, and John Locke radicalizes people into far-right extremism - Joel Abbott, Not the Bee
‘Decline Is A Choice’: DeSantis Releases New Ad Rallying Conservatives To Fight For Freedom
Wood Harrelson Monologue - SNL
Karine Jean-Pierre: “The cabinet is majority people of color…”
Tulsi Gabbard: “They’re proud to be selecting people based on race.”

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"Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment."

Exodus 7:4 (ESV)

So we read early on in the account of God telling Moses and Aaron to go and speak to Pharaoh, telling him to let the people of Israel go out of the land of Egypt. That is to say, there is not even a possibility of success, humanly speaking, in the near-term.

Pragmatists and prudential types would have given up straight away, knowing the message would not be heeded. They might have bided their time for years or decades more, hoping and praying for a more opportune administration. Yet God said 'You shall speak all that I command you."

Where God Himself said He would harden Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not listen to them, so that God could display His power to Egypt, and Israel, and to all generations, some today find fault with God. They say that is cruel, or unjust, or unfair.

Yet as Paul writes in Romans, the clay does not get to talk back to the potter, asking why he was fashioned for either honorable or dishonorable use. Neither do we have standing to find fault with God.

But we learn another thing here, that sometimes nothing fails like success, and that rewards rather than correction can be a kind of judgment on a nation and people, as well as the rulers of a people.

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"During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.God saw the people of Israel—and God knew."

Exodus 2:23-25 (ESV)
Exodus 1-3 (ESV) - Biblia.com
Southern Baptist Convention Disfellowships Saddleback Church - Kate Shellnutt, Christianity Today
This high schooler facing his woke school board has more courage than most adults today - NTB Staff, Not the Bee

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“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man."

C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity

"Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life."

Proverbs 4:23

"The one who states his case first seems right,
until the other comes and examines him."

Proverbs 18:17

"The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it."

Proverbs 22:3

This Episode's Links:

on being (politically) realistic - Collin Pruett, American Reformer
HAPPENING NOW: At least 2 dead in another huge industrial fire in Florida - Jesse James, Not the Bee
Massive Five-Acre Fire Breaks Out At Florida Warehouse - Ben Zeisloft, The Daily Wire
Ohio Metal Manufacturing Plant Explodes, Sending Multiple People To Hospital - The Daily Wire
Biden Makes Secret Trip To Ukraine, Appears With Zelensky - The Daily Wire
Russia Suspends Participation in Nuclear-Weapons Treaty With US - Adam Murrow, The Epoch Times
Zelensky Warns Of World War III If China Allies With Russia - Zach Jewell, The Daily Wire
O'Keefe releases video of final statement to Project Veritas, says he was removed as CEO and from Board of Directors - Harris Rigby, Not the Bee
Japan Mulls Raising Age of Consent to 16 After Public Outrage on Rape Acquittals - Aldgra Fredly, The Epoch Times

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"As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today."

- Genesis 50:20 (ESV)

This Episode's Links:

Asbury Professor: We’re Witnessing a ‘Surprising Work of God’ - Tom McCall, Christianity Today
Let's have some real talk about this whole Asbury revival thing. We'll start with a lesson from the Western Front. - Joel Abbott, Not the Bee
More millennials are leaving the nest to form their own households - Tim Henderson, Billings Gazette
First-Time Homebuyer Statistics - Self.inc
Russian Disinfo Hoaxers should never hold intelligence posts again - Devin Nunes, Rumble
Bill Gates Says AI Can Help Combat “Digital Misinformation” and “Political Polarization” - Jim Hoft, The Gateway Pundit
The guy who accurately predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union would like you to know that World War III has already begun - Daniel Payne
They Predicted ‘The Crisis of 2020’ … in 1991. So How Does This End? - Jeremy W. Peters, The New York Times

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Micah Hershberger and I recently chatted over Signal about Marc Morano's book, 'The Great Reset: Global Elites and the Permanent Lockdown.' As per our usual, the conversation was far-ranging, and explored the case for viewing COVID as a bid by the world's wealthiest and most powerful men to dramatically reshape the world according to their will and whim.

Replete with names and quotes, along with the timeline of dates into which we should understand the same to have come together in meaningful ways to shape the direction of both the pandemic and the response to it, or else exploitation of it, Morano's book is well-documented, well-researched, and well-written.

The biggest question is perhaps not, then, whether Morano is accurately describing what has happened, or is still happening, but what, if anything, we can or should do about it, if this conspiracy is not a theory, but rather a fact which we will have to reckon with, one way or another.

To even begin to answer that, we must first correctly diagnose the illness, or define the problem, which confronts us at present, however unsettling such a prospect might be to so many of us.

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The Great Reset: Global Elites and the Permanent Lockdown

"Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise;

when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent."

Proverbs 17:28 (ESV)

"But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?"

1 Corinthians 3:1-3 (ESV)

"Open your mouth for the mute,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
Open your mouth, judge righteously,
defend the rights of the poor and needy."

Proverbs 31:8-9 (ESV)

This Episode's Links:

"You do not have the authority to bless sin": One man stands alone to try and save the Anglican Church - John Knox, Not the Bee
The Oxford Union - YouTube
Master’s Teaches Abuse is Enduring Persecution - Dean Lentini
Lecture 8: Advanced Biblical Counseling - Dr. John D. Street - The Master's Seminary, YouTube
‘This Is Disgusting’: J.D. Vance Scrapes Creek Bed With Stick After Train Crash, Oily Substance Emerges In Viral Video - Ben Zeisloft, The Daily Wire
‘They Should Be Willing To Drink It’: EPA Administrator Says Water Is Safe After Ohio Train Crash, J.D. Vance Invites Him To Take A Sip - Ben Zeisloft, The Daily Wire

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"Yahweh is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of Yahweh
forever."

Psalm 23 (ESV)

This Episode's Links:

The Count of Monte Cristo - Dantès Meets Jacopo (Jacopo's Oath)
Acts 15:36–16:40 - Biblia
Is Jinger Duggar Really Free? - Alana L
Actress Raquel Welch Dead At 82 - The Daily Wire
CDC study shows 10% (!!) of high school students attempted suicide in 2021 - Harris Rigby, Not the Bee
These Staggering Statistics And Charts Reveal How Deeply Troubled Our Teen Girls Really Are - Amanda Prestigiacomo, The Daily Wire
CDC report shows concerning increases in sadness and exposure to violence among teen girls and LGBQ+ youth - CDC.gov
Watch: Elon Musk speaks against world government at World Government Summit - Harambe, Not the Bee
Hero: Elon Musk Blasts One-World Government At World Government Summit - Tim Meads, The Daily Wire
Belgian goalkeeper dies after reportedly collapsing on field following penalty save - Tyler Greenawalt, Yahoo! Sports
New terms for "mom" and "dad" just dropped! - Daniel Payne, Not the Bee

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"Oh! Lord of Hosts," cried a voice among the crowd, "provide a Champion for thy people!"

The Gray Champion, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1835)

This Episode's Links:

Nikki Haley Declares Her Candidacy For The Presidency - Hank Berrien, The Daily Wire
Top U.S. Air Force General Makes Shocking Remarks About Unidentified Objects Shot Down By U.S. Military - Ryan Saavedra, The Daily Wire
What C.S. Lewis thought about space exploration and aliens - Jonathan Merritt, Religion News Service
Inflation surged in January, and experts say it's likely to increase again from here - Commodore Vanderbilt, Not the Bee
U.S. Inflation Calculator
Winning! DeSantis announces legislation blocking banks from using ESG social credit scores - Commodore Vanderbilt, Not the Bee
DeSantis announces new legislation to ban ESG, ‘woke’ banking in Florida - Sam Sachs, WFLA
The Gray Champion - Nathaniel Hawthorne, Twice-Told Tales, 1837
Why was King Charles I executed? - Royal Museums Greenwich

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Don't quarrel about words. Do your best instead, since quarrelling is not it.

We want to presentable before our Maker as unembarrassed workers, where handling of the truth is concerned. But that takes conscious, sustained, intentional effort.

So don't get sucked into foolish, ignorant controversies. They lead to unnecessary conflict, and don't help anyone. But do be kind to everyone, able to patiently correct the folly and error of even your opponents, with gentleness.

Don't be childish and immature in the way you think. Be mature in your thinking.

Our God is not a God of chaos. He is a God of peace and order. So if someone is talking, and another one has something to say, let the first one who was talking be quiet and listen, so that everyone listening can be built up and edified by what is said.

This Episode's Links:

Augustine of Hippo - Wikipedia
St. Augustine, Florida - Wikipedia
2 Timothy 2 (ESV)
1 Corinthians 14:20-33 (ESV)
Luke 10:38-42 (NASB) - Literal Word
Did you hear about the Ohio train crash last week that sent a plume of toxic gas into the air and is reportedly killing animals for miles around? - Jesse James, Not the Bee
How to Deal With Chronic Interrupters - Sherri Gordon, Very Well Mind
5 Polite Ways to Deal With People Who Not-So-Politely Keep Interrupting You - Kat Boogaard, The Muse
Eight Reasons Why You're Always Interrupted When You Speak - Stacey Henke, Forbes

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He said to them, “No, it is the nakedness of the land that you have come to see.” And they said, “We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan, and behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is no more.”

Genesis 42:12-13 (ESV)

"It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out."

Proverbs 25:2 (ESV)

This Episode's Links:

You've gotta watch this viral Vice panel on Asian hate where one dude holds his ground against all the wokies - Harris Rigby, Not the Bee
Chinese Spy Balloon Passing Over Sensitive Sites Could Collect Communications, State Department Reveals - Hank Berrien, The Daily Wire
Tulsi Gabbard had some strong words yesterday for Mitt Romney after he accused her of treason - Jesse James, Not the Bee
Tulsi Gabbard demands retraction of Romney ‘treason’ accusation - Sarakshi Rai, The Hill
BIGOTED | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary

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But they said, “Stand back!” And they said, “This fellow came to sojourn, and he has become the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” Then they pressed hard against the man Lot, and drew near to break the door down.

Genesis 19:9 (ESV)

This Episode's Links:

Twilight Struggle - Wikipedia
Civil Rights Division orders mediation after finding probable cause in discrimination claims against High Plains Library District - Trevor Reid, Greeley Tribune
Biden's State of the Union was the second least-watched of the last 30 years, and you won't believe where his largest audience came from - Daniel Payne, Not the Bee
The President of the United States just admitted some of his rogue classified documents are from 1974 - Daniel Payne, Not the Bee
Montana is preparing to uphold the Constitution. Here's how the Associated Press phrased it. - Daniel Payne, Not the Bee
Oregon Alcohol Regulators Used Their Power To Get Their Hands On Rare, Ultra-Expensive Bourbon, Investigation Finds - John Rigolizzo, The Daily Wire
What the Heck: Commies, trauma, and the grilling of Yoel Roth - Peter Heck, Not the Bee
Powerful testimony of former agent: "The FBI became politically weaponized, starting from the top in Washington and trickling down to the field offices.” - Joel Abbott, Not the Bee
FBI Headquarters Purges Leaked Intelligence Document Targeting ‘Radical-Traditionalist Catholics’ - The Daily Wire

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"And it came to pass in those days, when there was no king in Israel..."

- Judges 19:1 (KJV)

This Episode's Links:

This Tennessee House Democrat tried to own Matt Walsh and it DID NOT GO WELL FOR HIM - Joel Abbott, Not the Bee
Report: Coup at Project Veritas ousts James O'Keefe - Harris Rigby, Not the Bee
DeSantis To Take Control Of Disney’s Orlando District Under New Legislation - Ryan Saavedra, The Daily Wire
The Queen James Bible - Amazon.com
What is the Queen James Bible? - GotQuestions.org
The Queen James ‘Gay’ Bible - Joe Carter, TGC

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The Queen James Bible

Last night, in our nation's capitol, the President of the United States of America, Joseph R. Biden, delivered his annual State of the Union address, to a joint-session of Congress, as well as a host of other dignitaries from across America, and around the world, including Bono.

Amidst the numerous mentions of "folks," and calls to "finish the job," Biden informed America of many important things. For instance, the tax system is not fair. Also, some billionaires pay a lower rate of taxes than some schoolteachers and firefighters. Also, Big Oil is not investing their record profits back into producing more oil, so it's their fault energy prices are so high.

And did you know some cashiers at fast food joints in this country were being forced to sign non-compete agreements which prevented them from being poached by competing fast food joints? They were, according to Biden, before the Democrats decided to put a stop to that.

Our children have a right to come home safe at night, by the way, just like police officers do. Yet Biden wants Congress to codify Roe v. Wade in the name of "reproductive healthcare."

Meanwhile, this administration nis going to improve mental health in this country, despite also demanding increased investment in public schools, as well as gender reassignment surgeries for minors. This, of course, is because "without democracy, nothing is possible."

Here some of us were, thinking the phrase was "With God, all things are possible." But, no. Biden has modified that promise. "With democracy, all things are possible."

Therefore, "Ban assault weapons now!"

At the same time, Paul Pelosi's attacker was saying the kind of things some of the insurrectionists on January 6th said, when that intruder broke into his house, looking for the former Speaker of the House, before striking the smaller elderly man in the head with the hammer which was his weapon of choice.

Fortunately, America was founded on the idea that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights - like the right to compulsory schooling for their children, and hormone blockers, and Big Tech to censor conservative ideas in the public square so long as they don't collect meta data on our children.

Thus, "If China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country, and we did," last week, only after the general public became aware of, and outraged by, the giant spy balloons, which it turns out have been flying over this country for years, as well as our allies countries.

This Episode's Links:

“The men, to make a State, must be religious men” - Miles Smith, Ad Fontes
John Taylor Gatto: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Institutionalised Schooling (1998) - The Academy
‘Polls Go Up. Polls Go Down’: Karine Jean-Pierre Blows Off Concerns That Things Are Worse Under Biden - The Daily Wire
This One NY Times Quote On Kamala Harris Will Blow Your Mind - Joseph Curl, The Daily Wire
2023 State of the Union. LIVE from Washington DC 2/7/23

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In my Bible reading for this morning, I came to the story of Joseph and his brothers. All sons of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, in the book of Genesis we find a pattern which is interesting to observe for the sinful human heart, particularly when jealousy takes root, then boils over to hatred.

"But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him."

"Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers they hated him even more."

"So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words."

"And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind."

"They saw him from afar, and before he came near to them they conspired against him to kill him."

This calls to mind what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5:21-22, we read:

"You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire."

That is to say, jealousy over time, unless interrupted, leads to anger. Anger then boils over into hatred, as the object of our wrath is seen by us to keep us from having the happiness and peace we seek.

Yet we find ourselves at an impasse when we are angry with our brother without just cause, since our anger can only grow. If our brother does good things, and we are angry with him because we are jealous of the good outcomes of his good choices, or true words, then we will only be all the more angry and jealous the better he does.

But if we are angry with our brother without cause, and then he does bad things, we will cite those also as justification for our anger, and proof that he was not doing good before, nor is he even capable of doing what is good.

If our brother retaliates for our hostile actions, then we will retaliate, unless we love mercy, and realize the error of our ways. But if we both keep on retaliating, eventually the outcome will be to destroy one another, and ourselves.

This, then, is why the hatred Joseph's brothers feel toward him equates to them already having murdered him in their hearts, even when all they end up doing in the end is selling him into slavery.

And as a matter of fact, it turns out that in the case of the initial seed of their discontentment toward Joseph, Jacob's other sons are really at root finding fault with their father, and angry with him. Thus the coldness of their report when they bring the tattered, bloody coat of many colors which was symbolic of Jacob's favor, and the lie that his beloved son has been torn to pieces by a wild animal.

So, too, the animus the ungodly feel toward God's people always turns in the end to murder, unless interrupted by God's grace and a restraining of evil.

This Episode's Links:

John Taylor Gatto: A Short Angry History Of Modern Schooling - The Academy, YouTube
John Taylor Gatto - Wikipedia
Bionomics - Wikipedia
David Starr Jordan - Wikipedia
Thomas Starr King - Wikipedia

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"My numbers are few, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both I and my household.”

Genesis 34:30b (ESV)

This Episode’s Links:

Watch: This MIT professor, a 30-year expert on drug safety analytics, is calling for "all Covid mRNA vaccination programs" to "stop immediately"– Daniel Payne, Not the Bee

Blinken Says Chinese Balloon In ‘Clear Violation’ Of U.S. Sovereignty – Daniel Chaitin, The Daily Wire

U.S. Military Confirms Second Chinese Spy Balloon Is Operational In Sky – Ryann Saavedra, The Daily Wire

Democrat Senator Announces Hearing To Demand Answers On Chinese Spy Balloon – John Rigolizzo, The Daily Wire

Secret CCP Overseas Police Station in NYC Closed After Reported FBI Raid – Andrew Thornebrooke, The Epoch Times

Nebraska Democrat wants to ban kids from Vacation Bible School and church youth groups to prove some point about drag shows – Harris Rigby, Not the Bee

Ohio Man Who Identifies as Female Faces Charges for Being Naked in Locker Room While Young Girls Were Present – Mimi Nguyen Ly, The Epoch Times

Trump Vows to Revoke Biden’s ‘Cruel Policies’ on ‘Gender Affirming Care’ for Children; Crackdown on Hospitals, Big Pharma for Mutilating Children With Transgender Surgery, Medications (Video) – Kristinn Taylor, Gateway Pundit

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"Tell me, Mr. Anderson. What good is a phone call if you’re unable to speak?"

Agent Smith, The Matrix

"For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind."

Ecclesiastes 2:26 (ESV)

This Episode's Links:

"It was always about freedom of speech"-r/JordanPeterson, Reddit
Hunter’s Attorney’s Defense Of The ‘So-Called Laptop’ Is So Ludicrous, It’s Laughable - Tim Meads, The Daily Wire
Starting this year, students in the State of New York university system must take DEI and Social Justice courses as part of their generals - Mister Retrops, Not the Bee
North Dakota Mayor Moves To Block Chinese-Owned Corn Mill After Warning From Air Force - Leif Le Mahieu, The Daily Wire
Balloon spotted over Billings being investigated as Chinese spy satellite - Billings Gazette
Martha Stewart sharpens sword in bizarre Pfizer booster commercial: 'You know that unwelcome guest everyone wishes would just leave already?' - Candace Hathaway, The Blaze
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology - Neil Postman, Audible.com
Watch this reaction from a CNN journalist when she's told AI is coming for her job - NTB Staff

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"Yahweh saw it, and it displeased him

that there was no justice.

He saw that there was no man,

and wondered that there was no one to intercede;

then his own arm brought him salvation,

and his righteousness upheld him.

He put on righteousness as a breastplate,

and a helmet of salvation on his head;

he put on garments of vengeance for clothing,

and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.

According to their deeds, so will he repay,

wrath to his adversaries, repayment to his enemies;

to the coastlands he will render repayment.

So they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west,

and his glory from the rising of the sun;

for he will come like a rushing stream,

which the wind of the Lord drives.

“And a Redeemer will come to Zion,

to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” declares the Lord."

- Isaiah 59:15b-20

This Episode's Links:

Throwback: John Lennon says overpopulation is a "myth that the government has thrown out there" to keep your mind off important subjects - Cardinal Pritchard, Not the Bee
A Virginia school district just fired three basketball coaches after one of them impersonated a 13-year-old girl during a game - Hamilton Porter, Not the Bee
Google Fired Exec For Not Being ‘Inclusive’ By Favoring High Performers, Lawsuit Alleges - Luke Rosiak, The Daily Wire
USA Overview & Characteristics - ChatGPT, Open AI
Lawmaker Dares Biden To Declassify Alleged Swalwell-Fang Fang Report - Daniel Chaitin, The Daily Wire
Belgian PM apologizes to Dutch for upside-down flag mistake - Wilhelmine Preussen, Politico
Biden responds to question about ending the Covid emergency by grabbing reporter's hand and saying something about the Supreme Court - Harris Rigby, Not the Bee
Daniel 2:1–49 - Biblia.com

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In his 1981 book, 'A Christian Manifesto,' Francis Schaeffer waxed eloquent on what many in our day consider too political an application of Christian faith and Biblical teaching.

He talked of John Witherspoon, the first president of the college that would eventually become Princeton University, as well as a Scottish presbyterian minister, as well as a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

So also, Schaeffer quoted Revelation 3:2 in relation to the American Church, and its lackadaisical indifference to good governance in the late 20th century.

"Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God."

In sum, writing a mere 8 years after the U.S. Supreme Court made Roe v. Wade the "law of the land" in 1973, Schaeffer demonstrated and argued persuasively that the Christian who reads their Bible, as well as Church history generally, as well as American history especially, must conclude some very important things about the proper role of good government.

More specifically, a believer's position relative theirs must be informed by the conviction that God is our supreme authority, with human authority by needs be sublimated to what Scripture prescribes, commands, prohibits, and promises.

That is to say, the communists have a manifesto. So, too, the humanists have theirs. The Christians, therefore, must also have a manifesto, and do, in the Word of God, and the faithful testimony of 2,000 years of saints who precede us, particularly since the Protestant Reformation, and the founding of the United States of America.

This Episode's Links:

The Story of the Teddy Bear - NPS
King David’s name was just found on a 2,900-year-old slab - Not the Bee
Andy Stanley owes the Church some answers - Peter Heck, Not the Bee
Signers of the Declaration of Independence: John Witherspoon - UShistory.org
A Christian Manifesto - Francis A. Schaeffer, Audible.com

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Consider the curious case of two women, one named Wisdom, and the other named Folly. They are similar in some ways. Both alike call to the simple, and to him who lacks sense, from the highest places of the town they both live in.

After that, the contrasts are stark.

Wisdom has her own house, livestock, wine, and table. Moreover, she has young women, presumably in her employment. Moreover, she is a woman who is clearly capable and active. She builds, hews, slaughters, mixes, sets, and sends. That is, she has means and plans, and is generous. Her invitation to the simple and those who lack sense is to incentivize the getting of insight from her with a meal.

You might even say that the woman Wisdom is seeking the welfare of the city she lives in by offering correction, reproof, instruction, and teaching, sharing both knowledge and wisdom for how to live.

Folly, on the other hand, is seductively simple, yet truly ignorant. She too has a house, but she takes a seat, and loudly entices others who are simple to steal, or to enjoy what is stolen, and to be secretive. Yet one of the dirtiest secrets about Folly is that those who listen to her, and accept her dinner invitation, die and go down to the grave.

Whose party invitation would we rather accept, and who do we hope more of our fellow townspeople dine with?

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I recently came across a YouTube short of Spanish tennis pro Rafael Nadal being asked why the best women tennis players are paid less. His answer both amuses and intrigues me, including the refreshing admission that he doesn't know, but also looping in other sports, and even the fashion industry, where the top female models make more than the top male models.

Let's take this question a bit further, though, and talk about why top athletes of either of the two sexes make so much money for playing sports, and how this has to do with the selling of tickets and merchandise, as well as advertising and sponsorships.

So why would male athletes make more money from sponsorships than female athletes typically do? Part of this comes back again to the question of ticket sales and merchandising, which is directly the result of popular interest in watching men or women play sports.

I think there may be more as well, though, related to the traditional, historical, and biological role men in functional societies typically play, as providers and protectors, even as the role of women is typically keeping the home, and both having and caring for children.

This is not all just a factor of who can or cannot naturally have babies. It's also about the effect of testosterone on bone and muscle mass, stature, and default aggressiveness, as well as risk tolerance.

In other words, men are perceived or assumed to be more likely to filter out sponsorships they believe present unnecessary risks to health and safety of women and children, and the general public, as well as those sponsorships they believe to be of poor quality, and thus representing a low return on investment where value added is concerned.

That is, men are more disposed to asking the question of "What are you doing here?" And this is because they are more capable of taking action to neutralize threats, to themselves and others under their care, as well as being more likely to push through less ideal opportunities for provision in favor of the best option.

This factoring in a more or less unspoken way in our individual and collective psychology, common sense would tell us we are more drawn to men as sponsors where concerns about provision and protection come into play relative product safety and effectiveness concerns, very prevalent in our day.

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It may turn out that the Left in this country is bringing about their very own worst nightmare the more, rather than less, they succeed at getting what they thought they wanted, namely the abolition of Christian faith in the public square.

This Episode’s Links:

This thread on Christian Nationalism vs. Christian Federalism is the one you’ve been looking for – Joel Abbott, Not the Bee
WaPo says woke teachers are upset parents are preventing them from getting kids into their cult – Harris Rigby, Not the Bee
Check out the smirk on this man stumping for pedophilia at UC Berkeley – Jesse James, Not the Bee
Google Should Dismiss More Employees, Cut ‘Excessive’ Salaries From Median $300K, Investor Argues – Ben Zeisloft, The Daily Wire
Pelosis Dumped Google Stock Weeks Before Justice Department Unveiled Antitrust Lawsuit – Ben Zeisloft, The Daily Wire
WATCH: Pfizer Official ‘Physically Assaults’ James O’Keefe, ‘Destroys iPad Showing Undercover Recordings’ – Ryan Saavedra, The Daily Wire
Biden judicial nominee can’t answer basic questions: “What does Article V of the Constitution do?” – Harris Rigby, Not the Bee
The Communist Manifesto – Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Audible
The Devil and Karl Marx – Paul Kengor, Audible
Karl Marx and the Satanic Roots of Communism – Richard Wurmbrand, Audible

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This Episode’s Links:1. Jessie James Decker Says Eric Decker Refuses To Get Vasectomy Because It ‘Takes His Manhood Away’ – Amanda Harding, The Daily Wire

How doers get more done: Female TikTok users ditch dating apps, go husband-hunting at Home Depot – Cortney Weil, The Blaze
Home buyers hoping to spend $200K this year face disappointing reality check – Nerdwallet, The Denver Post
I feel like I need to call the police because Kevin McCarthy basically murdered this reporter tonight – Joel Abbott, Not the Bee
EXCELLENT! Reps. Boebert, Gosar, and Greene Appointed to the House Oversight Committee – Cassandra MacDonald, Gateway Pundit
This woman is angry that a customer used her correct preferred pronouns so she couldn't unload on him – Joel Abbott, Not the Bee
'There’s a war going on': Jeremy Clarkson of 'Top Gear' calls out the radical left's attack on normalcy and free speech – Joseph MacKinnon, The Blaze
MSNBC host quickly walks back praise for pro-life Tony Dungy after being informed of controversial tweet – Chris Enloe, The Blaze
Senator Kennedy On ‘How Bad’ Debt Default Could Be: Google Could ‘Lay Off Up To 25 Members Of Congress’ – Ben Zeisloft, The Daily Wire
Justice Department Sues Google For Alleged Digital Advertising Monopoly – Ben Zeisloft, The Daily Wire
Leaders of Florida’s College System Vow Not to ‘Fund or Support’ Critical Race Theory– Patricia Tolson, The Epoch Times
Report: U.S. Moving Towards Delivering Abrams Tanks To Ukraine, Germany To Also Send Tanks – News, The Daily Wire
Bugs to be used in bread, beer, and various other items 'intended for the general population,' courtesy of the EU – Joseph MacKinnon, The Blaze

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Al Gore says "we are still failing badly" with regards to Climate Change dangers being mitigated by the World Economic Forum. By this, he of course means that the world's wealthiest and most powerful underdogs need to do more to stop little people like you and me from driving internal combustion engine vehicles, or heating and electrifying our homes with affordable fossil fuels.

Perhaps no one has told him the good news, that Japan's prime minister recently announced that country is on the brink of falling apart due to the inheritors of the samurai not having babies. Either way, on the plus side, this will mean fewer consumers, and a country with no people in it will presumably be carbon neutral.

But speaking of carbon, I wonder what Gore, Jr. would say, whose father was once upon a time the VP of Occidental Petroleum, and sat on its board of directors, if he read this article from Answers in Genesis from 2006, by Dr. Andrew A. Snelling, titled 'The Origin of Oil.' Would he moderate his doomsday predictions, for instance, or reduce the footprint of his megalomaniacal demagoguery, if he believed God may have put that oil and gas underground with the Great Deluge?

No matter, I suppose. Gore would probably still prefer Sid's theology and politics over Provorov's. The culture war has its sights set on the NHL.

In the words of Michael Scott, from the episode of The Office which was removed from Comedy Central's rerun schedules, "This is an environment of welcoming, and you should just get the hell out of here."

Meanwhile, those of us otherwise excluded can nevertheless cheer on the likes of Congressman Buddy Carter from Georgia, for putting forward legislation to abolish the IRS, and replace income and payroll taxes with national sales taxes.

Or maybe we can affirm a different kind of couple, from the sort applauded by the woke folk, who love the LGBTQ++ in the name of toleration, but so often loathe and detest any who abstain from joining in celebrating vice, because they cannot do so with a clear conscience.

William and Bonnie Daniels, for instance, married for 71 years, since 1951, recovered from an open marriage in the 1970's to stick it out the last 50. In their words, it just didn't work, but was very painful, to be faithless. And so long as we don't make any mention of Christian faith, and keep it all prudential up in here, I suppose Sid will be able to contain himself.

Or else maybe someone will say Hollywood is for everyone, just like hockey is supposed to be, or the WEF's global agenda, and the Great Reset. The fine print in all of the above is that intolerance will not be tolerated, even if it comes only in so mild a form as refusal to affirm and participate personally.

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"The earth is Yahweh’s and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein,
for he has founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the rivers."

Psalm 24:1-2 (ESV)

This Episode's Links:

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon Warns of ‘Calamity,’ ‘Global Depression’ Without Oil and Gas - Andrew Moran, The Epoch Times
Luring out-of-state professionals is just the first step in solving Montana’s health worker shortage - Keely Larson, Billings Gazette
The countries where population is declining - Euronews with AFP
Wyoming House Introduces Bill Legalizing Slaughtering and Selling Horse Meat - Anthony Scott, Gateway Pundit
Former NFL DL Derek Wolfe kills mountain lion that was 'wreaking havoc' in Colorado neighborhood - Isabel Gonzalez, CBS Sports

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The sluggard says, “There is a lion in the road!
There is a lion in the streets!”

As a door turns on its hinges,
so does a sluggard on his bed.

The sluggard buries his hand in the dish;
it wears him out to bring it back to his mouth.

The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes
than seven men who can answer sensibly.

Proverbs 26:13-16 (ESV)

This Episode's Links:

'DON'T SIGN THESE CONTRACTS': CROWDER EXPOSES BIG CONSERVATIVE MEDIA'S COMPLICITY IN BIG TECH CENSORSHIP - Lily Hayes, Louder With Crowder
Our Offer to Steven Crowder - DailyWire+
This gay activist couple allegedly raped the boys they adopted from a Christian special-needs agency, pimped them out, and boasted about it on social media - Joel Abbott, Not the Bee
Graphic sex ed program, endorsed by Planned Parenthood, taught in some Idaho middle schools: 'Keep your condom on until you ejaculate' - Cortney Weil, The Blaze
Project Veritas Appears To Catch Activist Boasting About Selling Illegal CRT Curriculum To Indoctrinate Kids, Mocking Gov. Kemp - Amanda Prestigiacomo, The Daily Wire
Confederacy Of Dunces: The Tyranny Of Compulsory Schooling - John Taylor Gatto, The Sun
Hunter Biden lived in house with classified documents while he was making MILLIONS from ties to Chinese intelligence - Harris Rigby, Not the Bee
Mark Driscoll discusses Daddy issues in the "Young Restless and Reformed" movement. - YouTube

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“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you,but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."

Matthew 6:7-15 (ESV)

This Episode's Links:

The last of Haiti's elected officials have left office, leaving the nation in chaos and completely without lawmakers - Daniel Payne, Not the Bee
First Black Police Chief Of Minnesota Town Apologizes For Posting ‘Thin Blue Line’ Flag - Hank Berrien, The Daily Wire
Breaking: Florida Republican rushed to hospital after falling from roof and sustaining numerous injuries - Carlos Garcia, The Blaze
New Zealand’s PM just quit and no one really knows why - NTB Staff, Not the Bee
Republican proposes bill to abolish the ATF - Alex Nitzberg, The Blaze

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Having recently read It's Good to Be a Man by Michael Foster and Dominic Bnonn Tennant, and I have some thoughts, as well as some quotes to share with you, as Canon Press, the book's publisher, recently helpfully shared them to Instagram, where I must go to still feel I am privy to the public square and discourse in it online.

But more than sharing quotes, or giving you opinions about the book, let's delve into several items in the news as of late, and consider the responsibility of Christian men - especially husbands and fathers - to engage with these things as providers and protectors.

This Episode's Links:

Meta's Oversight Board says the company's nudity policy is bad because it makes "distinction between male and female bodies"
Guess what a left-wing Fox News personality said AR-15 stands for
Minnesota mother asks police if they saved her four toddlers from a carjacker who had driven away with them. No, 'your husband did.'
Watch this teacher explain how she creates "political unrest" in the classroom by pushing pronouns and purple hair while mocking the Bible
Public School Enrollment Drops By 1.4 Million Students Posing Financial Challenges For Big Cities
China's population shrinks for the first time since 1961
McCarthy: “If you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn't have Eric Swalwell on any committee.”
Kevin McCarthy Shares ‘Best Way’ To Release January 6 Tapes
If there is a single video on climate change that you ever watch, make it this one.
British Comedian Lays Waste to Climate Activists in Raucous Oxford Union Debate

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"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America

This Episode's Links:

Democrat US rep — a self-described 'pro-choice Christian' — uses Bible verse to speak against Born-Alive bill requiring medical care for babies who survive abortions - Dave Urbanski, The Blaze
New Twitter Files Release Shows How Adam Schiff Staffers Harassed The Company With Absurd Ban Requests - The Daily Wire
FMR. NFL PLAYER: LORI LIGHTFOOT’S AD TOUTING CRIME STATS COMING DOWN IS ‘MANIPULATION,’ THAT’S ‘WITCHCRAFT, DEMONIC’ - Grabien News
Los Angeles Police Department bans Thin Blue Line flag because it now allegedly symbolizes 'undemocratic, racist, and bigoted views' - Paul Sacca, The Blaze
Chuck Schumer Spars With CNN Hosts Over Biden Classified Document Scandal: ‘For God’s Sake’ - The Daily Wire
Do you own an AR-style pistol? Then you need to read the ATF's new rule that will make you guilty of a federal offense if you don't register it as an SBR or turn it in to authorities. - AnnieOakley, Not the Bee

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"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."

Ephesians 5:22-33

"Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

This Episode's Links:

It's Good to Be a Man: A Handbook for Godly Masculinity - Michael Foster, Dominic Bnonn Tennant
How do Safe Haven Baby Boxes work? - WTHR, YouTube
Were Christians in the Roman Empire known to rescue abandoned babies? - Christianity.StackExchange.com
Gwyneth Paltrow Warns Katy Perry That Kids Can Be Difficult On A Marriage; Perry Pushes Back - Katie Jerkovich, The Daily Wire
What does the Bible say about fornication? - GotQuestions.org
What Is Adultery? The Biblical Definition and Consequences - Christianity.com
Polygyny - Wikipedia
Child Marriage in the United States and Its Association With Mental Health in Women

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"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

Jim Elliot

This Episode's Links:

Mall of America security apparently kicked out this black man for wearing a "Jesus Saves" shirt - John Knox, Not the Bee
THE THREE WORLDS OF EVANGELICALISM - Aaron M. Renn, First Things
The Biden Classified Documents Just Keep Coming – And John Kennedy Has Just Four Questions - Virginia Kruta, The Daily Wire
Joe Rogan calls out leftist billionaire George Soros: 'It's like he wants these cities to fall apart. He wants crime to flourish.' - Joseph MacKinnon, The Blaze
I have to note that only one Democrat voted for a bill yesterday that would protect babies born alive after botched abortions - NTB Staff
Golden’s workers can’t afford to live there but first-ever homeownership project offers hope - John Aguilar, The Denver Post
This company wants to plant a computer chip in your head to treat depression - Harambe, Not the Bee
152 - Why Can't We Have Nice Things | Liv Boeree - Bankless Shows
MEDITATIONS ON MOLOCH - Scott Alexander, Slate Star Codex
THE CHURCH AMONG THE DEATHWORKS - Carl R. Trueman, First Things

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“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Jesus, Matthew 11:15 (ESV)

mo·ral·i·ty – (Definitions from Oxford Languages)

/məˈralədē/

noun

principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.

"the matter boiled down to simple morality: innocent prisoners ought to be freed"

a particular system of values and principles of conduct, especially one held by a specified person or society.

plural noun: moralities

"a bourgeois morality"

the extent to which an action is right or wrong.

"behind all the arguments lies the issue of the morality of the possession of nuclear weapons"

This Episode’s Links:

What is ChatGPT? OpenAI's Chat GPT Explained – How It Happened, YouTube
RNC Drops Comprehensive List Of Biden’s Whoppers, Fish Stories, And Fibs – Virginia Kurta, The Daily Wire
Idaho School Board Meeting Ends In Chaos Over Gender Policy – Maread Elordi, The Daily Wire
Great news: It is now legal to carry a gun without a permit in fully half of the United States after Alabama joins the party – AnnieOakley, Not the Bee
'We're gonna make felons out of taxpayers': Illinois bans semiautomatic rifles that carry over 10 rounds – Joseph MacKinnon, The Blaze
Sheriffs across Illinois are refusing to enforce state's gun ban, and the Democratic governor responds with a threat – Carlos Garcia, The Blaze
‘Eternals’ Actor Said Hollywood Won’t ‘Cast Non-White People As Bad Guys’ Despite His Desire To Play A Villain – Amanda Harding, The Daily Wire
Does God Exist? A Conversation with Tom Holland, Stephen Meyer, and Douglas Murray | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution – Uncommon Knowledge

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In Psalm 2, an important geopolitical question is asked point-blank.

"Why do the nations rage

and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves,

and the rulers take counsel together,

against Yahweh and against his Anointed, saying,

“Let us burst their bonds apart

and cast away their cords from us.”

He who sits in the heavens laughs;

the Lord holds them in derision.

Then he will speak to them in his wrath,

and terrify them in his fury, saying,

“As for me, I have set my King

on Zion, my holy hill.”

Thus the stage is set. Wicked rulers look for ways to be unbound from God's authority, and the Lord laughs at them, because all their plans and schemes and first-shaking is for naught.

And this is an important truth to keep in mind, when it seems as though godless men hold hostage all the power and wealth in the world, and will despoil what and whom they will without any accountability. God will not be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.

But some seem to forget this, or think everything that happens proceeds apace without much engagement from the saints. Calling for repentance? The nation and its rulers will not repent. Making disciples of all nations? They all must be saved from their nations, and into Christ's Kingdom. Render unto Caesar what is Caesars. Render unto God what is God's.

Yet later on in Psalm 2, it becomes clear that the nations themselves will be Christ's heritage, "and the ends of the earth your possession."

And what the Son will do with them is break and dash them. But then comes the warning, nevertheless, to the kings of the nations, to be wise, and be warned. Thereafter they are told to "Serve Yahweh with fear, and rejoice with trembling."

If some one will say this sounds very political, I will say that is correct, and that it sounds like what it is. But that is alright, and fret not so much about that truth as you do who says so, and the implications.

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Megan Quinn published a rather fascinating article at YourTango.com last week, about a social experiment reality TV show from the UK, in which 10 boys and 10 girls were placed together in a house, in two separate instances, without adults present, except to monitor from outside, and the houses fully furnished, and stocked with food and cooking implements, and also toys and crafts.

The results were just as I would have predicted as a father of seven sons, that at the end of the five days the house of boys was a great big mess, and the house of girls was clean and tidy. In the former case, there was rough play, and lots of sugary food eaten, and also bullying. In the latter case, one girl immediately stepped up to coordinating the meal prep, and all the girls cleaned up after themselves and comforted one another when sad.

It would be fascinating to see another experiment run with girls and boys dropped off in the wilderness, with tools and weapons and survival training, but no shelter or food, having to build a place to live, and having to go hunt and forage, then turn the findings into food.

Nevertheless, such a study will not be had in our day, of that I am sure. And in the meantime, we can entertain ourselves well enough with ongoing debates about Stephen Wolfe's book, The Case for Christian Nationalism, which Kevin DeYoung recently wrote a lengthy review of for The Gospel Coalition.

Before getting into that, however, I should like to say a word or two about how manly strength is not a vice, and that we must try hard not to think of power as inherently corrupt, lest we get the mistaken notion that God being all-powerful, for instance, is a bad thing, or in some way diminishes His righteousness.

This is, not coincidentally, why I cheer a federal appeals court striking down the ban on "bump stocks" for modern sporting rifles, which still represents to my mind one of the biggest mistakes of the Trump administration, since the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is pretty clear, and it is proper for our government to remember and uphold that fact.

But Proverbs 24:5 comes to mind also, in all of the above, where it says "A wise man is full of strength, and a man of knowledge enhances his might," just going to show that it is virtuous for godly men as providers and protectors to get wisdom, knowledge, and strength all at the same time, to the end of being dependable for their families and friends.

On the other hand, there is a certain unmanly sensibility which has wormed its way into the American Christian conception of what a man who is following Jesus should look, sound, and act like, which Stephen Wolfe speaks to in his book, by the way, as quoted by DeYoung's review of it at TGC. And concerning all of the above, I think that it is true, all at the same time, that Wolfe's rhetoric could use a tune-up, even as the strongest detractors and targets of his work need a different kind of correction.

Caution about the consumption of vegetable oils is warranted, to be sure. But mocking manbuns and soy boys misses the forest for the trees if the real root of the problem lies in having internalized a distorted belief about strength, that admiring and encouraging it in others, or getting it for ourselves, is not the same thing as being envious of evil men, whatever violence they do with theirs.

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In Luke 11:14-23, Jesus answers a muttering in relation to his casting out a demon, and thereby allowing a man who was mute to speak, that he was casting out demons by the prince of demons. This is a significant passage in several ways.

For starters, the fact of maligning the character and motivations of Jesus, by wild speculation that he is in league with evil, is an exceedingly wicked way to respond, instead of celebration and worship, to the Son of God making a man free and whole again who had been oppressed to that point.

Another interesting thing is that this passage is what Abraham Lincoln famously referenced as president, in relation to the Civil War, as the Union and Confederacy squared off, over the issues of slavery and the rights of individual states to permit or regulate the institution as they saw fit, whatever the federal government had to say.

"Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls."

I note that nowhere has it been argued, at least in my hearing, that Lincoln was taking this passage out of context, or applying it inappropriately, to the national situation. On the contrary, 'Honest Abe' is universally lauded for applying the principle inherent to what Jesus asserted.

But other principles can be mined for meaningful application, including, again, to national politics from how Jesus answered the charge, that the source of his power was Beelzebul. For instance, what Jesus says about a strong man guarding his home has relevance for securing national borders.

"When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe; but when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil."

Friends, Romans, countrymen. Lend me your ears. This passage can teach us much about the self-evident appropriateness of defense against plunderers, when it is in our power to provide for such, as well as the consequences of not.

That is, if you are not a strong man who guards your palace, you will be disarmed and despoiled by a stronger who desires your goods for themselves. Moreover, this is part of the reason why a house divided against itself cannot stand, since such a case might see a conspiracy form to ally with the stronger man who comes from outside to plunder.

This, to my way of thinking, is a fair summation of President Joe Biden's treatment of security failures, which his administration has deliberately and consistently caused, on the border between the United States and Mexico.

To those who would say that it is not loving for a Christian to argue for border security, I rejoin that it is not unloving for a husband and father to secure his house against lawless men. Nor either is it unloving for a national government to secure the borders.

While honorable men might want to come to our country, and that to provide for and protect their own families better here than where they came from, the exact reasons which commendably motivate those men must also make them understand that the people they are trying to protect their households from in their native lands must not be let in here, or else there will be no advantage to either them or us.

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"Archeologists believe they've discovered the mystery factor that has allowed Roman buildings to continue standing for 2,000 years," according to a recent post by Daniel Payne over at Not the Bee. As it turns out, a particular variety of quicklime was added at high temperature to form compounds in the concrete which allow for a self-healing regenerative process to take place within Roman concrete.

So also, I think here of a conversation my dad, eldest son, and I had last night after watching Top Gun: Maverick for our weekly family movie night. More specifically, we were discussing how Nazi Germany made some incredible technological advances, particularly in rocketry, which made much of modern air transportation and the space program possible, as German scientists were taken in by the U.S. and the Soviet Union at the close of World War II.

There is no denying that Germany in the early 20th century made incredible technological breakthroughs, and could boast being home to the leading universities, research laboratories, and scientists of the world. The downfall, I would argue, despite these incredible facts, was to be found in the erosion of Christian faith in Germany, due in large part to the undermining and arguing away of the authority and infallibility of The Bible as God's inspired Word.

Simultaneous to this erosion, or else a consequence to the vacuum it created, which nature reliably abhors, as we all know, the rise of neo-paganism, and the desire to return Germany to the worship of the old Norse gods - Odin, Thor, Freyr, and the like - meant that country was unable to sustain its hyper-aggressive progress, and that it destroyed itself as a result.

By contrast, it was Christian faith that gave rise to, inspired, and stabilized the restoration of science, both physical and metaphysical, natural and philosophical, in the West, particularly after the fall of the Romans to the barbarians who had become more proficient at imitating Latin success than the biological heirs of Romulus and Remus, what with their self-indulgence and folly.

As Herman Bavinck explained in A Christian Philosophy of Science, the Christian worldview and message, with its emphasis on faith, confession of sins, repentance, and grace, set the stage for what we know of as the scientific method, where explanations for the relationship between phenomena are speculated on, hypothesized, tested, and then converted into practical theories.

In our day, tragically, this is almost entirely forgotten and denied. Like a daily and cumulative fulfillment of what happens to most modern concrete when it has been exposed to sun's rays and the rain for a few seasons, cracks appear in our scientific pursuits, apart from the stabilizing agent of Christian faith. And the results are much the same, that pathways, driveways, roadways, and buildings of all kinds keep on breaking down, either to eventual destruction, or else requiring constant and costly maintenance.

But this is to say that The Northman religion is a far cry from even the vestiges of ethos which remain in Top Gun: Maverick, as we are still living in a kind of Roman ruins which do not wear out so quickly without intentional dismantling, sabotage, and vandalism.

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This Episode's Links:

The housing market has flipped so radically that sellers are now "throwing money at buyers" - Commodore Vanderbilt, Not the Bee
Victoria's Secret CEO resigns after year of woke campaigns with plus-size and male models - Andrew Chapados, The Blaze
'Pornographic' school assignment given to child, parents' lawsuit alleges – district officials cut microphone, ask for 'decorum' when mother read assignment's content to school board - Candace Hathaway, The Blaze
Texas Lawmaker Introduces Bill Banning Gender Identity Material Through Grade 8 In Public Schools - Mairead Elordi, The Daily Wire
This eye-opening thread about South Dakota's Kristi Noem working hand-in-hand with the transgender movement is a must-read - Harris Rigby, Not the Bee
Twitter FBI Agent Thinks Fewer Blacks Voted After 2012 Because Of Russians–Not Obama’s Departure - Luke Rosiak, The Daily Wire
Rep. Cori Bush lashes out at black Republican nominated for speaker, calling him a 'prop' who perpetuates white supremacy - Carlos Garcia, The Blaze
Horowitz: The top committee chairs in a McCarthy House are the worst of globalists - Daniel Horowitz, The Blaze
Lauren Boebert bucks Donald Trump’s push for a Kevin McCarthy speakership - Conrad Swanson, The Denver Post
Can Everybody Calm Down Over The Speaker’s Race? Debate Is Good, Gridlock Is Essential - Tim Meads, The Daily Wire
Far-Right Kooks, Lunatics, Terrorists, Anarchists: All The Names The GOP Establishment Has Called The House Freedom Caucus Over The Years - Tim Meads, The Daily Wire
House Adjourns For Night After Speaker Race Reaches Double-Digit Ballots For First Time Since Before Civil War - The Daily Wire
1793-2023: An Overview Of Contested Speaker Elections – The Daily Wire

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Thinking about the historic vote for House Speaker yesterday and today, a quote from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring comes to mind.

*“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”*

Kevin McCarthy, the Republican Congressman from California, has now failed to gain the necessary votes five times, due entirely to concerns held by at least twenty of his colleagues, that he is too much that status quo which Americans are tired of, and which we need less rather than more of.

Despite what former President Trump is saying, or perhaps because of it, I am reminded that not all that glitters is gold.

Yet gold does glitter too, and we need to remember that. Leverage the fact, against fatalism and cynicism, which is always too ready to abandon rather than support honorable men, as well as worthy causes. This is not to say that McCarthy is the man who should be supported, but it is a general truth that we need to not grow weary in doing what is good, or supporting others who do.

Consider Ron DeSantis, just sworn in for another term as Florida governor. What if he is the real deal, and not just another politician who will disappoint us, saying what sounds good, but sure to renege on his promises once he is empowered?

Weariness in doing good will guarantee a bad outcome. That much is sure. And the Lord loves a cheerful giver, who does what is right, and operates from pure motives. But that can mean just as surely that we bury our roots deep, to protect them through the winter, just as we are commanded to guard our hearts. It might not mean that we throw our endorsement behind someone who appears at a distance to be a good goose for the gander.

On the other hand, one of the benefits of our all living through the last few years of COVID madness is that we can look at track records, and how various persons handled the crisis, whether to steer us through it, or else to exploit it.

Shame on us if those who did the former will be lumped in with the latter if now they look the better to us, and reap thereby a kind of benefit. Or, what? Will we hope for an excuse to throw in the towel, or leave it, once thrown, where it lies, the hope for a better tomorrow for ourselves and our posterity? God forbid.

To be sure, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits."

Moreover, as Proverbs 18 also says, "The name of Yahweh is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe."

That is, even just calling on the name of Yahweh is a security against those who seek our lives. May all the rest of our words be worthy of calling on the name of the Lord, or else let us pray that God would have mercy on us when they aren't.

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What does it mean when a state legalizes "human composting," as New York has now joined Washington, Colorado, California, Oregon, and Vermont in doing? Stated reasons surely must come into giving an answer to that question.

So, in this case, what does it mean when the stated reason for the legalization of "human composting," where instead of traditional burial or cremation one is turned into compost for plants, in a "more environmentally friendly way," is, at its root, a backwards and upside-down view of the relationship between Man and the rest of God's Creation?

To be sure, Genesis says that man was fashioned by God's own hand out of the dust of the ground, and to the dust we return. Yet that is not the same thing as saying that it doesn't matter how we dispose of human remains. Remember that though man is dust, he is also made in the image of Almighty God.

And really, now, the fact of man being made in God's image does change the way I read about a winter weather advisory until 8 p.m. in the Greeley Tribune. My first thought is what this means for my family and friends and self. Never in a million years would my first thought be to change my final wishes so as to potentially reduce the severity of future snow storms.

But then my Bible reading also changes the way I read a story about the effects of inflation on low, middle, and upper-income households in Colorado. Starting with the principle at root in "the one who does not work shall not eat," I regard as evil that our government spends money it does not have, both at home and abroad, in such a way as takes bread from the mouths of the children of men who do work so their families can eat.

This is to say nothing of the reporting from yesterday by Leon Wolf at The Blaze, of the Boulder Public Library bathrooms being potentially closed forever to the public due to so much smoking of meth in them. And the library generally is delayed in its opening generally, for the same reasons.

On the other hand, the most highly acclaimed newspaper in the state that just legalized "human composting" just published an opinion piece about how we should encourage short people to do all the being fruitful and multiplying moving forward, because that's better for the environment. You know, short people have a smaller carbon footprint, and whatnot.

Meanwhile, the first Democrat to win the governorship in Arizona since 2009 was just sworn in while reporters were intentionally excluded and barred from attendance. Otherwise Katie Hobbs might have had to take questions from the people who elected her.

Democracy is being saved from the demos, it seems.

Like when Google, Facebook, and Twitter have hired over 300 people who formerly worked for U.S. intelligence agencies since the 2016 Presidential election, and Nick Rossmann, who worked for the CIA for 5 years, and publicly hated on Trump and everyone who voted for him for years, is Senior Manager Trust & Safety for Google.

But that's none of my business.

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Lamentations 3 has been on my mind, including, but not limited to, the fact that Yahweh's mercies are new every morning.

The fact that the name of Yahweh is a strong tower that the righteous run into and are safe sits within a context that, at some points, is remarkably specific and bleak otherwise.

For instance, consider the inclusion of a reference to arrows being shot into kidneys, or the destruction and fate of the daughters of my people and city.

Nevertheless, and only all the more, remember and meditate on what Isaiah 3 says.

"Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds."

This episode's links:

'Alaska Trial to Decide If GOP State Lawmaker Can Be Barred From Office for Being an Oath Keepers Member' - Joseph M. Hanneman, The Epoch Times
The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription - archives.gov
Declaration of Independence: A Transcription - archives.gov
Proverbs 31:1-9 - esv.org
'Ray Epps Told Nephew He ‘Orchestrated’ January 6' - Daniel Chaitin, The Daily Wire
'Russia released a video showing Putin as Santa saving a boy being raised as a girl by two fathers.' - Mister Retrops, Not the Bee
'Hacked Material Shows Russia’s Propaganda Agreement With China: Report' - Ryan Saavedra, The Daily Wire
'The Scottish police are rebranding pedophiles as "Minor Attracted Persons" and if we could just stop trying to normalize pedos that would be great' - Harris Rigby, Not the Bee
Lamentations 3 - biblegateway.com

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As another year draws to a close, and my household ponders afresh our habit of reviewing the major events of the last 12 months before considering our plans for the next, it occurs to me that planning boils down in the end to a series of Yes and No answers to various and multitudinous questions.

Andrew Matthias, for instance. Lauren's and my seventh son, and eighth child, was born to us in the first month of 2022. That fact is the summary conclusion of Yes being the answer to some questions, and No being the answer to others.

For another example, our two eldest sons, Josiah and Eli, spending a week over the summer, visiting with our old friends in Montana

For just one more illustration, my job change in October involved announcing a No to continued employment with one company, and an answer of Yes to a different company.

Reasons come into all these answers, to be sure. And we can give all manner of explanation, justifications, or rationales. But at the end of the day, these are all a way of giving others a window into why we gave the simple answer that we did. If you want to get even more in-depth, even unpacking the why goes back to Yes and No, whether to principles, priorities, or practical considerations.

All of life is binary, then. And even when we have many options to choose from, about how to spend our time, attention, energy, or resources, to choose any one option, regardless how many options there were, when we are finite creatures, is to say Yes to that option, and to say No, at least for a time, to all the rest.

Wisdom is found in saying Yes to the right things, and No, or Not Yet, where we cannot in good conscience say Yes.

How do we know which we should answer to in a particular situation has everything to do with our affections. And this is where the Greatest Commandment comes into play, to to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. Subsequently, and consequently, it follows that our obedience to "the second which is like it" is informed in all its affirmatives and negatives.

"For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us," as the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1:20.

To this we often rejoin, and just as often struggle to understand, what it can mean that our prayers sometimes seem not to be answered, or else to be answered in ways other than we wanted them to be. But even there, as in the rest of pursuing life and godliness, Jesus sets us the example and pattern.

“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine be done.”

This is a rather dreary prescription at face value. Taking the long view, however - and this is the eternal view we are called to take when we are in Christ - nothing could be happier or more blessed. This is because the rewards are life everlasting, in perfect peace and happiness, enjoying God and His people forever.

Yet we are still here now, and that is what we have coming. So while we are here, God must have good works for us to do. Moreover, He still has blessings and gifts for us in this life. Therefore, to the end of making the most of the time He has given us, as well as the opportunities, my house and I will consider what ways God has both rewarded and permitted us to be tried in the past year, with a particular focus on what such can teach us about where we presently are, to the end of making good choices of Yes and No in the next year.

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After several weeks of intensive enjoyment from when it was first released in February of last year, my sons and I mostly gave up on Valheim, the best game of 2021 according to PC Gamer, after having some issues with the reliability of our private server. With a few brief, scattered exceptions, we haven't played it since.

Yesterday, we returned, to the wonderful world of Viking survival, to begin again with our characters where we left off. We were not disappointed.

It's still early, with a mere 4-5 hours so far for Josiah, Eli, Sol, Dan, and myself played together last night; but we're excited to have a fresh map, and build a new fort, and explore what updates to the game, as well as time since we last played, make at once both familiar and uncharted.

But this is a follow-up to the podcast episode I recorded back in February of 2021. And let me therefore double down on what has not changed in the way of my opinion. That is, playing a game like Valheim with my four older sons seems every bit as valid a way to build relational, communication, and teamwork skills as if they were to join a sports team.

And now we have four desktop computers, plus the trusty old gaming laptop. Where before we could only play three at a time, with my four older sons trading off two at a time, now all five of us can quest together simultaneously.

It really is glorious.

Yes, to the stodgy who are always ready to warn about the dangers of videogames, particularly their effect on morals and manliness, my enthusiastic claim will be met with skepticism, if not outright scoffing. But to my way of thinking, this is an excellent investment of our time and attention. And if it happens to be fun in the process, that is only all the better instead of worse.

Believe it or not, I will employ my tired old phrase, conjured up every time the latest scandal that is American public education makes the headlines. And this is why we homeschool.

Tolkien and Lewis would be on my side, by the way.

To quote Clive Staple, from On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature, “When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

Enlisting John Ronald Reuel for good measure, from Tolkien On Fairy-stories, “Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?”

Yet I may take this Valheim business a slightly different direction, and also talk of James Cameron, and lawsuits, and "glory clouds." It cannot all be make-believe, and we have to know the real world when we come back to it, so we can engage with it appropriately.

But then that really is my point. If playing this game with my sons helps them to have a laboratory, for learning to be decisive, brave, creative, and to work together to accomplish noble and worthy deeds, even amidst perilous monsters, then the real world will be the better for us having played it together. Moreover, I believe it will be.

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In the lead-in to the part of Proverbs 31 concerning the woman who fears the Lord, not as often remarked on in my experience is how the mother of King Lemuel asks him three times in a row what he is doing.

Always in Scripture, when you see a word or phrase repeated two times in a row, it's veracity and importance are being greatly emphasized. If you see it repeated thrice, you best listen up and pay attention.

This is no less the case here, when Lemuel is warned to be wary of the influence on good judgment of both women and drink. We also, along with Lemuel, are wise to consider the wisdom of the admonition from his mother dear, to not give our strength or mind to either, without reservation, or become a slave to our desire for them. Rather, we must remember our duty before God, to do justice, and to "open your mouth" for those whose rights are being trampled on.

Speaking of speaking up for those whose rights are being abused, I was invited to attend an event put on here locally in Fort Collins, Colorado last month, at which New York Times Bestselling Author Eric Metaxas spoke. Loving his biographies of Luther and Bonhoeffer as I do, declining the invitation was an unfortunate necessity.

Fortunately, however, my friend Dave Knoshaug, whose invitation I had to turn down, kindly provided me with a link to the speech Metaxas gave, and I present it here for your consideration as well, having listened to it now twice in the last week.

And he's right, you know. Bonhoeffer and Wilberforce and Luther were right also. God will not hold us guiltless if we say nothing in the face of evil.

But evil is not just what we call things that happened far away, or long ago, which there is no cost for us opposing now. We must also call evil how the U.S. government and Twitter censored true information which was inconvenient to COVID-19 policy. For the latest on that, consider this reporting by Dillon Burroughs at The Daily Wire, or this entry from Jack Phillips at The Epoch Times.

Yes, you heard that right. It was evil that experts and laypeople alike were silenced when they objected to themselves, their families, their friends, and their countrymen being abused and oppressed, with coronavirus used as pretext and excuse.

But it was also evil that men like Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins convinced even prominent leaders of the American church to spiritualize the abuse of their congregants and co-laborers.

What's next? The police arresting American women for being anti-social if they're caught praying outside abortion clinics, like police in the UK did to this British woman recently?

Or what's next? Members of American royalty getting slap on the wrist if they stand accused of paying to rape teenage girls, like British royal Prince Andrew recently was evicted from Buckingham Palace for?

We must learn to do more than complain. We must re-learn how to call for repentance instead of cheap grace, and not suffer fools gladly, especially in the Church, who cheapen God's grace by spiritualizing cowardice and flattery, and calling that testimony and encouragement.

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Lauren asked for a handgun this Christmas. Initially, we eyed the Kimber Micro 9, and the Sig P365, and both made a favorable impression on us, when we looked at the selection Scheels had while out celebrating our 16th anniversary. When it came time to buy, however, in the week before Christmas, I ended up getting her the Springfield Hellcat instead.

At 11+1 capacity, the Hellcat holds plenty of rounds in its double-stacked magazine, compared with what is more typical for a CCW semi-auto. I also like the two-stage trigger, in the respect that accidental discharge should not be an issue quite like it could be without. I also like that this Hellcat in particular is already ready to have an optic installed; and on that front, if we keep it, I will be eyeing a little red-dot sight for faster target acquisition.

That said, reports from other owners online concern me. For instance, the trigger sometimes locks up when sideways pressure is applied to it, rendering the firearm inoperable.

Another bothersome thing about the Hellcat is how stiff the slide release is - that is, it is extraordinarily stiff. Other owners online report that it loosens up with firing, and that there is also an after-market option of a larger slide release we could opt for. For that matter, the trigger issue can also be fixed with an after-market replacement. But then you really shouldn't need to replace parts in a brand new gun to make it operable, and it's a mark against the design here that we even need to have this conversation.

Horizon: Forbidden West

In other news, for the older boys' Christmas gift, I wanted to get some new games for our PS5, since we don’t have many just yet. I looked into what the highest rated games were, and noticed that Horizon: Forbidden West always placed near the top. Considering it did not have some of the unfortunate detracting elements of other games, and that the screenshots, videos, and reviews all agreed that this is a big and beautiful game, with phenomenal texturing, lighting, and physics; the use of color and angles is masterful from a visual standpoint, I picked it up.

The thematic components come together in a way that is fun and fascinating. Caveman-like primitives, in a post-apocalyptic future jungle, fight one another and the robot versions of dinosaurs and extinct mega-fauna mammals, using a combination of high-tech weapons and more traditional stone-age implements. What's not to love?

Then there is the lead character you play, Aloy, who is a girl.

According to feedback from my eldest sons so far, Aloy is the manliest character in the game thus far. All the men are either fools, cowards, feckless, corrupt, or needing drink to drum up enough chutzpah. Aloy, though? She is wise, courageous, strong, and upstanding. And in that respect, she seems to be of a piece with Rey from Disney’s Star Wars, or Galadriel from Amazon’s Rings of Power.

Strong Female Characters

Believe it or not, all of this brings to mind Proverbs 31.

Is it wrong for me to buy my wife a handgun for Christmas, or for a movie, TV show, or video game to feature a strong female character? Was it a mistake for one of my sons to get his sister a pink Xbox One controller?

Some would expect me to say 'Yes' on account of having a conservative view of men and women, and what I believe the Bible says about the different roles we should play in the family, church, and society based on our sex. But that would be presumptuous.

Consider how often the word 'strength' shows up from the tenth verse to the end when "the excellent wife" who fears Yahweh is described.

Later in the New Testament, she may be described as "the weaker vessel," but that doesn't mean that the ideal is for her to be weak or defenseless, nor that such should become our aspirational model.

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'White Christmas,' the title track from the 1953 film by the same name, communicates such a simple sentiment. To my way of thinking, if we would sing it, we have everything else we need to celebrate Christmas. The only thing left is a fresh blanket of snow.

But how else might we have a white Christmas?

"Come now, let us reason together, says Yahweh: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool."

So writes Isaiah early on in the Old Testament book that bears his name, speaking as he does the word of the Lord to His people. And the fulfillment of this is found in Christ, whose birth we celebrate this time of the year.

Yes, on this podcast, Christmas or no, we will talk and think also of current events, and what is in the news, and what is happening in the wider world. But again and again, wherever we look, the problem of man's sin and what to do about it confronts us.

For many, this is a hard time of the year. In no small part, this is because of unresolved conflict between them and friends or family who they once held dear. Only now there is a rift. Someone sinned against someone else, and it was never resolved. Forgiveness was either not asked for or not given, or both.

The thought occurs to me that with inflation dissuading so many this year to buy gifts at all, or to spend as much as they normally would on presents for others, perhaps the most expensive, rarest, and most precious we could give or receive would be peace with God and one another.

Here is the catch, though. To have that peace, we must look to the Prince of Peace. Only in the God who took on flesh is meaningful reconciliation possible. To give or receive it is too high for man alone, but he can have it with God's help.

This Episode's Links:

‘That Situation Has Gotten Far Worse In The Last Few Years’: Most College Students Self-Censor, Fear Disagreeing With Professor – Brandon Drey, The Daily Wire
‘Life expectancy in the US declined by 5% last year, lowest level since 1996’ – Harris Rigby, Not the Bee
Former Broncos Running Back Ronnie Hillman Dies At 31
NFL Legend Franco Harris’ Final Interview Shows Steelers Star Smiling With No Signs Of Trouble - The Daily Wire
"Body positivity" activist dies of heart failure at 37 years old – Harris Rigby, Not the Bee
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey Will Take Down Shipping Container ‘Border Wall’ One Week After Biden Lawsuit – Ben Zeisloft, The Daily Wire
Senate Passes Monster Spending Package With Backing From 18 Republicans – Tim Pearce, The Daily Wire

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This film critic says there's a problem with white actors playing giant blue aliens because of racism or something – Holly Ash, Not the Bee

o Wanting to avoid being as annoying as the folks who see racism under every rock, or around every corner, we won’t spend too much time on this.

o But that is to say that this is just plain silly, and we all need to know that.

James Cameron Already Shot ‘Avatar’ 3 And 4 To Avoid ‘Stranger Things’ Effect, Teens Who ‘Look Like They’re 27’ – Amanda Harding, The Daily Wire

o This is a smart move, actually.

Hide the Pain Harold – real name: András Arató; he’s actually a Hungarian electrical engineer.

o If you haven’t yet, you should really check out the TED Talk he gave a few years back.

o It’s actually rather fascinating to think about, in relation to this question of how the internet changes the way we think about identity, and what it can do to either bolster or destabilize ours, as well as any subsequent relationships we have with one another as a result.

Church Committee – Wikipedia

o I should have mentioned in yesterday’s episode that this is one of the things Senator Frank Church is famous for, whose 1975 interview with Meet the Press I played audio from.

CORRECTION: A few episodes back, after discussing spicy ramen and Twilight Imperium, I talked briefly about the yet-again delayed release of the JFK files concerning the assassination of a sitting U.S. president in 1963.

o I said he was shot in Houston, Texas; that was not accurate. He was actually shot in Dallas, Texas.

o Houston comes more easily to mind for me because I have for over a decade now worked in the Oil & Gas industry, which has a lot of headquarters in Houston.

Season’s Greetings From The Swamp: Support Our $1.7 Trillion Omnibus Bill, Pay Your Taxes, And Kick Rocks, America – Tim Meads, The Daily Wire

o An honest question for those whose eyes glaze over at such things: How much is too much?

o If this is not that number, is there any amount of money our government could spend that we would say was too much?

§ Do we have a limit? Do they?

§ How do we know where the limit should be?

§ If only we could look at what happens historically when countries devalue their currency.

o Fun fact: nestled amidst the multitudinous things our money is being devalued to support around the world, there is funding for border security for Arab nations in this omnibus bill, according to reporting by Joseph MacKinnon at The Blaze.

Ukraine Will Get What It Needs to ‘Defend Itself and Succeed on the Battlefield,’ Biden Tells Zelenskyy – Jeff Louderback, The Epoch Times
Colorado Nurse Accused Of Drugging, Sexually Assaulting And Recording Lewd Images Of Unconscious Patients For Ten Years – Brandon Drey, The Daily Wire
‘Looted: Stolen relics, laundered art and a Colorado scholar’s role in the illicit antiquities trade’ – Sam Tabachnik, The Denver Post
Chick-Fil-A Owner Fined, Had To Give Back Pay For Giving Workers Food Vouchers Instead Of Pay – Charlotte Pence Bond, The Daily Wire
‘Once In A Generation Type Event’: ‘Bomb Cyclone’ Targets United States, Canceling Flights – Hank Berrien, The Daily Wire

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This Episode's Links:

All I Want for Christmas Is You - Wikipedia
'Twitter Blows Up Over Christian Music Star Hosting Same-Sex Wedding For Her Niece' - Virginia Kruta, The Daily Wire
'Taliban Closes Afghan Universities To Women' - Daniel Chaitin, The Daily Wire
'A Trio Of GOP Senators Say Trump Has A Serious Electability Problem In 2024' - Joseph Curl, The Daily Wire
'Jack Posobiec delivers 🔥 from the stage: "Elon Musk gave us a roadmap to take down the entire deep state"' - Harris Rigby, Not the Bee
'Now that we know the FBI was paying Twitter to censor people, this 1975 video of Senator Frank Church seems prophetic' - Harris Rigby, Not the Bee
'Ecumenism and Intolerance' - Daryl G. Hart, Reformed Forum
'Cameron Bertuzzi's Conversion to Rome: Protestant Response' - Gavin Ortlund, Truth Unites
J. Gresham Machen - Wikipedia

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“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

- Matthew 5:13-16

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

“Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

- Matthew 6:1-4

This Episode's Links:

The Rise of the Biomedical Security State | OFFICIAL TRAILER
100 Years Ago: Car runs off Platte River Bridge (Greeley Tribune)
'Outraged mom says school staff gave 13-year-old daughter a chest-binder, encouraged her to keep gender transition a secret from parents: 'Very definition of child predatory sexual grooming''
'Best economy ever! One third of Americans are considering skipping gift giving ALTOGETHER this holiday season'
'FBI Faces Subpoenas After Twitter Files Exposing Social Media Ties: House Republican'
'Shock Wave Hits Earth, Cracks Magnetosphere That Protects Planet From Radiation'

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How Spicy is the Samyang 2x Hot Chicken Ramen Exactly?
Twilight Imperium
'Nothing to see here, just Bill Gates explaining how we need to lower the population of earth to save the planet'
'The world is far less populated than you think. Take a look at these maps and then go make some babies.'
Charles Schulz, Creator of Peanuts, RE: A Charlie Brown Christmas
'Glenn Beck: Did the CIA just give away its role in JFK's assassination?'
'Reno Mayor Files Lawsuit After Discovering Tracking Device On Her Vehicle'

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Psalm 1, and the blessed man regarding God's Law
'Key federal permit issued for $2 billion Northern Colorado reservoir project'
'The New York Times is trying to normalize husbands and wives "living apart together." Please, married couples, don't do this.'
'Scarlett Johansson Claims She Was ‘Groomed’ For ‘Bombshell’ Roles Early On'
'Greeley-Evans School District 6 Board of Education meeting stopped twice, adjourns early due to disruptions during public comment'
'Middle School Teacher Forced To Resign After Refusing To Call Students By Their Preferred Pronouns'
'You just cannot imagine how SCREWED you are': Jordan Peterson's warning leaves host visibly shaken'

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Historical Context of the Nativity

God’s covenant with Israel

o The Promised Land was given to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the Jews would be Yahweh’s people, and Yahweh would be their God.

o However, Israel was disobedient, and worshipped other gods, and did many other wicked things besides, so God then handed Judah and Israel over to their enemies.

Babylonian Captivity

o The Assyrians captured the northern kingdom of Judah in 721 BC; the Babylonians conquered Israel in 597 BC; both of these events came to pass just as God had sent the prophets to forewarn and promise the people.

o With these two successive conquests, of Judah and Israel, many Jews were killed, or carried into foreign lands, or fled, or else were ruled over in their ancestral homeland by foreigners.

o The Babylonians and Assyrians both were conquered and subsumed by the Achaemenid Persian empire.

Hellenization

o With Alexander the Great’s defeat of the Persians, his empire took possession of Judea.

o After the death of Alexander, four of his generals divided the empire, and the part containing what had formerly been Israel was ruled by the Seleucids starting in 281 BC.

o The Seleucid King Antiochus Epiphanes, ruling from 175-164 BC, persecuted the Jews, desecrating the temple in Jerusalem, and forcing the high priest and other devout Jews to eat pork, which they were forbidden to do.

o This led to what was known as the Maccabean revolt in 167-160 BC, in which the Jews led by a certain warrior group called the Maccabees drove the Seleucids out, and established nominal Jewish self-government in the region again from about 110-63 BC.

o A characteristic of this government, called the Hasmonean dynasty, was a reduction in the influence of both Hellenism and Hellenistic Judaism.

Roman Conquest

o The Hasmoneans were conquered by the Roman general Pompeius in 63 BC, thus ending, until modern times, meaningful Jewish self-rule.

o As a client kingdom of the Roman empire, particularly under Herod the Great after the Roman Senate declared him “King of the Jews” in 37 BC, Judea was effectively under Roman rule.

Herod the Great

o As a vassal of the Roman empire, Herod got his position because of his father’s close relationship with the Roman general and dictator Julius Caesar.

o To give you an idea of how ruthless he was, his mother-in-law was a part of the Hasmonean dynasty, and plotted at one point to restore the former dynasty to power by installing Aristobulus III, a member of her family, as the high priest, then sending him off to meet with Mark Antony, who was then in the midst of fighting a civil war with Octavian over who would be the Roman emperor after the assassination of Julius Caesar.

§ Herod was just so sure Aristobulus III would replace him as King of the Jews if he met with Antony that he arranged for the assassination of Aristobulus.

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Andrew Garfield, President?
Dating Before 2020, Dating in 2021
Twitter Files Part V
Luggage Theft Leads to Sam Brinton Firing
Jean-Pierre Calls Disgusting and Incredibly Dangerous Elon Musk Suggestion that Fauci Be Prosecuted
Judean Date Palms - Wikipedia
Roman Censors - Wikipedia
Herod the Great - Wikipedia

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Digital News Report 2021, Reuters Institute and University of Oxford
The Fourth Installment Of ‘The Twitter Files’ Is Released, Ryan Saavedra, The Daily Wire
Elon Musk Takes Aim At Dr. Fauci In Cryptic Wee-Hours Tweet, Greg Wilson, The Daily Wire
Federal court blocks Biden administration from forcing Christian doctors to perform transsexual mutilation surgeries, Joseph MacKinnon, The Blaze
A man in Australia just returned a book to a school library that his grandfather checked out 120 years ago, Harriet Rigby, Not the Bee
Partisan, Google, Oxford Languages
Year Zero, Wikipedia

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Nursing homes in Montana are closing this year, and I keep hearing about it from Billings Gazette. The latest one in Miles City makes eleven so far in 2022. And presumably the elderly and otherwise incapable of caring for themselves cannot be taken in by family, or else they wouldn't be in nursing homes. Right?

Of course right. Don't ask such triggering questions. You should know better.

Also, you must celebrate WNBA player Brittney Griner being traded for the Russian "Merchant of Death." If you object, or question, or express disapproval, you run the risk of being called a bigot of any one or more of several varieties. And you don't want that kind of trouble, do you?

Oh, while you're at it. Do make sure to mourn that Arizona Senator Krysten Sinema just announced she's leaving the Democratic party and registering as an Independent instead. Shame on her. I'm not sure why, but this is probably a threat to Democracy. Someone should follow her into a bathroom with cameras again and see if they can persuade her to change her mind. It's worth a shot.

Thankfully, "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty," is both merciful to the penitent, and also just toward the stubborn and stiff-necked.

But that brings us to the rather less comfortable question of whether we Americans have become a stiff-necked people.

Enter Thomas F. Booher and Brad Littlejohn, writing for The Tulip Driven Life and Ad Fontes, respectively. Again and again, it seems, we come back to this issue of what to do about so-called "Christian nationalism," including the preliminary, and entirely routine, attempts to define both "Christian" and "nationalism" to exclude the unorthodox, and distance ones self from the heterodox.

But let us do also spend some time on the curious case of Cameron Bretuzzi, of Capturing Christianity. Less than a month ago he sat down with Matt Fradd of Pints With Aquinas to discuss his conversion from de facto Protestantism to Roman Catholicism.

Other than the architecture and art, what's the draw? Perhaps this: that some people do just want to be told what to do, think, feel, and believe.

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Standup comedian Yannis Papa says young men should probably marry a Republican woman. And I agree, particularly given his stated reasons regarding the rearing of any children you might have.

On a related note, WLWT in Cincinnati reports on after-school 'Satan club' in Ohio public schools. Have I mentioned my book recently?

And This Is Why We Homeschool.

By the way, speaking of kids who can't read good and also want to learn how to do other things too, Joseph Curl is of the opinion that Ticketmaster biffing the sale of concert access to Taylor Swift fans may just have convinced Generation Zoomer of the value of competition and the free market.

And while we're on the topic of reading, you really need to take a good, long look at the highlights from this week's installment of the "Twitter files."

In the second batch, we see more of how the social media giant used tools originally developed to combat the sexual exploitation of children online to censor conservative commentators and other such individuals instead.

In the third part, we see more of the internal dialogue as even mere days prior to the 2020 election the censors at Twitter silenced not just journalists, but also the then-President of the United States, Donald Trump.

On the bright side, folks like me weren't crazy. Nor were we making things up, or reading too much into this or that.

Some parting words of wisdom: fear God, not man. Then marry a conservative, and love them well. Then have children with them, and homeschool those children. Train them up in the fear and instruction of the Lord.

And study to show yourselves approved workmen. Let your reasonableness be plain and evident to all. Pursue good stewardship of what God has blessed you with, and keep the faith.

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And This Is Why We Homeschool

The Epoch Times: Kari Lake Responds to Judge Who Sanctioned Her Legal Team in Lawsuit
The Daily Wire: ‘The Twitter Files’ Compromised After Lawyer Involved In The Controversy Was Behind Vetting The Files
The Denver Post: After narrowly winning reelection, will Lauren Boebert tone down her rhetoric?
The Greeley Tribune: (Opinion) Other Voices: Don’t let Alex Jones hide
The Wall Street Journal - Iran Considers Easing Some Restrictions on Women as Protests Continue
Demonstrators call for a mass rally in Tehran, businesses close at the start of a three-day strike

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Russia Balks As G7, European Union Implement Oil Price Cap; Facebook Owner Meta Could Remove News From The Platform If Congress Passes Controversial Bill; The Blaze: 'Don't trust mainstream media': Conservative author Douglas Murray and journalist Matt Taibbi win over hostile crowd, demolish media defenders in fierce debate; Not the Bee: Georgia sheepdog kills eight coyotes in epic battle after pack attacks his sheep.--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/garrett-ashley-mullet/messageSupport this podcast: https://anchor.fm/garrett-ashley-mullet/support

When I talk about how good it would be if God's Word informed our government on a more meaningful level, it feels as though what certain people are really hearing is the "Right to Jail" guy from Parks and Recreation. Every minor infraction of good morals should be met with jailtime or the death penalty, if I get my way.

Only that's not what I'm arguing for. On the contrary, something along the lines of James Woods suing the Democratic National Convention for contacting Twitter to remove his posts on false pretenses - that is what I have in mind. Such damaged Woods' reputation and brand, when his posts risked the election chances of Leftist candidates, or called for cleanup of corruption in our government. He says he was blacklisted, also, as were other Hollywood conservatives who followed him.

But if the United States government were more consciously conforming, and expected to conform, to God's Word, individuals like James Woods would not have their first amendment rights infringed, even as their own reputations are destroyed, for calling to account government officials and political parties. So also, abortion would be illegal, and there would be no "gay marriage," nor would we be debating whether to normalize and celebrate transgenderism. And probably many other things would be different in a great way as well.

I do have something against James Woods, though. That is, he told Tucker Carlson last week that John Adams was 19 when the Declaration of Independence was signed, and that these were teenagers who founded this country. Well, that's not quite true. John Adams was 40. And most of the other signers were in their 30's and 40's.

Yet in double-checking his claim - which was almost certainly a slip of the tongue, by the way, conflating John Adams and James Monroe - I learned that nearly every signer of the Declaration of Independence was married either once or twice, and 16 of them had as many children as I have, or more. And if this were true of our government today, that there were more younger men in it with large families, I think that also would contribute to better government.

The best that can be said for the FBI in all this is that they apparently know better than to leave a paper trail with Big Tech, when asking for the censorship of private citizens on behalf of the DNC, using tools that were originally developed to combat terrorism and the sexual exploitation of children.

Let us remember, as we read reports of former Twitter executives bemoaning that Elon Musk is putting them in harm’s way by telling the truth, that Joe Biden repeatedly denied the legitimacy of Hunter Biden's laptop. Keep in mind, when we shrug about election interference and corruption in the U.S., that Twitter may have interfered in other countries as well, like Brazil.

Is this state of affairs really preferable to aspiring to a more Christian union? I can't see how.

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With the cancel culture of recent years, plus the #MeToo movement, plus all the talk of Woke ESG investing, and Chinese-style Social Credit Scores potentially going global, or coming to the U.S., and Big Tech dialing down the democratization of information on behalf of repressive regimes, there is no question that we have some work to do on thinking rightly about reputation.

How important ours is to us, for instance? This question may sometimes lead us into temptation, to compromise about what we otherwise know to be true and good, in the interest of being spoken well of by men. Of that we must beware.

On the other hand, there is a legitimacy to considering optics, and the relationship between what people see and what they get.

As Proverbs 22:1 says, "A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold."

In some sense, this means we only care so much what people think of us. Yet maybe it is clearer to say that it translates into emphasizing that we do not take bribes. Yes, the person trying to grease our palms may think and speak ill of us as a result for a time; but we will have a better reputation, and more holistically, with the folks who really matter.

It's just like how the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8:20-21, "We take this course so that no one should blame us about this generous gift that is being administered by us, for we aim at what is honorable not only in the Lord’s sight but also in the sight of man." And when the question of reputation is framed that way, all the necessary safeguards are in place to keep us from veering either to the right or left, since the first priority is to do what is honorable in God's eyes.

Take note, that is not to say that we hold in contempt what others think. On the contrary, the phrase "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind" comes to mind as le mot juste to convey neither too much, nor too little, nor in the wrong place, or at an inopportune time, or for the wrong reasons, putting stock in our reputation. Rather, we care the right amount, and take the long view.

Doing what is right, and honorable, and saying only what is true, God is glorified. So also, those around us are honored and served well. And alongside this, not in opposition to it, we can have a good testimony and name. And that is an exceedingly valuable thing, just as it is written.

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Kanye West has been kicked off Twitter again for expressing increasingly anti-Jewish, pro-Nazi sentiments. Before that, he stormed off the set of Tim Pool’s podcast, and also answered a question from Alex Jones on his show in a pretty crazy way.

This has me thinking. What do we mean by comparing opinions, beliefs, arguments, behavior, and lifestyles to "normal"? What do we mean by that term?

At a bare minimum, we have to admit that the utility is limited, or changing, in relation to how much is it really worth to say that this or that is or is not normal, when more and more people are unhealthy, or believing things that are not true, or doing things that are not good.

Normalcy, then, may have some value in a prudential sense. That is, there is a practical benefit to noting what is common, regular, or popular. And yet we must aim higher than just doing what everyone else is doing, or saying what everyone else is saying.

As G.K. Chesterton once put it in 'The Everlasting Man,' “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”

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Home prices may soon plunge by 15-20%, and the number of Americans making a habit of concealed carrying handguns doubled between 2015-2019. That is, we are fast entering a circumstance and condition here in the U.S. which sees not just more sin, but also more temptation to sin, as economic trouble combines with social strife to produce conflict and consternation.

For instance, we may be tempted to brag about how much better at self improvement we are, or we might call ourselves and our friends "10's." Or we might dress up as the opposite gender for a year, and then kill ourselves when the reality is too awful and disturbing.

What we know for sure is that there is a great deal of wickedness and pain in the world, because of sin. And yet, as Christians, we know that Jesus was tempted with sin during his incarnation. And we further know that Christ resisted that temptation, and remained sinless, just as it is written.

But could our Lord have ever even possibly sinned? Or did he entirely lack the capability to sin by nature of his being God?

Back in 2012, R.C. Sproul and Sinclair Ferguson discussed the impeccability or peccability of Christ. That is what you call the two positions on this question. But they explained that their conclusion is that, in order to actually have been tempted in every respect as we are, as Hebrews says, Christ had to have been able to give into the temptation to sin. He must have been capable of actually sinning to have been actually tempted as we are.

To deny this by emphasizing the divinity of Christ is, Ferguson fears, to verge on the ancient heresy of Docetism, saying that it only appeared as though Christ was fully man, but that this could not have been in conjunction with his full deity.

On the other hand, Christ the Center, a podcast put out by Reformed Forum, put out a lengthy discussion on this topic back in 2018, and they came to just the opposite conclusion. Christ could not possibly have sinned, and did not even have the ability to sin, but was only tempted externally in all ways as we are; he was never tempted internally in the way we are. That is, his heart and mind were never really tempted, since that would depend on, and indicate, a sinful nature.

Whereas Sproul and Ferguson perceive a risk of Docetism in holding to impeccability, Christ the Center expresses concern that our belief in the hypostatic union is in jeopardy if we can envision a scenario in which the second person of the trinitarian God could have sinned, and been truly separated from the other two persons of the trinity.

So who is right, and who is mistaken? Which of these two views is most correct?

Though I favor Sproul and Ferguson's, my fallback once again is that God is ultimately incomprehensible, and that we cannot know and understand him as fully as we ourselves are knowable, though we can know Him in what He has revealed clearly about Himself.

This is also a factor of His holiness, that He is set apart and other than us. His ways are not our ways. But what is not up for debate is that Christ was sinless. That much is quite clear. And so, in some sense, the crucially important piece is known here, that our Savior is perfect and without blemish in a way we could not have been, but also in a way that makes it actually possible for us to become so as well.

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Mark David Hall, invited to speak recently to The Institute on Religion & Democracy by Mark Tooley on The "Threat" of Christian Nationalism, takes the position that, as defined by the critics, so-called "Christian nationalism" is largely a bogeyman term designed to shame conservative American Christians into not trying to influence politics and the public debate in the U.S.

No one was calling themselves this, Hall points out, prior to the relatively recent push to stigmatize Trump voters and supporters as something nefarious, dangerous, and virulently racist.

Doug Wilson and Stephen Wolfe are imprudent for embracing the term, in his view. Yet he recognizes that those with post-millennial eschatology are typically more likely to shrug about being called this ugly thing. For their part, they may be unwise, but they are basically harmless, and certainly not an existential threat to America’s constitutional order or the church. And, in any event, Christian nationalism should be rejected because, for one thing, it’s unconstitutional, and Congress can’t endorse one religion over another; and for another thing, it’s unbiblical, since we should only do unto others as we want them to do unto us.

Respectfully, I think this a rather superficial incorporation of Christian faith into political engagement. What would be more robust would be expanding his reference of Abraham Lincoln as not saying God is on our side. The rest of what Lincoln said is that we want to be on God’s side, since God is always right.

The Carl Henry Institute for Evangelical Engagement also recently produced a panel discussion. Titled Baptists and Religious Liberty, and featuring Matt Emerson, Cory Higdon, Jonathan Leeman, Joe Rigney, and Andrew Walker, the breadth and depth of the subject is discussed through historical, political, philosophical, theological, and pastoral lenses.

Baptists have been persecuted in centuries past for being non-conformists, and have long advocated for religious liberty as a result. Yet religious liberty has to be framed within a particular context, and we want to avoid the error of presentism, and the temptation to colonize the past.

Similarly, Leeman offers an excellent framing of the current situation for conservative American Protestants. On the one hand, you have what he calls the Helm’s Deep approach to accepting the new redefinition of religious liberty, popularized under Barrack Obama, as Christians needing to butt out of everyone else's private moral framework. On the other hand, we have those who are harkening back to the more historic Protestant Magisterium.

Joe Rigney, for his part, argues this latter view. All the various spheres of legitimate authority instituted by God - the family, the church, and the state - are instituted for our benefit. Moreover, all three spheres can know this is their job from God, and they can attest openly to their knowing it, all without crossing the line from governing behavior to legislating belief.

But Leeman featured in another similar debate recently, at Colorado Christian University. Facing off against Bradford Littlejohn, founder of The Davenant Institute, on Religious Liberty and the Common Good, Leeman comes out strongly against government along the lines of the "First Tabularians," or Christians who want government to legislate according to the first table of the Ten Commandments.

At the end of the day, it turns out the whole business really comes down to how we feel Constantine affected the purity and testimony of Christian life, for good or ill. The Helm's Deep crowd believes it was for the worse.

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Carl Trueman, in his response to David French's recent call for compromise with the Left on The Respect for Marriage Act, and his subsequent further explanation of why his position on gay marriage has evolved like Barrack Obama's, shares an especially astute observation:

"It is now clear that orthodox Protestants, specifically evangelicals, do not own the country. Whether they ever did is a matter for debate; that they thought they did is indisputable."

Yet setting aside, for the moment, what is or is not debatable or disputed, on Thanksgiving Day, in the year of our Lord, 2022, I watched Last of the Mohicans with my wife and kids for the first time.

And, by the way, according to respondents among my family and friends on Facebook, Last of the Mohicans is indeed a Thanksgiving movie. And I think the reason for that has a lot to do with the period in which the story is set, 1757, one generation prior to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and the founding of the United States of America.

In a story of the French and Indian War, we see the War for Independence coming down the pike. As American colonials grow once-and-for-all tired of being treated as disposable pawns in the wars of Old World monarchs and their empires, what is most important to the American colonists is a very simple thing: the ability to protect and provide for their own wives and children.

British Colonel George Munro, as a stand-in for King George II, is loathe to release the militiamen, even when reports come back to their fort that farms and cabins are being attacked, and families are being murdered by the indigenous allies of France. The most important thing to Munro is protecting the interests of the British crown in America. He can't spare the men, he says.

But then the fort falls anyway. So what was the point?

Some contemporaries will say the point was all just sinful man killing and being killed, and there's no sense to any of it. I beg to differ.

So also, I dissent with an establishment figure like French who, well connected and established as a commentator the way he is, concludes the fears of what would come from Obergefell v. Hodges have proven unfounded. Religious liberty has won several victories at the Supreme Court. Therefore, we should content ourselves to only that, and no more, and leave behind forever talk of disrupting gay marriages and homosexual families. To do otherwise would upset our non-Christian neighbors, and they might further encroach on our religious liberty, and not like us very much.

Yet French seems to me as detached and distant from the practical realities of frontier life as many of the aristocrats in mid-18th century Europe were to what was being unleashed on American colonists. This or that course may eat into the crown's holdings, or what income is gotten from indentured servants on rental properties in the New World.

French's concern is far from existential for him or his friends in a timely peace which preserves the suitably profitable status quo. An ongoing struggle, though? Anything might happen.

Trueman is right, then, that orthodox Protestants clearly do not own America. Yet one can't help but feel, when reading the likes of David French, as though his kind of Protestant does lay claim to America in a way they also don't believe men like me ever should. But if that is the case, it's just as well, I suppose. Turnabout is fair play, and the feeling is mutual.

Men like me don't think men like French should hold our forts in the New World.

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It's Thanksgiving Day in the U.S., and that has me wondering how our attitude toward thanking God for what we have relates to several sundry items which have had my attention the last week or so.

First, Paul writes in the New Testament, in his letter to the church at Philippi, that we ought to make our reasonableness conspicuously public. He also tells us not to be anxious. Instead, we should think about whatever things are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, and praiseworthy, and present all our requests to God with prayer and thanksgiving.

But I think if we would do that more, on Thanksgiving and all other days, the Overton window would much more closely align with what is true, beautiful, and good. And this is largely because the Biblical pattern is not to reason from top to bottom, humanly speaking. We reason from God's character and revealed will to our reality, yes, and there is a top to bottom quality to that. But when it comes to our efforts, and how we work, it is from the ground up, quite literally.

From the dust we were made. To the dust we will return.

This is to say that we find the Biblical pattern is parochialism. Faithfulness with little things, and only after such fidelity is established are we entrusted with bigger and brighter things. Thus also the Biblical pattern is very conservative.

By the way, speaking of Christian conservatism, Paul also wrote in the New Testament, to the church at Thessalonica, to aspire live quietly, minding our own business, and working with our hands. But he did not leave unspoken his reasons, which were to the end of having a good testimony with non-Christians, and also being materially independent.

This is the best definition of the saying "all politics is local" I've come across to-date, by the way.

Some will doubtless accuse me, on this point, of trying to immanentize the eschaton. Yet I would direct their attention to better candidates for that charge, like the Woke, and also transhumanists, and also Democrats more generally.

But I'm not trying to bring about heaven on earth. I just think we would be living better in light of eternity, and what God has revealed in His Word, if we were applying the truth of God's Word to the problem of lessening labor participation among able-bodied men in America.

Similarly, I suspect there is a root we could testify to in the findings of the Hebrew University study which found that American male sperm counts have dropped 51% since 1973, and that the drop is accelerating.

So also, God is not silent on problems like the one recently reported on in an American literature course at Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn, where juniors were given a very rudimentary assignment on Goldilocks and the three bears.

How this all relates to Thanksgiving is that we must believe the good gifts we have in life are actually from God in order to thank Him for them. Otherwise, we might as well call this 'Turkey Day,' like others do.

"Thanks For Nothing Day" would be more honest for too many, sure. But we must not think that way.

As the Almighty promises in Psalms 50:23, “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!”

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Klaus Schwab recently delivered a keynote address at the 2022 G20 and B20 shindig in Indonesia on the transition into a multi-polar world, as opposed to the world we've been living in where the United States has been the pre-eminent superpower.

Starting right around the 2:00 mark, Schwab talks about the fundamental restructuring of the world which needs to be embraced to the end of engineering a bright new future. Yet he admits that all is not so rosy. Schwab talks about the restructuring of the global economy leading to a reduction of income, and therefore the standard of living of regular men and women. Such, they know, is increasing social tension - though not for Schwab, it seems.

One could hardly find a more opposite vision to what Make America Great Again has been about, by the way. And pay attention to who is on board with this, including especially the politicians and corporations here in America who think this is grand for all the same reasons they hate Trump and the folks who've voted for and supported him.

For those inclined to dismiss such diatribes as conspiracy theory, do note that Schwab being allowed to speak at all at the G20 and B20 summit does say something of his clout, and the widespread acceptance of his ideas. And note then that he says explicitly that their goal requires both government and business being on board. Thus you will make sense of ESG scores and corporations going woke, even when it costs them dearly in their sales revenue and share prices.

But what is the G20? And what is the B20? Only this: they are the largest economies and companies in the world, governing one way or another most of the people and wealth on planet Earth.

Schwab, for his part, is a German engineer, economist, author, and founder of the World Economic Forum, and has been the chairman of that organization since 1971. But you can’t make up his German accent. As many have pointed out, he sounds just like a supervillain from a James Bond film - not just because of the accent, but also because it's paired with the kind of euphemistically articulated megalomaniacal aspirations to godhood we've come to expect of the baddies featured by Ian Fleming type works.

If you ask me, Schwab may as well be a supervillain from a James Bond film. In fact, I’m not so sure he isn't one. Maybe this is the real reason why the release of 'No Time To Die' was delayed.

But when he talks about using the Metaverse to facilitate global dialogue, and that toward the stated goal of “a more inclusive world," we should understand by now that this is code for you and I being further pressured to affirm and tolerate things we don’t believe are true or right. Moreover, the power of global governance and economic constraint will be brought to bear as convincing if we're reluctant.

Sustainability is also code. It's a stand-in for the promise we will endure arbitrary redistributions of all our wealth and power - after men like Schwab take their very sizeable cuts, of course. In his case, that cut is currently a salary of over $1 million per year. But that is for the greater good, clearly. Not like yours and my wages.

By all means, let them take care of the planet if you want to. Just know that's a front for a one world government. And like the bust of Lenin on the shelf behind Schwab in this film from 2019, this intended global governance is distinctly communistic.

Mercifully, there's something stronger than supervillains bent on reshaping the world in their image. The power of love, which God has extended to us in Christ, and which those who belong to God reflect back in turn - not only in word, but also in deeds, and efforts which are both concentrated and sustained on building and conserving what is true, beautiful, and good.

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Casey DeSantis starred in a heartwarming campaign ad during the run-up to the Florida governor’s race several weeks ago, and it really was an excellent thing. There's just something to the look in her eyes, and the expression on her face, that seems very genuinely admiring of her husband, Ron DeSantis, as she describes how she knows him as her husband, and the father of their children.

And so I say that having a better, healthier example of marriage, and a young family, in the White House would do America a whole lot of good, far more than many of us realize.

Many say President Trump is strong on the economy. And they're right. But what, pray tell, is upstream of the economy? Simply put, the resounding answer is both marriage and family.

Along these lines, when Florida Republicans were polled recently, and asked about both DeSantis and Trump, the results weren’t even close. Many more would prefer DeSantis running as the Republican nominee or president in 2024, given what we’ve seen and heard from him thus far.

What really caught my eye in the results, though, was who Florida Republicans believe would be a better moral example, and who our young people would be better served to see in the White House for four years. The answer was DeSantis, and for good reasons.

On the other hand, I watched My Dinner With Trump on DailyWire+ last week, and it was a good look for Trump and the members of his administration who were present. To see how their conversation sounds, and what the back and forth over a dinner goes like - it makes me think it would not be the worst thing to have them back again.

But Andrew Klavan is also right in something he said the day before yesterday. That is, there’s a wager being made on both ends of the American political spectrum, that the Left being driven so crazy by Trump will gin up support and votes.

Most folks want Trump just because he’s so upsetting to people they do, or don’t, like. And this is why the Left not-so-secretly wants Trump to win the nomination. It is precisely because they don’t want him to be President.

More than that, I think the Left wants Trump to be the nominee because they don’t want any Republican to be president, least of all Ron DeSantis.

But Chuck Schumer says we need to grant citizenship to countless millions of illegal immigrants because not enough Americans are having babies. I have a better idea. Let’s go the whole way on repealing Roe v. Wade, and enact a national ban on abortion. Thereafter, let's force the Democrats to stop encouraging kids to become transgendered, or homosexual. And then we'll encourage young people to grow up, get married, and have children of their own instead.

Whether Matt Walsh thinks it's possible - and he doesn't - the United States Supreme Court should overturn Obergefell v. Hodges anyway. It was a bad decision to begin with, and we all ought to want it to go away. The sooner the better.

Anything is possible at this point. After all, how many of us thought Roe v. Wade could be overturned in our lifetime? And yet it was.

Take note that "The Respect for Marriage Act" advanced in the United States Senate with the help of 12 Republicans. Nix that. Prove that you respect marriage by supporting legislation to encourage traditional marriage and the raising of families.

Just so, it would set our country on a better path, and a stronger economy, to have a strong example of marriage and family in the White House. And I think DeSantis would provide that, and then some. That is who Ron DeSantis is, after all.

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Trump announces he’s running for president again in 2024, pointing out the economy was good and strong for everyone when he was in the White House. There was also peace through strength then, despite predictions we'd have nuclear war on his watch. Rivals and enemies abroad were kept in check.

He kept his promises, and that made America strong, free, and glorious. Now he promises we will be a great nation again, despite our now being in decline with Biden and the radical Left ascendant.

We were energy independent during Trump's four years in office. Moreover, we were headed for energy dominance. Biden, by contrast, cancelled our pipelines, and made it harder for permitting to be approved for new oil and gas industry projects. Biden has also drained our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which Trump had filled, to keep gas prices low so Democrats can win elections, even as he goes to countries that hate America, asking them to produce the oil and gas he’s made it harder for America to produce for herself. But Trump pledges to end Biden’s war on American oil and gas.

He also points out that Ukraine and Afghanistan would have never happened on his watch. Biden, by contrast, falls asleep in conferences, and calls entire countries the wrong name in public. And British parliament held Biden in contempt for our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Nevertheless, Trump addresses the underwhelming Republican performance in the midterm elections, and admits much of the blaming of Republicans is fair. But he doesn’t get into specifics. Instead, he emphasizes that many Americans don’t realize how bad things have gotten. They haven’t felt enough pain yet. But they will, in the next two years, realize they need him back.

In the meantime, Republicans did retake the House of Representatives, as well as winning 5 million more votes than Democrats overall. Yet the task of making America great again is not for politicians, but for the American people, who must recognize the need for more than complaining when hard work and a strong economy are the preconditions for our nation flourishing. It’s not enough to be a critic. It's time to roll up our sleeves.

Trump blames COVID coming from China for interrupting America rediscovering her greatness, and he talks about his Remain in Mexico policy, the border wall, and trade deals negotiated shrewdly. They completed the wall, or were close to completing the wall; but Biden ordered the dismantling of that project.

Trump deals in hyperbole, but he’s often right generally. He talks about defending the borders of other countries, but not our own border, then pledges to help Democrat-run cities with their crime problem, whether they want help or not. He calls them cesspools of blood, and talks about trying to send in resources from 2016-2020, only to be rebuffed.

Now he proposes the death penalty for drug dealers and those caught selling drugs, since 500 people on average are killed per drug dealer. He also talks favorably about quick trials for drug dealers in China, and same-day executions. Singapore doesn’t have a drug problem. Why should we?

But public schools that teach Critical Race Theory will lose federal funding. And men will no longer be participating in women’s sports.

So also, Trump will rescind Biden’s COVID mandates, and rehire those who were fired, and give them an apology and full backpay.

He was a victim of the FBI paying for lies against him, after all. Their politically motivated targeting and harassment of him put his family and associates through hell. So he'll push for legislation to enact term limits for members of Congress, as well as banning insider trading for members of Congress. And we will have same-day voting, and only paper ballots, and all the votes will be counted on election night.

All will be well again. Right?

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As is my tradition, this being our five-hundredth episode, let's recap the last hundred episodes, and draw out some observations and take-aways.

Average podcast length doesn’t seem to be much of a factor. The highlights - or ten most popular episodes - are almost three times as popular as the lowlights; yet the most popular episodes are 10% longer.

What's more, I had two episodes over 2 hours long – one about Doug Wilson, and one about the Montana Free Press expose of the JD Hall situation. And these were my longest podcast episodes to-date by a long shot. But, interestingly, listenership did not seem to be adversely affected. That likely is due to subject matter.

Contrasting the single most popular episode with the very least, there were over four times as many listens when I talked about a Biblical word study centered on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s song ‘Simple Man' compared with the Battle of Bannockburn and what the Southern Poverty Law Center found in polling Americans about their attitudes toward the legitimacy of political assassination as an instrument of change or saving the country.

The difference between the top and bottom ten episodes is, on average, a factor of two to four.

Lynyrd Skynyrd, G.K. Chesterton, Sinclair Ferguson, David Morrill, Doug Wilson, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, AD Robles, Jon Harris, and JD Hall - the names of notable men crop up in the most popular episodes. And there does seem to be something to focusing on a particular character that seems to highlight and make more interesting the exploration of more general truths and principles.

Meanwhile, Christian nationalism, Christian unity, Christian universalism, and the election are recurring themes in the least popular episodes. And, yes, names crop up in some of these as well, but not as many. Only Jonathan Leeman, Herschel Walker, Raphael Warnock, and Joe Rogan mentioned. But most of these are less well known in relation to the question of theology, ecclesiology, or Christian political philosophy, and that is probably decisive for many of you in whether you tune in.

As usual, there is a three month difference, on average, between when the top and bottom 10% of episodes were published, with the older episodes getting more plays over time.

From July to October, we went from more summertime cares and concerns to either wanting to deep-dive into election news and analysis, or desperately wanting to have the election over so we could move on with normal life again. And this too is meaningful, since it speaks to a kind of growing weariness which we do well to think about and be intentional regarding.

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Agur son of Jakeh, described in Proverbs 30 as simply "the oracle," says there are three or four things that really blow his mind.

*"Three things are too wonderful for me;

four I do not understand:

the way of an eagle in the sky,

the way of a serpent on a rock,

the way of a ship on the high seas,

and the way of a man with a virgin."*

In watching The Joe Rogan Experience #1895 - Matt Walsh, it seems there are a few things that are too wonderful for Rogan, and a few more that he just doesn't understand.

For instance, he says relationships in our society are in a bad condition, not because of gay marriage, but because of high divorce rates and failed marriages. But Rogan doesn’t see how gay marriage harms heterosexual married couples. And to that I would say that in so far as society will get more of what it affirms and celebrates, we will get fewer marriages to the extent cultural support for marriage decreases.

But Rogan doesn’t see why a gay or lesbian couple shouldn’t be allowed to adopt. And his blind spot is pretty clearly the relational and developmental malnourishment – spiritually, mentally, and emotionally – which Walsh is speaking to when he says a father and mother each make valuable and irreplaceable contributions in the rearing of children. But Rogan doesn’t pick up on the point, and why is that?

Rogan also doesn’t understand why the point and purpose of marriage should be procreation. Instead, he recognizes that we are devaluing the marriages of couples who do not have children if we say the point of marriage is to have children. But why, if he sees that, does he miss Walsh's point about heterosexual marriage?

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If there is a correlation here in these dynamics, it works in both directions. But if this does not work in one direction, it does not work in the other.

I think anyone who holds to Rogan's combination of positions is stubbornly wishcasting. What else can we conclude when someone insists on the correlation being causation so long as we get what we want and avoid what we don’t want? What other explanation makes sense when someone denies the causal link only when it is inconvenient to our desires?

Yet Rogan returns again and again to the question of “But what if they want this?” Or, “But what if they don’t want that?” Yet I would point out the question he does not ask. Even as he is acutely preoccupied with what we want, he is not at all asking about what God wants.

Thankfully, Matt Walsh's parents told him and his siblings they would have their back when they attended public school growing up. If they got in trouble with teachers or administrators for doing what was right, or telling what was true, they would not be in trouble when they got home. And this, I think, is what we ought to credit our knowing Walsh's name to - that his parents were more concerned with goodness and truth than they were with going along to get along.

That might not be the way of an eagle in the sky, or a serpent on a rock, or a ship on the high seas. But that is part and parcel of the way of a man with a virgin in the best sense. And that is the way of a worldview and approach to culture building that is fertile rather than sterile.

Speaking of fertility, what's up with women on birth control being more attracted to men with less masculine features? Is this a part of the puzzle we've given too little attention to? I think it might just be.

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The Affair of the Sausages in 1522 was the event that launched the Protestant Reformation in Zurich, Switzerland, when Huldrych Zwingli preached a sermon arguing in favor of Christian liberty where eating meat during Lent was concerned. This has me thinking Reformation Day needs to emphasize more the eating of meat in celebration. Drinking beer would also be appropriate, since Luther's wife was a brewer. So also, let's reenact the nailing of the Ninety-five Theses to the church doors - after updating it, of course.

Among the things I think we need to object to is the insufficiently rigorous Biblical teaching regarding sex and marriage, and how thankful we should each be for the great blessing it is to be born male or female. What I'm getting at is the need to get ahead of stories like Sinead Watson's, which was recently told to independent journalist Andy Ngo.

In her early twenties, Sinead began hormone therapy and elective surgery to live a new life as a man. Now that she has attempted to transition back to being a woman again, she lives with health problems, like bladder issues and a lack of sensation in her chest, where a double mastectomy removed her breasts.

So what is a woman? And what is a man? Matt Walsh recently sat down with Joe Rogan to discuss these and other related questions. And I don't particularly care that Walsh got the number of gender transition regimens undertaken wrong. The point is that Christians must not affirm in even one such story as Sinead's the folly and self-destruction inherent to sinning against nature and defiling our bodies so.

But we must go farther, I think. The exit polls show Generation Z voted for Democrats over Republicans by over 28 points. Meanwhile, 68% of unmarried women voted Democrat, compared with the 37% who voted for Republicans.

This is not to say we should celebrate women getting married and having children so they'll vote for the Grand Old Party. It is to say that a comprehensive strategy for conservative revival and reformation in America must involve every area of life in order to be successful, since this is a package deal, and we must both regard and treat it as such.

First, we need to get right with God through faith in our Lord, Jesus Christ. Subsequently, we need to embrace the virtues of men being masculine and women being feminine. After that, our young women and men need to be strongly encouraged to tie the knot. And lastly, these young couples ought to be thrown enthusiastic parades and parties when they bear children to train up in the fear and instruction of the Lord, since those are sorely needed right now.

From where I'm sitting, the abandonment of faithfulness to God, marriage, and parenting is how we got into this social and political quagmire. Thus it stands to reason that the way back out again will be found in reviving our faith in, and commitment to, all of the above, in this order.

This, then, is a cultural project. No two ways about it. But that's what the church is for. And that's what the church needs to be about.

If some smoked sausage and beer will help us gin up the courage to remind our local churches of that fact, it's worth however many numbered and nailed theses we need to spell it out, because it's time to remember that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, he who finds a wife finds a good thing, and children are a heritage from Yahweh.

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From what I’m reading, Republican control of the U.S. Senate may be decided in the Georgia run-off next month between incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock and his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker. Curious to know more about how that could go, either way, I watched the debate between Warnock and Walker, and was struck by one exchange in particular.

Warnock, who pastors at Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King, Jr. also co-pastored back in the day, says women should have the right to choose abortion because "even God gave Adam and Eve the ability to choose."

To that, Walker replied that we need to read the rest of the book to learn that God told us to choose life.

This, then, brings us back again to the question of what "Christian nationalism" is. And you can check out this CT article from last year by Paul D. Miller for more on why I can't quite take it seriously. Or, by contrast, read also this piece by William Galston from November 4th.

The long and short of it is that all folks like me really want politically is the freedom to be heard when we counter the likes of Raphael Warnock with "it is written," preferably without being called Nazis for doing so.

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For the past several months leading up to the 2022 midterm election here in the U.S., a red wave has been predicted. Now, the day after Election Day, the actual results are looking rather underwhelming. Though we're told it may take days or weeks for final counts, the initial press is that Republicans may have to settle for retaking the U.S. House of Representatives.

Republicans were banking on high unfavourability ratings for President Biden, plus economic troubles at home and abroad. Wokeness regarding gender and racial issues has been self-evidently bad for America. The fight against Climate Change is hurting our budgets for fuel and electricity. Inflation is out of control, depressing the standard of living for many Americans. How could Republicans not sweep the field?

The easy answer to that question has to do with the character of the American people. If that has not changed much, if at all, in the past two years, then it should not be all that surprising if the election outcomes are still coming in upside down.

Character, after all, is upstream of every step in the process. Who runs for office, and what their positions are - that is a factor of character. Whether we actively support good candidates - that is a consequence of character. Who all shows up to vote, and how they vote - that is a result of character. How we respond when cheating and dishonesty overshadow the entire process - that too is a matter of character.

Sadly, so long as our character is such that those for corruption and untruth are more passionate about winning power for themselves than those who love goodness and truth are about good government founded on sound principles, America will keep on getting what it got in 2020.

Yet this is not a call to fatalism. A pox on that. My family and friends live here, and I won't accept throwing in the towel. But the work continues, and must proceed apace, to think and act in relation to the big picture and the long-game. Even if sometimes only for an audience of one, that is enough, since we know what it profits a man to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul.

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It seems like the only commercials playing on Amazon Prime and Hulu right now, if they’re not for car insurance or other shows you could watch on those platforms, are pushing HIV meds, contraceptives, and heart conditions. Is it just us? Is it just my household? Please tell me America feels other needs besides for pharmaceutical solutions to sexually transmitted diseases, avoiding pregnancy, and not dying from myocarditis.

Speaking of heart disease, former President Trump has finally unleashed a nickname for his anticipated Republican rival for 2024, calling him 'Ron DeSanctimonious' to something like the MAGA rally equivalent of crickets, not to mention held noses and downed thumbs among conservatives on Twitter. And this is well-deserved. From everything I've seen of DeSantis over the past several years, he's an excellent governor, and would be a better choice for next President of the United States.

A quick word, then, about trying to box your political opponents out with pejoratives. Calling people and things by their name is one thing. Assassinating the character of others with falsehoods and slander, however, is quite another. Trying to trade someone's good name for an ugly one just because they may be competing with you in the near future? That's corrupt, selfish, short-sighted, and foolish. And it's liable to bring painful self-inflicted damage to your own reputation more than that of the one you're trying to bring down a few notches.

Another true thing to remember is that an untoward thing can be suspected or true of others even as a greater benefit and virtue may be found in not calling them what you might be tempted to. There are many true things that can be said. They cannot all be said simultaneously, nor do they all need to be in every circumstance. Rather, we must consider relevance and circumstance to know when a word or phrase is fitting versus when it is a distraction or undermining of otherwise profitable means and ends we should be pursuing instead.

Given our current circumstances more broadly, however, we should turn our attention to the question of how best to love our countrymen and country. Some say that to especially love America, or our fellow Americans, by virtue of their Americanness, is partiality at best, and possibly even idolatry at worst. And while rose-colored glasses about our country might be called loving it too much, I am reminded of what the Scriptures say of a father who refuses to discipline his son, that he hates him. Yet a father who loves his son will discipline him.

Thus, I conclude that there is too much in common between loving America "too much" and hating it. Much damage is done either way which impedes the righteousness which Proverbs 14 promises "exalts a nation," even as the sin which "is a reproach to any people" runs all the more rampant thereby. In both extremes, we will refuse to call for repentance when it is needed. On the one hand, we will deny that there is any sin to repent of. On the other, we will hope no repentance comes because we want to see our nation punished or even destroyed.

Are either of these attitudes of the Lord, or do either honor Him? I fail to see how, especially when they are compared with noting the sins, calling our country to repent of them, and praying for that healing and forgiveness from the Lord without which no nation or people can ever be truly blessed. It's time to seek the Lord's face, and humble ourselves, and pray that the Lord will hear us from heaven.

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Michigan’s largest newspaper fact-checked Stephen Colbert over false attack on Republican candidate for Michigan Governor, Tudor Dixon, according to reporting by Ryan Saavedra for The Daily Wire. Despite Colbert claiming Dixon made up the story, a certain former Democrat voter and candidate from Dearborn has indeed recently left the party in favor of Republicans over concerns about curriculum promoting graphic sexual immorality in the public schools.

Meanwhile, a Democrat whistleblower in Florida has come forward claiming they have evidence of two decades worth of illegal ballot harvesting and tampering near Orlando, per Harris Rigby at Not the Bee.

But NBC News just quietly retracted a report about the recent attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband at their San Francisco home within hours of having published it, according to Joseph A. Wulfsohn at Fox News. And as Daniel Payne at Not the Bee points out, someone needs to explain why their scoop contradicts the statements by both San Francisco's District Attorney and the FBI.

All this brings us back again to considering Johnathan Leeman's October 31st article at 9Marks, which I began discussing at some length in our last episode. Picking up where we left off, I note that Leeman expresses concern about the risk of creeping nominalism with Christian nationalism. Therefore, I can only assume this makes up a large part of his reason for opposing the term and movement.

Yet I will say again that all the same reasons Leeman gives for why we would abandon Christian nationalism are reasons we might abandon any and all institutions which call themselves Christian. For that matter, had the early Church thought like Leeman does, they might have rejected the term 'Christian.' That too was a pejorative originally, mockingly deriding followers of The Way as 'Little Christs.'

And some do indeed suppose we are a poor reflection on Christ's character, imperfect as we are. Yet we do not conclude, therefore, that we should not call ourselves Christians. Instead, by God's grace, we trust in God's mercies even as we endeavor to embody greater faithfulness in serving God and one another. Only thereby do we better enjoy personally the blessings of Heaven.

Leeman seems to argue that previous generations of Americans being godlier and more Christian in their national identity was worthless, or even sent people to Hell, if subsequent generations of Americans turned away from the Lord, even as our generation has. But this seems to me not so much pro-new covenant as ignoring of the Old Testament entirely.

Like the most fatalistic parts of Ecclesiastes, all the obedience and faithfulness of those generations of Israelites God blessed was for naught if the generations that followed them did not all likewise keep the faith and enjoy those blessings. Vanity of vanity, Leeman says.

I simply cannot agree with either that conclusion or the premises on which it rests.

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Jonathan Leeman, Editorial Director at 9Marks, published an article at that website on October 31st. Titled '“Christian Nationalism” Misrepresents Jesus, So We Should Reject It,' and his piece was subsequently sent to me by JP Chavez, my neighbor two houses down.

What do I find in reading it? Only that Leeman argues for dropping the label ‘Christian Nationalism’ on the grounds that many people can’t tell the difference between two distinct ways of meaning the term. On the one hand, there are those like him who hold that Christianity should influence our nation and its laws; on the other hand, others suppose our nation and government should actually identify as Christian.

Yet Leeman takes the second possibility to mean that those who agree with it are wishing the government of the United States would establish a state church, or that they mistakenly suppose it's just that easy to convert a whole country to personal faith in Christ. Yet I know I at least am not arguing for the state to establish a church. And that being the case, Leeman would likely put me in the influencers category. But I also know that I am under no illusions that a Christian nation, so-called, either requires or else claims that all the citizens or residents of that nation are themselves Christians.

For his part, Leeman seems deeply troubled by at least some particular kinds of slippery slopes, at least when he spots them in certain quarters. Yet I wonder if this concern must apply equally to all sides in these kinds of debates, or else not at all. Avoidance of slippery slopes can become its own slippery slope, after all.

Wondering aside, the ideal is not to resign ourselves to passive influence. We ought to want that all our countrymen would really and truly become Christians, and that our nation might be one which God might in His infinite goodness and grace both bless and prosper. And as it seems to me, every square inch of progress in that direction is desirable. Otherwise, what would we suppose the jackpot scenario is in which Christian influence might come to full fruition? How identity might not be the most desirable outcome of Christian influence is admittedly lost on me.

Contrary to what Leeman seems to think, I have never understood those who say America formerly was a Christian nation to mean that all Americans were ever Christians at any point in our history. But we do not need to say that every last man, woman, and child in America is a Christian in order to say that America is a Christian nation, any more than we would say that every citizen of China must be a communist in order to call that country a communist nation, or that every citizen of Saudi Arabia must be a Muslim to call that country a Muslim nation. That is, we all understand in these other cases what is being said. So why doesn't Leeman understand what proponents of so-called Christian nationalism for America are saying?

Conversely, not every citizen of the United States of America need be a secular humanist, pluralist, or Progressive for us to say these terms have typified the kind of country the U.S. has been for at least several decades. Yet I suppose by Leeman's reasoning, we all must be, if that is what is said of America right now. Or, what? Is America a kind of Schrodinger's cat? Theologically, philosophically, politically, socially - do the rules change depending on whether we are calling for a maintenance of the current status quo, or championing a return to Christian morality?

I have so many questions. Yet in the meantime, between now and if, or when, Mr. Leeman answers them, I must reject his argument. In claiming that Christian nationalism misrepresents Jesus, I dare say Mr. Leeman misrepresents Christian nationalism.

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Yesterday was Reformation Day, and those of you unfamiliar may be interested to take note of some of the visuals of Martin Luther's various diatribes against Rome from five centuries ago. Be warned, several are both shocking and disturbing. Yet, on some level, I note that we forgive the reformer because of what his objections produced in the revival of Christian faith and life by way of Protestantism.

Speaking of protests and reformation, Dr. Oz has now received the endorsement of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in his race to be the next Republican Senator from Pennsylvania. It should be noted this particular newspaper, one of the largest in Pennsylvania, also endorsed Trump's re-election bid in 2020. Nevertheless, I note the distinct possibility that America is getting more men like Trump, Musk, Maher, and Dr. Oz, who formerly were more liberal in their outlook, but have sounded and positioned themselves increasingly like conservatives in recent years.

It's not hard to find compelling reasons why. Take, for instance, Chloe Cole's recent testimony before the Florida Medical Board regarding the need to ban "gender affirming" procedures like reassignment surgery and hormone therapy where minors like she was are concerned.

Or consider the piece recently published at The Atlantic proposing "pandemic amnesty" for how people treated one another over the past two years. And while you're at it, take a look at the report from ProPublica and Vanity Fair about how COVID likely was, in fact, released from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology in late 2019.

Then catch this article by The Intercept highlighting documents leaked from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security outlining how to work with Big Tech to censor American citizens online. Or take a look at this story from The Epoch Times explaining that FCC guidelines don't allow TV or radio broadcasters to air the explicit sexual content being taught to our kids in America's public schools.

Thereafter, take note of the sorry state of journalism today, as Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Boreing highlight the marked lack of curiosity concerning the official narrative concerning the recent attack on Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, right before important mid-term elections next week.

Perhaps you will conclude from these stories, as I have, that there is a growing recognition of the need for comprehensive reformation and revival. Whether we are ready for that is another question.

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'No Shave November' starts this coming Tuesday, which I take to mean we should talk about the science of facial hair. But first, to speak to what's been in the news the past couple of days, let's do a quick recap.

According to Commodore Vanderbilt at Not the Bee, GM is suspending advertising on Twitter until it sees the "direction of the platform under their new ownership." As a direct competitor to Musk’s electric car company, the move by General Motors is likely influenced by several factors, not just feigned concern over politics. Meanwhile, Daniel Payne at Not the Bee highlights "absolutely crushing levels of irony" as Twitter users unhappy about Musk's recent acquisition complain they have nowhere else to go online to still be a part of the important public discourse in the public square.

The Blaze's Cortney Weil also provides an update on a recent ruling by a federal judge that an independent election integrity group is permitted to monitor ballot drop boxes in Arizona, over and against the objections of Democrats who say that making sure they don't cheat is an attack on our democracy. And at the same time, Zachary Stieber writing for The Epoch Times says the FBI has asked for 66 years to comply with a FOIA request regarding what was on the computer of Seth Rich before he was murdered in 2016.

Leif Le Mahieu at The Daily Wire has just made us aware that a member of Democrat Congressman Beyer's staff was just fired for ties to China. And The Denver Post's Conrad Swanson published a piece in that outlet earlier this month titled 'Election deniers infiltrate ranks of poll watchers and election judges ahead of November midterms, Colorado clerks warn.' But this all really is curious unless it matters to election integrity who the staffers, poll watchers, and election judges are, and what they do.

But all these stories bring me again to the question of beards and why men should grow them. Thankfully, Antonio over at The Art of Manliness wrote a helpful piece back in 2014, last updated in 2021, which will guide us through the science of facial hair aesthetics as it pertains to human psychology.

In short, though a man's clean-shaven face may cause us to think he is a more sociable team player, full beards on men are, quite frankly, perceived as more manly. Then come other adjectives to drive the point home, like 'assertive,' 'dominant,' and 'aggressive.' Some may even say a man with a full beard looks more 'good' in comparison to a man with stubble or nothing at all.

Yet manly men are not always and everywhere valued, Antonio says. For instance, when someone agreeable is desired, or when women are looking for more short-term romantic occupations, men with less facial hair may be preferable.

What am I saying, then? Only this: that we men ought to be intentional in putting our best face forward.

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The floors in our rental house are getting redone Wednesday, which means everything on the main floor of the house has to be packed up and moved out of the way. Yes, this is disruptive, but not to no purpose. After three years here, and now with Biblical Training Group meeting here on Friday nights every week, we reckon as glad tidings even the moving of furniture, books, fabric, and computers for what we will get on the other end.

Discrimination, then, is not always a bad thing. For instance, discriminating against broken tiles and worn-out carpets is good. Discriminating against folks who refused to get the COVID vaccine, on the other hand, not so much. But the Canadian province of Alberta has a new premier in Danielle Smith, and she has some thoughts on adding vaccination status to the Alberta Human Rights Act.

Speaking of human rights, an MSNBC pollster recently made what was doubtless, to the folks on the Left anyway, an alarming discovery. That is, Gen Z might just be against feminism. Coming of age amidst the #MeToo movement, several responders expressed ambivalence, and one even used the language of 'extremism' to describe what she's observed in popular women's empowerment drives.

But mortgage rates have now risen past 7% according to The Washington Post. And what this means is that homebuyers will not be buying like they were, nor will home-sellers be selling like they were. As a result, the inventory will increase, of both people wanting to buy and sell homes, as well as homes available to purchase. Consequently, the asking price of homes will have to come down even as both the inventory and mortgage rates goes up.

The good news is that the latest polling for the mid-term elections here in the U.S. next week shows Republicans have a good chance of retaking both the House and Senate, as well as picking up five state governorships - in Wisconsin, Oregon, Nevada, Michigan, and Kansas specifically - for a net increase of 3 states nationwide, even as Maryland and Massachusetts are slated to flip blue.

But Kathy Hochul, New York's Democrat governor, says she's an underdog in her bid for retaining office in a state that's not seen a Republican governor in 14 years, despite an RCP average of 7.3 points lead over Lee Zeldin. But why do we care so much who the underdog is or isn't?

Speaking of underdogs, Elon Musk now officially owns Twitter, as of SEC filings Thursday. But lest we suppose this will translate into an anything-goes hellscape, he's announced the outlines of a new content moderation strategy. Don't feed the trolls. This is fine by me, generally speaking. The important question is whether cross-examination of opposing viewpoints will be permitted to the end of truth and goodness getting a hearing again in the public square.

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Ben Zeisloft, reporting for The Daily Wire, starts off his October 24th article: “The United States has less than one month’s supply of diesel fuel, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.” This is the lowest level since 2008 even as, by one metric, the four-week average of distillates supplied, demand is the highest it’s been since 2007

Is it just me, or does Joe Biden seem to have only a few predictable responses? Tell gas stations to artificially lower their prices, and criticize oil companies for making money right now. Ask foreign countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela to produce more to bring down prices, thereby proving that he understands the way supply and demand work in relation to costs. Release barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Push electric vehicles and renewable energy.

If EV’s and renewable are so cost-effective, then why do they need so much promotion? And why aren't we producing more of our own oil and gas here in the U.S. when we easily could be?

Another thing that stood out to me about the California gubernatorial debate Lauren and I watched on Epoch TV Sunday night: Brian Dahle, the Republican candidate, is proposing lower gas taxes in California to bring down the cost of fuel at the pump. Gavin Newsom, and the moderators of that debate, challenged Dahle on how he could guarantee lowering taxes wouldn’t just result in gas stations raising their prices by that much. And this is a rather rich question in light of EV tax credits leading to EV manufacturers raising their prices in 2023 by roughly the amount of the Biden administration’s federal tax credits.

But Dahle pointed out that neighboring states have much lower average fuel prices compared with California. And it’s worth noting a report by CBS 8 San Diego on October 7, which indicates that taxes and fees in California account for $2.50 more per gallon in the Golden State. California’s average is $6.39 compared with the national average of $3.89.

By way of reminder, the 2020 Election was a supposed landslide for Joseph R. Biden who is said to have won 306 electoral votes to Donald J. Trump’s 232. But if that's true, why does the Arizona Attorney General and Democrat candidate for governor, Katie Hobbs, threaten legal action to prevent a hand-count audit of ballots in Cochise County? To be clear, the votes would still be counted first by machine; all Cochise County Supervisors are considering is an audit of the machine count. But it's an odd look for the Democrat candidate.

Speaking of, a debate moderator recently asked the Democrat governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, point-blank: “Are there any restrictions around abortions you would approve of?” And she essentially says 'No,' but in far more words, by dodging the question. Yet what's this about her daughter and granddaughter not having access to abortion? They wouldn't be here if Hochul had aborted her daughter. Isn't that something to ponder?

Then there's John Fetterman, Democrat candidate for U.S. Senate, who is apparently Schrodinger’s cat on the question of fracking. He said in 2018 that he absolutely does not support fracking. Then last night he said he's always supported, and he does support it, and he will stand and support it. But can he account for why he changed his mind, or the disparity between his comments four years ago and his comments now? No, he cannot.

All of this brings us back again to Evangelicals & Catholics Together, and their initial statement in 1994. 'The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium' says "legitimate diversity... should not be confused with existing divisions between Christians that obscure Christ and hinder the one mission." Yet neither is Rome ready to retract, so far as I know, it's anathematizing of Protestants from five centuries ago.

The trouble with all the above is that truth and goodness are seen as downstream unity. But they're not.

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Reporting for The Daily Wire October 21, 2022, Charlotte Pence Bond quotes Justin Trudeau at a press conference in Surrey, British Columbia: “We have frozen the market for handguns in this country.”

“Canadians have the right to feel safe in their homes, in their schools, and in their places of worship. With handgun violence increasing across Canada, it is our duty to take urgent action to remove these deadly weapons from our communities. Today, we’re keeping more guns out of our communities, and keeping our kids safe.”

Meanwhile, in the most recent Ben Shapiro Sunday Special, he interviewed Jair Bolsonaro, president of Brazil, which was pretty fascinating in general. But one thing Bolsonaro mentioned that I found particularly fascinating was his crediting a decrease in violent crime in Brazil, during his time in office, to having worked to change the laws so that Brazilians were lawfully permitted to use their firearms in self-defense anywhere on their property. And I get the distinct impression that the legal system previous to Bolsonaro did not respect the God-given rights of Brazilians to use deadly force in self-defense except inside their own home.

Another interesting fact is that Bolsonaro ran for president in 2018, and took office in 2019. Yet, according to Statista, Between 2006 and 2017, the homicide rate rose from 26.61 to 31.6 per 100,000 inhabitants. But in 2018, the homicide rate dropped from 31.6 the year before to 27.8, and then to 21.65 in 2019. That is, the year Bolsonaro ran for office the murder rate dropped 4.2 points; the year he took office, it dropped a further 6.15 points.

That’s a total of 10.35 points in two years, down from 31.6 per 100,000 inhabitants the year before Bolsonaro ran. Could this be due to a fearful expectation on the part of criminals that Brazil was about to get a president who was tough on crime? Possibly. Could this also be due to law-abiding citizens across the country being more assertive and feeling more empowered by Bolsonaro’s example? I think so.

Lauren and I watched the gubernatorial debate between current Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom and Republican State Senator Brian Dahle on Epoch TV Sunday night. One thing really stood out to me, including a claim Newsom made, in answer to Dahle criticizing the increase in criminal activity in California under Democrats, that most of the states with the highest homicide rate in the U.S. voted for Donald Trump in 2020.

Looking it up at CDC.gov, sure enough, seven of the ten states with the highest homicide rate in 2020 are in the Deep South. I had a hunch it has something to do with the largest cities in each state. As it turns out, there does seem to be a correlation - specifically with regards to where Democrat mayors hold sway.

My friend Alex Casetta sent me a link to a segment from 1994 that was aired on Dr. James Dobson’s program, Focus on the Family. In the segment, a woman named Margy Mayfield talks about having been abducted by serial murderer and rapist Stephen Morin in San Antonio, Texas back in 1981, and how she miraculously escaped becoming the last of four dozen victims in 12 years by quoting Scripture, praying, and evangelizing fearlessly.

In sum, considering Luke 6 and Romans 13, should Christians argue that more or fewer guns will make society safer?

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In the November issue of First Things Magazine, Evangelicals and Catholics Together, an ecumenical movement for political and social change founded in 1994 by the cosigners Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus, has released a statement. Titled 'Fear God, Honor the Emperor,' it represents a fairly robust primer on Christian political philosophy in the 21st century takes shape and is laid out accordingly.

In this episode, I want to read through the statement and provide some running commentary on its claims and insights. As well as providing a briefer summary of its highlights, as I see them.

First, a denial of both nature and God's authority endangers us all. Godlessness is leading us to tyranny. If God has called us to more, the Zeitgeist will not hear of it, preferring repressive and intractable separations based on race, gender, and sexual orientation for their political utility. If this is all there is, it is totalitarianism. And yet our long, rich tradition as Christians must lead us to pursue and embrace both civil and ecclesiological reformations.

We now inhabit a society which stubbornly denies God’s call to place our faith in Him. Thus, in rejecting God's authority, we also see the unraveling of the basis for human authority. Christians cannot go along with this, neither can we legitimately recognize any human authority as absolute because all human authority is dependent on God’s authority, which moderates and provides a check on it.

That is also to say, by way of reminder, that Jesus is Lord in the present-tense, and not only in the past or in the kingdom come. Thus we reject the de facto godlessness which says civil authority is a merely human convention and agreement, moderated only by its imagination and will.

What we do, and must, support, respect, and honor in human authority is the prohibition and curbing of evil by the civil magistrate. And yet governments throughout history have rebelled against God’s law. And when they have turned against morality and justice, Christians not only have practiced civil disobedience, they have also worked to replace those governments with others which use their power properly, and to which Christians can be loyal without disobeying God.

We cannot ignore, then, the wrongs and falsehoods which are to be found in every human governmental system in this fallen world, including our own. Rather, we work to reform these, even as we recognize that the truest and deepest peace which may result, by God's grace, is only found in honoring and worshipping God as His people.

There are indeed limits on what can be accomplished politically. For instance, our political, economic, and social structures presuppose fallen, sinful humanity acting out of ambition, greed, and self-interest. Yet it is a mistake that too many Christians react to the limitations on the peace which is attainable in the earthly city by denying it has any value whatsoever so long as it fails to measure up to the ideals achievable only in the City of God.

A refusal to content ourselves with the boundaries of what peace can be had here on Earth may even be an ungodly discontentedness with God not having yet brought about the replacement of this Heavens and Earth with the New Creation by those who say they are conservative. Meanwhile, we do well to note that the greatest atrocities in the modern era were carried out by men and women who were intent on realizing something like this hope independently, on their own power, in their own timing, and in their own way.

Thus we see a pair of errors sent into the world representing our impatience and discontentedness: both Activism and Inactivism. God's servant must reject both alike, and for the same reason, that neither is obedience or a faithful witness to God's goodness and grace.

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In ‘Rising Fuel Prices Spark Mass Protests in More Than 90 Countries,’ by Michael Whittaker, The Daily Wire, October 19, we learn that a third of the countries in which street protests about fuel occurred in 2022 no demonstrations of that kind in occurred 2021. Another interesting takeaway is that the United States ranked 13 in a survey of the 44 mostly developed nations in terms of high year-over-year inflation in Q1 2022.

What is driving inflation, you may ask? I’m reading ‘The Creature of Jekyll Island’ by G. Edward Griffin, and it is giving me a much clearer answer to that question than I’ve ever had previously. In short, though we will say more about this in future episodes, the issue comes down to the printing of money out of thin air as a hidden tax.

Speaking of manipulation, control, enslavement, and global governance, Ryan Saavedra at The Daily Wire published a piece this morning titled ‘TikTok Responds To Explosive Report Alleging Plans To Track Locations Of Specific Americans.’ Forbes Magazine reported on how TikTok’s Chinese parent company is planning to use the app to track the location of specific Americans.

As we all know, contradiction is the most persuasive kind of argumentation; thus, TikTok “disproved” Forbes’ reporting by saying that it “continues to lack both rigor and journalistic integrity,” and “they do not collect the GPS locations from U.S. users.” So there you have it. You heard them. They don’t do that. TikTok is totally safe, and you have nothing to fear from the spread of Global Communism.

Do you feel better? I know I do!

But JP Chavez asks whether there is a benefit to Christians taking personality tests like the MBTI. And my answer to that, in part, is why wouldn’t there be? Yet some, like my cousin Tim Mullet over at The Bible Bashed Podcast, now affiliated with Protestia, believe there is an answer to that question, like in his latest episode ‘What Should Christians Think about Personality Tests,’ published to YouTube two days ago.

He says our choice is between following Christ and repenting of our sins on the one hand, or taking personality tests to try to justify our sins on the other. But this is a total non-sequitur, in my view. With the kind of reasoning on display here, one could plug literally anything they don’t like into the formula to try and wedge Christians away from doing it.

But suppose I told you I was going to go to the kitchen and make myself a turkey sandwich, and you dislike that. Would you say I shouldn’t need a turkey sandwich because I have Jesus?

Of course, this does not answer the question of why there would be a benefit. But Proverbs 4:23 does that, since it says to “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” And it makes a lot of sense to me that we would know the particular vulnerabilities of our own and one another's hearts, and not just all of the sins which a human heart may possess or be possessed by. The Puritans would call this being a student of your own heart.

Yet Kevin DeYoung published a stellar essay titled ‘The Case for Kids’ at First Things Magazine. As he begins, “The most significant thing happening in the world may very well be a thing that is not happening: Men and women are not having children. The biblical logic has been reversed, and the barren womb has said “Enough!””

And this is why we have kids, by the way. Yet in the meantime, while you wait for my forthcoming books on marriage and children, do read DeYoung's. It's great!

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Carl Trueman writes for First Things that romance is dead, and the sexual revolutionaries killed it. Romance depends on virtue and morality, and cannot exist in an environment where these things are abolished and scoffed at. This makes a lot of sense, and it is encouraging to hear a counter to the smear that everyone is obligated to watch a movie about gay men flirting with and seducing one another, or else they’re bigots.

Speaking of being accused of bigotry, I watched the entirety of Amazon’s ‘The Rings of Power’ series this week. It felt wrong to merely repeat the criticisms of others in this case, though I did recently pass along what some of those were from a review Daniel Coates published at Not the Bee.

Some things are written as though they’re supposed to sound very profound, like they’re inspired by lines from the movies and books; but they have a clunkiness and lack of elegance if you consider them in more than a brief and superficial way.

I’m inclined to agree with Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh on this point, that Amazon just flat isn’t capable of doing justice to Tolkien today, given their precommitments philosophically, politically, and culturally. The best they can do is imitate, but they cannot replicate. The result is more a caricature than a continuation in many places.

The casting of ethnically diverse actors need make sense only along one very obvious line. Woke culture and politics demands racial diversity in casting. But a clearly white character can have a person of color for their mother or daughter or son, and the audience is expected to say nothing negative or critical about it on pain of denunciation for racism. This is a cheap trick, and an abuse of both the audience and source material.

Speaking of abuse, the CDC is considering making the COVID vaccine mandatory for Public School attendance nationwide here in the U.S. Meanwhile, Boston University has developed a Covid strain that has an 80% kill rate in mice. That is to say that the idea that the original virus was engineered and released on a schedule is proven conclusively in my mind.

Stories weekly of totally healthy people abruptly dying for no apparent reason. That is highly suspicious, and I’m going to say the quiet part out loud. But are these abrupt deaths due to the COVID vaccine? And is this just the beginning of a wave of significant population decrease?

Megan Basham at The Daily Wire keeps on writing about how Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci waged a propaganda war to discredit and smear scientists and experts - like epidemiologists Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of medicine at Stanford - when they spoke out against the lockdowns, and mandates for masks and vaccines.

And for their part, prominent figures in American Evangelicalism corresponded and coordinated with Francis Collins, and were willing accomplices in maligning the integrity, maturity, and sincerity of American Christians who attempted to express dissent with COVID policies.

In short, American Christians need a civics lesson. They may get one by reading works like ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’ by Edmund Burke, or ‘Democracy in America’ by Alexis de Tocqueville. And they should.

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First off, we have an entry from a YouTube channel called ‘truly.’ At 10 million subscribers, they are so edgy that they don’t even capitalize their name. But we are presented with James, a young black man who needs to tell us he is straight, yet says at one point that he realized in high school that "it was just easier" to be gay and present as feminine. And by that, he apparently means largely conforming in exaggerated fashion to how women are expected to act, talk, dress, and make up their faces.

Meanwhile, his girlfriend Maren talks about how she used to date only girls, and dresses like a guy, but now she likes to see how James is going to dress when they go out, and then she dresses to match.

Despite rejecting gender norms, it's worth noting that both James and Maren are basically conforming to the new non-conformity. My wife and I, by contrast, could be said to be non-conformists to the new non-conformity by conforming to heteronormative monogamous marriage which is now allegedly out of style.

How do we factor into consideration of this what is said about God in Leviticus 22:5? Set aside talk of hating sin but not sinners and note that it does not just say that men dressing like women and women dressing like men is an abominable behavior; it says the person themselves who does these things is an abomination to our God.

Next we have a YouTube short from JustPearlyThoughts about most women not giving men a reason to marry. Typically not virgins, many have a kid. They don’t want to be wives either, but they do want a man to commit to them, even though 70-80% of the time women will be the ones who file for divorce. And When women divorce men, the courts favor them with custody and half the man’s material wealth. Men logically conclude that it’s not worth the trouble.

Meanwhile, Joe Rogan had a guest on talking about how there is a natural limit to the fermentation process which we have hacked in the modern era by selectively breeding hardier strains of yeast which don't poison themselves to death so quickly as their ancestors did. The claim is that we are not prepared to deal with higher ABV beverages, and this is therefore poisoning us. But I would argue our troubles have more to do with a marked reduction in Christian civilization.

In other news, Galadriel is reportedly presenting masculine. She is the smartest, bravest, most confident, take-charge, and generally capable character by far, consistently shown upstaging all the males around. Also, Middle Earth was apparently much more ethnically diverse in the previous age. Amazon spent $715 million to produce this, and has taken a page from the Disney playbook in denouncing Tolkien fans who don’t like what they did with The Rings of Power.

I still have yet to watch anything more than the trailer, but am admittedly avoiding it after seeing what Bezos did to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time.

But Doug Mastriano wants to talk about the difference between him and his Democrat rival for Pennsylvania governor when it comes to the sexualization of children in the public schools, radical Gender Theory indoctrination, and school choice. And this is not a question on which parents or Christians can be silent or passive; but if the Republican party is going to endure, or be worth voting for, it needs to get right with God.

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Our Biblical Training Group met again last night, and went through Lecture 2 of ‘A Guide to Christian Theology’ with Gary Breshears; the topic was General Revelation. Of special interest to me was something Breshears pointed out about Psalm 19, and the transition in it from the generic term for God used at the beginning – ‘Elohim’ – to the specific name of God – ‘Yahweh’ – beginning in verse 7, as the subject shifts from general to special revelation, and from what Creation tells us about God in the abstract to what Scripture tells us about God in the specifics.

This is a helpful way for us to think about the way we relate to God, and also the way we should go about talking of God with one another. Yes, wicked men have suppressed the truth because their deeds are dark; but they can’t suppress all of the truth, or else they would die. So don’t cast your pearls before swine, or give to dogs what is holy. But do draw on connection points, and correct error in yourself and others with gentleness and respect.

But speaking of general revelation, and God's common grace to all of us, I love the setup and delivery in a recent YouTube short of Andrew Tate talking about his grandmother's 93rd birthday, in particular the cutaways to the beautiful young woman in the red dress sitting beside Tate, who seems deep in thought about what he has to say, like she’s re-evaluating her priorities.

As Carl Trueman points out in ‘Strange New World,’ young women who dress in a way that is rebellious toward previous generations, or contrary to what their parents or grandparents would approve of, they are nevertheless seeking acceptance in a group or family. The group they now desire acceptance into, though it used to be the family, is their peers, and what is considered fashionable in their generation, particularly their clique.

How should this relate to what God’s Word tells us about the role of our church and family, as well as our responsibilities to our church and family? And what is our vision of “the good life” informed by this? Lord willing, that vision should have short, medium, and long-term goals that have to do with multi-generational faithfulness.

But while we're on the topic of faithfulness, and gratitude, the Ukrainian ambassador recently took to Twitter to tell Elon Musk where he can go for suggesting openly a way to bring peace between Russia and Ukraine before we all find ourselves in WWIII. Is the gentleman from Ukraine unfamiliar with the saying “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you," or is he playing to it? Either way, Elon Musk is now asking the Pentagon to pay for the donated Starlink service, and saying that his company SpaceX cannot continue providing it for free. Besides that, he is taking the Ukrainian ambassador's advice.

In other news, I started 'None Dare Call It Conspiracy' yesterday, and hope to finish it today. This work by Gary Allen, with Larry Abraham, is the comprehensive conspiracy theory. This is the conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories.

The premise setting up the history told and conclusions drawn is that there are principally two ways to survey history. First, there is the accidental, wherein things just happen and we all must react. Second, there is the conspiratorial, wherein someone or something is making strategic decisions behind the scenes to set in motion what the majority of us react to, even as those setting these things in motion are the principal actors.

One of the major hinge-points is the conclusion that if international banking interests have consistently funded global communism, and they don’t fear the spread of communism, that’s because they control communism like a piece on a chessboard. But how does Ephesians 6:12 relate to all of this? For we do wrestle against rulers, authorities, cosmic powers, and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. And are these them in our day?

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‘What Is a Woman?’made me both extremely sad and angry for what has been lost, squandered, and even systematically made war against in America and the West over the past century. But Matt Walsh and the folks at The Daily Wire did an excellent job on the documentary, and Walsh comes across as genuine, while they come across as lunatics if they don’t agree that women are real, known, and objective.

To quote Larry the Cucumber, “I laughed, I cried. It moved me, Bob.” But what is a cucumber? And do cucumbers exist, or do we just assign them that name at birth in a presumptuous way? Maybe vegetables are a social construct.

As for the more recent documentary put out by DW, 'The Greatest Lie Ever Sold' with Candace Owens - if you or someone you know has questions about the legitimacy of the narrative surrounding Black Lives Matter the movement, or recent allegations of misappropriation of funds, watch this.

Speaking personally, I lost a lot of friends over the BLM, CRT, woke, social justice business, especially since the death of George Floyd; and besides that, several important family relationships were put under immense strain as I tried to write about this. And there weren’t just insinuations of racism casually thrown at anyone who questioned the Leftist mainstream media narrative; lives were lost, businesses destroyed, communities ravaged, and the social fabric of America was arguably torn in two about it.

The money donated going to the purchase of lavish mansions is shocking; but the underlying premise was a lie peddled by mercenaries, anarchists, trained activists, mountebanks, sycophants, and the brainwashed masses who were unwilling to stop and question the evidence. Therefore, there was no other way in which the money could have been spent that would not have been fraudulent given the premise on which the donations were solicited and made.

But as for 'Strange New World' by Carl Trueman, I have two words for you: Social Imaginary. And what that is, which Trueman talks about for a good bit in this book, you could do worse than a 12-minute YouTube video explaining the concept by Ellie Hain on the channel ‘The World We Create,’ not least because she has an absolutely gorgeous accent.

The short version is that where all was theological before, when theology was “Queen of the Sciences,” now everything is politics, economics, and psychology as the upending of the old world order necessitates secularizing everything.

For those who also read ‘Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self’ by Trueman, a lot of what is in this book will be familiar, but not tedious for its repetition or rephrasing. And it is good to hope, and to put our hope in Christ, and to continue striving to be faithful to God in building up and strengthening our families and local churches in the timeless truths of God’s Word, come what may.

Yet Mark Noll wrote his famous book to criticize evangelicals in the U.S. for not engaging the culture, and not cultivating their intellects. “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there’s not much of one,” he famously said. According to Carl Trueman, 'The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind' is that there’s not much of an evangelical. As he says, this is because we don’t agree about what the evangel is.

Christian pastors, teachers, professors, authors, and intellectuals have for decades been undermining their testimony and witness, not so much for opting out of spaces they are either thrown out of or not invited to in the first place. But works like Noll’s shift the onus from those who are gatekeeping on the basis of theological liberalism and secularization to those who are being locked out, further delaying rectification of the fatal error.

It’s like a big brother who’s so much stronger than his little brother saying “Stop hitting yourself” as he clubs him with his own hand.

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Yesterday morning my wife asked why there were so many kids on our street who weren’t in school. The reason was Columbus Day, and we apparently missed it. Of course our kids were home, since we homeschool. But it turns out Columbus Day is still a federal holiday in the U.S., and I’m okay with that.

In light of the fact that Christians are told to think on what is praiseworthy, and given that discovering the New World was kind of a big deal for everyone involved, the least we can do is setting aside a little time every year to appreciating what went into successfully launching the original voyage of the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María.

While we're on the topic of education, my wife is getting ready to order the components for assembling our family's second My Tech High computer science project. Our 14-year-old son Eli having put together a parts list, we’re going to substitute several pieces from what he selected compared with the past three builds I configured. But last year’s build went really well, and the thing worked perfectly on the first boot attempt for the first time in the history of my building computers. And I’m excited for us to have another soon, since we certainly have high demand for access in this house. With eight kids, plus Lauren and I, and as much of the schooling and leisure time activities centered around the computer as we have, it will be put to good use.

Speaking of family, while their peers in the public schools are being treated to every kind of Leftist indoctrination, propaganda, and subversion of Christian morality, I’m all the gladder that my kids listen to my podcast and are developing opinions and positions with regards to so-called political issues.

By contrast, my friend Dave Knoshaug recently checked out a book titled 'It's Perfectly Normal' from our local library, which is being used as a textbook for sex education in our American public schools. He brought it to church on Sunday to show me. And, sure enough, there are cartoonish illustrations for the "10 and Up" student of a man and woman masturbating, and a fully naked couple having sex in a bed.

While we're on the subject of sex and children, I recently commented on a political attack ad on Facebook against the Republican U.S. congressional candidate for Colorado’s 8th district, Barbara Kirkmeyer. She being called "extreme" for her stated desire to ban abortion nationwide without exception, I replied that what is really extreme is that infanticide has been legally permissible and protected for 50 years in this country.

To dissuade anyone like me from daring to engage in the public discourse again, the rudest and nastiest replies I got were from one woman in particular, and are indicative of the political divide in Weld County, the state of Colorado, and the U.S. more broadly. The open contempt shown for myself, my faith, and mi familia could not have been more apparent. And for what? Because I dared to call abortion what it is, the murder of unborn infants.

Tell me you vote for the Democrats without telling me you vote for the Democrats.

But according to a piece yesterday at ColoradoPolitics.com, this race could very well decide which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives for the next two years. And it’s a fairly tight one, between Yadira Caraveo, a Democrat from Thornton, and Barbara Kirkmeyer, the Republican from Brighton.

So we are put to a choice next month, as I see it. Would we rather the U.S. look more like the states of New York and California, or more like Florida, Texas, and South Dakota? Do we want more international incidents like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or the fall of Afghanistan? And are we okay with companies like PayPal fining us for wrongspeak online?

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And that can only mean one thing for our vote, according to the dictates of my conscience: Vote Republican.

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What does the word ‘reconcile’ mean in the context of ‘all things,' when Colossians 1:20 says the fullness of God was pleased to reconcile all things to himself in Christ? For starters, the context indicates they are really and truly things – that is, the impersonal portion of the general Creation of which mankind is only a part. Moreover, 'reconcile' has a certain semantic range which is not so narrow as eternal reward for all, irrespective their faith in Christ in this life.

But 1 Corinthians 15:19 talks about believing in vain, and if we hold fast, with regards to being saved. And that makes less sense if all will be saved in the end, albeit most after a period in Hell, as the Christian Universalist would say.

Meanwhile, all being made alive and resurrected in Christ is actually about all being raised from the dead, either to eternal life in the New Creation, or else eternal conscious torment in Hell. That is, on the Day of Judgment, all must be resurrected to stand trial.

But all things being subjected to the Son should be thought of as martial, of a piece with conquest. And the passage says “all things;” and that is distinct from “all persons.” Yes, all men are related to all things, since the Creation was not subjected to futility willingly, but eagerly awaits the revelation of the Sons of God – that is, we who are in Christ, who are the elect.

I think there is a category confusion for the Christian Universalist, supposing that subjection of Creation generally implies restoration to glory for all men as created beings. Always in the Bible, unless I have missed an example, 'Creation' refers to the impersonal, and is as distinct from mankind as the Heavens and the Earth; though mankind exists on the Earth, or instance, and is made from the dust of the ground, he ceases to be the ground from which God made him when the breath of life is breathed into him by the Almighty.

But where Paul says he is telling us a mystery, we do well to take note that the meaning may not be apparent or obvious at first glance. That is what it means for something to be mysterious. And if God gives us the victory through Christ, the passage does not say that God gives all mankind the victory in Christ, irrespective belief or unbelief in Christ.

Notice in Romans 5 the frequent use of ‘we’ and ‘our’ throughout the first two paragraphs. That is exclusive language, and Paul is writing to Christians in Rome rather than to all Romans without exception. Yet here we also see Paul talking about ‘all’ with regards to sin and death in Adam. And when Paul talks about the grace of Christ, he says it abounded for many. Yet he does not say it either did abound for all, or will abound for all. Rather, he says ‘for many.’

But then Paul says the one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. And the use of the words ‘many’ and ‘all’ is set up or those who were first made sinners and then righteous, in the first Adam and the second Adam respectively. But those many and all who have been justified are the ‘all’ contextually who had previously stood condemned in their sins, and otherwise would be condemned. They are not all men irrespective of faith in Christ.

The hermeneutics of these passages must be seen as a street that is meant to be driven in one direction on when you are in a certain lane. That is, one could drive northbound in the southbound lane; yet we readily recognize, in context and by paying attention to the signs, that we are not meant to drive northbound in the southbound lane, and will have accidents if we try to anyway.

In short, forever and ever must mean the same thing for the smoke of torment for those who worshiped the Beast and took its mark as it means for God living. So also, to deny the eternality of the punishment for the ungodly similarly undermines our confidence in the eternality of the promise of life for those in Christ.

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Last night I watched the 1994 film Maverick, starring Mel Gibson, with our youngest son, 8-month-old Andrew. It had been a long time since I'd seen it - long enough to forget precisely how Maverick is not moral in the sense that fine, upstanding Christian folk expect and demand. Yet he is moral in an Old Testament book of Judges sort of way. He admits to being a coward, and is sexually loose. But then he does the brave and upstanding thing anyways, and gives the money back to the women and children waylaid and robbed on their way to start a mission.

Come to think of it, the only folks Maverick cheats are the ones without any boundaries – who either had just cheated or bullied someone, or were about to. And that is so downright chivalrous of him, it may remind me of what Jesus said about being wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

Naturally, one can be too careful in seeing this as a good example to follow, but there is a slippery slope to studying snakes. My point is not to recommend that we all emulate the card shark, but to talk about Jacob and Esau, and the kinds of men God has loved and established covenants with, as well as those He has hated and rejected.

Speaking of love and hate, yesterday was a slow enough day for an extended conversation with a friend of mine where I still work for just a little while longer. He describes himself as a kind of universalist, but I must apologize again to Rosie, who sits one office over from mine, as she was on a conference call in the afternoon, and had to come out and shush us for being too loud.

But in my friend’s view, Hell is a kind of refining fire. And like Miracle Max might say, the damned are only mostly damned. And look at you who knows so much. 'Such were some of you' will be said to all mankind, on the other side of varying cook times, after which all the sin and rebellion against King Jesus is burned away. Even if they didn’t accept Jesus before the first death, these will get another chance, at some point, to pledge allegiance to Christ, and join the ranks of the heavenly host in Paradise.

This is admittedly a perspective which I am very troubled by. But my perceptive friend doubtless knows this from the look I was giving him when we talked about it. Unlike Brett Maverick, I am not a particularly good bluffer. Only with great concentration and effort do I keep my opinions off my face when someone is telling or showing me their ideas and sentiments, or when a situation is unfolding or better or worse.

I will borrow the book he is offering me, which promises to expand, I think, on how the early church prior to the domination of Rome by virtue of its wedding with imperial power held to all three views in various quarters. Origen, for instance, is said to have held to a kind of universalism in eternity. Yet Origen also, according to Eusebius, misread Matthew 19:12 and concluded he should make himself a eunuch for the kingdom of heaven. And we should take any man who would do that with a grain of salt on everything else they hold to as well.

Yesterday was also the last day of my second-to-last hitch of seven days as a contract Systems Integrator for Chevron, and it does not embarrass me to say that it was an emotional one. Several very great compliments, congratulations, and expressions of grief touched me deeply, and will make my final day of October 19th both sweeter and sadder for that fact, since all wished me well, and told me whatever company I join next is gaining a great asset, and is very fortunate.

Speaking of last days, let's turn our attention to the back-and-forth between Elon Musk and Lindsey Graham over how best to bring peace in the Ukraine. Senator Graham made threats against electric vehicle tax credits, and that is bad form. But that is not to say Mr. Musk should go unanswered like Tony Bobulinski at the FBI.

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The irony which seems lost on Democrats in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade this past summer is that they are now in the position of being conservatives, after a fashion. Or at least their arguments for why legalized abortion should continue to be the "law of the land" nearly five decades on - these are essentially conservative arguments.

That is, they say we should not upend so much precedent, and they are against progress so long as such is defined along the lines of protecting infants from infanticide.

Meanwhile, the Pro-Life in America, at least those who are for the abolition of legalized abortion, find themselves in the curious position of contending for the most liberal option, in a sense - to protect the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for the unborn.

I think, then, it would be wise for us all to re-evaluate who is really conserving what, and who is really liberating whom from constraints which are any constraints at all. At this point in the game, measuring from the French, Bolshevik, or Maoist revolutions, these things bear closer examination.

Take taxes, for another example. Don't really take them, if you please. But consider taxes. They really are not a morally or spiritual neutral topic, however often folks who want you to just pay the damn things unquestioningly and without complaint will point out only Romans 13 and Matthew 22. But the Bible does say more about taxes than that.

For instance, it's not for no reason that one of the primary points on which Jesus was criticized so often was that he spent time in the company of both whores and taxmen. Remember Zacchaeus also, and not just for the fact that he was a wee little man. One of the marks of repentance on his meeting Christ was that he reimbursed all he had defrauded.

Or consider the story of Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's dream to be a warning from God that seven years of plenty will be followed by seven years of famine and drought. What he ended up overseeing in the way of preparations was a very fiscally conservative response. Saving grain during the good times - during the budget surplus - so that it would be there for future deficit spending - this was hardly Joseph only being against things all the time, or failing to think about the future because he was stuck in the past.

Again, then, I say it would be good for us all to reconsider who is conserving what, and who is trying to liberate us from what and whom. The Devil is most certainly in the details.

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Maybe it was a factor of exhaustion with everything going on – trying to orchestrate my mother’s rescue from Florida, plus navigating a forthcoming job change – but I have not recorded but one podcast episode since last Wednesday when I found out my mother was in the midst of Hurricane Ian.

However, I have just listened to five audiobooks over this past weekend. And now that I am feeling a bit more rested and settled, with my brother on his way to Florida even now to get our mother and bring her back here to Colorado while things get settled with cleanup and insurance, et cetera, I would like to get back into podcasting.

And, yes, I did listen to five audiobooks over the weekend. This was good to get my mind off other things, but not tiring to hear so much as I was feeling tired from speaking for a bit. So what did I listen to, and what did I make of what I heard? Let me tell you all about it.

First, I listened to 'The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity' by Carlo M. Cipolla. I found his work here, published in 1988, to be mean, unfunny, and condescending, though I was lead to believe on the front-end that it was supposed to be humorous. It reminded me too much of ‘Nudge’ and ‘The Undoing Project,’ and I suppose it could be seen as a cousin to those works. This is a short book, but that’s hardly as much a redeeming quality as a mercy. I did not like it, and it got on my nerves. The fact that there are so many stupid people is too obvious. How we talk about this fact, and relate to it – that is my concern.

Second, I took in 'Beauty: A Very Short Introduction' by Roger Scruton. Published in 2009, this work by Scruton – esteemed British conservative political philosopher is indeed philosophical, and much more contemporary. Scruton references Burke’s earlier work, of course, which I have also read and reviewed, and admittedly liked better, as much or more because of it being older. But this treatment by Scruton is high-minded, very British, and intellectual, as well as more academic in a way that is less forgivable for having been written in 2009 instead of 1757.

Next was 'The Smallest Minority: Independent Thinking in the Age of Mob Politics' by Kevin D. Williamson. This work reminded me of Tom Wolfe in Radical Chic and Mau-mauing the Flak-Catchers, but it was not as pleasant a work as either of those. But Williamson is not as good a writer as Wolfe by a long shot. One of the most annoying features of this book, published in 2019, was the constant pandering potshots at Trump and his supporters. The final word on him to my way of thinking is that he reminds me too much of the atheist kid in high school trying to mock and argue everyone into renouncing Christianity.

After that was 'Science and Technology,' a collection of interviews with Neil Postman, Jane Metcalfe, Howard Rheingold, Mark Slouka, Andrew Kimbrell, Doug Groothius, Dean Kenyon, Philip Johnson, and Michael Behe. If I have two criticisms of this collection of interviews, it is that they are too short and more thinking out loud to frame the problem than prescribing what we can do about any of it. This is more a chronicle than a tonic, perhaps.

Last, but certainly not least, I read 'A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland,' by Samuel Johnson and James Boswell. And when I say this was not least, what I really mean is that this was my favorite by a good bit of the five books I read this weekend. Written first-hand by both men, then compiled together after their traveling in 1773, this was a charming and elegantly phrased collection of character sketches of the people and places and country. Johnson comments on the migration of Scots to America, for instance. And I know the Acts of Union, plus other related contentions, drove a lot of Scots to emigrate to America. This having been true of my MacFarlane ancestors on my maternal grandmother’s side, he has my undivided attention.

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My neighbor two houses down recently sent me a Mere Fidelity podcast episode interviewing ‘What’s Wrong with Rights?’ author Dr. Nigel Biggar. While I'm glad to have gotten the episode, I did not at all care for the dismissive attitude toward even the concept of natural rights which Dr. Biggar communicated.

It seems Dr. Biggar has only two categories for conversations about rights – statements of fact concerning the legal rights granted by civil governments, and moral appeals from the governed to be granted more rights by their governments. The trouble with this is that it leads to tyranny and arbitrary rule.

Remember here the premise of Romans 13, that governing authority is God-given but has no less a mandate to reward those who do good and punish those who do evil. If that dual-purpose is what God has given this minister of civil government power and authority to achieve, it cannot possibly do its job well if it does not know what is right and wrong, or if we say that the government itself is the source of right and wrong.

On a related note, New Zealand's prime minister says world leaders have an opportunity right now to crack down on free speech online. Ideas freely communicated are themselves weapons of war in her view. And given how her government and that of Australia next door handled the COVID business, it's not hard to imagine what kind of speech online she would like to see banned, or met with force if necessary to curtail.

But even as New Zealand's prime minister is calling for more censorship, Italy’s first female PM is being censored online. Shadowbanned, shares of her speech are being suppressed. Meanwhile, the mainstream media headlines when you search for her on Google all describe her as “Extreme Right,” and “Far Right,” and “Hard Right.” This is a word association game, and a kind of brainwashing.

At the same time, Canada is reportedly allowing China to open up police stations to the north of us. Who ever heard of such a ridiculous thing? The only reason I can think of for why one nation would permit another nation to open up police stations in their country is colonization. That is to say, I see this as China colonizing Canada.

That is also to say that I see New Zealand’s PM talking about curtailing free speech online as a kind of colonization of at least the ideas of the Chinese Communist Party; it’s the sort of thing they would do too, and have done now for decades.

My wife sent me a link to a YouTube video share from the channel for ‘The Good and the Beautiful’ in which the founder, Jenny Phillips, talks about the difference between popular children’s books from 100-150 years ago and the most popular books of today.

The sentences now are short, simple, action-oriented, and relatively more concerned with the self than with others and the surrounding environment. By contrast, books 100-150 years ago had far more complexity, and more adjectives – more describing words.

Popular children’s books today make no mention of God, but frequently do contain rude humor, and disparaging remarks about family relationships.

It’s not just that our expectations are so low; it’s that many have demanded more and more that simplicity and self-absorption carry the day, rejecting work that is robust and espouses high ideals.

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How should Christians relate to beauty and ugliness? For that matter, how should followers of Jesus relate to truth and falsehood? To begin to answer these questions, I look to Philippians 4:5-9 where the Apostle Paul writes about what we think about and how we feel, as well as what our expectation of benefit should be when our hearts and our minds are oriented and calibrated correctly.

"Let your reasonableness be known to everyone," he says. And I take this as a mandate to reasoning and logic out loud and in the open.

Next Paul reminds the church at Philippi that "The Lord is at hand," and to not be anxious. Instead, we are to present our requests to God "by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving."

Then Paul says to think on whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and praiseworthy. And what if we made the study of all these things a systematic and logical thing within the broader context of love for and devotion to the Almighty?

As it turns out, I think this is precisely what historically happened, and that the same explains the rise of advanced sciences in the West in a way those pursuits and their codification did not happen outside the influence of Theology being "the queen of the sciences."

Moreover, given such an origin story for the scientific method, the advanced sciences cannot long be sustained in a practically beneficial way except in the context in which they arose - love for God and love for our neighbor.

But we must believe that truth, honor, justice, purity, and loveliness - also alternatively known as beauty - are real things that exist in order to think on them, much less make an orderly and productive study of them.

This is just another way of saying that this presumption to God's glory is the root of scientific research. So also, what follows in Paul's letter to Philippian Christians about practicing what we have learned, received, and heard, plus the promise of the God of peace being with us, is the basis for practical sciences to the end of developing technology useful to craftsmanship and human flourishing.

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As of this past week, several news items caught my attention along similar lines.

For starters, Joel Abbott at Not the Bee reported on journalist Tom Elliott putting together inflammatory political rhetoric from leftists over the couple of weeks.

Paul Sacca at The Blaze reported on an 84-year-old pro-life volunteer being shot in Michigan after she had a 'heated' exchange, and Dave Urbanski at The Blaze reported on a 74-year-old woman who says she was fired from Circle-K after her boss disbelieved a man she tried to stop from shoplifting cigarettes was armed.

Meanwhile, over at The Daily Wire, Ryan Saavedra reported on the Fargo, North Dakota man accused of intentionally running over a ‘Republican’ 18-year-old pleading that he doesn't want to lose his job, life, and house because of bond, and is therefore no flight risk.

Simultaneously, Dr. Michael Brown offers up some analysis at The Daily Wire on whether Jesus really told his disciples to take up swords, concluding such is not at all what Luke 22:35-38 is getting at.

The meaning of this passage could be an advocacy for self-defense in one interpretation, as Dr. Brown points out. But he says he disagrees with this take, preferring instead the notion that what was more the point was the fulfillment of the prophecy which Jews bearing swords under Roman occupation would achieve.

My question is why there can't be a significance to Christ telling his disciples to buy swords which is both literal and figurative, practical and spiritual - all at the same time. Romans 13, for instance, makes clear enough to my mind that there is a time and place for deadly force wielded against wrongdoers. Otherwise, what sense can we make of "he does not bear the sword for nothing"?

That is, God is not scandalized or self-contradictory when He sets up, according to the Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans, a mechanism by which wrongdoers have God's wrath carried out against them, or have terror on this Earth held for them from the civil magistrates.

The Devil is, as usual, in the details. Do the governing authorities know right from wrong, for instance? Moreover, what are the law-abiding to make of increasing license given to outright criminals even as decent citizens are increasingly maligned as villainous merely for being conservative and principled?

It really does get to feeling sometimes as of late as though up is down and everything is inside-out in the eyes of some who purport to not only comprise a part of our government in the United States, but to be the State in and of themselves and their political party.

American Christians must surely grapple with these dynamics in a more robust way to be wise and maintain a good testimony, plus fidelity to God and His Word. That much is for sure.

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Yesterday I finished 'Paul: A Biography' by N.T. Wright, and I want to tell you all about it. Rest assured, I have more to say than just that it was "so good and super convicting."

In all seriousness, though, as far as biographies go, I thought this was a particularly well-written and interesting one. But, yes, I do admit to knowing there is a lot of controversy concerning Tom Wright and his perspective on the Apostle Paul, particularly among the Reformed. But still needing to read and research more to get at what his perspective actually is, I either did not catch anything untoward in his work from 2018, or else there was nothing untoward in said title. And both are entirely plausible, if I may be entirely honest with you.

But what is as much or more interesting to me today is the recent article at Christianity Today by Stefani McDade. Published 'September 19th' with the title 'Top 5 Heresies Among American Evangelicals,' the recent findings of the annual joint-venture by Ligonier and Lifeway titled 'The State of Theology' is jarring.

For starters, 26% of self-identified American Evangelicals agree with the following statement: "the Bible, like all sacred writings, contains helpful accounts of ancient myths but is not literally true."

What follows in the other statistics cited might only be surprising in the sense that you would expect that stat to be significantly higher than one quarter.

More than half of evangelicals - 56% - agree with the statement that "God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam."

Similarly disturbing, 73% resonate with the sentiment that "Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God," and over 40% agree that "Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God," while 60% believe "The Holy Spirit is a force but is not a personal being."

All the more glad am I that our local church is going to start working through courses offered for free at BiblicalTraining.org the first week of October. As should now be apparent, the church in America is sorely in need of returning again to what historically would be considered "the basics" of Christianity, but which increasingly in our day are seen as negotiables.

These, dear friends, are not to be negotiated down in the interest of inflating stats or gaining rapid acquisition of folks who will think themselves Christians. Everyone indeed is a theologian. The only real question is whether we are good ones, and have the right idea according to God's Word about who God says He is on His own terms.

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Wednesday, July 20th, my cell phone rang. A number I didn't recognize showed up, and I answered. On the other end was Arren Kimbel-Sannit, a reporter with Montana Free Press in Helena. He wanted to know if I had time for an interview regarding J.D. Hall. I still want to know how he got my number.

Nevertheless, on September 13th, the result of that interview and Arren's other investigations were published at MTFP in an article over 7,000 words long titled 'The gospel - and the GOP - according to J.D. Hall.'

In this episode, I intend to talk through the quotes and references contained in this article related to platforms, persons, positions, and principles which I know to be important to my home state of Montana, my country America, and both myself and many of my friends and family across the U.S.

On the front end, I will confess to suspecting long ago the whole ugly business would end up here - that conservative Christian views on a wide array of issues being tied to Hall, an effort would be summarily made to decry all together as repressive, offensive, harsh, and ignorant.

Even in saying that, I hope and pray this is not the end. So long as important lessons can be learned from the cautionary tale of a power-drunk opportunist egomaniac, and of the consequences - both personal and political - of endorsement and acquiescence of his antics by turn, perhaps we will see a silver lining.

Make no mistake, Hall was enabled and inspired by the bad behavior of many - right, left, and center. And this is what comes of being most interested in "getting things done," and leaving principles where the handling of truth and the folks who disagree are concerned on the threshing floor.

God's grace in Christ Jesus can shine on those who have erred greatly here, both through sins of omission and commission, and I pray that it will. God surely will answer prayers for wisdom for them that heed the warning and ask the Lord for wisdom.

But I begin to feel in reading this article as though all parties concerned in American politics these days - even in remote Montana - need to be reminded that either the whole counsel of God is authoritative or else none of it is.

Moreover, and along similar lines, I would remind my fellow Montanans on all sides of this that Christ himself reserved his fiercest rebukes for hypocrites, those who only play-acted at having principles when the same applied to everyone but themselves and their allies. And such can indeed be found on all sides, as it turns out.

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What is ideology, per se? And what is an ideologue? And are we entirely sure these are bad things to be or have?

Definition of ideology (from Merriam-Webster)

1a: a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture

b: the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program

c: a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture

2: visionary theorizing

What Does ideology Mean?

Ideology has been in use in English since the end of the 18th century and is one of the few words whose coiner we can identify. The French writer A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy proposed it as a term to designate the “science of ideas,” and in that sense the word was quickly borrowed into English. Though ideology originated as a serious philosophical term, within a few decades it took on connotations of impracticality thanks to Napoleon, who used it in a derisive manner. Today, the word most often refers to “a systematic body of concepts,” especially those of a particular group or political party.

What then is an ideologue? As you might guess, Cambridge Dictionary defines it as follows:

"a person who believes very strongly in particularprinciples and tries to follow them carefully."

So, then, as I reason, if ideology is the science of ideas, then shouldn't everyone be an idealogue?

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Much animated discussion of church polity this past week has me wanting to delve into what the various general arrangements in Christendom are, where they come from, and what we should make of them.

In this episode, I should like to share several resources with you - from the Encyclopedia Britannica, The Gospel Coalition, Theopedia, and GotQuestions.org - concerning the various schools of thought and traditions surrounding the government and organization of the church.

As we examine Episcopal, Presbyterian, Congregational, Single Elder-Led, and Plural-Elder Led models, what we will find is that there are several forks in the road where the same or similar terms are used differently, or where different terms largely add up to the same thing while being related to and arranged differently.

Which of these are correct, and are any of them more correct Biblically than others? There's only one way to find out, and that is by digging in and doing the work of studying and examining in light of God's Word.

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I hear a lot of talk in our day about unity. As a citizen of the United States of America, it’s even embedded in the name of my native country. But I hear calls for unity in the American Church in particular. And this leads me to a simple question. What is unity? And what are we to make of calls for being united?

In searching the ESV for the word, I came across four results – one in the Old Testament, and three in the New. Of the three instances in the New Testament, two are found in Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus, specifically the fourth chapter of Ephesians.

But consider Psalm 133.

*"Behold, how good and pleasant it is

when brothers dwell in unity!*

*It is like the precious oil on the head,

running down on the beard,

on the beard of Aaron,

running down on the collar of his robes!

It is like the dew of Hermon,

which falls on the mountains of Zion!

For there the Lord has commanded the blessing,

life forevermore.*

The footnote says “dwell together” would also be a satisfactory translation for the phrase 'dwell in unity' . Sois that all there is to unity? Living together? Or is the living together marked contextually by holiness, reverence for God, and prosperity?

Perhaps we do well to consider also 1 Peter 3:8-12 in the New Testament instances to get a better idea.

"Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. For

*“Whoever desires to love life

and see good days,

let him keep his tongue from evil

and his lips from speaking deceit;

let him turn away from evil and do good;

let him seek peace and pursue it.

For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,

and his ears are open to their prayer.

But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”*

Notice the interest here is on eagerness to maintain “the unity of the Spirit,” as if both enthusiasm and sustained effort is required.

But what is “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” and is that talking about unity with Christ or unity with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ? It must mean both if it can ever mean the latter. That is to say that it must be at least the former, unity with Christ.

Notice here again that we are called to speaking the truth in love – neither forgoing truth, nor neglecting love – as an integral part of maturation in the body of Christ. Can this happen if we stop speaking the truth, or if we put away love and let our hearts grow cold? No indeed.

Yet to speak the truth to one another, we must ourselves know the truth. So if we move on to a search for the word ‘united’ in the ESV, we come across one passage particularly relevant.

Consider 1 Corinthians 1:10.

"I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment."

Unity of mind appears again, and that Paul is making an appeal to agreement, and being united in mind and judgment. But what is the primary source of the quarrel in this case? In a word, factionalism plus cult of personality - particularly centered on men who are faithful servants of Christ.

Some follow Paul, Apollos, Cephas, and Christ by turn.

But how does agreement happen? And how do we become united in mind and judgment?

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Following up on our last episode, JP Chavez shared a thought with me regarding Doug Wilson and what to make of him, asking whether we should be more suspicious of 94 ecclesiastical charges being brought against Wilson in his own denomination, CREC, then all 94 charges being dropped. The short answer is that I think JP is right, and we should be more suspicious, and I should have made more of this than I did in my last episode.

So why didn't I? To be as truthful with you as I was with Mr. Chavez, the thought hadn’t really occurred to me. And I think at least part of the reason for this is because I’ve been trying to play nice in several other arenas, and maybe have been trying too hard to the point that certain observations which would have typically come easy to me escaped my notice here.

We all have been hearing so much about unity in recent years. Would it come as a shock when sometimes the whole truth as far as we might know it is a casualty in the interest of unity? And when we must put on blinders after a fashion in the interest of unity, would it surprise us to find at a certain point that we become relatively insensible?

Yet before we can answer that, following up about two episodes ago, on Ezekiel, JP made another point to me which I appreciate, that what God does is distinct from what we do. He positionally and authoritatively is not our peer, but our infinitely greater God. And we know this, or admit it. But is that truth relevant to the business of what language we use - and how certain things are discussed in the book of Ezekiel, for instance - compared with how we should talk?

As Christian families, we explain difficult passages differently depending on the maturity of our children, for example. And age is a factor in assessing maturity, yes. But there are other important factors as well. And to some extent, the rate of maturation is contingent on what we share, when, and how. That is, muscles worked too lightly or not at all will atrophy instead of strengthening, and we will get the gains we train for humanly speaking.

In other news - perhaps related - my daughter Evelyn Grace Mullet turned nine this week. And can I just say that it is so very different having a daughter to having sons? No, really. Can I actually say that?

These days, too many people don’t want us to say even the most self-evident sorts of things like these. But I’m going to say them anyway. Those vicious people who don't like it condemn themselves well enough without my having to.

So, yes. Our daughter Evelyn is very sweet and special. And there, I said it. But sometimes I go too easy on her, perhaps. Or at least my wife Lauren chides me for that. And hopefully I’m not spoiling Evelyn. But neither do I know entirely what to do with a daughter with having so many sons besides.

The last thing I want to do is be too harsh with her. Yet sometimes we can try so hard to not be harsh that we're not letting love be genuine, and we're not actually serving and safeguarding one another properly. All of these things are related, after a fashion, in a way peculiar to our age in my experience, study, and observation. And this is because our attitude toward doing what is right and telling the truth has become so very muddied by partiality, and a corresponding lack of discipline, maturity, sobriety, humility, and reverence.

Perhaps we would all be the better to meditate more on what it means to "let love be genuine." If we would do that in relation to all these things, I'm convinced we would not have nearly so many dilemmas and controversies which come to impasses so early, often, and easily.

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My wife Lauren recently sent me a link on Facebook to a post by a certain Facebook page which seems dedicated to exposing all the worst and nastiest scandals related to Moscow, Idaho pastor Doug Wilson. Titled 'A Timeline of Controversial Pastor Douglas Wilson of Moscow, Idaho,' there is an ever-loving lot of material here, complete with many insinuations as well as several links.

Having some experience with controversial pastors, and having some experience being a somewhat controversial commentator on social, political, and theological questions, plus also having read and listened to and recommended Doug Wilson resources in recent years, I couldn't very well decline to read through the link, not least because my wife sent it to me.

What follows in this episode is certainly the longest single episode of this podcast I've ever published, but it needs to be as long as it is. And if I thought I could get away with a longer episode still, I would try it. But considering the average attention span, as well as time constraints which are placed on me and you alike by virtue of life in the modern world, this will have to suffice for now. And perhaps in future some follow-up treatment of certain particulars is in order, but I trust my audience and the good Lord will give guidance regarding that.

But let me just say up-front that I like and admire Doug Wilson from afar, all the while recognizing that the situation on the ground can vary significantly from the carefully cultivated image presented online. That holds true for you and me, and it holds no less true for someone as intelligent and well-spoken as Wilson. Yet all the more rather than less, because I like him there is a certain feeling of weighty responsibility in encountering a long list of accusations and allegations against him and his institutions.

May I never become accustomed to flattery or partiality, nor accused of the same.

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Before we delve into the Old Testament book of Ezekiel in this episode, be warned that we will be talking here about subjects which some parents might not want their children hearing about just yet, so I tell you up-front lest I offend anyone’s sensibilities by surprise.

That said, I just this week learned about an old Jewish rabbinical tradition that men under 30 years old were not allowed to read Ezekiel. And, as would surely shock the sensibilities of feminists in our day, women were not permitted to read it at all.

Reading up on why this was so, after a passing reference to it in N.T. Wright’s biography of the Apostle Paul, I did a bit of digging, and I now know better what the reasons were, particularly after reading Ezekiel 16 in the Complete Jewish Bible translation. Yet I disagree with the decision to withhold this book from view except for men above 30, and

A similar tradition, by the way, was held to regarding Song of Solomon, or “the Song of Songs.” And this one was known to me, particularly in the wake of Mark Driscoll's infamous sermon series 'The Peasant Princess' several years ago.

Nevertheless, for those less familiar, Arend Remmers writes at BibleCentre.org the following explanation:

“With orthodox Jews we find the old tradition that men under the age of 30 years ought not to read the Song of Songs. At the same time the Jews have counted the book among the most holy ones and have accordingly estimated it very highly. This attitude becomes for us also. The Song of Songs is a book of oriental poetry that is marked by special pictorial language. Here it is the pictorial language of love, full of flowery, sentimental, and sometimes very vivid expressions. But neither an Oriental nor a Hebrew would consider this book as a description of voluptuous passion! Such a judgment was reserved to a so-called Christian, western civilization, which up to the mid of the 20th century made a taboo of all that was sexual.”

But, again, something similar being held to about Ezekiel was news to me. So while fact-checking N.T. Wright on his claim, I came across an article at Sojo.net by Jana Riess titled ‘Don’t Read This Part of the Bible If You’re Under 30 (Or A Woman).’

Ms. Riess describes herself as a feminist, and even the tagline for Sojourners where her article can be found reads as follows: “faith in action for social justice.” Nevertheless, she says a similar thing to what Arend Remmers wrote about Song of Songs when she writes:

“Some of the great rabbis taught that the book of Ezekiel, with its strange visions and explicit sexual language, should not be read by any Torah student under the age of 30. The symbolism of "30" was likely tied to Ezekiel's own reported age when he began receiving his prophetic visions; perhaps the rabbis felt that if Ezekiel was old enough to see these weird word-pictures, 30-something men were considered mature enough to read about them. Not so for women."

What are we to make of this, and is it ever good or wise to censor the Lord? Even if He says 'whore' and that offends our delicate sensibilities, I dare say 'No,' and 'watch out.'

But on a related note, the Google Books Ngram Viewer for the history of that word's usage since 1500 sure is interesting.

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Paul: A Biography

Credentialism is our word of the day. And why it matters is that there is an ignorance, folly, and hubris in assuming that everyone needs to go to college in order to do well professionally, or amount to something. In our day, there are far too many credentials handed out for the money, but not as much for their merit or that of those who will hold those credentials. And for some reason we seem to assume the merit so long as the money was exchanged, with the more money exchanged correlating to more merit, which is just absurd.

But I really do think we would all be better off if fewer of us went to college, and more of us read our Bibles and Plutarch instead, and then became conversant writing and speaking openly and in-depth with one another about what both can teach us of our heritage.

Speaking of, I want to tell you about the Life of Camillus from Plutarch in this episode. Camillus served five times as dictator in the Roman Republic, and did many noteworthy things, particularly in the 390's BC. And one story in particular of his successful siege of Falerii is worth our special attention.

Lastly, on a more personal note, this week marked three years since we moved to Greeley, Colorado. We were in the middle of renovations on the home we owned in Montana back then, and rented this house sight unseen after my little brother and his wife scoped it out for us.

Bryce and Alysseh were the only people we knew in Colorado too, and it's been good to be closer and see them more often. But the big draw for me was what the move meant for my wife and children, where better access to healthcare and education, and the facilitator for making the move was my work as an I&E Technician in the Oil and Gas industry, which I had been working in for seven years in 2019, mostly as an operator from 2012-2016.

Three years later, my wife Lauren and I are sure this was the Lord’s will, and are thankful for how He brought us here and has provided for us. That does not mean life has been easy, of course. We have had struggle, trial, heartbreak and pain here. But the Lord has blessed us here, and we are sure His purposes are good even in the midst of challenges and uncertainties.

I don’t say any of this to brag – that we move when many people seem paralyzed with fear at the idea of moving to new areas, uprooting and starting over; or that I have opportunities that come up like the one that brought us to Montana in 2012, or to Colorado in 2019. Instead, I am fixed on this, and convinced of it: that we should be content to stay when the Lord purposes for us to stay, or to go when the Lord purposes for us to go. He has always by turn purposed for His people to do both, as we read in the Scriptures – sometimes the one, sometimes the other.

You’ll never really enjoy and fully benefit from His purposes one way or the other if you are more influenced by your fear of the unknown than you are comforted by the goodness and assurances of His promises and purposes in Christ. We must remember that is the most profitable thing, come what may.

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"The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown."

So says Genesis 6:4 in the ESV. But what does it mean, and who were the sons of God?

We basically have two sets of answers – the first is boring, and the second is exciting.

In what I would call the boring category, there is the Sethite view that the "sons of God" were descendants of the righteous line of Seth, son born to Adam and Eve after Cain murdered Abel in a fit of jealousy at two offerings - one that God accepted, and the other that God rejected.

In the Sethite view, the sons of God married "the daughters of men," or the female descendants of Cain. And these led the righteous Sethites away from worship of Yahweh into wickedness.

But what is this about giants, and since when has the copulation of righteous men with pagan women consistently produced them? Certainly not in our day, at least to my knowledge. So that would not seem to fit except to make the Old Testament and ancient history as well as mythology far less fantastic.

Another popular theory in the boring category is that the "sons of God" spoken of in Genesis 6:4 were kings, since we know it was a common theme in ancient politics that the king of this or that nation claimed some god or another of their people as his notable ancestor. For that matter, those gods themselves may have been men.

Yet there remains the problem in that case of what to do with the references to "sons of God" in the book of Job, and how these are clearly not mere men, but rather what we would call angels, and what Michael Heiser would say were lesser deities, or "elohim" created by Yahweh God to have certain measures of authority and power over His created order, including the nations which He had not chosen.

And this brings us to the more exciting possibilities, which even Augustine in The City of God admitted many in his day favored. That is, that the "sons of God" were fallen angels, and that their offspring with beautiful human women were demons and giants.

From extended quotations of what Augustine and other early fathers of the Church wrote about this, we can learn much. But we know even just from the Biblical text that "there were giants in the earth in those days, and also afterward." And sometimes the word is translated "giants" into English, and other times it's translated "Nephilim." But either way, we do see giants in the account of Israel coming into the Promised Land, and also afterwards with David fighting Goliath.

Dr. Jordan B. Cooper holds that there is no question that demons are involved in pagan worship, and that to engage in pagan worship is to open ourselves up to the demonic. Yet Cooper questions whether that means that Baal or Molech, for instance, are real beings.

But to that I would ask - if we believe the demonic is real, but we don’t believe demons are real beings - what we mean by saying that what is demonic is real. Moreover, it seems to me as though the Sethite view of the Nephilim is very similar to the day age theory and theistic evolution in several important respects.

The same crowd that dismisses Young Earth Creationism also typically prefers to think of the Flood as being a regional rather than global event, for instance. And both alike are just the sort to put footnotes in that Behemoth and Leviathan were hippos and crocodiles, not dinosaurs.

In the interest of consistency, I disagree with all of that.

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If you voted for and supported former President Donald Trump, and would do so again, the speech current President Joe Biden gave in Philadelphia this past Thursday is a warning. Not only do the Democrat and Republican establishment see you as wrong, they see you as dangerous. More specifically, they see you as a threat to their vision of the American Republic.

What will they do under such auspices? Only the good Lord knows, and time will tell. But suffice to say that embracing the idea that we would want to Make America Great Again is diametrically opposed to the goals and ambitions Progressives have for a future America which they believe will be better than ever.

To say COVID-19 or 2020 Election Fraud seemed a conspiracy designed to wrest power from conservative Americans, and those independents gravely concerned about the long-standing actions and intentions of the establishment in our government, Joe Biden clearly regards as seditious. And as the red lights cast curious shadows on Liberty Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania behind him, with two Marine Corps guards flanking the doors to that hall, it would not be an exaggeration to say the speech itself was dark as a dungeon.

Constant references to "MAGA Republicans" stoking the flames of political violence have only one concrete event for a connection point - January 6th, and the entry into the Capitol Building by demonstrators who many of us have seen footage from several angles being let in.

Apparently political violence only counts in one direction, but nothing needs said of the FBI raiding the home of the previous and potential future commander-in-chief, hauling off mostly books and gifts and articles of clothing, or magazines and clippings. Nor is it worth mentioning that the IRS is hiring tens of thousands of armed agents even as we all have heard how conservatives were singled out or special attention just a few short years ago by that same agency.

I suppose pregnancy centers and churches being vandalized and threatened after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court can be lumped in as a consequence of MAGA too, in their way of thinking. And so also BLM and Antifa riots which seemed to magically dissipate when Democrats reclaimed a tenuous grasp on political power. That must have been our fault also.

Unity, then, means working hand in glove with social media to suppress whatever one party considers mis-, dis-, or mal-information online. And the FBI can endlessly harass even the sitting chief executive in this country, so long as he is a Republican. But there's no need to look into evidence of wrongdoing by this president's son as long as he's a Democrat.

If this all seems fishy to you, or upsets you, or you want the course of the country's direction to drastically alter from this trajectory, you are not just misguided. You are not merely mistaken, but deplorable and even the gravest threat. Again, what will be done about that? Only the good Lord knows, and time will tell. But the gauntlet is thrown down here, and the lines have been drawn.

The only path forward acceptable to the contingent represented by Joe Biden's speech Thursday is that we be quiet, vote for the establishment, and forget everything we've seen and heard the past several years. Put it all behind us, and let them chart the path forward - for the sake of Democracy and the Republic.

Funny, that. I don't think this is the way democracy and a nation ruled by laws rather than men is supposed to operate, or frame things. Yet here we are. And maybe, dare I say it, the men and women who think like me were not the ones who brought us here.

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A friend of a friend asks you if the following statement is true according to your beliefs: 'God does not love you because you do good works, but rather, that you do good works because God bestows that gift to you.'

The short answer is 'Yes.' The longer answer is found in John 14:15 and 1 John 4:19.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

And also,

“We love because He first loved us.”

He continues on to ask you to define generally the concept of your Reformed Church as it relates to the general Protestant Church as a whole, and whether your church a subset of the general Protestant Church.

Here again, the short answer is 'Yes.' And the longer answer is that the concept of the Reformed Church is that it actually relates to the Catholic Church in the traditional sense of the “Catholic Church” being the Universal Church, or Christ’s Church. The Reformed Church was, and remains, one among several attempts to call what we typically refer to now as the Roman Catholic Church to repentance and revival along the lines of the Biblical text as our only infallible source of truth for Christian life and doctrine.

That said, God alone knows perfectly all the names which are written in The Book of Life, and these alone ultimately are those who actually comprise the Church proper and for all eternity, who will rule and reign forever with Christ in eternity future by God’s grace. The object of our saving faith is not this or that tradition or church itself, however, but rather Christ, whose atoning sacrifice restores us to a right relationship with the Father also grants us access to eternal life.

So this friend of a friend continues, and asks whether the word “preordained” describes the concept of being chosen by God at birth.

And to that I would say that both “preordained” and “predestined” refer to the mysterious concepts spoken of in passages like Romans 8:29-30 – “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

There is also Ephesians 1:3-14 to consider, which says in part:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him."

Thus the concept of being chosen by God is not merely at birth, but before the foundation of the world. Admittedly, this is a thing mysterious, and known fully by God alone; yet if it is neglected by any sincere Christians of good faith through the past two millennia, that is to our peril, since it is Scripture, and not just conjecture and sophistry.

Your friend's friend then asks whether this is similar to the covenant that the Jews say exists between the Jewish people and God. And the answer to this is in the affirmative, with the caveats which are typical of both the Old Testament and New Testament narrative. That is, we as Christians do not disagree with Christ, who said he did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill the Law, since he is the one the Prophets and the Law were pointing to.

Jews often claim to be “the chosen people” of God, it is true. But God’s plan has always been to reconcile His chosen people from all nations to Himself. Therefore, we can readily admit that God’s chosen people included not only the Jews, but also non-Jews – like Rahab and Ruth, for instance – whose faith was credited to them as righteousness just as the author of Hebrews writes.

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Gradually making my way through ‘Summa Theologica: Volume I’ on audiobook, yesterday’s reading featured Aquinas talking about eternity and time. Consequently, here’s a mind-blowing idea for you: God is His own eternity.

But what does that mean? I confess to not fully knowing.

Even so, these are not useless or trivial ideas to contemplate. Aquinas stands as the last great medieval scholar of theology. So whereas theology was regarded up until the Enlightenment and our Modern era as “the queen of the sciences,” this really is saying something.

Whether you agree with him or not, or even know what to make of him, this is not fluff and stuff. But reading him really is good mental and spiritual exercise.

Even so, there are practical troubles to be found in reading books like Summa Theologica. The frank truth is that many folks find this pointless at best. And some feel downright threatened by it, and react with hostility accordingly.

Besides that, another byproduct of reading these sorts of books is that you start to talk funny. And this is because you think funny. When most people don’t cultivate their minds or inform their opinions this way, doing so makes you stick out.

So what if nobody cares? And what if nobody wants to hear it?

To not be just another recluse who keeps to himself, sitting around the house waiting for the next chance to talk with other people who are well-read, you might find yourself on the horns of a dilemma. Give up on reading to fit in, or keep prodding everyone around you to join you?

Someone I’ve been listening to recently who navigates this well is Dr. Jordan B. Cooper. About my age, Cooper is a Lutheran minister who has his own podcast and YouTube channel - Just and Sinner - where he talks about theology and church history. In a video examining the methodology at the heart of Michael Heiser's 'Supernatural' and 'The Unseen Realm,' Cooper does a fine job carefully unpacking the presuppositions, assumptions, priorities, and tradition which explain why men like them disagree over what to make of Biblical passages about angels, demons, and gods.

Be it known I agree with some of Cooper’s biggest concerns - about not only Heiser’s methodology, but also John Walton’s found in books like ‘The Lost World of Genesis One.’ At the same time, I confess to agreeing with many of Heiser’s conclusions about the competing religions of the world not just being demonic in the abstract. The gods of those religions are, or were, actual and personal demons. And I would appeal to Augustine on this point; my reading of City of God puts he and I on the same side of this question.

To make something of my closing point here, though, consider the story from just yesterday by Joel Abbot at Not the Bee, of FBI special agent Timothy Thibault, who resigned last week and was escorted from the building Monday. He it is who reportedly pressed the bureau to investigate President Trump, to not investigate Hunter Biden, to inflate domestic extremism stats towards putting angry American parents on terrorist watch lists, and to fire agents who refused the COVID vaccine.

Repeating myself, I will say that the trouble with conspiracy theories is that sometimes they turn out to be true. And reading great books helps us know when they are or may well be. Thus to read great books is not just a safeguard in the abstract, but at every level practically.

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Should we fight all the time, and always be criticizing, and ever only be against things? Some, who at least think they are good at fighting, and take up polemics as a matter of course, yet seem not to know anything other than war, demonstrate by their actions and ways of relating that their answer is 'yes.'

Polemics, by the way, is contentious rhetoric, deriving its name from the Ancient Greek word polemikos, meaning 'warlike, hostile.' And while I believe there is, as Ecclesiastes says in the Old Testament, 'a time for war,' there is more that needs to be said to have a balanced view. Only that much and no more is not good.

You cannot wage war in a time of peace, for instance. Moreover, if you try to anyway, you will not get far. But you may turn a time for peace into a time for war. And in that case you will soon find yourself rightly beset on all sides by decent men intent on neutralizing the threat you pose, and rewarding your disturbance of the peace with unpleasant consequences.

But equally so, in the opposite direction, we must say something about ecumenics, and how ecumenicism is the idea that Christians from diverse denominations should promote unity to the end of cooperation and closer relationships among the diverse churches. Borne of another Greek word, oikoumene means 'the whole inhabited world' and historically referred to the Roman Empire. And perhaps that should serve as a clue.

Unfortunately, many ecumenicists in the past century have steadily but surely been working to erase all meaningful doctrinal differences, or much care for them, between the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant traditions. And I think this is not good. Rather, I believe it ultimately lends itself to the development of a unifying future of global paganism. And that possibility seems decreasingly far-fetched with each passing year, particularly with the craze about Climate Change and transgenderism.

For those who pattern themselves in the ecumenical mold, peace is of the utmost importance. Yet as much as depends on us to live peaceably with all men seems to give way with many of them to believing that all depends on us, even at the expense of peace with God.

Both polemicists and ecumenicists seem not to notice that Ecclesiastes says both that there is 'a time for war' and 'a time for peace,' preferring by turn one or the other but not both, or insisting for this or that reason that we perpetually inhabit only one or the other because of their aspirations.

The simple truth is that we must know how to make peace just as skillfully as we would train for or wage just war, and fight the good fights. Moreover, we want neither to be those about whom it was said they cried 'Peace, peace' when there was no peace, nor do we want to be those who are contentious and whom, after being warned, no one has anything more to do with.

Yet I am sure we can know these times apart from one another, and that they are more individual to circumstances and individuals than to epochs or seasons. The former way of looking is where wisdom is needed - God-given, found only perfectly in His Word and with the help of the Holy Spirit. The latter way has more to do with group-think, conformity, opportunism, and loving the spirit of whatever age we happen to find ourselves living in.

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Some charming quotes this week from Democrats – including one current governor, one candidate for governor, and even the President of the United States - with regards to Republicans are worth a glance.

“And we are here to say that the era of Trump, and Zeldin and Molinaro, just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, ok?” “Get out of town. Because you do not represent our values. You are not New Yorkers.”

So saidNew York Governor Kathy Hochul to her Republican opponents.

Democrat nominee for Florida governor Charlie Crist also chimed in.

“Those who support the governor should stay with him and vote for him, and I don’t want your vote.” “If you have that hate in your heart, keep it there!”

Then there was President Biden himself on Monday.

“It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something, it’s like semi-fascism.” “The MAGA Republicans don’t just threaten our personal rights and economic security.” “They’re a threat to our very democracy. They refuse to accept the will of the people. They embrace political violence. They don’t believe in democracy.”

But California’s Air Resources Board announced this week that they are going to ban the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035. And according to an article by William Johnson at Teslerati.com, California’s regulations are accepted in 14 other states and the District of Columbia, so 17 State Attorney Generals are suing in federal court to block the move.

This is to say that we should not just read this news as being one state out of 50 having decided something for itself. California is not just one of the wealthiest and most influential states in the Union. It’s also one of the biggest economies in the world, and 28% of these United States look to its regulatory board to set their standards, including Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington.

This move comes as Ford just announced an $8,475 increase in the price of their 2023 Electric Mustang compared with the 2022 model immediately after the Biden administration announced an EV tax credit of $7500, citing “significant material cost increases” and “evolving market conditions.”

An article at The Daily Wire by Zach Jewell reports “Materials such as cobalt, lithium, and nickel have become harder to get, with China dominating cobalt and lithium production. That, coupled with supply chain issues, resulted in the cost of raw materials for EV production doubling from March 2020 to May 2022."

The government should not be centrally planning and paternalistically declaring that individual consumers are disallowed from buying the most inexpensive and dependable vehicles available. And central planning of this kind is exactly why we are right now seeing inflation at levels not seen in decades, and why we are seeing shortages of so many goods and materials across the economy in recent years where just previously there was an abundance.

A doubling of costs for raw materials needed for EV production in just two years should lead us to ask how much more will they rise in the next dozen. And what are the economic and national security implications of China dominating global cobalt and lithium production, with America on what seems like a collision course with China over Taiwan?

The real question cannot be limited to whether some of us want a clearer view of the mountains. Yet at the risk of seeming to gatekeep the conversation, I would recommend some books to study, and soon.

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Sometimes God’s people suffer for the sake of righteousness. When that is the case, we are called to not be afraid of those who would punish righteousness from corrupt motives. Instead, we are to prioritize, and to make preparation for, answering accusers with gentleness and respect, and with a good conscience, so that those who hate our good behavior in Christ will be ashamed of themselves.

Other times, Martyn Lloyd Jones is right to call out those who claim persecution for righteousness when in actuality they have sown the wind, and are now reaping the whirlwind.

As Hosea says, I think it can be applied to them: "The standing grain has no heads; it shall yield no flour; if it were to yield, strangers would devour it."

On a related note, here lately I’ve been reading up on the Ecumenical movement in our day. And it’s funny to me that I find myself agreeing with certain points made by Dr. Peter Leithart about the carnality of embracing the sentiment inherent to "I am of Paul," "I am of Apollos" where Protestant denominations are concerned.

The reason this amuses me is that I have absolutely no interest in larger efforts by him to let bygones be bygones where doctrine is concerned just so we can rejoin Rome - as Leithart essentially argues for. Rather, I am all the more disturbed the more I study by the move towards Globalism in the Post-War consensus which has fueled so many of the calls for Christian unity as-late.

As much or more as I may agree with Dr. Leithart on some of his supporting points, it seems from what I’ve heard of his public debates from several years back, with Fred Sanders, Carl Trueman, and Doug Wilson, that he misses the equal application of this concern for unity when such would apply to the Roman Church.

This kind of partiality is not good. Nor do I believe it's destined to succeed, however popular it may be for a time, and however persuasively designed lots of nudging towards it right now may feel.

But to be clear, I generally agree with Leithart’s concerns about Protestant sectarianism disguised as Christian orthodoxy. I share his concern about being unreasonably loyal to this or that particular servant of the Lord - whether real or imagined - at the expense of Christian unity. And this I mean not least with Protestantism, since I myself am a Protestant, and Protestantism in America is what I know best from an personal experiential standpoint.

Yet we all must police our own after a fashion, or else we will not get far chiding other circles. So take equal note of the Scripture and its ramifications for two temptations which seem opposite, yet are actually close cousins.

“Bad company ruins good morals” is contrasted in God's Word with “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” And these rebuke both those who shrug about doctrine in favor of fast agreement and superficial unity, and those who make mountains out of mole hills and strain out gnats while swallowing camels.

In both cases - where we accept bad company where antinomianism is concerned, and where we accept bad company where factional partiality reigns supreme; where we love friendship with the world, and where we say "I am of Paul" or "I am of Apollos" - something of the full importance of Christ as the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep is being dismissed as trivial. And in such cases of both varieties, those who sow the wind cannot merely rebuke the whirlwind. They must reap it if they won't repent of it.

Yet one thing I cannot abide by in all of this: when some in either the former or latter camp incite strong emotion in their debate opponents, or targets of opportunity, then turn around and make a mockery of reasonable responses to unnecessary rudeness by rebuking the byproducts of their antagonism - the anger, sadness, and anxiety they themselves deliberately provoked.

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This past week, Not the Bee posted a resurfaced 1989 clip of George Soros and Joe Biden talking about the "de-nationalization" and "radical reorganization" of economies. The two were specifically addressing Poland after the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of communism – at least predicated on the Soviet expression of it.

It's surreal to see a much younger Soros – who in our day is probably the nearest thing to a real-life Lex Luthor supervillain, funding a slew of Progressive, Globalist, Socialist politicians and radical initiatives in the U.S. and around the world – smiling and talking casually when I was 2 or 3 years old about how to reorganize the economies of entire nations opportunistically with a future President of the United States of America.

It is also surreal to see a younger Joe Biden – who needs no introduction, except perhaps to remind himself who he is and what he’s doing here anyway – sitting down with the Hungarian-American billionaire and being very deferential toward him.

In other news, Dictionary.com asks whether we should use BCE instead of BC to talk about years. A brief overview of how AD and BC came to be contains nestled in its questions certain insinuations about whether we can know what year Christ was born. And that is frankly silly, given that we’re told a certain Roman census was ordered then, whatever the controversy among biblical scholars and skeptics regarding Quirinius.

The important thing I would draw your attention to is how the author of the article at Dictionary.com admits that we’re still measuring to and from Jesus Christ even if the terms CE and BCE are chosen over AD and BC. Yet CE and BCE are preferable to some because they are either not Christians themselves, or else they are trying overly hard not to offend non-Christians.

This brings us to 'Battle for the American Mind' by Pete Hegseth with David Goodwin.

First off, let me just say that I had low expectations for this book as soon as I knew a Fox News personality had written it. This was, however, an excellent read, and it far exceeded my biases.

When Corey A. DeAngelis tweeted out on August 19th that nearly 2 million fewer students have enrolled in public schools, with the short caption “Mass exodus,” I cheered to see it second-hand. I am still locked out of my Twitter account, after all, for clapping back at a certain Chris Jolly Hale from Tennessee over the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

But all these parents in my generation need a viable alternative to the public schools and their vision. This has become clear to so many of them at the confluence of Common Core, COVID lockdowns, Critical Race Theory, and the promotion of radical Gender Theory alongside declining academic performance and increasing rates of substance abuse and suicide among our youth.

Having written and self-published 'And This Is Why We Homeschool' in 2020, I dedicated the second of four sections to the history of American public education because I felt it was important that we know how this all came to be the circumstance. But Hegseth and Goodwin here have written a book which takes the themes of my work in that section and expands them into a sturdy stand-alone work that is robust, well-researched, and of the utmost importance for us to read and understand.

In short, the prescription in 'Battle for the American Mind' is a return to the foundation of Western Civilization - Classical Education. Its case is well-argued and needful, and we all need to hear it.

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Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

Is motherhood a woman’s highest calling? It is, according to someone Jen Oshman - author of Cultural Counterfeits - encountered at a baby shower a few years ago. As she wrote in a blog post for Crossway.org on August 1st of this year, the statement hit her like a slap in the face since one friend she had with her at the event was single and longed to be married, and another friend she had with her had struggled with fertility problems for years.

But what do the Scriptures say? And who do we reserve awe for, and who do we revere and regard as our ultimate authority? And how much weight should it carry in our hearts and minds that Jen’s one friend is infertile, or that her other friend is single? At the risk of seeming uncaring, these are irrelevant to the question of motherhood as a high calling.

So also, whether the statement from the other lady at the baby shower was meant to be a slap on the cheek, or whether it was just an uncareful effort at celebrating that the woman for whom the baby shower was being thrown was to be honored and congratulated - this is an important detail. Without answering that question, getting overly offended about the hyperbole itself seems just a tad dramatic.

The point of the baby shower wasn’t for Jen to grandstand, so it's a good thing she didn't crash the party to confront the untruth. Nor either was the point of the baby shower for Jen’s single and infertile friends to feel so inclusively and comprehensively equal to a married and pregnant woman for whom the baby shower was being thrown. The point of baby showers is to celebrate the mother and baby in question, and to come around them and support what is happening and about to happen.

But notice something key. Jen Oshman isn't just saying the comment was careless or insensitive. She's introducing an important question in the premise of her blog post which I believe we need to grapple with here. Namely, has the American Church actually made marriage and motherhood into idols?

Speaking personally, I don’t just dislike the tendency to call “an idol” everything we can’t make a sound argument from the Scriptures against, I hate it. If someone can justify this and prove me wrong from the Scriptures, I am open to that. But in the meantime, I hear more and more references to Christians valuing this, that, or the other thing more than some Christian pastor or author wants them to, or in a way they don’t want them to. And rather than making their case from passages that deal specifically with the point in question, they just throw the behavior, attitude, habit, or assertion they don’t like into a kind of theological junk drawer labeled ‘idolatry,’ then carry on as though that's sufficient.

Nothing personally against Mrs. Oshman, but this broader trend is uncareful. Moreover, it's unconvincing, and perhaps even manipulative, and perhaps borders on bearing false witness against our brothers and sisters. Whether coming from men or women in ministry, it needs to stop.

If the American Church is being uncareful in its celebration and promotion of marriage and having children, we need to bring God’s Word to bear on that with clarity and precision – book, chapter, and verse. Talk of this or that being idolatry whenever there is an imprecise statement or uncareful pendulum swing is overwrought, however, and may even be a symptom of the latest iteration of the errors of the Gnostics and Manicheans.

We are called in the Scriptures to be thankful stewards of the good gifts the Master has entrusted to us, and there is nothing inherently unspiritual or idolatrous about striving for faithfulness and honor from that conviction, particularly given the totality of our current cultural problems.

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Preferring a narrowly defined gospel, why have so many American evangelicals in recent decades not invested more in intellectual pursuits? Mark A. Noll here in 'The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind' wants to know, and we should want to know along with him.

As he opens, "The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind."

Yet there are a few surprising gems here. For example, Noll confirms a suspicion I recently arrived at from reading other things, that German pietism has had a few hundred years at this point to emphasize the importance of feelings in the Christian life in a way that has gradually displaced the former preeminence which cultivating the life of the Christian mind enjoyed in the Church. This has left the Church in America especially vulnerable to a lot of nonsense, ignorance, and unreasonableness.

Yet Noll seems not to connect sufficiently the link between the condescension of liberal theology having administratively dominated American higher education and K-12 over the past century to the evacuation of conservative evangelical Christians from this space, even though these are two sides of the same coin.

The Democratization of American Christianity by Nathan O. Hatch is referenced helpfully. However, Noll as a Progressive Christian comes across as fussy and whiny at points in a way that is unbecoming and not selling the merit where it is to be found in many of his anecdotes and observations.

Where he complains early and often about Creationism and fundamentalism, for instance, I cannot agree with him. Rather, I am offended because he is being rude and presumptuous - only all the more so because I myself am a Creationist. But there is more.

Noll also seems to be not drawing the relationship correctly between presuming that science on the terms of the positivist has ascended even as conservative Christians have been pushed out of every kind of debate in secular and Statist institutions. But where respectable intellectuals are defined by their adherence to progressive presuppositions, the complaint that few to no conservative intellectuals qualify as such or are celebrated seems disingenuous.

But where I appreciate most what Noll has to say is in his call for restoring a long, rich tradition in Christianity of scholarship, intellectual rigor, study of the natural world, and engagement in every sphere of science to the glory of God. This is well, and the American Church would do well to heed this.

At the same time, Noll's prescription for how to do this is narrower-minded than Rod Dreher’s Live Not By Lies, for instance. Where Dreher calls more recently for more Christian home education and adult education, Noll seems to have eyes only for higher education and the academy on the terms of secularists and liberals, with scant room if any left for conservative Christians whom Noll seems to lump into a kind of basket of deplorables for American Christendom with the moniker 'Fundamentalists.'

Yet I would challenge Noll and those taken with his survey to consider situations like mine and my neighbor JP Chavez’s - who read this book before I did, and recommended it to me - where we read and discuss all these important books like Noll’s, and are endeavoring to cultivate the life of the mind to honor God, lead our families well, and serve our local church with an eye to the rich history of not just Christian life, but also thought.

Where Noll at times comes across as a bit of an elitist, I think his facts and historical treatment of evangelical Christianity in America is generally helpful, yet could have been much more helpful without the condescension and self-aggrandizing of a particularly narrow vision of cultivating Christian intellect.

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My cousin Tim Mullet recently answered my question about examples in the Old or New Testaments of God's people rebuking one another for emotions. Let us consider, then, the deaths of Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10, as well as the death of Absalom in 2 Samuel 18-19:15, since those are the examples Tim has submitted for consideration.

As Tim rightly points out, Moses and Joab spoke to Aaron and David respectively for their displays of grief in these contexts. And I agree that it would not be overstating things to call their responses rebukes.

As Moses tells Aaron after his sons are burned up by God's wrath for conducting an unauthorized ceremony in a way that clearly lacked the reverence due the Most High, and would have otherwise led Israel astray after them had the Lord not immediately struck them dead:

“Do not let the hair of your heads hang loose, and do not tear your clothes, lest you die, and wrath come upon all the congregation; but let your brothers, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning that the LORD has kindled. And do not go outside the entrance of the tent of meeting, lest you die, for the anointing oil of the LORD is upon you.”

Similarly we read of Joab - who was commander of David's military, who sternly took his king to task after the death of Absalom. As you may remember, David's son Absalom had tried to usurp the throne, and the resulting civil war cost many lives. David mourned his son on learning he had been killed, and Joab was having none of it when celebration at victory turned into the whole people feeling ashamed as in defeat to see their king so distraught.

“You have today covered with shame the faces of all your servants, who have this day saved your life and the lives of your sons and your daughters and the lives of your wives and your concubines, because you love those who hate you and hate those who love you. For you have made it clear today that commanders and servants are nothing to you, for today I know that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased. Now therefore arise, go out and speak kindly to your servants, for I swear by the Lord, if you do not go, not a man will stay with you this night, and this will be worse for you than all the evil that has come upon you from your youth until now.”

Shortly thereafter, it should be noted, though David heeded his counsel after a fashion, Joab was removed from his position and summarily replaced. The fact that he was the one who had killed Absalom against the orders of his king may have been a contributing factor.

But were these examples of God's people rebuking one another for their emotions? Or were these as I suppose, examples of outward expressions of partially appropriate grief which were taken too far, or would have been, and responded to accordingly by contemporaries as risking the communication of an untruth and injustice given the circumstances?

Furthermore, though these do serve as examples of just the sort of thing I had said previously I have not noticed in the Biblical text, we ought to nevertheless ask when we come to passages like these whether their inclusion in the Biblical narrative is prescriptive or merely descriptive. In other words, we should ask whether Moses and Joab were called to upbraid Aaron and David in this way. The fact that they said what they said is not enough to establish this.

So also, given the extremity of the situations - one of disobedient and presumptuous worship by priests only one generation removed from Aaron, the other an incident of gross rebellion against the Lord's anointed over the household of Israel - I would at least warn those who rebuke their brothers and sisters in Christ for the emotions themselves, to consider whether the situations in which they take the household of faith to task have a similar weight and significance.

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Famed Welsh preacher and physician Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981), in a sermon series on Romans 1 which he started in 1958, once had this to say about why Hitler had never worried him.

“I was never worried for a second about a man like Hitler; it was enough for me to read the thirty-seventh Psalm, and there I read of a man like him spreading himself like a green bay tree, a sort of colossus striding the whole earth. But I read on and learned that a day came when a man wanted to go to see him and to speak with him, and he could not find him. He searched everywhere for him; he could not find any trace of him; he had vanished. Why? God had blown upon him.”

And that is well. But Martyn Lloyd-Jones had other things to say too about politics. For instance, when he came to preaching on Romans 13 from 1966-1967, he expressed at some length how and why he did not believe professing Christians should ever divide over politics.

"Is there is only one view amongst Christians with regard to economics or any of these questions? The answer, quite plainly, is no. That is why I have always opposed the idea that there should be a Christian political party in this country. In some countries you will find such parties, but that, to me, is based on a complete misunderstanding of this teaching. You cannot have a Christian political party because Christians hold different views on the economy and other issues.

You can have equally good Christians in the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party and the Labour Party. What is it that divides them? Not their Christianity, not their spiritual point of view, but their opinions with regard to specific problems in the realm of economics, or drainage even, or one of these other questions that law and government have to consider.

Now I am not saying that the fact that people are Christians does not make a difference at all to their views on these matters. What I am saying is that you cannot say that there is ‘the Christian view’ with regard to most of these questions that have to be considered by the powers that be. And historically it has, of course, always been the case that Christian people have differed for one another on many of these questions without there being any reflection whatsoever upon their Christianity."

So then, Martyn Lloyd-Jones did not believe there should be a ‘Christian’ political party in Britain. Christians hold different views on the economy and other issues. Yet Christians congregate in separate denominations because we disagree about doctrine and practice too. Should we not do that either?

Clearly, not all disagreements between professing Christians are legitimate - for instance, in our day, consider the contention regarding sexual ethics, abortion, Climate Change, and public health policy. These are not just issues "of drainage even." It would be a mercy if we could say that, but we cannot.

And if MLJ held that equally good Christians should be found in every political party, does that include the Communist party? And what about when such a person believes they can mix in Marxism with the Gospel and deny that anyone who doesn't really knows and follows Jesus?

At a certain point, we must recognize that some profound political differences actually stem from profound theological and teleological differences. And some believe God's Word is a tool to transform their own hearts and minds, while others believe their political ideology should be the guide to reinterpret and even hijack the Scriptures.

When the latter happens, we cannot always just shrug dispassionately because it's generally true that Christians can disagree. Sometimes political differences between those who claim Christ both stem from and result in false teaching, a false testimony, and a false gospel. We must be clear about that.

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We need to take a look at the cost-benefit to the American people for the FBI, DOJ, IRS, USDA, and CDC, and other similar departments, bureaus, services, agencies, and centers. And would it be a good thing on the whole if some of these federal agencies were abolished entirely?

There is no disputing they separately and together represent a kind of supra-governmental force in American public and private life. Similarly, the typical American has no idea who either the leadership or rank-and-file of these institutions are, or how they obtain and wield their power over our lives in their particular sectors.

We don't know what they're doing, therefore cannot possibly hold them accountable. At best, there is a redundancy and inefficiency to the functions of these institutions. Where state and local government could serve in these capacities, that would be preferable. But these bodies are supposed to be apolitical, and yet have become nakedly partisan.

Or who can say there is an impartiality to the way they operate relative progressives and conservatives in the U.S.?

At some point we must concede that something like a Deep State exists, however many are uncomfortable with that term. Moreover, if this thing like a Deep State does indeed exist, operating in the shadows or else beyond accountability, it is clearly a tool of oppression and subversion fashioned and leveraged against conservatives, and expected to do so more broadly and deeply in the coming months and years if something is not done.

But if that is, as I suppose, an evil thing on the whole, what if anything can we do to abolish it? We will never be able to get at an answer if we cannot even begin to ask the questions. So here I go, and ask the question in light of recent developments over even just the past week.

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Jesus answered them, in John 8:31-38 “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."

So also, we do well to consider that freedom and truth are inseparably linked to the truth in God's economy. Just before this, Christ had said something else to the Jews who had believed him.

“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Thus we turn to the question my wife Lauren and I have been considering as our eldest two sons, Josiah and Eli, are asking about a cell phone and Facebook account. Both are teenagers. Josiah at 15 is taking driver's ed online right now, and Eli at 14 will soon be taking business classes one day a week at a local community college here in Greeley. They should probably have a cell phone, then.

As for Facebook, I am more reluctant. Eli wants to use the Marketplace feature to buy and sell used things. He keeps asking me if he can create an account of his own, but the concerns about social media which listeners to this podcast have heard expressed for years are at the fore of this father's mind.

Then yesterday, a guy I work with, Chad Myers sent me a link to an article at Medium from March 12, 2018 by a psychologist and author named Richard Freed after listening to my recent episodes about anxiety, depression, distractedness, and psychology.

Titled 'The Tech Industry's War on Kids,' the piece by Freed which Chad sent me is over five-thousand words introducing 'persuasive technology' and its use in the development of everything from smart phones to video games to social media, and more.

What is persuasive technology, you might ask? In brief, it is the wedding of psychology and engineering.

More to the point, our vulnerabilities and most basic desires have been noted and catalogued, both by psychologists offline and thereafter by algorithms and databases online, in general as well as specific to our individual profiles. And a great deal of money is trading hands to the end of changing our behavior accordingly.

In other words, we are all being manipulated, and I would even say enslaved. An endless variety of 'nudges' are targeting us via easy-to-use devices and applications that reward us for submitting ourselves and our information readily to them.

So “keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life."

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The Gospel Coalition highlighted in a recent tweet a quote from Sam Allberry. "We don't live in a moralistic age where we need to prove people to be sinners. We live in an anxious age where we need to prove to people they're worth something." Even if Allberry is right that we live in an anxious age, it does not necessarily follow that a crisis of self-confidence and valuation is the cause, or that words of affirmation are the chief cure for what ails us. Iron sharpening iron is good, for instance. And so is one man to another. But some take this to mean something which I believe is untoward, and an overcorrection of what men like Allberry are claiming. Do we see, for instance, Christians rebuking fellow Christians in the New Testament for their feelings? Or do we see God’s people in the Old Testament being rebuked for their feelings? I do see 'Weep with those who weep,' and 'rejoice with those who rejoice.' And if 'Be anxious for nothing' and 'Fear not' are commands, then so also sympathy must be. We should by all means preach and minister to the whole person – in ourselves and one another. But why do some prefer to rebuke the emotions themselves, or the people for feeling their emotions? Some of us seem to me to be affirming the premise that our emotions are who we are and what we should be about rather than a consequence of what we believe is true and good. And I find that deeply concerning, no less if emotions are being rebuked than if they're being affirmed as sacrosanct. Yet where the prevailing emotions and thoughts of a person are often called a disease or disorder in our day, even when there is no medical diagnosis to explain the depression, anxiety, or trouble paying attention, the Nouthetic counseling method perceives a danger calling sickness what is actually sin. What do they do with this? To say someone is sick is not to say they are not a sinner. Neither is saying someone is a sinner to say they are not also sick. Christ in Luke 5:31-32 uses both kinds of language – of illness and health, and of sin and repentance. So should we. "And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” The context of his saying this was Pharisees challenging Jesus for eating with tax collectors and sinners. And yet, again, there was nothing mutually exclusive about those who came to Jesus being either sick or sinners. They were both, with no excuses made. But healing and forgiveness from Christ corresponded with his compassion for the sheep without a shepherd. What does Psalm 94:19 say? “When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.” The Lord's consolations cheering the soul of the careworn cannot to my mind be rightly substituted with rebukes to those who are overwhelmed with sadness and worry, even to the point of despair. Otherwise, what will we say? Is there a kind of mental and emotional prosperity theology inherent to our assumptions? Really, now. I think some of us have never read the book of Job. Or if we have, we did not read it carefully to let it speak to us so much as read into it what Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar would have. And Carl Trueman is right. "Protestantism, with its emphasis on the preached word grasped by faith, is perhaps peculiarly vulnerable to downplaying the importance of the physical. But to tear identity away from physical embodiment and to root it entirely in the psychological would be to operate along the same trajectory as transgenderism."

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Prominently lauded and recommended on the book cover by Daniel Kahneman – co-author of ‘The Undoing Project,’ along with Amon Tversky - 'Nudge' is the practical application extension of Kahneman and Tversky's theory and research in behavioral economics.

To give just one example, Thaler and Sunstein brainstormed ideas for normalizing gay marriage in the first edition of their book, published in 2008. In their 'Final Edition' - the version I read - they explain that governments around the world, rather than relying on nudges like they recommended, just passed laws declaring gay marriage the law of the land. And they were happy with that.

But Thaler and Sunstein say “We do not support a position known as “Presumed Consent,” but we do support freedom of choice.” And by this they seem to consistently mean what Progressives all over America do when they talk about being Pro Choice - freedom of choice for those whose humanity is fully recognized and affirmed.

Expressing a notably low opinion of conservatives and conservatism as contrary to progress, Thaler and Sunstein proposed government getting out of marriage entirely in their earlier edition. The civil union strategy was to serve as a kind of end-run around traditionalist and conservative arguments against by playing games with the language. They were also pleasantly surprised Obama came out in favor of gay marriage in a reversal of course from his initial campaign claims and pledges.

Countries that legalized gay marriage in the early 2000’s and 2010’s listed in 'Nudge,' each homosexual coming out of the closet is cited by them as an individual 'nudge.'

So also, they talk about how in 2013 an openly homosexual bar association was admitted to argue cases at the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time, introducing 30+ lawyers who were homosexuals to Supreme Court Justices. This too served to nudge SCOTUS to the 2015 decision that judicial body made in Obergefell v. Hodges.

Meanwhile, from a social and cultural standpoint, presenting normalization of acceptance for homosexuals and thereafter gay marriage as an up and coming reality, an inevitable trend, helped to make the same into a self-fulfilling prophecy even before it was actually a reality.

In other words, they lied. They created the false impression, much like Ben Rhodes bragged about creating an echo chamber of disinformation in the American media regarding the Iran Nuclear Deal. It didn't hurt that David was both Ben's brother and president of CBS News from 2011-2019, by the way.

But “people can even nudge themselves" seems a kind of after-thought for Thaler and Sunstein. The realization of such gets downright creepy when you come to the chapter on organ donation and an exploration of options available to governments regarding the supply and demand of transplantable organs, including the suggestion that a market could be created for them to be bought and sold. Isn't that what the CCP has been doing?

And it gets downright menacing when they talk about government responses to COVID and Climate Change around the world, in no small part with the help of their influences.

'The Prince,' 'Propaganda,' 'Rules for Radicals' - Thaler and Sunstein's work feels like a dressed-up and modernized version of these and other books I’ve read which the Left in the U.S. especially is fond of using for strategic source material. It would seem Progressive realpolitik decided to put on a smiley face just as Goldberg's 'Liberal Fascism' foretold.

The cure for what ails American society is not more nudges. The solution is for manipulative folks to stop manipulating the Nudged Enough Already. So maybe we need a new political movement. We'll call it the NEA Party. It’ll be like the TEA Party, but countering nudges instead of taxes and regulations. Those who join soonest and fight hardest we will call “the knights who say NEA.”

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A YouTube short was sent me by my cousin Micah Hershberger this week. In it, Kevin O’Leary, from the popular TV show Shark Tank, shares a story about a young man who asked him his opinion about a major life choice. He was running a startup business out of his dorm room, making $5 million a year in free cash flow, but his fiancé was going to leave him because he didn't have any time to spare for family and friends. O'Leary's response was to ask the young man which is easier to replace – the business, or the girlfriend?

More should be said on this than what O’Leary gives us here. The young lady in question here, who probably got dumped, perhaps should have been thinking about more than herself, or maybe more long-term. But the young man should be too.

If your business is clearing $5 million a year in free cash flow, you’re doing well there. Now what are your plans to get a wife and start a family? Money isn’t everything, after all. And there is more to life than a successful career or business.

A lot of us need to get back to thinking of professional and career success as a means to the end of starting and supporting a family. If we can’t or won’t do that, we will see our civilization and selves collapse before long.

As Polybius says of his own people in 'The Histories,' we do well to take note.

“In our own time the whole of Greece has been subject to a low birth rate and a general decrease of the population, owing to which cities have become deserted and the land has ceased to yield fruit, although there have neither been continuous wars nor epidemics...For as men had fallen into such a state of pretentiousness, avarice, and indolence that they did not wish to marry, or if they married to rear the children born to them, or at most as a rule but one or two of them, so as to leave these in affluence and bring them up to waste their substance, the evil rapidly and insensibly grew.”

Polybius being a Greek in Rome, his going to the lengths he did to chronicle the rise of Rome and the fall of the Greeks in itself tells us how important these things were to both Romans and Greeks in his day.

First of all, the rise of Rome was important to the Greeks. What had just happened to them? How had they been brought low?

Just so, the fall of the Achaeans was important to the Romans. And this was true, I believe, for the very same reason the Romans overcame the Greeks, and for the same reason the Greeks told so many cautionary tales in their mythologies, philosophical enquiries, dramas, plays, poems, and histories.

Openness to wise council was a proof of appropriate and noble humility. Stubborn pride, on the other hand, always preceded ruin. But the Greeks fell because they failed to heed their own cautionary tales, and became too enamored with their own sophistry, art, architecture, and legend.

In the opposite direction at the same time, Rome rose because her citizens, soldiers, and statesmen had the requisite humility to observe, note, and appropriate what was remarkable about the Greeks and other peoples, even as they noted their own weaknesses and vulnerabilities and improved on them.

As Polybius writes,

“There are two roads to reformation for mankind—one through misfortunes of their own, the other through those of others: the former is the most unmistakable, the latter the less painful. One should never therefore voluntarily choose the former, for it makes reformation a matter of great difficulty and danger; but we should always look out for the latter, for thereby we can without hurt to ourselves gain a clear view of the best course to pursue.”

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I am almost through ‘The Histories’ by Polybius, and hope to wrap up the last few hours today. Now I remember how my friend Joseph Crampton recommended I dig into Plutarch’s ‘Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans’ next, and that title is calling my name.

My wife is also encouraging me in this, since our kids study Plutarch as part of our homeschooling curriculum. From what I’ve heard from them, 'Lives' is enriching stuff.

I get this favorable impression, for instance, that Plutarch places a special emphasis both on telling stories with morals as well as explaining the morals to the stories he tells. He doesn't just subject his readers to dry recitations of names and dates without effect.

That is a mercy, not least because 'Lives' will be the single largest title I have ever taken up, with Audible showing the copy I’ve just bought at 83 hours and 11 minutes long. This will take a while, then, but I will be sure to keep you updated as I go, so you can benefit as well.

You may be wondering why, though, besides encouragement from my family and friends, this seems good to me. To answer in part, I credit Victor Davis Hanson’s ‘Who Killed Homer’ and 'Carnage and Culture,' as well as Os Guinness’s ‘A Free People’s Suicide’ and ‘The Magna Carta of Humanity.’ These have caused me to value more highly original source material by those Greeks and Romans credited for so much of Western Civilization.

By all accounts, Polybius, Plutarch, and Cicero have been hugely important to the development of Western thought, and the unfolding of World History accordingly, as the West has achieved so much dominance on a global scale.

For my part, I am trying to understand what to do about the ongoing decline of the West generally, and the United States of America in particular. So it seems wise to me to go back and study the intellectual roots of our civilization, found not only in the Bible and Church History, but also among the heirloom historical and philosophical works of the Greeks and Romans.

Similarly, I plan on starting ‘Nudge’ by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein this weekend. My reason being a certain UnHerd interview Freddie Sayers did with Professor Susan Michie back in 2020, which I recently saw shared to Reddit.

So also, an article at The Epoch Times caught my attention yesterday about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban speaking at CPAC in Dallas, Texas on Thursday. The Conservative Political Action Conference invited Orban to address attendees, and our Leftist mainstream media is having a field day as usual because they hate his politics, particularly his warning the West about a takeover by, if we dare call them by their name, Communists.

Thus, I find still more reasons to study the Greeks and Romans. Something clearly has to be done, but we must remember who we are before we can do it.

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Besides enjoying in-depth discussion with my friends Paul Pavlik and JP Chavez while we all three listened through it together, this book made me curious to read Augustine’s fuller commentary directly.

I can’t seem to find a copy online, except from AbeBooks.com where a translation in two volumes published by Paulist Press in 1982, and translated by John Hammond Taylor. It's part of a series called Ancient Christian Writers, which sounds terribly interesting.

Volume I and II, Books 1-6 and 7-12, is going for $79.16 plus $22.54 to ship to the U.S. from the Netherlands. So perhaps I will hold off for now.

I tell you this to help you realize how strongly I feel about Gavin Ortlund writing his treatment of Augustine's commentaries on Genesis from a certain bias against Young Earth Creationists. Being a Young Earth Creationist myself, taking some umbrage is obligatory.

Where Ortlund cautions general humility in debates about the meaning of Genesis 1-3, for instance, he seems to come back often to Young Earth adherents especially, like Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research. But why do Young Earth Creationists especially need humility? And is humility quite the right word with them particularly compared with Old Earth or Evolutionary Creationists?

Hazarding a guess, Ortlund is referring less to humility before the text, or humility before God - though that is what Augustine would have meant - and more to humility before the claims of positivist scientists.

The unbelieving world in academia holds in derision Young Earth Creationists especially. And anytime Christians generally talk back to or question the godless men and women in white lab coats, we are sneered at, and called "anti-Science."

In facing these types especially, then, I can see how a prescription for greater "humility" might reduce friction. But then it is worth noting the whole tone, tenor, and paradigm of Augustine's City of God, which I read last year. And familiarity with that work does indeed make me wonder whether Augustine would be more circumspect about where we find ourselves today were he actually to walk into a room where a Young Earth, Old Earth, and Evolutionary Creationist were debating Genesis 1-3.

We all are tempted by virtue of our humanity to think more highly of ourselves than we ought, and to be haughty rather than associating with the lowly. We all, as we gain knowledge and understanding, must actively resist the temptation to be wise in our own eyes.

But then my point of view is that mainstream academics are further from the kingdom. And where their de facto scorn for those who take the Bible as being literally true could be interpreted as not associating with the lowly, perhaps there are other kinds of humility needed here besides just humility before the world.

These two are related, of course. That we would be humble before God and His Word must translate into genuine humility when relating to other saints and the outside world, to be sure. But so also, confidence in God's Word should not be taken for a lack of humility, even where it leads to more vehement criticisms from the naturalists and materialists.

We should admit to a mysterious quality to Genesis 1-3, as Augustine did. And just as he spent decades toiling at trying to explore its many combinations of possible meanings and implications - believing it was true, yet not always being certain what that means - we should not be overhasty to compromise with the claims of mainstream science as if the conversation between us is a one way street, with the men in white lab coats telling us what of our Bibles we can believe or not as they see fit.

By all means, let's create two categories. Those who deny the Bible is true on the one hand, and those who debate what that means on the other. But let's recognize it may not always be easy to tell who belongs in one versus the

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That we are now observing symptoms of an ongoing push for global communism seems apparent and self-evident to me, as well as many of the folks I talk with privately. Under the guise of pushing for greater equality of LGBTQ+ persons, as well as combatting Climate Change, we all are witnessing odd manipulations of supply chains of various kinds - particularly where food, energy, and money are concerned.

How then can Christians individually, and the Church as a whole, defend against the current push for authoritarian central planning and control on a global scale? Not by fighting fire with fire. And not by repaying evil for evil.

What the Apostle Paul wrote in the twelfth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans is instructive and practical. For starters, we learn in that section of Scripture that what we do with our bodies matters to God. Our spiritual worship is to present our bodies as a living sacrifice.

So also, what we do with cultivating our minds is of great interest to our Maker. Why else would He have given us minds? Not to dumbly follow the crowd; that way stands in direct contrast to transformative renewal of our minds.

The big idea is not for us to depend only on others to do all our thinking and reasoning. Instead, we are called to embrace the process of developing discernment in ourselves according to God's definitions of goodness, acceptability, and perfection.

Equally important, what follows God's call on us to develop discernment in ourselves is a call to not be conceited. Sober judgment is contrasted with having a lofty opinion of ourselves. Just so, we must remember that while discernment is a spiritual gift, it is not the only one God gives.

Genuine appreciation for other varied gifts God has given to Christian brothers and sisters in our midst is evidence of sober judgment. We have a duty to love one another in an authentic rather than fake way accordingly. This requires hating what is evil, as well as holding fast to what is good.

For those of us with a competitive, the redirection is outdoing one another in showing honor. See also what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians about spiritual gifts, and this stands in contrast to thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought. Here again, we must know what God tells us is honorable before we can show honor ourselves.

Fervency instead of laziness should mark our service to God. And the kind of fervency our service is characterized by is itself distinguished by joyfulness, patience, prayer, generosity, and hospitality.

Relationally, we strive for peaceability with persecutors and fellow Christians alike. Haughtiness is contrasted with associating with the lowly. The implied inverse, then, is that conceit is comparable to exclusively hobnobbing with the wealthy and powerful as we distance ourselves from the poor and weak.

In no way are we to be self-impressed with our own wisdom, then. Nor are we given these gifts from God to promote ourselves. Yet this warning is separate and distinct from a careful attention to the optics of respectability borne of our reverence for God and genuine care for one another. And that, in turn, is closely related to living peaceably with all, and is of a piece with overcoming evil with good.

Thus we find, in my view, a framework for Christians to endure patiently the trials which are here, and which do seem to be on their way in greater measure. We look to God, and are transformed by the renewing of our minds to discern what God's will is in whatever times and circumstances as we find ourselves in, either now or in the future.

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Mark Tooley recently interviewed Joshua Mitchell for Providence Magazine to discuss the relationship between conservative political action and Protestant Christianity. In the interview, Mitchell remarks that our policy discussions in America still center around Protestant Christian concepts like transgression and propitiation, even though Protestant Christianity per se has been largely removed from public life.

Consequently, insofar as identity politics has reorganized and redefined what we identify as either iniquitous or righteous, in the absence of Christ serving as our ultimate scapegoat, whole classes of people in American society are now regarded as stand-ins where Christ formerly was regarded as our all-sufficient atonement.

Three other articles I came across around the same time last week bear this out.

One was in The Denver Post about women in particular getting pushback from physicians as they seek voluntary hysterectomies now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned. Never mind how vasectomies can be reversed and hysterectomies cannot, to my knowledge. Doctors cautioning young women where they may not be quite as energetically trying to talk healthy young men out of getting the old snip-snip is presented as degrading sexism.

Speaking of rerouting life-giving waterways, two more articles I read last week had to do with major river management projects in America being dramatically re-evaluated for their efficacy. Unforeseen consequences have reportedly resulted from man trying to engineer nature on a grand scale over the past century.

The Greeley Tribune republished the one piece. Written by Conrad Swanson, it’s titled 'The West’s most important water supply is drying up. Soon, life for 40 million people who depend on the Colorado River will change.'

Hakai Magazine published the other, titled 'The Controversial Plan to Unleash the Mississippi,"and written by a Boyce Upholt.

Both of these two pieces about rivers feature an unusual airing of grievances about Native American tribes not feeling they have sufficient representation in the present-day decisions regarding water management projects. Thus the reader is required to set aside the question of tens of millions of Americans being able to eat and have safe drinking water, or make a living, or have access to reliable electricity, and take detours for social justice.

Yet all these things do go together along the lines of Joshua Mitchell's observations in the Mark Tooley interview. We area told in countless subtle ways that the iniquity of straight, white, able-bodied, Protestant men and women brought us to this moment all around. Now saving the planet in these sizeable regions of the United States presumably requires setting aside Western notions regarding the value of human life, so long as the human life in question belongs to the iniquitous class.

But there's more. We also see here a thorough rejection and even complete erasure of the Judeo-Christian assumption that the Creation Mandate is still something for us to adhere to and carry out.

Instead, what is preferred is the self-existent, self-referential individual who wants to live for themselves, pursue social justice, and save the planet - not for future generations, but from future generations. We, then, are regarded as unnatural and a blight. If such were not the case, we might expect more attention paid to finding actual solutions to these problems.

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Are anger, fear, and anxiety sins to be repented of? Some believe so, pointing to the presence of commands in the Bible to put away anger, fear not, and be not anxious for anything. We must know what to make of these one way or another, without either being antinomian or excessively severe to those who are suffering more than sinning when they feel negative emotions.

As Christians, we are told to not act like the world does, in the futility of their minds. They do not understand, and are estranged from godly living because they are ignorant and stubborn.

Instead, we should not only tell one another the truth as Christians, but we should allow one another to tell the truth - even hard truths - as members alike of the body of Christ.

A truth, then, is that you have permission to be angry for a little while. Just don't think your anger gives you a right to sin. And don't think you have a license to keep on stubbornly being angry.

What's more, you should know that so long as you stubbornly hold onto being angry, you make yourself vulnerable to Satan, who loves to exploit your anger to tempt and derail you.

For example, some of what you may be tempted to say in the heat of the moment would wickedly hurt you and the people around you if you gave into the temptation. Yet however you feel, you nevertheless have a duty to say only things that build up the people around you, as appropriate to the circumstance, in a gracious way.

So stop stubbornly clinging to your bitterness, anger, strife, and accusing of others. You have no right to be malicious just because you have pain or personal suffering. Instead, your calling is to kindness, gentleness, and forgiveness, because God in Christ forgave you.

You are in such a hurry to talk and get angry. Be in a hurry to listen instead. And remember that our anger is not nearly so conducive to the righteousness of God as it is a weakness Satan wants to exploit to even more suffering for us and those around us.

Merely listening to the truth is not enough. Don't kid yourself. You have to act and relate and orient yourself according to the truth, however you feel. If you count yourself a fine Christian, but you don't control what comes out of your mouth, your religiosity means nothing.

But do tell the anxious, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” And don't be anxious about your own life, or about anything. Pray and give thanks instead. And take your requests to God. Then your heart and your mind will be safe in Christ.

Stop being so afraid of people, whatever power they have to hurt you in this life. Everything hidden is known by God and will be made known by Him in the end. However menacing the malicious people in your life are, they can't kill your soul.

But do be afraid of God who has power and authority to dispose of you body and soul. And yet He says you're worth more than many sparrows, so you shouldn't be afraid in another sense. The number of hairs on your head are known by your Creator. So you don't need to be afraid because your Father in Heaven gives you the kingdom.

Christ's peace he left with us; his peace he gave us. And he doesn't give like the world gives. So don't let your hearts be troubled, and don't be angry, anxious, or afraid.

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Should we regard Nouthetic counseling as biblical counseling? And are these two things synonymous, or is there perhaps a certain inherent unreasonableness to the Nouthetic approach which we do well to mark and avoid in the interest of being more faithful to the whole counsel of God?

In so far as I consider these questions in this episode, I want to consider the subject in an introductory way. More can certainly be said, and should be. And more should be known about the school of thought than what I know, and doubtless will be.

But these qualifiers out of the way, I am admittedly not an expert in either psychology or counseling. The extent of my formal training still remains a very good General Psychology course I took from a Dr. Michael Firmin at Cedarville University in 2006.

Though I am very sorry to say Dr. Firmin passed away in 2020, I count myself privileged to say that by virtue of his course, plus my study of the Scriptures, there are some significant presuppositional points with which I differ with the Nouthetic approach - particularly where it certainly seems to see mainstream psychology as being either/or instead of potentially offering any valuable insights which Christians can avail themselves of while we who hold God's Word to be our only infallible authority.

An important point to remember here is the distinction between Sola Scriptura and Solo Scriptura. The heirlooms of the Protestant Reformation should certainly cause us to look askance at mainstream secular Psychologists and both their assumptions and aims. Yet equally so, Sola Scriptura does not to my way of reasoning prevent us from availing ourselves of meaningful insights from other fields of study where those achieving such are not in the fold.

We do well on these points to consider carefully the question asked of Christ, whether it was the blind man's sin or his parents which caused him to be born blind. Similarly, the case study of Job's three friends is instructive here.

For one to suffer anxiety and depression may be indicative of sin on their part. But if we rush to that conclusion, we have not studied the Word diligently enough, and should try again.

Yet where some may stubbornly insist that their judgments and categories are inviolable, I would encourage us all to remember that not only counselees, but also counselors, must factor in the fact of their own inborn sinful nature to reckon with in appraising human suffering - with or without a clear medical diagnosis.

Just as we ought not to suppose that all causes are material and physical just because some are, we ought not to assume all causes are spiritual and doctrinal just because some are. And for the same reasons, we ought to caution and admonish uncareful folk in both directions against excessively reductionistic and hasty generalizations.

Category errors can sometimes be malicious among the innately godless, and those hostile to Christianity. But so also can God's people who are taken captive by vain and human philosophy commit category errors. And where the result is the same regardless source and intention, we must take care to curtail category errors from both directions if our chief aim is to love, honor, and obey God, and to serve and minister to one another.

After all, we are commanded to study to show ourselves approved workmen. But to say doing this well will facilitate rightly dividing the word of truth is also to say it is possible to wrongly divide that same word if we do not take care.

Are we all open to reflecting on whether we are as rightly handling truth as we might? God will be the Judge, I trust. But as for my part, I cannot help but point out some hazards here where several are apparent on the front-end, even just in the introduction to the subject.

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Should Christians just do what we’re told? Some say almost always “yes” to this question. But there is more we need to consider. For instance, what happens to godly self-control if someone who claims authority actually is superseding control over us which we should be exercising over ourselves?

This leads into a whole host of additional questions. For starters, who can be said to have rightful authority over us? We should question jurisdiction if someone seems to be overstepping bounds. But even with legitimate authorities, we need to know where the boundaries should be drawn, since there should be boundaries.

Consider briefly the exercises of authority. At a minimum, the one in authority will tell us what we can and cannot do. But where social and group dynamics relate to favored or disfavored actions, they may also tell us what we can and cannot say, since our words and statements will by nature influence the behavior of ourselves and those we communicate with. A particularly savvy authority figure may even tell us what we should or should not think, feel, and believe, recognizing that these in turn influence what we do and say.

On a related note, we should say something about arguments from authority, and how they are typically predicated on some legitimate claim to authority, even by those who do not personally hold that authority, so long as the authority can be cited in support of the claim or argument. However, just as importantly, we must recognize that arguments from authority serve as logical fallacies if the claims made are false and the authority is presumed absolute though it is not.

We should note also how such logical fallacies can all too often be employed capriciously, and to both destructive and even malicious ends, serving particularly to derail efforts by their targets to know, understand, and act according to truth and goodness.

Yet I maintain that an authority should be questioned and even opposed by Christians if it is immoral, and actively does wrong or else prevents the doing of what is right; if it is ungodly, either actively or passively requiring disobedience to God; if it is unlawful – it violates the very laws which it presumes to derive authority from; if it is unreasonable, and it speaks and operates from what appears to be folly, yet refuses to give a just accounting when one is politely requested; or if it is arbitrary, and the basis for its decisions is subjective, internal, secretive, and inconsistent.

In relation to these tests, something should also be said about the undesirability of being under the kind of authority which is wielded in slavery and tyranny.

Under slavery, for one, the individual is regarded as the property and material of others. And where unchecked by either limitations or abolition, this institution invariably leads to the abuse of slaves by masters due to man’s sinful nature.

Under tyranny, meanwhile, the interests and rights of the individual are given no consideration compared with what is presented as the collective good, whether rightly or wrongly. And this is much like slavery, where absent either limitations or abolition, the absolute authority of the tyrant over subjects and citizens invariably leads to the abuse of the same due to man’s sinful nature.

The quick test for whether an authority has designs on enslavement of a people, or else to become a tyrant over them, is whether the figure in question holds the entire notion of self-control by his would-be subjects in contempt, or as an ever-present threat to the control of the governing authorities over the will of the governed.

Benevolent rule, meanwhile, defends and upholds the self-control of its subjects by protecting it from predators of various kinds, both internal and external. Put another way, good government sees itself as also under proper authority, particularly to what is objectively good and true.

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A video was sent me by my neighbor two houses down yesterday. Together for the Gospel published it to their YouTube channel back in 2016 of a panel discussion at one of their conferences. Titled 'Celebrity Pastor: Indecent Exposure?' and starring C.J. Mahaney, Carl Trueman, David Platt, Ligon Duncan, Matt Chandler, and Thabiti Anyabwile, the topic at the center of their dialogue was celebrity pastors in the contemporary American Church.

The question was asked: Do we assign too much authority and power to pastors who shepherd large churches, or who otherwise possess a great deal of notoriety on the national stage?

Undeniably so. We do give too much power and authority to these men. And we should stop that. But why is this true? And what are the consequences of failing to recognize it?

For one, as Trueman speaks to, we have the trouble of burnout. Many pastors lose heart because they are measuring their success against the likes of Mahoney, Platt, or Chandler. This leads to discouragement and despair due to unreasonable expectations, particularly if they only ever preside over a flock of 50-100 congregants.

Ask many young ministers in training who has been the greatest influence in their own sanctification and discipleship, Trueman says, and the names of celebrity pastors are almost always their answer. Rarely will they say the names of the local pastors whose preaching and teaching they sat under before they began training for full-time vocational ministry.

But in addition to the points Trueman makes, I want to add still more. For instance, what assumptions do we make about the faithfulness of a celebrity minister based on faulty metrics - most notably, their ability to attract and retain a crowd of followers, listeners, viewers, attendees, or members? And how much do we unreasonably infer about their track-record in their own home and local church body from the fact that they are up on that stage or screen?

Related to this, what dynamics come into play in their local churches and homes which, if our priorities are out of order, potentially delay needed accountability in the case of sin and folly?

If any pastor is rushing off to serve their local church instead of loving and leading their wives and children well, that is unhealthy. But so also, if celebrity pastors are preoccupied with the Christian conference speaking circuit, or a book promotion tour, and thereby neglect their local body except to lend it a kind of star power by their association with it, does this lead to a chilling effect where only the local church family is in a position to recognize and confront an indiscretion or discrepancy?

By this, I do not mean only that celebrity pastors must reckon with opportunity cost. That is, they cannot be everywhere all at once, attending sufficiently to all matters under their purview equally well at the same time. What I mean more is to ask whether at a national level we presume overmuch that celebrity pastors are in good standing in their own churches and homes when at the same time a general disordering of priorities will cause the same to be reluctant to potentially jeopardize a national influence for the sake of concerns which will be called relatively trivial or unimportant.

If the conviction which I share with Trueman is correct, we may have our assessment of faithfulness exactly backwards in many cases. We assume that the one who is faithful with much is proven so by the size of the crowd which follows him. He must have been faithful with the little of his local church and his household. Yet what does God say? We must first look at his management of the home, then the local church. And only after this should we give his remarks and guidance a greater weight of influence in our considerations from a distance.

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Confrontation and resolution of private sin of one Christian brother against another should be handled as privately as possible, according to what Christ says in Matthew 18:15-20.

Go privately to your brother first. If he won't listen, take along two or three witnesses and try again. If he still isn't listening, take the offending brother before the elders. If he writes them off too, take the offending brother before the church and regard him as an outsider.

This is reasonably interpreted by most as referring to the local church, but specific examples of rebuke and correction are found throughout the Scripture which the inclusion of itself proves that rebuke and correction of even laymen is not confined to only the knowledge of the local church.

If this were not so, the inclusion of these stories in the Biblical text would be very curious indeed. Therefore, those who object that any attempt to make the larger body of Christ aware of private sins on the part of a Christian brother or sister must reckon with this fact.

So far, I have yet to see this done. But it really needs to be done, and that fact is a primary driver of my work here right now.

The Biblical standard, principle, and command for handling sin and confrontation of church leaders like elders, pastors, and overseers, meanwhile, is different.

Confrontation and resolution of sin by an elder requires the fuller counsel of God than Matthew 18 alone. The testimony of two or three witnesses, according to what the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Timothy 5, establishes any charge which will be admitted.

The reasons for this are not stated explicitly here, but are certainly related to the Biblical qualifications for overseers that they be above reproach.

1 Timothy 3:2 – “Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach…”

Titus 1:7 – “For an overseer, as God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain…”

Above reproach here does not mean incapable of sin or error; it means blameless in the sense of their character being so indisputably high that false charges of impropriety cannot stick.

As we talk about Romans 13 a lot on this podcast, the ideal of the governing authority being God's minister to do justice should not be misconstrued or twisted to mean the one in authority is infallible or perfect in the civil sphere; So also, the ideal of overseers being above reproach should not be misconstrued or twisted to mean they are imbued with infallibility or perfection in the ecclesiastical sphere.

But 1 Timothy 5 says when there is an established charge against an elder, it’s to be leveled in the sight of all. And some want this word “all” here to be narrowed to not mean “all” for reasons which may be sincere. Yet their handling of the truth requires gentle encouragement and correction. They are pure-hearted, perhaps. But they have not studied the relevant passages diligently enough, and need to be shown that.

Others, meanwhile, want this word “all” here to be narrowed to not mean “all” for reasons which are doubtless self-serving and self-protective. God alone knows perfectly the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. Yet Jesus tells us to judge trees by the fruit they bear – whether good or evil – and that fruit is not doctrinal statements and verbal professions of faith.

Many in the Reformed tradition - who have Jordan Hall’s back, who defend their not having recognized the warning signs sooner - plead innocence on the basis that his doctrine was sound. These same ones should repent of having neglected judging trees by the fruit of their works and lives.

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It's been several years since I first saw the 'Honest Preacher' video by YouTube channel 'Friend Dog Studios' in which a pastor wearing vestments gets up to deliver his sermon on a Sunday morning, but instead breaks down in frustration with his congregation's constant tendency toward sin and folly. He took a vow not to say who's the worst, he tells them, "but it's Dan!"

Shortly after seeing this video, we all in my household learned the hard way the importance of making your references clear before casually quoting them. My fourth son Daniel bursting into tears made that abundantly and memorably clear. Of course, I soon calmed him by explanations of the reference, plus assurances he was not the 'Dan' spoken of therein. Then we all watched the video. And though his eyes were still teary, he was smiling and laughing instead of crying by the end of it.

But imagine a scenario in which instead of admitting my error I had carted my son off to a therapist and even a psychiatrist. What sort of awful parent would I have been had I thought first to medicate him instead of helping him to understand my mistake and apologizing for it?

Along similar lines, Michael Knowles made me aware of an important medical study on his show this morning, concluding that years of heavy prescription rates of anti-depressants has no science to support the claim that these drugs are needed to regulate a chemical imbalance in our brains.

There is then nothing whatsoever backing the belief many have that they need a little help from pharmaceutical companies to manage their serotonin levels. Instead, the symptoms of other goings-on have been covered up and covered over, more or less missing the root cause in the meantime.

Therefore, it turns out Tom Cruise was nearly cancelled for nothing - or least the wrong thing. In a series of public interviews he did back in 2005, like this one with Matt Lauer on the TODAY show, Cruise urged people to look harder at the pseudoscience being used to support prescription of drugs for anxiety, depression, and attention deficit disorders. At the time, he was called insensitive, judgmental, and uninformed. It would seem he was right all along, though - at least about this.

All of this I engaged with this morning while a Bored Panda link my wife Lauren sent me yesterday was still fresh on my mind. Therein, someone had asked teachers and professors on Reddit what differences they've observed between schoolchildren from 1999, 2009, and 2019. The thirty answers highlighted show several repeating themes.

Importantly, our kids are anxious, depressed, and unable to focus - even to the point of self-harm and suicide - at levels long-time teachers can't help but remark on. Mothers and fathers meanwhile have moved on from helicopter approaches to their sons and daughters, and now are described as "lawnmower parenting." They race to remove any and all obstacles and challenges from their children's path to the point that children no longer develop any resilience, but live in constant fear of making a mistake and amounting to nothing. But, hey - at least they're not as openly homophobic as they used to be.

To my mind, the overdiagnosis of ADD and ADHD is of a piece with the overuse of prescription psychopharmaceuticals and screen-time in lieu of reading to and talking with our children. At the same time, and as a result, it's no wonder our children are increasingly obese and decreasingly able to regulate their emotional state or overcome even minor setbacks and annoyances.

The hearts of fathers need to be turned back to these children.

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What is peace? And what does it mean to seek it and pursue it? And what does it mean to make it?

By contrast, what does it mean to be contending for the faith? And what is militancy?

We too often in our day conflate being peaceable with pacifism - and manliness with malignancy, on a related note.

But moderation is a virtue whether we’re talking about a time for war or a time for peace.

We are too stuck on being nice. And that makes us vulnerable in a way that is not good, wise, or holy.

Ours is a perverse age also, and that includes but is not limited to sex.

Two sides of the coin here must be considered as we turn the thing over.

For there to be a perversion must mean that there is an authentic version – true, beautiful, and good.

To kick against the goad is to reject that there is such a thing as perversity because we deny the standard.

Pacifism, I think, is a perversion of appropriate calls for peacemaking.

So also, militarism is a perversion of the fact that there is sometimes a time for war.

Yes, we are told to turn the other cheek. But not for nothing did Jesus say to sell our cloak so we could buy a sword if we didn't have one.

No, his kingdom is not either of this world or from the world. But his children did not fight his arrest in the garden past when he said 'peace.'

Meanwhile, Christ looked at the Pharisees angrily when they refused answering whether it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath.

And what was Paul about writing that the governing authority bears the sword both for our good and to strike fear into wrongdoers?

Pacifists struggle with these questions, but peacemakers drawing on the whole counsel of God have an easier time reconciling them.

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As Robert Burns says in his Scots poem, 'To A Louse, On Seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church':

*"O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us!

It wad frae mony a blunder free us,

An' foolish notion:

What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,

An' ev'n devotion!"*

We can only speculate what sort of poem the louse would have written back to Burns. But my Grandpa Mullet often recited from memory those first two lines before he passed away several years ago - always in the context of someone having just said or done something that didn't land as it had obviously been intended to with others present, for whatever reason.

Speaking of animals, I came across reporting by John Rigolizzo from The Daily Wire yesterday that a male lion named "Josh" attacked and killed a long-time favorite lioness at the Birmingham Zoo within moments of being introduced to her on Monday. The lioness called "Akili" had been alone since 2021 when her mate "Kwanza" died. "Josh" was a transplant from the San Antonio Zoo and had been brought in to give Akili new companionship.

And can we call what the male lion did here immoral? Or what is the word to describe how we feel about such a story?

Along similar lines, this morning I woke up and was not quite ready to get out of bed at first, on account of knowing the coffee maker would not have run yet. So I was browsing The Daily Wire again, and another wildlife story caught my eye.

This one was reported by Tim Meads, and had to do with a 400-pound eagle ray who jumped into a family’s boat off the coast of Alabama last Friday. The ray was probably trying to escape from some predator, but got herself stuck on the boat, and subsequently gave birth to several babies on deck due to the stress of the incident. None of her offspring survived, but their bodies have since been donated to Dauphin Island Sea Lab for research purposes.

Can we call that business about the rays tragic? If not, what is the right word to describe how we feel when we hear a story like this?

In other news, I was reading ‘Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation’ again yesterday. I’m three-quarters of the way through it now. But Ortlund just covered in Chapter 4 what Augustine had to say to the possibility that animal death was present in the world prior to the Fall.

That is, in part, Augustine warns against trusting self-referential assumptions. And Ortlund takes this to mean that we ought not to refer to ourselves so much, specifically how we feel about animals dying.

Animal death is good if God says it’s good. That's one argument someone could make. And while that’s true enough as far as it goes, it doesn’t establish the premise. It doesn't establish that God did in fact say that animal death was good in the beginning before the Fall. That remains to be seen, in my view.

But perhaps we do well to consider the Hebrew word 'nephesh' here and how it's used to describe animal life like birds, fish, whales, and beasts of the field, as well as mankind.

Thereafter, let's ask some worthwhile questions about the lion laying down with the lamb, a certain pagan king losing his mind and resembling a wild beast for a time, when precisely mankind was given the blessing of the Almighty to eat the animals, how all Creation groaneth being subjected unwillingly for a time to the effects of sin, and how the sacrificing of animals to make atonement under the Old Covenant relates.

What we may come to realize in the end is that many things must be true all at the same time, albeit in a way that humbles and even surprises us.

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We should all remember that Christ in the Scriptures does receive the nations as his inheritance. Political dominance is his due. But the trouble with Satan’s temptation in the desert was not that Christ had no business receiving the nations, then. Instead, the trouble with Satan's temptation is that Satan is in no place to give these things to Christ, to whom they already are due and belong.

Note how the terms of service were submission to Satan. The transaction was predicated on affirming the tempter and temptation as having authority over Christ. That could not be borne. Thankfully it was not. And that is a very happy thing for us.

But generally speaking, political dominance needs unpacked and defined. Politics is just the business of the polis or city. And dominance could be an overstating of what is at root a legitimate wielding of rightful authority.

See also here an article titled ‘The Uselessness of “Christian Nationalism”’ by Miles Smith published at Mere Orthodoxy. Miles Smith is a historian of the American South and a native Carolinian; he can also be found on the ‘Paleo Protestant’ podcast.

See also here a recent episode of 'First Things Podcast' titled "The Greatest Statesmen Are Thinkers” where Daniel J. Mahony joins Mark Bauerlein to discuss his recent book, “The Statesman as Thinker: Portraits of Greatness, Courage, and Moderation.”

In this episode, consider a quote from Alexis de Tocqueville regarding Napoleon Bonaparte, that “He was as great as a man could be without being good.”

For that matter, consider another quote - this one from Napoleon himself. “They wanted me to be another Washington,” he said.

Why then must we all be treated to lectures about spirituality, propriety, the gospel, and culture wars anytime a Christian speaks of “the city” relative the righteous and the wicked?

“When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices, and when the wicked perish there are shouts of gladness. By the blessing of the upright a city is exalted, but by the mouth of the wicked it is overthrown.”

Notice here that the overthrowing of a city begins with what the wicked are saying. And shouldn’t we want it to go well with the righteous and for the city to rejoice?

Why then must we all be subjected to shaming and ostracization about carnality, fleshliness, selfish ambition, conceit, cultural Christianity, and needing to remember the hereafter anytime a Christian speaks of “a nation” relative righteousness and sin?

“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”

Notice here that nations and peoples – including but not limited to Israel – are reproached or else exalted based on righteousness and sin. And should we not want our nation to be exalted? And should we not want our people to be free of reproach?

Why then must we all be oppressed by finger-wagging about materialism and prosperity gospel anytime a Christian speaks of “increase”?

‘When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan.”

Notice here that the people celebrate when the righteous are doing well because it’s common knowledge and all are aware and can see that the righteous are prospering. And should we not want the righteous to profit and prosper and derive benefit in public life? If not, I dare ask why not.

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What if I told you that the creators of the beloved fantasy worlds found in The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings once went to see Walt Disney’s Snow White in theaters, and came away hating not only the picture but also utterly loathing and despising the broader approach to the work by that man Disney himself?

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Having now taken the lead at Protestia, David Morrill livestreamed a video on Thursday night answering the over 5-hour expose released the day prior by YouTube channel 'Servus Christi,' replete with first-hand testimony, police reports, and a chat transcript with a member of the leadership at FBC Sidney regarding the current situation there.

Morrill, though, in the Protestia response titled 'Answering our Accusers' is understandably concerned about donors and supporters of the organization asking hard questions in the wake of Jordan Hall's removal from both the pastorate and Protestia, only all the more as it becomes clear he's being investigated for both embezzlement and domestic violence.

But of course they didn't know about it, guys. They're all just volunteers. But they're doing exactly what JD would've wanted them to. And maybe that's why the small-town Eastern Montana church they were unofficially a ministry of didn't come to them first asking for their discernment ministry services before going to the police.

Let's do be reasonable, though. Morrill couldn't have possibly known. He lives in Arvada, Colorado. That's a full 1 hour and 1 minute further south than I live in Greeley. And, yes, I knew about these things even though I also live in Colorado. But that extra hour makes a huge difference to the signal strength of our interwebs and phone connections out here in the Rocky Mountains, let me tell ya.

Even if they had known, however, Morrill argues that the members of the staff at Protestia don't have a responsibility to hold one another morally accountable. They're too busy doing important stuff, like holding pastors, authors, singers and songwriters outside of Protestia accountable. Some discernment ministry.

Providing accountability and investing in knowing about one another's private lives ought to have been a basic requirement of involvement at Protestia from the beginning. Hiding behind excuses about not belonging to the same local church really won't do if in fact all of the participants are together members of Christ's Church writ large.

Or else what is their argument for calling balls and strikes on false teachers and blind guides across American Christendom if they couldn't or wouldn't even do it within their own organization?

Morrill is all over the place here. His argument keeps moving the goalposts. He found out in the papers just like everyone else. He didn't know the police were involved and investigating. None of them did! They're all just unpaid volunteers here, and did he mention he lives in Colorado? Just definitely keep tuning in and lending financial support because their powers of discernment are selectively activated when dealing with the indiscretions of people whose doctrine they don't like, and who they don't consider friends.

But riddle me this. How is it I knew more about the situation on the ground in Sidney, Montana than Morrill did when I also live in Colorado? The answer is simple. I have relationships with the people who are there. Those people know I care about not only them, but about the reputation and well-being of the Eastern Montana community I'm from.

Morrill wants to chalk the whole business up to doctrine. It's their Reformed theology. They're being persecuted. The only trouble there is that you can't make that claim stick when the express reason many current and former members of FBC Sidney put up with Hall's abuse as long as they did was because they held in common his avowedly Reformed theology.

And to answer the question of whether a false teacher should be just as accountable for bad doctrine taught as for persistently sinful and unrepentant behavior, we must look to the Scriptures. Jesus said of false prophets, "You will recognize them by their fruits." Dismiss that all you like by pointing out the sins of others, David. But God will judge between us. You see what you want to.

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A friend and I got together for dinner this week and discussed his answer to a question I asked him several weeks ago about my podcast. What precisely that question was escapes me now, but it was something along the lines of what he thought of the podcast, and what might be some areas of improvement to pursue, particularly where the quality of the content is concerned.

In the interim between the ask and answer, he listened to a number of episodes, and shared some of his observations. Most of those I'm still mulling over, but one has to start somewhere on the questions. So some of the questions he asked surrounding what the goals of the podcast are and what success looks like seem as good a place as any to begin.

Answering the general question of what the goal of the podcast is, and how specifically talking about my new desk or men getting vasectomies relates to that goal, the admonition our Lord gives in the gospels is at the fore of my attentions.

"What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?"

Don't misunderstand. This podcast being successful need not mean losing my soul. Listening to sound advice and constructive criticism on ways to improve the podcast is not the same thing as selling out. But where some changes might bear a closer examination of the hierarchy of priorities here, I want to restate, even just to myself, what the order of operations is.

First, in order to hear in the end "Well done, good and faithful servant" from my God and King - this requires that the topics and their treatment here come from a place of devotion to God. And this in turn requires recalling God's Word as our only infallible authority for life and doctrine.

Where we are commanded therein to "take every thought captive" for Jesus, what all should be considered "gospel issues" correspondingly expands to every topic and subject to which God's Word could be said to speak. And when we frame the question in those terms, as to what constitutes a "gospel issue" we should want to keep our definitions from becoming unproductive for being either too broad or narrow.

But where God has given us all Scripture to know Him, ourselves, one another, and both life and godliness, the entirety of the Bible is "the gospel." Or else what technically is it except "the good news"? And isn't the good news this, that God rules and reigns over every facet of life? Is it not that all Creation belongs to Him just as it was created by Him? Is it not that all Creation is under His Sovereign rule and reign, and that our prayer and meditation ought to be to relate to all of the above in a way that honors Him faithfully by His grace?

Second, where we husbands are commanded to live with our wives in an understanding way, and to train up our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, this podcast for me specifically is at its core intended as a labor of love to serve God, my wife, and my children well as we endeavor to think holistically about what it means to provide for the needs of our households.

And where the prophet Jeremiah delivers the faithful and true word of the Lord to the exiles in Babylon to "seek the welfare of the city" to which God's Providence has brought them in their exile, and to build houses and plant gardens and take wives and have children, this also is the reason I would talk on this podcast about my standing desk, or other men getting vasectomies.

But where some changes to the way I research, outline, record, edit, and publish this podcast may serve these goals well, or better, humility requires heeding wise counsel like his. And where other changes might undermine these goals, even there a clarifying of purpose by answering the questions again is also a benefit in renewing the commitment to what conscience dictates is a good, worthy, and God-honoring endeavor.

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AD Robles, like Jon Harris at Conversations That Matter, is someone I've appreciated work by from a distance. That said, he doesn't know me and I don't know him. But I do know he published a podcast episode today which was intended to speak to the current situation surrounding JD Hall of Sidney, Montana.

In his episode - which is not very long, but you can watch it here - AD explains that addiction to Xanax and other substances is no joke. He personally can empathize with what Jordan is going through. Nevertheless, despite AD's support, the claim is made that neither he nor anyone else could have known JD was addicted to Xanax, or for how long.

To argue the point, we need to go back to God's Word - particularly the qualifications for overseers and deacons which the Apostle Paul writes in the New Testament to both Timothy and Titus. Thereby we'll see that the question of who knew when whether Jordan's behavior and way of relating was influenced by a Xanax addiction, Vitamin D deficiency, or Asperger's Syndrome is really beside the point. There is nothing in the Biblical text about any of these.

But what does Paul write instead which should have been instructive here?

"Therefore an overseer must be..."

above reproach
the husband of one wife
sober-minded
self-controlled
respectable
hospitable
able to teach
not a drunkard
not violent but gentle
not quarrelsome
not a lover of money
able to manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive,for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?
not a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil
well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil

If you were looking in that list for anything specifically about Xanax, Vitamin D, or Asperger's, you didn't miss it. That's because the items that are listed not only ought to have, but did in fact, cause elders and deacons at FBC Sidney for years, and myself besides, to raise alarm bells about the qualification or lack thereof of JD Hall for the pastorate.

The fact that said warnings were either missed, ignored entirely, or else not searched out at all is a sad indictment, I think, on the current talking points coming from several national figures online who shared platforms and lent credibility that prevented local accountability by their proximity combined with ambivalence.

Regretfully, that seems to include AD Robles as well now.

More could have been known if there had been an appetite to know and to act before know. Unfortunately, what seems to be happening with JD Hall's associates one by one is that they are recusing themselves conveniently on the grounds that they either knew nothing or else talked with him privately long ago, then left well enough alone.

Again, that will not do, and that is not the model we're called to in God's Word.

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Jon Harris over at the Conversations That Matter podcast has done some fine work covering inroads by social justice advocates and those promoting CRT from within the Southern Baptist Convention in recent years. His episode yesterday touched on the situation with JD Hall, and I'd like to take some time to answer key points he makes about his engagement to this point.

But first things first, be it known I have admired, respected, and appreciated Harris's engagement on the issues he's covered. Facts matter. More to the point, our handling of God's Word as Christians is crucial to our Christian life and thought. Insofar as Harris has championed sound doctrine and vigilance with a calm, measured voice, he's contributed not just to the substance of the debate in our day, but to the tone and tenor as well. He's to be commended for that, and I do commend him.

Actually, it's for that reason especially, and out of familiarity with his body of work, that Jon would have been an excellent candidate for covering the situation in Sidney, Montana carefully and with grace. This is to say nothing of his platforming JD Hall, not once but twice.

I agree with Jon's concern about accusations from some of guilt by association, here and elsewhere, and how those are carried too far to implicate relatively innocent parties. But the trouble is that for going on a decade, JD Hall has been skating by in the minds of many on a kind of innocence by association.

That is to say, in Eastern Montana where I'm from, Jordan's ability to name drop powerful, high-profile names in American Christendom has given him an ability to bully and intimidate those in his local church and my home community.

So please understand. When I hear almost only references to how we should pray for JD, and how hard this must all be for him, and hopefully JD is getting the help he needs, but hear not a word for nearly a decade looking into abuses by Hall in Eastern Montana where I'm from, it proves difficult to stomach.

Jon says in his podcast episode yesterday, for instance, that he can't speak with confidence to what all has happened and is happening on the ground in Sidney, Montana. Yet to at least some extent, this must be admitted as due to Jon having not wanted to know, and having declined and passed up opportunities to investigate and cover this story using his platform.

Unfortunately, here also, as with the recent F4F video by Rosebrough, Peters, and Johnson, I can't help but feel frustrated that the warnings given were private and to JD only all this time from influential men who speak out now, seemingly as much or more to protect their own reputations and influence as to comfort or inform any of the victims of physical and spiritual abuse which for a decade have lived in fear of their lives and livelihoods where I come from.

Yet the stated reasons for not having gotten more involved, or for having platformed and endorsed Hall up until just now when he comes indefensible due to arrest and the filing of legal charges with the Sidney Police Department - these also make very curious saying anything at all now, or having platformed Jordan previously. I'm sorry to say, but once again a definite partiality seems apparent which is not godly, wise, or coherent. I reject it accordingly, and would encourage you to also.

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Music practice finished up, then my two eldest sons and I drove home from church. It was 10:30PM when we set out. But I recalled as we pulled into the driveway that we had still been unable to find my building access badge for work when we left. It fell out of the stretchy lanyard sometime during the afternoon, I think; but none of us seem to know where it disappeared to.

That is to say also that by the time we got home from practice, my wife was getting ready for bed. And that was only proper. It had been a hard day for her too. She was tired, and her head hurt, and her stomach hurt. Maybe that was due to the stress of the day.

I complained to her at length anyway in a self-indulgent way. The realization dawned on me too late, then, that she was very tired herself. I had just been very inconsiderate in fatiguing her still more. But no apology was concurrent my realization. Instead, I complained still further about us both being so tired. To be entirely fair and honest with you, I probably sounded like an idiot until we agreed at some time after 11PM that we should try to get some sleep.

Only that was not the beginning of sleep, at least for me - not by a long shot. Instead, there was a tossing, and turning, and a somewhat tormented feeling inside about how the day had gone. My wife was not feeling well; our son burned his hand with some hot coffee; one of my co-workers told me children shouldn’t drink coffee when I told him about it - and he's probably right, doggone it!

After an hour of this, I got up and decided to write it all down. By then it was 1:20AM. But the hope was that the writing of it all out would pave the way for sleep. In just a few more hours it would be time to get back to work, after all.

Really, though, the thought occurred all the more with a survey of as much a listing of grievances as energy and concentration afforded. There wasn't any benefit to having written it all out, at least not if there was not some conclusion to reach. So what peace could be had? What acceptable terms could be come to with the frustration and disappointment of a day of setbacks?

Only this: that God knows more truly than we do the events of the day, and what purpose He has to work them all to the good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. However bad the day seemed to me, or to us, God is no less good in such a day as in those which we think most idyllic and picturesque.

Perhaps that seems a rather short happiness at the end of a lot of complaining. Yet all the more important is it to be content with God's purpose in our lot when we could complain, or find much not to our liking. So why spare you the detailed accounting and overview?

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Michel Hendricks, author of 'The Other Half of Church,' is former pastor of spiritual formation at Flatirons Community Church in Lafayette, Colorado. Over 25 years of teaching and training others has taken him all over the world. With a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Colorado in Boulder, plus an MDiv degree from Denver Seminary, he has the credentials and resume to write and sell this book, and modern American Christians especially can be relied on to read it enthusiastically. His partner in that endeavor and others related, Dr. Jim Wilder has 30 years of experience, and is also a globetrotter. Growing up in South America, he's the author of nineteen books. One of them, a certain Living from the Heart Jesus Gave You, sold over 100,000 copies and is available in eleven languages. He's also lectured as a guest at Fuller Seminary, Biola, Talbot Seminary, Point Loma University, Montreat College, Tyndale Seminary, among others. But Wilder's extensive clinical counseling experience has led directly to his branding as "chief neurotheologian" at Life Model Works, a nonprofit self-described on the organization's website as residing "at the intersection of theology and brain science." And yesterday I finished reading Hendrick's and Wilder's collaborative work, 'The Other Half of Church.' Let me confess from the start that I did not love this book, for reasons which need to be explained carefully and at some length. For starters, there is a certain cost-benefit analysis which seems not to have been done carefully enough, in my view, where combining the latest in brain science with tried and true Christian theology is concerned. What, for instance, will happen to all our overhauled theology when the brain science is updated? Will we need to revise our theology again, if we were too hasty and too extensive in transforming the renewing of our minds along the lines laid out here? So also, the term 'neurotheologian' makes me uncomfortable, and reminds me of transhumanism. I imagine the influential churchmen of 2000 years coming back as cyborgs, or us looking back on them with some mixture of pity and contempt because we suppose our ability to describe how and where the electrical signals travel in our heads has improved the Bible. Maybe this is excessively critical. If so, that's not my goal. But then we can see in the last few centuries since the Enlightenment too much of what goes wrong when we get carried away with our pursuit of the physical sciences, then let them shape and dictate our study of God and His Word. We do not have to confine ourselves to hypotheticals here, but we have many cautionary examples in recent enough memory. There are odd choices made in 'The Other Half of Church.' For instances, why coin a new term like 'neurotheologian' but use the Greek word 'hesed' throughout here? It's defined early on, yes. But by the end of the book, it's been used so often and in such a way that it feels downright gimmicky. But then the whole work feels a bit gimmicky, if I'm honest. The latest brain science seems put forward in a similar way to how Richard Dawkins used to argue against the existence of God by use of lengthy non-sequiturs about how much we know in the fields of microbiology and astrophysics. This feels like Christians trying to prove that we can do science too, therefore you should believe in Christ and read the Bible and love your neighbor accordingly. This feels backwards and foreign, I think, because neuroscience should get its legitimacy from our Christian faith based on God's Word, and not the other way around.

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Elon Musk is backing out of buying Twitter. In an official statement released to the public, Musk claims Twitter has refused to produce all of the documentation requested despite having months to do so. Twitter is threatening to sue to force Musk to follow through at the originally agreed price-point. I'm not so sure this is the end, though, and I hope Musk can negotiate a lower price for the social media giant - for all our sakes.

In related news, someone blew up the Georgia Guidestones. The bomber is now being labeled a domestic terrorist, and authorities are seeking him out accordingly. But really now, who is the actual terrorist when you read the first of these 10 Commandments of the New World Order and consider its implications? Maintaining Earth's population at 500,000,000 implies something has to be done about several billions of the rest of us, after all.

Meanwhile, as reported by Not the Bee, Shane Morris took to Twitter yesterday to explain how Christians have a long, rich history of engagement in politics, despite what Progressives and neutrality proponents allege. See here Augustine of Hippo and The City of God.

And along those lines, a certain commenter has been active on my recent review of ‘The Everlasting Man’ by G.K. Chesterton, making certain claims about Christianity and Christians which need to be addressed and refuted directly. But I feel confident that in answering these accusations against Christians I stand in a long, rich tradition in Church History - including the one that dates back to at least the 4th century AD with Augustine.

Lastly, I’d like to respond to a YouTube video posted Thursday by ‘Fighting for the Faith’ in which Chris Rosebrough, Phil Johnson, and Justin Peters weigh in on, as the video of the title puts it, ‘The Fall of JD Hall.’ Predictably, comments on the video are turned off. But I’m going to comment here to say that a number of facts and claims herein strike me as hypocritical. Have these men showed partiality and neglected their duty to have not spoken up publicly sooner than this?

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"If a woman decides to become a teacher, she is told she has the most important job in the world. She is told she is training up the next generation. That she is raising up scientists, doctors and artists. That her work is noble, sacrificial and priceless."

"But if another woman decides to be a stay at home mom, and gives her next 20 years to the teaching and training of her own children, she is told she is limiting her potential."

So said an Instagram mama named Jada Dannielle in a post my own wife Lauren sent me this week. And this pairs nicely with a Canon+ documentary we recently watched together. The documentary, titled 'Eve In Exile,' follows not only the present life of Rebecca Merkle - wife, mother, daughter, sister - but also unpacks the history of feminism and the way it has lied to generations of American men and women in particular about where our purpose and potential will find its uttermost fulfillment.

Most of us really have no idea where our thinking and attitude about womanhood comes from. Why just last night I saw a screenshot from a friend on Facebook of a tweet of a Reddit post in which a modern female shared the following in light of the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade:

"Me and some of my girlfriends did a retreat this weekend to help us cope with the monumental setback in fundamental rights. By the end of it, we had moved from sad and afraid to ANGRY. We all agreed to a pact: no having sex with any man, until he had proven himself a capable provider, and until that man has signed a contract, written on paper, agreeing to stay with us and support us if we get pregnant. We started drafting an actual contract, and we're planning on sending it to a lawyer to make sure its legit. At this point, I am completely done with men who want to hook up and leave; its time for American men to STEP UP."

I will leave some room for this to have been an epic trolling, and I half hope that's what it is. Then again, I almost hope it's not too. Maybe it represents an inadvertent rediscovery of the value of marriage in our day.

But this brings us to 1 Timothy 5:1-16, a passage of Scripture that's been on my mind the past few days. Speaking of men needing to step up and do their job, the Apostle Paul writes here, to his younger disciple who is overseeing the doctrine and practice of the church, instructions for which widows should be helped materially by the church, as well as which should not, as well as reasons for both determinations made along certain criteria.

One of the things Paul tells Timothy here is the following gem:

"But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." (v. 8)

Paul also says more here about how no widow under 60-years of age should be enrolled. And even with those over 60, their character is an additional qualification. Also too, their children and grandchildren need to be the first to help, especially before the church does.

And then Paul goes on to talk about the younger widows, and how the church shouldn't be burdened with taking care of them. Instead, they should "marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander."

If that don't beat all in highlighting the contrasts between our attitudes and what God's Word prescribes, I don't know what will. But this too is the answer to the question Matt Walsh recently traveled the world asking. "What is a woman?"

What say we ask God? He'd know. And more to the point, what is a man or woman supposed to be about? Answer that, and you will get a lot closer to understanding what a man or woman is. I dare say we would all enjoy true liberation thereby, and of a kind that is far more fulfilling and happy and healthy in the long run.

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During lunchtime yesterday, I gave a white board talk to our kids about definitions and differences between theology and religion and worldview. And in the course of discussion, I wanted to emphasize to my sons that one of the very important differences between the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob compared with the deities of other religions is that our God in the Christian religion is infinite and incomprehensible.

But Zeus, Odin, and Osiris were not that way. None of them was either infinite or eternal, nor would there be much to recommend a kind of Theology centered around puzzling out their attributes.

In Greek mythology, Zeus has numerous children by affairs with gods and women alike. Meanwhile, he feuds and schemes and plots and maneuvers. He's even afraid sometimes of the other gods and goddesses. He is something like the projection of an insecure middle-aged macho man skirt-chaser, and not as hard to comprehend as we might wish if we've ever known someone like him.

Meanwhile, in Norse mythology, Odin sacrifices one of his eyes to be able to see all that happens in the world. That is to say, he can’t have it all, but has to make trades and sacrifices to gain things not otherwise in his possession. He is a kind of magician and sorcerer, though, and more dependent on magic than the source of all magic; more a wizard than the one to whom the wizard's incantations harken.

Osiris in Egyptian mythology has parents and siblings and a consort and children. Moreover, he is murdered by his jealous brother before becoming the god of the underworld and afterlife.

But the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the Creator. He is eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing, and simple. That is, He is not made up of parts. And one of the ways in which Christianity is enigmatic is that the Messiah is this same God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that this God is said to be ‘Trinitarian’ – “God in three persons.” Yet He is not three Gods but one God, as the Athanasian Creed explains. And that is very mysterious and foreign to us in comparison with the gods of the nations who are familiar because they are very much like us, just stronger and with magical powers.

Another eccentric quality, if you will, to the Christian faith is that we believe that Jesus Christ was and is and forever will be fully God and fully man, no less one or the other, but wholly both at the same time in one person. And yet he is one Christ.

In truth the Psalmist sings,

"Yahweh is high above all nations,

and his glory above the heavens!

Who is like Yahweh our God,

who is seated on high,

who looks far down

on the heavens and the earth?"

It’s important to mark the difference between Religion and Theology in light of this passage. That is to say, you would be hard-pressed to find anything resembling the subject and approach to it we call Christian Theology in the ancient cults of the Greeks, Norse, and Egyptians, among others.

What you do find are temples and rituals and festivals and stories told around campfires.

A little at a certain point – especially in Greece – are philosophers skeptically questioning whether the gods ever lived, or whether they really were gods who should be worshiped.

But the way these gods of other nations are related to is markedly different because of the truth of what the Psalmist writes; that is, the question of “Who is like Yahweh our God” is a rhetorical one because the answer is “No one.”

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I've been thinking about the lyrics to the song 'Simple Man,' and I have questions. Like, why didn't anyone give Lynyrd Skynyrd more to go on than this when he was young? And why was being a simple man the thing to shoot for? And where was his father?

To be sure, we don't necessarily mean the same thing by "simple man" that the Bible does. But maybe that's the point. Do a word search of "simple" in the ESV at BibleGateway.com and see what you get.

"Surely vexation kills the fool, and jealousy slays the simple." Job 5:2

"The Lord preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me." Psalm 116:6

"The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it." Proverbs 22:3, 27:12

This is to say, we clearly need more to go on, particularly if we want saved instead of suffering and being slain. And we should!

But this also reminds me of what we think of as being the opposite of "simple." And I think the answer here is pretty obviously "complicated." Like the Relationship Status option on Facebook, "It's complicated" means we do not have a quick and tidy answer to the question.

And this reminds of why I make a living doing what I do as a Systems Integrator. The word "systems" is simple enough. But just try explaining what all goes into making a system, and you'll appreciate that both knowledge and understanding are needed to do more help than harm.

By the way, how do we know we're doing well? Whether we're talking about an individual person, household, church, corporation, or nation - what is the rubric? I may be simple in every sense, Biblical included, to only consider the material factors. But sooner or later the spiritual becomes more readily apparent in its physical ramifications.

In other news, I have a tendency to use big and unfamiliar words. Whether in conversation or my writing, I at least really don't think I'm trying to dunk or flex on anyone. But the flip-side is that I often appreciate when I read or hear unfamiliar words and phrases I've never encountered before, so long as I have the time and ability to look them up or ask what they men, because that's where and how learning happens.

On a related note, I think it is possible to be too nice. And how we should know the difference between being nice in a truly nice way and being "too nice" is in whether we are loving God and others well thereby. For instance, would we classify the 19 verses that come up when we search the ESV for "simple" as being "nice" or would we instead say that these are given to us for our holistic benefit?

What I don't mean is that we should be mean. But what I am trying to convey is that loving God and one another well requires at a minimum that we not give our young boys advice like Lynyrd Skynyrd's mother gave him when he was young - to be simple. So also where others besides are asking for and getting input from us. If it wouldn't be good counsel to our young sons, it's not serving anyone else well either.

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Nearly a quarter of a millennium ago, the United States of America came into being with the signing of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress. Not flighty or impulsively decided, the reasons for the separation from Great Britain needed to be told to the world. Thus the Founding Fathers did not just say they were an independent country like Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy. They put forward the long line of usurpations and abuses by the monarch they were now casting off and unmaking as ruler over them.

Not a few cynics today criticize that generation for not having left the condemnations of the slave trade in the final document. But now here we are with so many of our status quo proponents even in the American Church shushing celebrations of the overturning of Roe v. Wade. So we're in no position to talk.

But to celebrate the achievement of the War for Independence and its corresponding literature is not the same thing as saying the signatories were perfect. And what of it? Neither are we! Yet we have a country, and that is thanks in large part because they passed it down to us. But if that same country is falling apart now we perhaps do well to look in the mirror and our own hearts and minds to find the causes rather than obsessively quibbling about how much wiser and godlier we are now than our ancestors two-and-a-half centuries ago.

Now our historians tell us they think the Declaration of Independence was probably signed on August 2, 1776 instead of July 4. But I want to hear more about July 4, 1779 and how Independence Day fell on a Sunday that year, so was not celebrated until the following Monday. And tell us more, historians, about how the U.S. Congress made this an unpaid holiday for employees of the federal government in 1870, and only changed it to a paid holiday in 1938.

However short-sighted or morally callow we think our predecessors were, we are so much more. But we do well to remember when we say or sing 'God bless America' that God promises to oppose the proud and give grace to the humble, and that God always faithfully follows through with His promises. And if we should like God to bless our country - and we should like that very much - the prerequisite condition of our souls before Him must be one of marked and abject humility. But there is no humility in only casting aspersions on our ancestors, but never lauding or appreciating them for anything.

We would do well to heed more the admonition in Jeremiah 29, and not follow so much the examples of Balaam, or even Jonah. Or, what? Do some of our prophets promise blessings irrespective our orientation toward righteousness and wickedness, wisdom and folly, and this for their own dishonest gain? They are false prophets, and part of the judgment we're under. Do some of our prophets book passage in the opposite direction when told to preach repentance to Nineveh, then sulk and pout when the city turns from its sin and the subsequent wrath of God?

Here again, we have so much to be thankful to God for. But we also have much to repent of and ask God to forgive us for and deliver us from. But the good news is that we can do all of these things, and pray for God's blessing accordingly along these lines, even as we cannot expect the blessings of Heaven on any other terms whatsoever.

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The Epoch Times reports North Dakota has decided to allow Bill Gates’s $13.5 million farmland purchase near that state’s border with Canada and Minnesota, over and against objections from many locals, so long as the land will still be leased out to those who want to put it to productive use.

In other news, Merriam-Webster.com has a piece of work up titled ‘Pride’: The Word That Went From Vice to Strength in which they assume our ancestors were all mistaken, especially about how it goeth before a certain other unpleasant thing, but we are quite correct today in celebrating pride, especially where our other sins are concerned.

This reminds me of a story I once heard about a man driving down the interstate. Oncoming traffic honking and swerving out of his way, flashing headlights at him, his wife calls him on his cell phone after recognizing their vehicle in the live helicopter footage broadcasted on TV. He tells her it’s not just one man going the wrong way, it’s everyone!

Meanwhile, The Daily Wire ran an article yesterday titled ‘Hillsdale College President Under Fire After Ripping State Of Public Education.’ In a shocking turn, educrats and their adherents are offended by accurate criticism of their efforts and ambitions.

On a related note, I ran across a funny snapshotted headline last night by a certain H. Ulman with the Associated Press: ‘Amphibious pitcher makes debut.’ The word they were looking for was “ambidextrous.” But maybe Merriam-Webster will redefine “Amphibious” to spare the AP and our public education system some embarrassment.

All this leads to a larger point I’d like to make in this episode about how the Bible is both a very manly book about God and a very godly book about man. Despite what you may have learned from Veggie Tales, there is in fact both sex and violence aplenty in God’s Word. And from Genesis to Revelation, there is not one instance of a talking tomato or asparagus. But there are stories of murder and war, plus a whole book dedicated to the intimate relationship of a man and his bride.

Really, now. How are Christian adults supposed to think, feel, or talk about sex and violence in broader society when we so often skip over what the Bible actually says about sex and violence? It's like expecting us to know how to talk about pride while only letting Merriam-Webster define the subject instead of reading Proverbs to frame our understanding.

"Pride goes before destruction,and a haughty spirit before a fall."

But if some godless critic points out at this juncture that there is a certain vanity inherent to censoring the Scriptures we share with our kids, they are right. And naivete is not the same thing as innocence. And ignorance is not bliss when we consider that to ignore a thing is not at all the same thing as that thing ceasing to exist.

To be sure, we can ignore a great deal that is consequential if we choose to. But this is where another word bears defining - 'Ignorant.' And a related word goes along with that one - 'Foolish.'

Folly is not presented in the Scriptures as a thing to be merely ignored, overlooked, or wish-casted into a profitable outcome. And it is certainly not a thing to emulate anymore than it is a thing to affirm even with silent acquiescence. Rather, folly when encountered - in ourselves, our households, or our nation - ought to be corrected and contradicted with wisdom, just as wickedness ought to be called to repentance and a turning toward righteousness instead.

We have to read the portions of Scripture - even, yes, to our children - which pertain to sex and violence if our children are going to be trained up to not depart from Biblical attitudes and orientations in relation to the same. If we do that, we will know what to make of Gates, dictionaries, public schools, amphibious pitchers, and pride, among other things.

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Matt Walsh recently went all around the world asking what a woman is, but I think we need to ask a prerequisite question. What is a man?

Courage, strength, wisdom, provision, leadership, humility, and reverence - all can be used to describe a good man. As should go without saying, women and children can also have these traits, and many men lack all of these. But a good man is characterized by a relative abundance of the qualities which historically has been meant by the word "manly."

Yet I want to not brag about being a good man myself as I tell you about my fear of heights. And it will not be hard to avoid bragging when I tell you about how a number of years ago, I tried conquering Granite Peak with three other men. Cold, wet, and discouraged, we turned back before reaching the top. And I realized then that I like being in the mountains and next to them, but don't especially need to be on top of them.

I was reminded of this realization last November when my wife Lauren and I made an attempt to drive up Pike’s Peak before turning around near the top. The question first and foremost in that moment was not whether anyone else could have done it. Rather, the question was whether I could safely get us all the way to the top and back down again. Not being persuaded it would be wise to find out by going any further, I turned us around and we came back down.

This also reminds me of falling down the stairs with my eyes closed when I was very young. It was naptime, and my mother was having coffee in the living room with a friend of hers. To my irrational young mind, they would not see me sneaking by to go down to the basement and play with my toys if my eyes were closed. Needless to say, they certainly did notice me when I tumbled head over heels down the stairs because I wasn't looking where I was going.

On a similar note, it's been nearly four years since the last hunting trip. Hunting with friends who knew how was going to teach the skills and habits requisite for hunting with these sons of ours. But wouldn't you know it? The year we traded in the Hyundai Elantra for an F-150 was the first in at least a trio of years now in which none of the hunting we had talked about doing with said truck has happened. Yet the truck has still served us well, and it's a fine tool for getting around in and hauling people and things to various places.

Speaking of mountains and hunting, the fear of heights and not bagging any deer since 2018, let's talk about vasectomies. I don’t see them in the Bible. But has anyone stopped to consider that Jordan Peterson got suspended from Twitter for criticizing Ellen Page’s double-mastectomy in a way that Lobster Lord never would have had his criticism been directed toward men having themselves neutered?

A courageous person somewhere should consider the potential connection between gender reassignment surgeries and men having their tubes tied. The Lord told our forefathers Adam and Noah to be fruitful and multiply, fill the Earth and subdue it. Maybe that requires climbing mountains and shooting wild game sometimes. But again, I don't see self-mutilation in the Bible. And what is a man anyways?

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“Pessimism is not in being tired of evil but in being tired of good. Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering, but in being weary of joy. It is when for some reason or other good things in a society no longer work that the society begins to decline; when its food does not feed, when its cures do not cure, when its blessings refuse to bless.”

So says G.K. Chesterton in one among many poignant observations in 'The Everlasting Man.' Some say this is his magnum opus. At a minimum, though, it is his response to a principle antagonist of his - H.G. Wells - and 'The Outline of History.'

And indeed, his was a prescient description of where we are now. Many - particularly Christians in America - have grown pessimistic, weary in doing good, dogmatically insistent on going with the flow because they are tired of the good.

Thus our food does not feed, our cures do not cure, and our blessings refuse to bless. This is what it means that we are in a Recession. But the kind of Recession we are in, easily enough transformed into a full-blown Depression, is chiefly spiritual. It stems from being obsessively aware of our feelings and sensations, even being sensual, but being ultimately senseless where truth, goodness, and beauty are concerned.

More and more we resemble Chesterton's description "of the static commercial oligarchies like Carthage," "standing and staring like mummies." Ours also is increasingly the tired democracy which Gilbert warns about as ending up in despotism and tyranny because men grow weary of doing good themselves and prefer to appoint as few men as possible to the task.

But where Chesterton is long gone except in memory and his prolific writings, we do well to consider whether we are producing such thinkers in our day, and what we do with them when we get them.

"Despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic." But the cure for what ails us is not to camp out on such pronouncements in resignation, but rather to heed them and be spurred to action.

The men who grow tired of evil rather than of good do not turn pessimistic, but rather are stirred to manful action. We need more men to "play the man" along the lines of Proverbs 12:9 instead of playing the great man. By all means, be lowly, then. But realize therein that lowliness before God is the antithesis to fearing what man may do to us.

Is that not why we have grown weary of doing good, because we fear what men may do to us when we do? And what of what the Apostle Paul wrote the Thessalonians about aspiring to live a quiet life? We do not know what is our business that we should mind it. Instead, we are content to have our faculties reduced to only what we can see, touch, taste, hear, and feel with our natural senses. And we have become experts about our emotions and subsequent impressions.

But if we are to avoid the mummification of our society, and thereby its subsequent downfall and ruin, we do well to consider that such is our business, and mind it. But God gave us the mind for more than careful study of our feelings. And therein lies the trouble with our therapeutic age which carries evolutionary assumptions to their devolutionary conclusions. In becoming wise in our own eyes, our foolish hearts have been darkened, and we do not believe that we are everlasting men in Christ. We do not expect eternity so much as we say we are preferring to meditate on it.

Being so Heavenly minded ought to produce in us Earthly good. Yet Earthly good is often slandered and libeled as fleshly and carnal by those who resemble more the brothers of David than David himself. Where the equivalence of Goliath presents itself, shepherd boys are encouraged to keep quiet and go home. All the while, the pessimism inherent must be overruled at all costs.

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My wife and kids gave me a new wallet for Father’s Day this year. It’s leather and has my initials etched into the front. When you open the wallet, it has Proverbs 28:1 engraved on the inside.

“The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.”

I love Proverbs 28:1, and I’ve said many times I hope to live my life in such a way that it would not be untoward for this Scripture to be etched into my tombstone.

For a kind of New Testament equivalent, I think of what the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Timothy 1:6-7 – “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”

On this question of boldness and timidity, I want to talk about an article from The Gospel Coalition that was sent to me yesterday by my neighbor two houses down, JP Chavez.

Titled ‘After Roe, Choose Compassion over Culture War,’ the article is written by a James Forsyth and was published Tuesday.

Let’s go ahead and read through this, and then let’s think through it together.

Also, let’s consider what the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 – “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

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Jordan “JD” Hall has been removed from office at Fellowship Baptist Church in Sidney, Montana. He is now under church discipline and has been separated from his pulpit, and also his platform at Protestia.com.

Even as I talk about his downfall, I find myself not happy to be proven right about it. Actually, I am sad to see that so many continue following and embracing Hall to the last, and that so many others who knew better have preferred to keep quiet their concerns about him for fear of repercussions and blowback.

The trouble with being proven right about Hall is that the thing I said would happen has happened, and will happen even more. That is, the causes Hall has associated himself with he has not brought credibility to, nor have they given him credibility in the minds of those who know better. But Hall has tarnished the validity and rightness of good causes he's touched.

Plenty who know better have kept on allying themselves with him, and have called refusals to join in where they did so – like I stated before we moved to Montana – juvenile and childish. And for what? Because Hall “is a fighter.”

Well, so is a mad dog. And that’s what I told them he was for a long time. But they didn’t want to hear it because he was their mad dog. Now he’s bitten them. So you can see how well that worked out.

But there is also a frustration I feel at the hypocrisy of those who were happy to sick Hall on their political opponents inside and outside the church, seizing on any loose bit of gossip about them, then inflating such through conjecture and hyperbole, then roundly pronouncing anathemas and sending them off to Hell and ill repute in the minds of his followers.

Yet in moments like this where there is so much more a guarded treatment of the scandal about Hall, a very obvious partiality is apparent. And I sincerely do not understand how that inconsistency is supposed to be respectable.

This man bullied the 15-year-old son of Ergun Caner to the point of suicide, and caused men and women I knew in Sidney when we lived there to literally fear for their lives.

As my eldest son will be 15 next month, I shudder that Hall’s time as pastor of Fellowship Baptist Church was not concluded years ago. His nature has been known a long time! But some didn’t want to believe their eyes and ears. And others were simply too afraid to stop him. Or else they thought they needed him too much.

This man caused a former co-worker of mine who attended his church – even moved his family across the country to attend Hall’s church – to call me up on my way home from work one day to ask if I could meet him and his wife at their home.

I’ll never forget the fear in their eyes when they asked me to alert the FBI if they suddenly disappeared. Whether this was paranoia on their part, I don’t know. But the church should be a place you can go to tell the authorities about out-of-control civil authorities. It should never be the other way around.

The fact that more than one person I’ve known who attended Fellowship Baptist Church left on such terms that they sincerely expressed a fear for their physical safety disturbs me greatly - no less when I consider that other discernment ministry bloggers and celebrity pastors have associated themselves with Hall over the years, and lent him credibility by their association.

But this here is what is broken in the American church today, as well as in too many pockets of American society. Unfortunately that includes rural Eastern Montana where many of the long-time inhabitants learned long ago that there can be a darker and more frightening aspect to living a long way from civilization.

Don’t misunderstand me. I like fighters. But without apology I prefer fighters who are fighting what is evil and defending what is good, not those who either cannot or will not distinguish between the two when their hubris and ambition get in the way.

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Freedom, to be sustainable, requires not just Liberty in the abstract. What Os Guinness calls "the golden triangle" includes also Virtue and "Faith in something." Without these, Freedom cannot be maintained.

In his 2014 book, 'A Free People's Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future,' Guinness delves deep into quotes from the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, plus also great thinkers from Western history - all to underscore the point that free peoples typically do not remain free forever.

Yet the audacious hope of the men who won the War of Independence against Great Britain in the late 18th century, then went on to turn 13 colonies into what is now the world's declining yet still pre-eminent superpower, was that this free people would remain free forever.

Their ambition was not based on nothing, however. Students of Polybius, Cicero, Augustine, and others - the great men of renown who constituted the United States in the first place did so after careful study of what had caused other great empires and peoples to both rise and fail in maintaining their civilizations and societies.

As Guinness points out, in our day we have almost entirely divorced our ideas of liberty from their requisite partners - faith and virtue. Those are now thoroughly private matters, and liberty has been accordingly redefined to the point that any reminder of an objective standard of good character is shouted down because we are infringing on someone else's freedom in the abstract.

Yet freedom cannot only exist in a negative sense, as freedom from unreasonable searches and seizure, or freedom from infringements on our 1st and 2nd Amendment rights exemplify. There is also a positive kind of freedom which is to and for something - freedom to do what one ought and must as a fulfillment of duty to God and our fellow man.

In our obsession with negative liberty, Guinness argues, we have lost sight of the sense in which our freedom is to do more than just whatever we want, but also to do what we must. In so doing, anyone telling us we must do something is said to be infringing on our freedom to do what we want because in our abandonment of faith and virtue we do not want to do what we ought.

Yet here again, to the extent that faith and virtue have become private matters, the American Republic has been deprived of public faith and virtue. And the results are nothing short of catastrophic. Thus we waiver somewhere between Thomas Cole's third and fourth paintings in his 1833-1836 series The Course of Empire - transitioning now from The Culmination to Destruction as many previous great empires throughout history have.

As the recent Supreme Court ruling which overturned Roe v. Wade, plus the subsequent response from angry Leftists and ambivalent establishment conservatives demonstrates, we are now in a full-blown crisis in the U.S. due to a rejection of duty. Men no longer have the duty to be men. Women no longer have the duty to be women. In fact, we have flown so far and fast from our duties that we want to be liberated from even the claim that there is any such thing as men and women.

Yet it is tragic how we suddenly believe again that there is such a thing as women. And the ball is in the court of the Pro Life movement to argue whether mothers who seek to get an abortion in states where that will be illegal should be prosecuted. And it would be funny if it were not so sad that the Left finishes Pride Month in the U.S. screeching at the sky again about women's rights after having just denied emphatically that they even know what a woman is.

This is all to say that Guinness is right. If we want to endure in Culmination and not end in Destruction we must repent, rekindle, and revive Christian faith and virtue in this country. Otherwise we are doomed, plain and simple.

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A day many thought would never come finally did come yesterday. The landmark precedent set by the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, making legalized abortion “the law of the land” for nearly 50-years, was officially overturned with a ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

The harshest critics of Trump have for years impugned the character of those like me who openly supported his 2016 run for President, 4-years in office, plus a bid for re-election in 2020. But Trump pledged himself early on to nominating 2-3 Pro-Life Justices to the Supreme Court who would then overturn Roe v. Wade. And that is exactly what he did. Moreover, what we said our reasons for supporting Trump were are also the very same reasons we are celebrating now.

Because they didn’t get what they wanted, American Leftists are openly threatening everything from domestic terrorism across the U.S. over the next several weeks, to murdering Supreme Court Justices and their families, to burning down the Supreme Court building in our nation’s capital. But let them rage and pay the consequences.

Roe v. Wade being overturned does not mean abortion is suddenly illegal across the U.S. I will enthusiastically support a nationwide ban, and hope one follows, since all potential victims of murder should be afforded equal protection of our laws. But for now, Red States at least will make abortion illegal outright in their jurisdictions; and that is a good starting point.

Blue States meanwhile will see an influx of “abortion tourism.” And those seeking to terminate the life of their unborn children will come to them for help in doing so. Consequently, I expect similar dynamics to take shape between Red and Blue states which allow and disallow abortion compared with how the states which formerly allowed and disallowed slavery related to one another long ago.

Democrats since LBJ have done all in their power to put the dynamics of slavery back in play. Cloaking their malice in euphemisms, championing the Welfare State and mercenary support of Civil Rights for African Americans, they have presented themselves for generations as being the party of personal freedom. But slavery to sin is no freedom at all.

Imagine being angry right now, as they are, that unborn children will no longer be so cruelly disposed of. Imagine believing so strongly in your “right to choose” to murder a child that you call for burning down your own country in protest, threatening violence to Supreme Court Justices when they finally tell you ‘No’ after nearly five decades.

For too long, Democrats got away with labeling themselves “Pro-Choice,” as if that was the natural alternative to being “Anti-Abortion.” The proper distinction has always been, however, between those who are “Pro-Life,” and therefore opposed to the murder of innocent children on the one hand, and the “Anti-Life” on the other - in favor of abortion on-demand, everywhere and anywhere, for any reason whatsoever, and calling it "healthcare."

But today is our second oldest son Elihu James' 14th birthday. Lauren is driving north even now to Gillette with most of our other kids to pick up Eli and our oldest son Josiah after they spent this week in Savage, Montana. And I remember now how my wife and I were two poor young college students when we got married and had Josiah. Had we been completely different people, and reasoned like Democrats, what might we have been tempted to do when just a few short months after Josiah was born we found out we were pregnant again already, this time with a baby boy we named Elihu James?

By God’s grace, we chose life. And for all the things I could regret, I don’t regret that for a moment. We've certainly made mistakes and foolish choices, but having these children was not among them. With such considerations in mind, I celebrate the overturning of Roe v. Wade and could not possibly be happier about it.

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It had been about 10 to 15 years since I last listened to what's popular in Christian Music. That changed this week when I typed "Billboard Christian Top Songs" into Google, and there on the first page of the search results was a weblink from the K-LOVE Staff from a year ago.

At the top of that list were the following songs:

"You Say" by Lauren Daigle
"Holy Water" by We The Kingdom
"The Blessing" (LIVE) by Kari Jobe, Cody Carnes & Elevation Worship
"Follow God" by Kanye West
"There Was Jesus" by Zach Williams & Dolly Parton

Curious, I listened to all of these top five, and some of several more on the list besides. And I watched the music videos K-LOVE Staff embedded helpfully in the page. And thus I came to some awareness of what topped the Billboard Christian Music Charts for 2020.

Besides wondering just a little bit whether a track from Barbara Eden could have landed the top spot on this list, supposing she had recorded an ostensibly Christian single and her heyday had been today rather than 1965, I found listening to and reading the lyrics to these songs to be revealing about where we're at.

There is an awful lot of self-talk to do with self-esteem and self-image in these tracks. And while that may not be all bad, the dose makes the poison. Or so the old adage goes.

And yet on that point, the dose has a lot to do with what else is in the mix. On some of these tracks, there is exactly one explicit mention of God throughout. Otherwise, you have to take their word for it that they're talking about the Deity, much less the particular God of the Bible and of the Christian faith.

Perhaps this makes me sound stodgy. I have been reading a lot of theology as of late, becoming more aware of what I didn't know I didn't know on that subject. It could also be that I've been studying the historic creeds of the faith in recent weeks, and thinking long and hard about how specific and precise our forebearers in Church History were about how and where they chose to derive their comfort and encouragement.

But really, now. Suppose we read these straight without any of the chaser of strong emotion. Set aside the light shows and fog machines, or Steven Furtick pacing around the stage like a wild lion defending his territory, or shots of pretty girls at beautiful cabins in the woods. Consider where the focus is in a lot of these tracks, and whether the ratio of doctrinal substance to therapeutic mantras amounts to so much nutrition as magical deliciousness of the Lucky Charms variety.

I like marshmallow cereal as much as the next guy. But it's hardly the breakfast of champions when you're planning to go do meaningful work - unless, that is, the meaningful work is appealing to a certain feel-good Zeitgeist, high on emotion and low on objective truth, which demands to be coddled.

Again, as I said, I may just be getting cranky as I get older. But I'm not even saying the Christian music was so much better back in my day, when I was the teen or 20-something in the audience at the concert and this would have been Pillar or Newsboys or Relient K we were listening to. Nevertheless, I reckon there must be some sense in which Pop Christianity in the U.S. could have either developed or else devolved in the last 15-years if it's possible I have.

So I read the lyrics to these songs, and watched their music videos, and I read the write-ups from the K-LOVE Staff, and I am struck by how much more focused on our feelings we at least seem to be compared with, let's say, the old hymn writers of centuries past. And I don't mean to complain, but I do harbor a growing concern that our focus leaves us very vulnerable to being led astray by sentiment and spectacle, and comforted by half-truths.

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If we would not send our kids off to be taught by the public schools, what makes the reading of great literature any different or better?

For one thing, where there is no difference, concerned parents are certainly free to decide to opt out of reading certain books with their kids that they do not feel equipped to work through with them. “All things are permissible, but not all things are beneficial.”

Where reading a given work, either at all or else at a given point, would not be beneficial, don’t read it!

Beyond this, it’s important to ask the question of what all constitutes a benefit.

The key difference to my mind ought to be whether the parents concerned can teach their kids – both objectively and by example – to read actively rather than passively.

Passively Reading means engaging the work on a superficial level without second-guessing whether or how the claims being made therein are good, true, praiseworthy, wise, etc.

Actively Reading, on the other hand, requires paying close attention to what is being claimed or alleged and testing the work against an objective measure of truth, goodness, and beauty. And for Christians, this means comparing the claims of the literature to what God’s Word says is true, good, and beautiful.

There is then to my mind a great measure of difference between, on the one hand, your kid going through trashy books promoting godlessness, sin, and folly in the public schools; and on the other hand, your kid going through works of great literature at home with your help.

The pressure to conform, affirm, and accept is stacked against your kid in the public schools when they’re being told by their peers and teachers alike to affirm the trashiness. In the public schools, your kid will be mocked for even entertaining the premise that we want to please God in keeping a close watch over our life and doctrine as Christians.

They probably won’t even get off the ground in critically engaging the work; or, if they do, they will at least get no help from their teachers and peers who engage the material in a committedly secular, godless way.

At home, by contrast, your job as a Christian parent overseeing your child’s education is to encourage and teach your kids to affirm what is good and to reject what is bad. This requires knowing what is good, true, and beautiful, but it does not require avoiding all content which even just portrays sin and folly, since that would mean avoiding even study of the Bible.

For that matter, in the New Testament, we see the Apostle Paul being familiar enough with Greek poets and philosophers that he quoted them casually to those he was teaching and preaching the gospel to. But how and why did Paul do this? That is important to note, particularly where he did so without affirming or promoting everything said, written, done, and believed by the pagans he was quoting.

When Paul writes that all things are permissible, but not all things are beneficial, he says he will not be made a slave to anything. Practically speaking, on this topic, that may mean we are free to not engage extra-biblical works. But we should not become a slave to avoidance. That may also mean we are free to engage extra-biblical works, but that we need to take care that no one – including authors of great literature – takes us captive by vain and human philosophy.

The choice of whether or not to read and engage with great works of literature by non-Christians should pass the twin tests, then: of providing a benefit on the one hand, and avoiding enslavement on the other. We want the utmost of the first for ourselves and our children, but we do not want any of the latter for anyone, especially our children.

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As late, I have been studying the four most well-known and broadly affirmed creeds from Church History - the Apostles' Creed (abt. 180AD), the Nicene Creed (325-381AD), the Chalcedonian Creed (451AD), and the Athanasian Creed (abt. 500AD).

What do they explicitly say? And how or why do they differ from one another? Why were they written and then handed down? And can we learn from them, through compare and contrast, important truths about the expression of Christian life and thought in our time and place?

At between 1500 and 1800 years old, their ancientness can be mind-boggling for many moderns - only all the more with each passing year and decade. For that matter, the repetitiveness of the creeds can seem redundant to a cursory glance and casual observer.

Especially when you come to the creed commonly called Athanasian from a millennium-and-a-half ago, there seems to be a kind of pedantry and almost irritation hinted at in how explicit and emphatic the repetition of details becomes.

Yet delving even just a little into the history of why these creeds were written down in the first place reveals interesting and important insights into what has traditionally been the responsibility of the Church, particularly her shepherds, since the outset.

That is, these creeds serve not only to unite all true Christians on what constitutes sound doctrine, as well as serving as the basis for that sense of purpose and belonging to be found by God's design in the Church. They also serve as refutations and rejections of unsound doctrine. Such comes up frequently as well in studying the creeds, which since the beginning has proven by its recurring challenges to the Church the veracity of the warnings Christ and his apostles gave us:

"Beware of false teachers."

And why ought we to beware of false teachers? Because they bring false teaching. But why ought we to guard ourselves against false teaching? Because it at a minimum impedes our fruitfulness and joy, and at worst gives us a false assurance of salvation which we do not and will not enjoy.

That is to say, our ancient forebearers in the faith formulated these creeds, and held to them, from the conviction that such were really a matter of spiritual life or death for the Church. As such, I have been thinking quite a lot lately about whether I am, and we are, as serious also about the importance of each word and phrase handed down in these creeds.

If I am, and if we are, then what are the implications for what is understood to be a truly Christian manner of both relating and relaying? There is much to consider on this point. But first things first, I set myself to studying the creeds themselves and trying to apprehend them.

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The book I recently read and reviewed in our last episode - ‘Finding the Right Hills to Die On’ by Gavin Ortlund - has a certain ‘How To Guide to Ecumenism’ feel to it throughout.

As I think about ecumenism, an awareness dawns on me how much of it has marked my own Christian life as a 35-year-old American.

My father was raised Mennonite, my mother attended Pensacola Christian and Bob Jones University. They both met at Cedarville University.

In high school, my part-time job was at the Highland County Family YMCA in Hillsboro, Ohio. I also attended the ‘One Way’ non-denominational Bible Study. What's more, First Baptist Church of Hillsboro, Ohio - where Lauren and I met, and she grew up, held joint-services with many of the other churches in town, irrespective of denomination, for Christmas Eve every year.

Before moving back to Montana in 2012, I occasionally listened to K-Love for years. But come to think of it, pretty much any Contemporary Christian Music is like this. Stripped of most lyrical particulars which might aggravate doctrinal differences between denominations, the mass market appeal is also a kind of ecumenism.

After we left FBC, Lauren and I attended Good News Gathering in Hillsboro, Ohio. Though affiliated with Willow Creek on some level, the church nevertheless emphasized sticking to the gospel and being seeker-friendly.

I also participated in Kairos Prison Ministry in Southern Ohio once. The volunteers - clergy and laymen - hailed from diverse denominations. The point was to focus on the gospel, and primarily to make converts among residents of correctional institutes and prisons so as to make them Christians without stressing a certain tradition or confusing anyone with in-depth theology and doctrinal concerns.

When we moved to Eastern Montana, we attended CMA churches in Glendive, Savage, and Sidney. At the root, the CMA sets aside many historical denominational distinctions in favor of the making disciples of all nations, preaching the gospel all over the world.

Besides this, I have encountered more and more in recent years the increasing influence of The Gospel Coalition seemingly everywhere online, with it seeming to be the preferred resource for weblink shares from pastor friends and family members of mine all over the U.S.

Yet all of this brings me to a question that came up in reading Gavin Ortlund's 'Finding the Right Hills to Die On' this past week, and in reading so much on theology and church history the past year.

The more I study both Church History as well as Modern History, the more unusual, superficial, and disproportionate the ideal of Unity as it’s been presented seems in comparison to the level of depth to discussion and debate which seems to have marked the faith and practice of the Church the past two millennia.

All over the U.S., the more in-depth the study and subsequent discussion, the harder the pushback seems to be to embrace a kind of latent liberalism which is called humility and peace in the interest of the core gospel message.

And yet the more peace and unity with liberalism is stressed, on liberalism’s terms, the less recognizable many examples and ideals of the Bible and the historic Reformation feel. Is this just my imagination, or is there a history to the past century of what we call ecumenical that can explain what forces and influences gave rise to this emphasis today on setting aside disagreements as often as possible in favor of ready agreement and a forgoing of more rigorous researching?

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A recurring theme of Gavin Ortlund's ‘Finding the Right Hills to Die On - The Case for Theological Triage’ is the overall effect of doctrinal concerns. Not principally theological, but rather practical questions are asked by him here, like about what is going to be impacted in the life of the Church or individual Christians if a disagreement is allowed to stand or expand without being properly categorized and resolved.

We cannot go to the extreme in the ways Ortlund is describing. If we do, we will become mercenary and godless, picking our battles based on what is going to move the needle on our expanding and maintaining influence and that ever-elusive but much-sought-after material known as "relevance."

Speaking of triage, loving the Lord our God with all our being is the first and greatest commandment. The second - loving our neighbor as we love ourselves - is like it, and related, but it is not the first.

Yet in loving God first, best, and most, we ought to take care how we handle doctrinal disputes with fellow believers. Not all disagreements are created equal. And inherent to the title is the claim that there are hills worth dying on. Ortlund's second chapter in particular does a fine job explaining the danger of what he calls "Doctrinal Minimalism," as well as how prevalent it is today.

'Pick your battles' is both a truism and a true piece of advice, worth repeating and believing. Or, to quote Solomon in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, "Be neither too good nor too wise, for why should you destroy yourself?" And with such admonitions in mind, Ortlund asks us to consider some practical questions before we wade into the fray of theological disputes with brothers and sisters in Christ.

How clear is the Bible on this doctrine?
What is this doctrine’s importance to the gospel?
What is the testimony of the historical church with regards to this doctrine?
What is this doctrine’s effect on the church today?

Now a note is needed here. Just like we can have disagreement which leads us to asking these questions, we can definitely also have disagreement as to the best answers to these clarifying "theological triage" questions.

Take Young Earth Creationism, for instance. Gavin and I disagree on how clear the Bible is that the six days of creation in Genesis are to be read as literal days instead of ages of the Earth. We also, I sense, disagree as to how important YAC is to the gospel. There's the first two already.

When we come to his third and fourth questions, then, Ortlund enlists Augustine, Aquinas, Spurgeon, and Machen in making the case that there has been some honest head-scratching as to what to make of the first few chapters of Genesis, even among the most respected Christian leaders of the past two millennia. Furthermore, Ortlund concludes that the effect of various positions with regards to the age of the Earth and literal versus figurative interpretations of Genesis is pretty negligible.

Just so, I suspect Ortlund would discourage overmuch delving into debate about Creationism. So also, yet with less evidence, he categorizes disagreement about the ordination of women as being of tertiary importance. So also, he enlists Machen to put eschatological doctrines in the tertiary category.

Love, humility, and unity, however, Ortlund puts in a place of chief importance. And perhaps this needs to be so, yet without some conclusions necessarily following. For instance, I fail to see why 'Finding the Right Hills to Die On' should be read primarily by pastors and leaders. Also, I should hate to see this book used to the end of short-sighted censorship and gatekeeping in the Church.

Though the Devil is thus in the details and definitions, I found this book well-written, and I think it can be useful as a personal guide generally if Ortlund's qualifiers are applied carefully.

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When it comes to understanding the nuances of Trinitarianism, see also Chapter 1 of Matthew Barrett’s ‘None Greater’ concerning the Incomprehensibility of God.

That said, between 'None Greater' and 'Simply Trinity,' Matthew Barrett has made me aware of a great many things which were entirely unknown to me before, but which now sorely need further study.

For one, Jurgen Moltmann seems now to be the best kept secret in modern theology, and both his legacy and his work bears closer scrutiny.

For two, Social Trinitarianism is highly disturbing and – I will repeat myself from last episode – should more rightly be called Socialistic Trinitarianism.

The breadth and scope of philosophical and political agendas which have been argued from a hijacking of Trinitarian doctrine is, dare I say it, nauseating. By contrast, it is perhaps equal parts encouraging and depressing to look at the historic creeds and confessions of Christian faith from the past 2,000 years and to realize how seriously past our forebearers in the Church took doctrine.

‘Doctrinal Minimalism’ - Gavin Ortlund uses this helpful term in ‘Finding the Right Hills to Die On,’ another work I’m reading today and almost finished with; and I would say that term as Ortlund uses it accurately describes too much of what I’ve observed in my own personal experience in the church. That is, whatever is not the core and central Gospel is too often dismissed as being not really important and not mattering much.

And yet it’s sobering to remember that previous generations of Christians in some cases quite literally lost their lives because they believed so strongly in some of these points which we today so often don’t even deign to consider or study for fear of divisiveness and controversy.

That said, one concern I have with regards to delving deeply into historic Church Councils and Creeds is that we would lapse back to where the Roman Catholic Church was at when reformers like Luther and Calvin brought up legitimate issues hundreds of years ago, giving rise to what we now know of as Protestantism. That is, the fallback position returns again to the authority of popes, councils, and tradition over and against the plain meaning of Scripture, and there is no recourse.

The counterpoint I think Barrett helpfully distinguishes between here is Sola Scriptura on the one hand, and what Barrett terms ‘Solo Scriptura’ on the other. That is, the difference here is between the Bible being regarded as the only infallible source of authority for Christian faith and practice on the one hand, and on the other hand anything outside of the Bible being dismissed out-of-hand.

Needless to say, I still have much grappling yet to do in weighing and measuring and studying further. But for the time being, I will say Barrett's work in 'Simply Trinity' was helpful to me in giving me a better understanding of historically orthodox Trinitarianism. And I am thankful for that.

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'None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God' by Matthew Barrett is an excellent survey of historically orthodox doctrine regarding the attributes of God.

Admittedly, I recently read this recommended book after reading another recommended book - a certain ‘Gentle and Lowly’ by Dane Ortlund which is enjoying popularity in the U.S. right now.

If I can admit as much honestly, I was really bothered by a number of claims and arguments made in Ortlund's book, but couldn’t at first quite put my finger on why. The more I grappled with what specifically was bothering me about 'Gentle and Lowly', the more I realized I needed to figure out whether the problem was with the book or with me – or both.

Certainly, this is not an either/or proposition. Both can be true at the same time. But on that point, as Ortlund clearly agrees, what and how precisely we believe about God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is of the utmost importance. Otherwise he would not have written 'Gentle and Lowly,' and presumably no one would be reading it.

Beyond this, though, whenever someone suggests a radical change to the way we think about God, we should be diligent and tread lightly, irrespective who they are. We should imitate the noble Bereans spoken of in Acts, and search the Scriptures daily to see whether the things being claimed are so.

What proves true according to a careful reading of the Biblical text, we must allow ourselves to be transformed by the renewing of our minds in Christ Jesus according to. And this is because the point at the end of the day is not to either agree or disagree with this or that contemporary author - either Barrett or Ortlund, or anyone else. Instead, the point needs to be to agree with God because God is always right.

Nevertheless, I am glad for having been provoked to search the Scriptures, Church History, and Theology more deliberately to shore up some gaps in my own understanding.

Incomprehensibility, Perfection, Aseity, Simplicity, Immutability, Impassibility, Eternality, Omnipresence, Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnisapience, Righteousness, Goodness, Love, Jealousy, and Glory. I'll confess I had never heard of some of these terms, muchless having even a cursory understanding of their meaning and implications.

Yet even a brief survey of these attributes of God discussed in 'None Greater' proves to me that I still have a great deal more study, meditation, and clarification to pursue. And that is a happy thing. It not only humbles me; it also reminds me that an inseparable part of the answer Christ gives when asked what the Greatest Commandment is means loving the Lord my God with all my mind, no less or more than loving Him with all my heart, soul, and strength. And this is one of the ways I can love Him fully with my mind - to study Him diligently.

In closing, 10 freshly printed copies of 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: A Refutation of Liberalism' by Groen Van Prinsterer just arrived in the mail at my house yesterday.

The first ten listeners to contact me with a commitment to reading and reviewing this book, or else making a donation to The Reformed Conservative, will receive a free copy of the book as a thank you.
This is the first time this important work by Groen has been available in English.
The translation was recently commissioned by my friends at RefCon Press, an imprint of The Reformed Conservative; check out thereformedconservative.org for more information

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Let's start off this episode with a selected reading from ‘The Poetry of Scotland,’ edited and introduced by Roderick Watson.

Specifically, ‘The Bruce’ Book XII discusses the second day of the Battle of Bannockburn, and is part of a larger poem by John Barbour (1320-1395); written about 1375, it’s the oldest poem preserved in Scots.

My daughter Evelyn says my reading these to her is like a bedtime story, and she loves the accent.

Yet it should be noted that I am not trying to read this poem with an accent. Also, this is actually a very hard poem to read because it feels as though the Scottish accent is being phoneticized into English, plus there are unfamiliar words which I don’t know the meaning of.

Nevertheless, this is a stirring piece of writing, and evocative, and I hope you will enjoy hearing it as much as I enjoy reading it to you.

From there, I will tell you the story of the fallen fence plank.

It’s a beautiful, sunny Saturday here in Greeley, and I am working. So I woke up this morning to a phone call about a server that had locked up about 3AM and needed reset. That done, I got myself a cup of coffee and set to the task of fully waking up.

Four chickens in our backyard clucking early this morning. I looked out to see the neighbor’s dog laying by the fence, his head poked through on our side where a plank had fallen.

Evelyn helped me gather up the chickens and put them back in their coop; Solomon helped me put the plank back in place to keep the dogs out of our yard and the chickens in it.

This was hardly the happiest way to wake up on a Saturday; nevertheless, the fence needed mended.

Leftist SPLC Poll Includes Shocking Finding About Democrats’ Support For Assassinations

Greg Wilson writes for The Daily Wire on 10 June 2022 about how many Democrats and Republicans recently polled would approve the assassination of political leaders they believe are hurting our country or our democracy.

34% of Republican men under 50 would approve compared to 44% of Democrat men.
40% of Republican women under 50 would approve compared to 32% of Democrat women.
6% of both Republican and Democrat men over 50 would approve.
10% of Republican women over 50 would approve compared to 9% of Democrat women.

The fact that this is the Southern Poverty Law Center doing the polling notwithstanding, I have some questions and observations to share on these numbers.

For one, what do Republicans and Democrats respectively consider harm to our country which would rise to the level of being worthy of assassination?

For another, how does this question land differently in the minds of men versus women, or those who are older than 50 versus those who are younger than 50?

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From 2007-2010, I worked as a billing clerk for a trucking company, R+L Carriers. For the first several months, I was stationed at the Wilmington, Ohio headquarters. One of only two male billing clerks in the department, the other guy was a huge fan of Insane Clown Posse. We didn’t talk much.

A Christian heavy metal group called Demonhunter in particular paired well back then with commuting on my motorcycle until they gave me permission to work remotely from home. It was like a dose of masculinity offsetting what otherwise felt just a touch effeminate about what I did for a living - not least because my dad and one of my brothers-in-law were truck drivers there.

Yet the older I get, the less sustainable the intensity of Demonhunter feels. For one, I think this is because I’m getting more easily tired the older I get. For another, I realize more the older I get that greater carefulness is needed in addressing complex, high-stakes situations and issues. More than intense emotion is required of me.

Still, every now and then, I turn on this heavy stuff as a kind of palate cleanser, especially if an opposite sentiment like meekness, gentleness, kindness, patience seems as though it’s been stressed overmuch in recent engagements.

But I also think of where James says we should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. And I’m just not convinced a steady diet of angry music is any more helpful than committing to a steady diet of some other sentimental fare.

Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes that there is a time and season for everything under heaven. That includes – to my mind, at least – a time to get angry and make just war. But that doesn’t mean you want to become the theological equivalent of a Norseman berserker, unable to distinguish friend from foe, swinging wildly in all directions just because there’s a war on.

The same holds true for other sentimental imbalances. I'm reminded of a line from John Reuben’s album ‘The Boy vs. The Cynic.’

“And entertainers sing of extremes that don't exist for you and me.”

Where James says the anger of man does not bring about the righteous life God desires, we do well to consider whether other emotional states do. I mean this as a sincere question. All the while, I suspect the answer is in the negative.

We clearly are emotional beings. God made us that way. There's no sense apologizing for it. Moreover, I believe our being emotional is part of what it means that we are created in His image. So setting a goal of showing no emotion is not good. Instead, our goal should be to feel the appropriate emotion for each situation based on what is good and true.

If I’m right about that, we should guard our hearts. We should take regular inventory of the emotions we’re feeling and being influenced to feel – by music, imagery, words, relationships, décor, festivities, press releases, the news cycle, and even by God’s Word.

Just like we should be weighing whether we are thinking rightly about God and one another, or any other object or event, we should also be weighing whether we are feeling rightly.

This holds true even of the recent book by Sinclair Ferguson I read, 'The Whole Christ,' concerned with, as the subtitle says, 'Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance—Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters.'

It's not hard to see how emotions ran high where discussions of the proper order of operations discussing the Law, Grace, Works, Salvation, and the Gospel were concerned. Controversy arose in relation to the pseudonymously published work by a certain E.F., titled 'The Marrow of Modern Divinity.'

Yet all the more rather than less, works like this can prove instructive regarding the need not only to keep close watch over our doctrine and conduct, but also to regulate our emotional responses to ideas, works, and disagreement about the same.

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I watched the first three episodes of Obi-wan Kenobi with my four oldest sons and my dad at my brother’s house last Friday. Because these are the days we live in, there is controversy already with fans complaining about one of the newly introduced villains, Inquisitor Reva.

Disney has wasted no time in characterizing as racist such complaints from fans. Ostensibly, this is because the actress, Moses Ingram, and the character she plays, are strong black women, and “OP” as the kids say.

I honestly haven’t read much on the criticism, mostly because I’ve been very much turned off by Disney in general based on what they did with episodes 7-9 after purchasing the rights to Star Wars, plus firing Gina Carano. What I will say is that it should be possible to critique certain decisions made by Disney with regards to the show without being called a racist. Unfortunately, in our day and age, it is easier to hide behind Woke denunciations than it is to deal in substance.

There is both an aggressive and toxic quality to the decisions being made by too many in media in all sectors; it is overtly intolerant toward dissent or objection, and heavy-handed in its response, as we are seeing here in this case of Disney and the Obi-Wan show.

That said, there is nevertheless a lot I like about the show so far, and I hope they finish well and don’t ruin it with Wokeness. Ewan McGregor is a great actor, and it's fun to see his and other familiar faces reprising their characters from the movies, filling in gaps in our understanding of what happened between 'Revenge of the Sith' and 'A New Hope.'

Believing for a decade that he’d killed his apprentice, friend, and brother in Anakin, after having failed him as a teacher - this show exploring the toll taken on Obi-Wan makes for great storytelling. And that is all I intend to say about the show at this time.

Star Wars aside, I am nearing the end of reading 'The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance - Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters’ by Sinclair Ferguson. Stay tuned for the review once the book is finished. For now, however, I found a link between one of the key focuses of that book - namely, 'The Marrow Controversy' - and a poem about pipe-smoking by Ralph Erskine I've had up in a browser tab on my computer for several weeks.

For those familiar with binge-watching shows on streaming platforms, what followed my realization of a connection was binge-researching. And now I have selections from several connected Wikipedia articles to share with you.

Suffice to say, the history of Henry, Ebenezer, and Ralph Erskine, a father and his two sons, all Scottish ministers, is a fascinating one. It is the story of an intolerant government forcing non-conformists out of pulpits, public offices, and the universities - even barring them from gathering together privately in numbers greater than 5 not of their own household.

Reading the history of Scotland and England through the 17th and 18th centuries, you will develop a newfound appreciation for much in America that we today take for granted. Freedom of religion, speech, assembly, and association - none of these were sacred to those who outlawed non-conformity, and comprehensively drove dissenters and objectors from polite society.

No wonder questions of legalism, lawlessness, and grace are so much the center of Ferguson's book dealing with the Marrow Controversy. They were not abstract topics to these men, but were very real matters of life and death, both temporal and eternal.

A pipe-smoker myself, I enjoy Ralph Erskine's poem, 'Smoking Spiritualized.' But only all the more do I enjoy it when I realize what his family of ministers and many others endured a few hundred years ago.

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My own researches have shown me that some of my earliest ancestors in the New World on my great-grandmother’s side took Indian women for wives a long time ago. A certain Thomas Blalock (1581-1660), for one, is listed as a survivor of “The Starving Time” in John Smith’s ‘Historie of Virginia’ (1624), and married a Nassawadox Indian woman named Rachel Cates in 1627 and had 5 children with her. For another, his great-grandson Millington married a Chowanoke Indian woman named Elizabeth Mourning Green in 1741 and had 11 children with her. Both Blalock intermarriages happened before the 13 colonies declared Independence to become the United States of America, a fun and fascinating thing to think about for me personally. Yet the funny thing about such discoveries is how at a certain point, after so many generations, one is surprised to make them. And I think the reason one is surprised sometimes to find racial diversity in their family tree is for one simple fact: we’re all family. The Bible teaches that all men descend from the one man, Adam. And even from there, after considering the Flood, we all descend from another man, Noah. The fact that the family tree branched out from there to fill the Earth was not accidental or erroneous, but by God’s design. Or why else did He say, “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the Earth and subdue it”? For my part, it matters not at all whether my sons and daughter someday marry the descendants of other tribes, so long as all the above are in the second Adam – that is, Jesus. But perhaps all the more rather than less. The rationale my Grandma Ranew gave for why interracial marriage should be discouraged is a reason the Church ought to celebrate the union of Christian men and women, whatever their respective ethnos, so long as they remember their first love and are true to one another.

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How do you sum up a book with so audacious a title as 'All That Is In God'? For starters, to quote its author James A. Dolezal in his own words: “The chief problem I address in this work is the abandonment of God’s simplicity and of the infinite pure actuality of His being.”

In other words, there is a great difference between believing on the one hand that God is complex and complicated, made up of many important parts, yet somehow distinct from those parts, and on the other hand that God is simple, unified, whole, and in a word, One.

I am here reminded of the Shema Yisrael. "Hear, O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is one."

Yet many have been confused through the centuries, and even today, at how the Trinitarian God of Christianity can be three in one. How are God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit all distinct and yet unified and whole? Admittedly, it is a hard thing to understand.

As Scottish theologian Sinclair Ferguson has put it, though by his own admission perhaps imperfectly, suppose you were to multiply 1 x 1 x 1. What would you get except for 1? Yet even in getting 1 from multiplying 1 x 1 x 1 you would find that your appreciation of the 1-ness of the 1 was emphasized rather than lessened to any degree through the multiplication of it.

For many a layperson not typically a student of theology, such debates about the fundamentals of Trinitarian monotheism and the peculiar divine essence of God may seem esoteric, austere, impractical, and heady. And this such debates can be if we're not careful. Nevertheless, the study of theology is important for at least a few reasons. For one, again to quote Dolezal:

“One reason that change in God, no matter how small, is theologically devastating is that it would signify some alteration in His being or life and thus, to the extent that such change occur, destabilize human confidence in His covenant promises.”

Put another way, even small changes in how we understand, or more to the point misunderstand, the fundamental nature of God - such as believing whether He is simple or complex, or believing that He either does or does not change in any way - translate into major practical differences to our own assurance of salvation and practical expression and experience of the Christian life.

It is not for no reason, then, that theology was in times past regarded as "the Queen of the Sciences," with all other studies and pursuits seen as subordinate to her. To quote the Westminster Shorter Catechism, "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever."

Yet there is something of a paradox when we as fickle, fallen, finite creatures set out to know and understand the God who is immutable, Holy, and infinite, and whose every attribute is personified in Him to the utmost simultaneously without ever lessening or increasing to any degree. How can we ever hope to know, and what should we hope for if complete knowledge and understanding will always be ever out of reach for us?

In short, the answer to this question is that we are able to know of and about God what He wants us to. That is, He is perfectly able both to communicate with sufficient clarity that which He wants to communicate, and also to give us the ability to know and understand that which He has communicated about Himself. In other words, the hinge-point is not our ability except insofar as His good pleasure is prerequisite. But where His purpose is known to make Himself known to any extent, it is to just that extent possible for us to know, understand, love, glorify, and enjoy Him forever.

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My wife Lauren underwent a major knee surgery back in 2019, and it taught both of us some important lessons with regards to pain and suffering. Though sometimes I wish we had been spared these lessons, we now realize more fully and practically how such are of a piece with living in a Creation marred and broken by sin and the effects of sin.

This was not how it was in the beginning before the whole race fell in Adam. Now all Creation is groaning until Christ returns or calls us home. God will someday wipe the slate clean and make a new Heavens and a new Earth in which there is no more suffering and death. In the meantime, however, we must often resign ourselves to trusting in the good Lord's goodness, relying on Him for strength to endure patiently and to meet the tests and challenges of life as good stewards and faithful servants.

It is an undeniable fact that even the most expert and authoritative sometimes make mistakes. Even the most skilled and knowledgeable have blind spots. All of us as men and women are limited at best. As Gandalf tells Frodo in the Lord of the Rings, “Even the very wise cannot see all ends.” Medical professionals are no exception to this rule, and neither are husbands and wives.

It is a hard thing to experience great pains, or even to be a husband who feels appropriately protective of his wife, and yet is limited in his ability to shield her from hurts and trials. Though, on this point, we cannot miss how sometimes excessive avoidance of pain is worse than feeling the pain itself.

For instance, when the dose administered fails because it was too little or else was in the wrong place, then there is an overcorrection, the effect can be lethal. And we cannot suppose that outcome is preferable to feeling some temporary pain, however severe.

Speaking to the general condition of our country and countrymen, for years and decades doctors in America were too free in prescribing opioids. They prescribed them too often, in dosages too high, and for too long. The result was that many American men and women became addicted, dependent on painkillers to function even in the midst of life's routine setbacks and disappointments.

Now doctors and hospitals are required to start with too little, if anything, and then they carefully increase the dose as necessary. What Lauren and I went through in the summer of 2019 was just a single, solitary instance of this happening more broadly. But in the case of my wife’s knee surgery, we really do wonder how close we came to losing her when she woke up from the initial surgery. The medical staff at the surgery center gave her too much too quickly to compensate and regain control after too little had been put in the right place. And that is a very sobering thought which neither her nor I will soon forget – nor should we.

At first we might have been tempted to see the prescription of too little or too weak a painkiller as being cruel and heartless. When the reason was explained, though - not just concerning the hospital's and doctor's liability, but also concerning Lauren's long-term well-being in not becoming addicted - the more cautious and moderate approach took on a new light.

All those men and women who became dependent on opioids for everyday life medicated themselves to such an avoidance of pain that they were avoiding life itself. And that is a tragedy we would not want, and are happy to have not been subjected to.

So also, I think there are much broader implications for how we avoid or else dull pain with other means besides pharmaceuticals. How have so many goods and services been marketed to us except by emphasizing the inherent desirability of pleasure of various kinds as well as the avoidance of discomfort? We do well to think long and hard about such in every sphere as we go about our daily lives before God and man.

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Kicking off Humility Month in the U.S., it seems good to me to do a review of James Clear's 2018 book 'Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones.'

If ever there was one, this is a work that belongs solidly in the self-help, psychology, and productivity genres. To use another word, this is a book about self-control.

Nothing says more about whether we have control and discipline over ourselves quite like our ability to form and break habits as the need arises. But this is definitely a work that lends itself to a morally neutral overview of the science behind willpower.

Some quotes I liked here include the following most popular from the Goodreads.com page for this book:

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”
“You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.”
“You don’t have to be the victim of your environment. You can also be the architect of it.”
“Good habits can make rational sense, but if they conflict with your identity, you will fail to put them into action.”

Alternatively, some quotes I loved least include the following:

“Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.”
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
“If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.”

If you're wondering why the first set of quotes resonated with me but the second set failed to, I think the common denominator is systems, and an unspoken assumption regarding human will. It reminds me too much of what Cassius says to Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

"*The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings."*

That is, we are as the great Reformers would say in bondage to our own will and nature. What do we say we want, and what do we actually want? The two are not necessarily one and the same.

Putting it another way, what more besides what we wish to share of our desires do we also want which makes it difficult or else impossible to achieve what we happily admit of our intentions? In short, we are slaves to our own passions and desires, and that fact is always interfering with pursuing wisdom and virtue or their attendant routines.

To some extent, James Clear hints at this without directly dealing with it when he recommends at various points that the secret to both forming and breaking habits has a lot to do with whether we make them easy, attractive, highly visible, and enjoyable.

If you want to get yourself to start doing something, pair that repetitive action with a reward which you are drawn to. Subject yourself to intentional operant conditioning. Ring the bell as you give yourself the treat, then salivate.

But here is where I would give my biggest caution and encouragement, in correctly defining what are good or bad habits. How do you know what to put into one category or the other?

Such requires the conviction that knowing good from evil is both possible and desirable, and that something of our mode of life, thoughts, and feelings should be affected thereby. Don't misunderstand me. I don't mean to suggest this is faulty. Quite the opposite. And it is therefore because I believe this to be the case that I would say the first habit we should form is to know what is good and to reject what is evil - not least in the month of June here in the United States of America.

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Imagine you have 30-seconds to answer what 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9 is.

The seconds tick by before you blurt out a number. It's wrong, of course. Everyone gets this one wrong. But the point of the question is not math. When people are asked the exact same problem with the numbers presented in reverse order - 9 x 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 - they consistently answer much higher. And that is the actual point.

If the highest number is the leading number, you are primed thereby to believe that the final product of the equation will be much higher. The fact that you're dealing with all the same numbers either way is irrelevant. This is the power of suggestion.

Research done by Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amon Tversky through experiments of this kind demonstrated that human beings are irrational, and consistently and predictably so, extremely susceptible to subtle influence through the framing of questions and explanations.

Kahneman and Tversky's collaborative work and findings are the subject of the Michael Lewis book 'The Undoing Project' - well-written and skillfully told. But I don't want to waste time telling you how good the writing is when the subject matter itself is so fascinating.

The implications and applications of Kahneman and Tversky’s research here are as broad as all of human experience and activity – from interpersonal relationships to education, from politics to religion to economics. Literally anywhere we find ourselves communicating and being communicated to, we will also encounter by chance or accident or intention, the rhetorical equivalent of optical illusions which play tricks on our eyes.

Other books in a similar vein that come to my mind include Niccolo Michiavelli’s ‘The Prince’ and Edward Bernays’ ‘Propaganda’ and ‘Saul Alinsky’s ‘Rules for Radicals.' And I say this not because either 'The Undoing Project' or the work of Kahneman and Tversky are advocating manipulating and deceiving people. Rather, this book highlights the science of how we can be so easily and consistently misled, either accidentally or on-purpose, when we are not very intentional about our thought-processes and what we believe to be true.

When Jesus says the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind - we do well to consider how the fourth piece of this is so closely related to the other three.

Consider also what the Apostle Peter says. "Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." The more I meditate on this, the more convinced I am that one of the primary ways that roaring lion devours us is by getting in our heads and playing mind games with us.

The very next thing Peter says gives us this clue. "Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you."

And what, after all, did Jesus say to disciples he sent out? "Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men..."

But back to Peter again, who was one of those twelve Jesus sent out to all the towns of Israel. He says this also: "Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”"

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This podcast has published 100 episodes since January 13.

Of the 7 most popular episodes, there were 4 book reviews - ‘The End Is Always Near’ by Dan Carlin (#312), ‘The Fourth Turning’ by Neil Howe and William Strauss (#321), ‘Democracy in America’ by Alexis de Tocqueville (#325), and ‘The Plantagenets’ by Dan Jones (#352).

There was also 1 docuseries review of ‘China: The Enemy Within’ from DW (#333), and 1 SOTU review (#340)

Last but not least, I recorded 1 pop-culture mashup (#348) imagining what would happen if Fletcher Reede (Liar, Liar) and Cal Lightman (Lie to Me) walked into a bar together.

Of the 7 least popular episodes, I talked about how by 2030 you’ll own nothing and be happy (#376), plus explored Big Tech funny business (#379), and also transgenderism targeting teen girls (#390).

Besides these, we explored planning and plans, complaining, mockery, and how to stop school shootings (#393, 394, 395, 399)

For the most popular episodes, the average date of publish was February 20, and the average length was 49:55. The titles and subjects had more specificity and positivity

By contrast, the least popular episodes had an average date of publish May 13, and an average length of 56:44. And here the titles and subjects were more abstract and negative.

Some lessons learned include that book reviews resonate with my audience. Also, my audience prefers specificity and focus, as well as more positivity and upbeat conclusions and subjects.

I need to talk less about negative personal interactions and situations, or at least change the tone and tenor of my discussion of such things.

Abstractions explored through specific examples are more helpful, in part I think because they are more focused that way.

Besides these, it's important to note that the longer the content is out there, the more listens per episode I see. To be more precise, the ratio is nearly 7:1 listens on episodes published three months ago versus those published in the past three weeks.

Also, getting closer to 45-minutes than 1-hour for overall content length maximizes the odds any given episode will reach target.

In closing, I'll leave you with Galatians 6:1-10 (ESV).

"Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load.

Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith."

That is to say, I intend to not grow weary, and to not give up. Rather, as I have opportunity to do good to everyone both on and off this podcast, I intend to. And to God be the glory for whatever He does with it.

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On Tuesday, an 18-year-old murdered 19 children and 2 adults at Robb Elementary School, one of the public schools in Uvalde, Texas - 80 miles west of downtown San Antonio, 54 miles east of the border with Mexico.

The Wall Street Journal reports the gunman was shooting outside the school for 12-minutes before entering the building through a propped-open door and barricading himself in a classroom full of children.

The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) has confirmed that the shooter “was not confronted by law enforcement before he entered Robb Elementary School...”

Amanda Prestigiacomo at the Daily Wire reports that parents gathered outside of the school urged law enforcement to enter the school to confront the shooter, but were ignored. Some were allegedly even handcuffed, tackled, thrown to the ground, and pepper-sprayed by authorities when they attempted anyways.

According to Not the Bee, Robb Elementary is a 4-minute drive from the police station. Law enforcement took 15-minutes to get there.

“By most reports, there was a 40-minute window where police stood down and did nothing to stop the shooter.” And not only did law enforcement not go in, they used less-than-lethal measures to prevent parents from entering the school.

Whether we’re talking sins of commission or sins of omission, this horrific incident was caused not by firearms or mental illness; this was caused by man’s sinful nature run amok in our country.

For starters, a pattern of excessive reliance on civil authorities, over and against parental engagement, directly contributed to this. The same U.S. government that has told us for nearly 50-years that it’s okay to abort our children also implores us to send our children off to them for instruction. And far too many of us give our consent, all too happy to be affirmed in doing so.

But when the government tells us we’re not allowed to rescue our own children in an active shooter scenario, even as they too stand by until an hour has passed with the gunman on the grounds and in the building - here also too many of us will all-too-meekly obey because we long ago abdicated.

It doesn’t take a village to raise a child, it takes a Mom and Dad. Mothers and fathers are the primary caregivers and caretakers of children by God's design. But if you wait until an incident like this to realize that, or act accordingly, you have waited too long and it’s already too late.

The bystander effect says that when something is everyone’s responsibility, that’s near enough to saying that thing is no one’s responsibility. And that's how we need to think of the assertion that it takes a village, or the government, to raise our children.

I say this what great sadness and heaviness of heart - what happened in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday is exactly the sort of thing that happens when godless collectivism is embraced and then breaks down. Yet those who contributed to this tragedy by demanding godlessness and collectivism will insist on ever more of the same as a solution.

Governing authority is God-given and God-ordained, and should be a blessing to a nation exalted by righteousness. But the role of godly government is two-fold: to reward those who do good and to punish those who do evil. Human flourishing and civilization crumbles when government either refuses to do both, or else does their opposites – rewarding those who do evil and punishing those who do good.

So also here, the solution of more gun control is problematic on two fronts. For one, it promises to punish and constrict those who exercise their Constitutional and God-given right to self-defense by infringing more and more on their ability to do so against wicked men. But perhaps most importantly, such measures miss the point entirely, and distract from one simple truth - that these shootings are happening because we have celebrated all our sin instead of repenting of it.

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What does and doesn’t it mean to talk about everything?

For starters, it doesn’t mean I’m an expert on everything. It’s good to have experts, but we should be careful in trusting so-called experts too far. The global response to COVID should have proved that to all of us, but you can consider me at least persuaded.

We shouldn’t need to be experts to think meaningfully about important subjects. Only God knows everything about everything, or really anything. However expert someone is in their field, we all need to be loving the Lord our God with all our own heart, soul, strength, and mind, not just subcontracting our responsibility in one of these spheres, especially one so decisive as the life of the mind.

That said, we can't talk about everything all the time. We have to focus and prioritize. So I’m not going to talk about everything in every episode, and I’m not going to talk about everything equally as much. That isn't feasible, nor is it necessary.

Furthermore, it's not enough to talk about everything. The way in which we talk about everything is critically important. This is because the way we think and feel about everything is important, and "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

Honesty is good, and even critically important. But saying “I’m just being honest” isn’t a good excuse for bad attitudes or erroneous opinions. It is possible to be both honest and wrong. What is far better is to be honest and right - thinking rightly, feeling rightly, acting rightly, and speaking rightly. But this requires intentionality.

Speaking personally, some areas I've identified, with helpful feedback from listeners in the past week, where there is room for improvement, include how I talk about negative situations, conversations, and conflicts, especially of the interpersonal nature.

Mockery, irritableness, truthfulness - all need a more careful handling. And that holds not just for podcasting, but insofar as my podcasting is a reflection of how I engage people IRL - "in real life" - it holds true for my heart generally.

The goals of this podcast are:

To love God with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love my neighbor as I love myself
To take every thought captive for Christ, and be intentional in the formation of my Christian worldview
To show my work like we’re doing advanced math
To talk about everything in a way that honors God
To be honest not only to a fault, but also about faults

That last piece includes perhaps especially my own faults. Hopefully that does not mean being foolish or wicked. But where Paul says our goal is to demolish strongholds and every lofty argument raised against the knowledge of God, the end-goal of taking every thought captive to obey Christ must necessarily mean talking about said strongholds in us.

For that matter, the fact that strongholds and lofty arguments need demolishing, when placed in the context of loving God with all our being and loving one another as ourselves, is a profound assertion implying a necessity for activity rather than passivity. We have to be active agents in this endeavor - first in ourselves, then externally.

So then if I am to serve you well, and to serve our Maker well, I have to be honest for the sake of it. When a position or approach needs defending, it should be defended so long as it can be. When it becomes untenable and all those needing served are served better by abandoning it, however, then so also the same must be true that I would be honest to a fault about my own faulty positions or methods.

Someone might say to that, then, perhaps it is better to keep it all private. But then where would the profit be? We are called to let our lights so shine, and to not bury talents in fields. So also, I press on that I might attain to the high calling, and be commended by God thereby.

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What do I know? Who else needs to know? Have I told them? And do they understand what I've told them?

These four questions are key to good communication, and a breakdown on even one will see our conversations and messages being returned to sender.

Sometimes it's not that what we're trying to say is intentionally false. We just know a great many things that aren't so, and should have been more careful on the front-end in determining the veracity of our assertions and underlying assumptions.

Other times the message is spot-on, but it was delivered to the wrong person or people. They are on a strictly need-to-know basis, and they did not need to know this particular thing. Meanwhile, those who did need to know were missed because we were saying the right thing to the wrong people.

Finally, we may know what we know and have told who we needed to tell. But were we sufficiently clear? Did we include all the pertinent details and leave out the distractions that divert from the main theme of what they needed to hear?

A good principle of speech-making can apply to individual conversation as well. Tell them what you're going to tell them, say the thing, then tell them what you've told them.

This isn't to say we should be overly formal and pedantic, treating every chat like it needs to be perfectly practiced and academically delivered. But I think the principle still applies, and provides a clarifying rubric through which to examine ourselves and the things we say and hear with one another.

"Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits."

The Proverb is true, and it should both sober and energize us to be intentional and disciplined with our conversation regarding what we know, who we tell, and whether they are understanding us.

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Truth, beauty, and goodness - how ought we to think of and relate to them, and can we embody them?

Perhaps not perfectly, no. But it's a noble endeavor to study, ponder, and pursue these three, and to celebrate when they're encountered. And this is why we homeschool, by the way.

But speaking seriously, truth and beauty and goodness are close cousins. What is good must be in alignment with the truth, and something true and good is inherent to those people, places, and things which we call objectively beautiful.

"The Earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof." And whatever He entrusts to us, contentment is found in remembering that everything is made by God and still belongs to Him and is for Him.

This is why one of the Ten Commandments is to not covet anything that belongs to our neighbor. This is also why grumbling and murmuring are serious sins against our Maker. In essence, to grumble and complain with how much or little we have of this or that is to find fault with God, as if He made a mistake or was unjust.

For that matter, consider the case of Joseph and his brothers. The coat of many colors their father had given made them hate him. But what did they do with it when they took it from him? They tore it to pieces and smeared it with blood to try and make their story of why Joseph wouldn't be around anymore stick.

The actions of Joseph's brothers against him were not good. The once beautiful coat was no longer beautiful when it was presented to Jacob. And the story told about a wild animal tearing their brother to pieces was not true!

Nevertheless, God was still good. There still was the truth of the Lord's purpose. And how the whole business worked out to the saving from famine of all of Joseph's family and many more besides, plus the reconciliation of a family torn apart by bitterness and jealousy - that was beautiful indeed in the end.

So also in our circumstances. They may not always be pretty, but what God is doing in them will always in the end be true and beautiful and good. And we should remember that fact, and meditate on it in the midst of a world which will continue on in being very much broken until Christ returns and remakes it. In so remembering and meditating, we will find both wisdom and righteousness, and a peace that surpasses all understanding.

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It’s a curious thing that the psalmist tells us God laughs before responding angrily to those who rebel against Him. And is that the order of operations? A ridiculous thing is done by wicked, foolish men, then comes the mocking. Then comes the wrath.

For that matter, there is some dispute over whether mockery by Christians is ever appropriate. The Babylon Bee crowd has made their position known. But so also, there are plenty of quieter voices in the Church who grimace at the idea that we would ever make fun of sin and folly, however absurd.

Their position is that such is not loving nor respectful. Aren’t we supposed to always be ready to give an answer with gentleness and respect? And aren’t we warned repeatedly in the Scriptures against scoffing?

On that latter point, it’s worth noting that we are to be ready to answer those asking us for the reason of the hope within us. Yet in my experience, such folks are not typically in the same category as those who could more rightly be classified as the dogs and swine to whom we are to give neither our pearls nor what is holy.

At a minimum, then, it is safe to say we ought never to mock simple, innocent questions about our faith from those who are on the outside looking in. If they come to us wanting to know more about our Savior, we should not put them down or make jokes at their expense. In stead, we should be kind and patient, and clear as well, as we state plainly who Christ is and why we love and trust him.

But what about the dogs? What about the swine? Jesus says to not give them our pearls or what is holy. But in order to obey him here, we have to know who the pigs and canines are. And if he called them such, and was tempted in all ways as we are yet without sin, will it be said that we are necessarily sinning if we agree with him on our way?

Imagine I sent my sons on an errand through the woods, and told them to watch out for wolves in sheep clothes – a rather amusing word picture when you think about it. It would hardly do if they nodded agreeably while I was with them, then as soon as they got out of earshot turned to one another in confusion.

‘What’s a wolf?’

Then a shrug.

‘I don’t know!’

I think this might just be the way many Christians most squeamish about satire and mockery carry on when one of our number gets a bit more candid than the rest. Jesus can say that there are, generally speaking, broods of vipers and wolves in sheep-clothes, plus swine and doggos. But if we start to get more specific talking about who they might be, that is a travesty.

Yet how can we do as Jesus tells us to with regards to these types of people if we never under any circumstances dare to point them out or define them? And for that matter, what is the appropriate response to such brute beasts when we encounter them if not occasional sarcasm?

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Private Jackson: Sir... I have an opinion on this matter.

Captain Miller: Well, by all means, share it with the squad.

Private Jackson: Well, from my way of thinking, sir, this entire mission is a serious misallocation of valuable military resources.

Captain Miller: Yeah. Go on.

Private Jackson: Well, it seems to me, sir, that God gave me a special gift, made me a fine instrument of warfare.

Captain Miller: Reiben, pay attention. Now, this is the way to gripe. Continue, Jackson.

Private Jackson: Well, what I mean by that, sir, is... if you was to put me and this here sniper rifle anywhere up to and including one mile of Adolf Hitler with a clear line of sight, sir... pack your bags, fellas, war's over. Amen.

Private Reiben: Oh, that's brilliant, bumpkin. Hey, so, Captain, what about you? I mean, you don't gripe at all?

Captain Miller: I don't gripe to you, Reiben. I'm a captain. There's a chain of command. Gripes go up, not down. Always up. You gripe to me, I gripe to my superior officer, so on, so on, and so on. I don't gripe to you. I don't gripe in front of you. You should know that as a Ranger.

Private Reiben: I'm sorry, sir, but uh... let's say you weren't a captain, or maybe I was a major. What would you say then?

Captain Miller: Well, in that case... I'd say, "This is an excellent mission, sir, with an extremely valuable objective, sir, worthy of my best efforts, sir. Moreover... I feel heartfelt sorrow for the mother of Private James Ryan and am willing to lay down my life and the lives of my men - especially you, Reiben - to ease her suffering."

Mellish: [chuckles] He's good.

Private Caparzo: I love him.

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As Dwight D. Eisenhower once famously said, "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

This is another way of saying that our plans need to have a certain adaptability to them in order to be worth much.

What more could be said is that the process of planning cannot be skipped over for the familiarity it lends to us as battles unfold. The enemy makes their move. The fog of war is lifted. Many factors which had to remain speculative guess-work days or weeks prior now begin to show themselves.

I used to think plans and planning alike were unspiritual. When James writes in the New Testament about the arrogance of boasting about our intentions, for instance, I had a youthful tendency to go too far and yet not far enough all at the same time. As I reasoned, I couldn't boast about plans I didn't make.

Beyond this, the passage of years and the clarification which should accompany years and experience, in conjunction with further study and reflection, has taught me that planning is still a noble and virtuous thing to do even if some brag about their plans. The critical distinction is what our plans are. What do we hope to accomplish, and why, and to what end?

If our goal is a life of fame and luxury, self-indulgent and wanting glory for ourselves at any cost, then our plans and planning will have an untoward character. And we actually should hope that both alike fail, and sooner rather than later, because they won't ultimately lead to a good end.

However, if our goal is a life of decency and honor borne of love for God and one another, such does not happen accidentally. Rather, we have to plan and purpose to be virtuous, decent, honest, hard-working, and prepared to provide what is required of us for those we love.

To the end of clarifying what God's Word says about plans and planning, it seemed good to me to delve into what Psalms and Proverbs in particular have to say, and to do a little bit of concordance work with the original Hebrew words translated into our English along these lines. Or at least I should say that was my plan and purpose.

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After having recently read and reviewed Owen Strachan's book, 'Christianity and Wokism: How the Social Justice Movement Is Hijacking the Gospel - and the Way To Stop It,' and picking up from an episode published last August, 'Dr. Eric Mason and the Council of Philadelphia,' I made time yesterday and today to read Mason's 2018 book 'Woke Church: An Urgent Call for Christians in America to Confront Racism and Injustice.'

Mason, you may recall, is pastor of Epiphany Fellowship Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And I think even less now that I mistook his tweet storm from 2018 about calling a modern day ecumenical council after having read 'Woke Church.'

That is, I think now it would be hard to deny after reading his book that Mason is more than open to the ordination of women in the Church, nor either that he regards theologically conservative Christians opposed to such as anything other than sexists, nor either that he regards theologically conservative Christians opposed to the claims at the heart of social justice and Critical Race Theory as anything other than racists.

But this goes back to one of the most helpful confirmations I gleaned from Strachan this past weekend. Most of the books promoting social justice and CRT to Christians don't actually use the technical terms for either. Rather, they argue the presuppositional claims of both so as to prime readers to view the Woke conclusions as inescapable and foregone.

Just so, Mason here need not tell us he is for CRT and the ordination of women in those exact words for the discerning reader able to make 4 out of 2+2. To bemoan so many women who've graduated from seminaries but have a hard time getting hired by churches because of "traditional" and "cultural" stereotypes about gender does not leave much to the imagination, after all.

For that matter, an odd kind of double-speak is present here where Mason gives an example of what he's hoping we'll see more of in telling how Matt Chandler emailed him and several other black ministers after the shooting death of Philando Castille to extend his condolences and apologize. But, wait. Do those same black ministers also email Matt Chandler and all the other white ministers they know when a young white man is shot by police in questionable circumstances? Or should they?

Of course not. But then these are just the sorts of questions which we are expected to not ask on pain of being accused of racism and insensitivity. Thus there is no consistency. Young black men being appointed to leadership roles in churches and organizations is insulting because it's tokenism. But not having enough young black men represented in leadership is also offensive.

Here is the test of whether this is the heart's cry of a humble minister of the gospel. Is Mason so willing to hear correction and calls to repentance if they might mean letting go some of the Leftist assumptions he picked up at the academy and in the hood? Are theologically conservative white brothers and sisters just as free to have a conversation about race and the church in America as he is? Or is Mason's idea of conversation like that of so many other Woke folk I've been friends and family to - a one-way monologue rather than a genuine give and take dialogue borne of honesty and good faith?

From reading 'Woke Church,' I'm sorry to say I have a near certainty that the latter is the answer.

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Owen Strachan's 'Christianity and Wokeness: How the Social Justice Movement Is Hijacking the Gospel - and the Way to Stop It' is a must-read for every American Christian concerned about the inroads Woke ideology has made over the past few years in our churches.

Strachan outlines clearly and thoroughly here how wokeness is distinct from and contrary to Biblical doctrine concerning God, man, sin, and salvation. But he also does more than that. He also helpfully explains what is and is not wokeness.

It is not wokeness, for instance, to believe that racism is both a real social evil and sinful. Neither is it wokeness to believe systems can be rigged with two-tiered justice being meted out on the basis of skin color or other inborn traits. Where racism either individual or systemic exists, it is not wokeness to believe Christians both can and should oppose such, declaring them wicked and calling for repentance from the same.

What is wokeness is to claim that any statistical imbalance in power, wealth, and status proves that America is currently a systemically racist or sexist country. So also, it is wokeness to assert that racism is a problem unique to white people, and that being white makes one inherently racist and oppressive.

It is also wokeness to claim that any imbalance of power is proof of oppression, thereby justifying efforts to radically redistribute wealth and authority. Such claims directly contradict both the letter and spirit of God's Word where we read that God Himself institutes governing authorities - in the Church, civil society, and in the family - and that such deserve our respect and submission.

As Strachan points out also, the notion of collective guilt which is at the heart of social justice is inherently unjust, and represents arguably the greatest temptation in our time for those who are inclined to casually bear false witness against their neighbors in pursuit of doing them harm and taking coveted things away from them.

For instance, to say that a man is inherently sexist and oppressive if he is the head of his wife and children, regardless how he wields his authority, is to bear false witness against him. So also, to say that a white man, woman, or child is inherently racist, guilty of all the sins of white people against persons of color, fails every test of reasonableness, fairness, and godliness according to God's Word, and is itself a form of racism and even hypocrisy as it purports to act in the name of anti-racism.

In 'Christianity and Wokeness' you will find a brief but persuasive catalog of increasing efforts in recent years by high-profile teachers and leaders in the American Church to promote CRT and social justice, as often as not without using the particular terms. But the key issue is not what specific terms are used so much as the substance of the ideas. And in all cases, our responsibility as Christians being to teach only what accords with sound doctrine translates to a responsibility to confront false teaching in all its forms, whatever the source, however popular or well-respected the figure or organization promoting it.

Strachan stands here in the tradition of J. Gresham Machen - whose 'Liberalism and Christianity' American Christians should also familiarize themselves with - in saying that Woke Christianity is just the latest iteration of Liberal Christianity. It is not just one among many valid interpretations of the Gospel; it is a different and false gospel, and needs to be both recognized and treated as such.

As Strachan not only argues but demonstrates, this need not mean opponents to Woke Christianity become just as mean and shrill as their opponents. But we must nevertheless be clear and steadfast.

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The Epoch Times published a piece by Alice Giordano April 15, 2022 titled 'Girls Are Main Target of Transgender Movement, Advocates Say' in which a compelling case is made that teen girls are especially vulnerable as public schools across the country increasingly affirm and promote transgenderism.

What makes teen girls so especially vulnerable is a combination of factors, including but not limited to aggressive campaigning by proponents of so-called transgender rights, the teaching of Gender Theory in public schools, and poor body-image and self-esteem due to the combination of the bombardment of sexualized imagery of other teen girls on social media like Tik-Tok and Instagram and the awkwardness inherent to changes which come with puberty.

Next month being Pride Month in the U.S., we will see major corporations rolling out rainbow colored versions of their logos, as well as virtue-signaling ad campaigns carefully crafted to one-up all their competitors for who is the most Progressive on this particular issue.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the Wokest of them all?

My own personal theory is that teen girls are particular targets of transgender activists for much the same reason so many more boys in the U.S. are diagnosed with ADHD in American public schools. Girls are, due to so much less testosterone and so much more estrogen than boys, naturally more compliant and acquiescent to efforts at social engineering. Therefore, they are much more likely to go along with the transgender movement when the authority figures in their lives strongly encourage them to be.

To call this tragic is an understatement. To say that it is unnatural and abhorrent is putting things mildly.

Meanwhile, my ability to socialize, communicate online, get and keep work, or even keep my own children would be nullified if the radical Left had its way for one simple reason: I would encourage parents to flee American public schools like they're literally on fire rather than subject our children to this barbaric confusion.

But "what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul?"

If we allow ourselves to be cowed into silence and submission by such threats to our Christian liberty and reason, we will have committed ourselves to destruction also along with the barbarians at the gate.

Teen girls feeling afraid and frustrated should not only have the LGBTQ+ movement to look to for purpose and belonging. And transition surgeries and hormone therapy are, if you ask me, a rather sick and twisted form of gang initiation ceremony preying on our impressionable young ladies at the most vulnerable of times.

Those who disagree with me most vehemently would silence me on the basis of the claim that it is just such remarks and assertions which cause transgendered persons to end their lives. But I disagree with them here too. It is not because of an overabundance of Christian calls to affirm God-given biological gender over and against androgyny that transgendered persons commit suicide. Rather, it is because we have too meekly accepted sneering malice carrying the day as it forces out Biblical ethics with regards to gender and sexuality.

The Church in America, for its part, must provide a clear and resounding alternative for the confused.

Like a theological and philosophical kind of Svalbard Global Seed Vault, and like the monasteries which preserved books and manuscripts through the Dark Ages, Christians who hold to God's standard of truth, goodness, and beauty can rescue those being led away to the slaughter here, and must all the more as varied threats of persecution are leveled to try to stop us.

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'Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization' by Samuel Gregg covers two subjects which are critically important for all of us to comprehend: the relationship between rationality and religious belief for one, and the legacy and destiny of the West for another.

Gregg argues clearly and concisely here that Western Civilization is predicated on the synthesis of faith and reason. Instead of choosing one or the other, the melding together of Jewish belief and Greek thought in Christianity made possible the greatest and surest improvement in human quality of life ever, bar none.

Those today who strive to divorce the modern developed world from the fact of it having both a significant theological and philosophical heritage stand poised, therefore, to destroy the single greatest force for good humanly speaking since the beginning of recorded history.

The second book I finished today was a surprisingly fitting companion. 'Sex, Lies, and Scantrons: The Average American's Public School Experience' by Matt Saccaro serves as a first-hand account of the personal ramifications of such efforts.

According to Saccaro, our education system routinely allows students to torment, harass, bully, and pressure one another into unhealthy ways of being and relating. Teachers, meanwhile, alternate between barely concealing their disdain for their pupils and harshly upbraiding them for making them look as bad as they in fact are.

Consequently, the kids are foul-mouthed, uncouth, abusive, and unrestrained by anything that could remotely be called Christian morality. The adults in the mix by and large shrug and turn a blind eye to this, unless doing otherwise would cost them personally. The whole lot acts like animals because they're conditioned to believe they're animals.

And this is why we homeschool.

Of a piece is the recent story from Not the Bee of a Tallahassee, Florida middle school principal Sarah Hembree taking to Facebook to upbraid parents for "getting in their way" and bragging that teachers are going to "do what's best for your students in spite of you."

The whole lot also explains why Louisiana HB813 - 'The Abolition of Abortion in Louisiana Act' - was just withdrawn by its sponsor, Republican State Rep. Danny McCormick, after an amendment passed 65 to 26 on Thursday night stating that "the pregnant female shall not be held responsible for the criminal consequences" if she tries to get an abortion in violation of the proposed legislation.

To the degree the West generally, and America in particular, has abandoned the union of faith and reason, we have correspondingly lost the ability to agree that truth and goodness are objectively knowable, and that it is our sober responsibility before God to both know them and act accordingly.

If there is to be any hope of salvaging the above, by God's grace, we must return once more to the conviction that "the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the the knowledge of the Holy One is insight." Nothing less will do.

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And This Is Why We Homeschool

Target is thinking ahead for this year's Pride Month, as it's known - the time of the year since 1999 in which we celebrate LGBTQ+ persons in the U.S., as well as their loudest and proudest allies in our midst.

What is Target doing, you might ask? Why, they're marketing a new line of clothing featuring androgenizing pieces like chest binders and packing underwear. The latter of these innovations is, I presume from the name, intended so young men who want to wear women's swimsuit styles can do so without us noticing, ahem, certain biological anomalies not corresponding to their gender preference. And the former of these is obviously for women who likewise either want to pass for males, or else leave us all guessing.

As an aside where Target is concerned, I would point out that I personally am feeling triggered by the fact that they still have among eight categories on their website one for 'Women,' as well as another for 'Beauty,' despite the fact that there is a great deal of debate about what constitutes either of these two things. But I'll just assume they must have biologists on staff who, unlike President Biden's most recent appointment to the Supreme Court, are able to define what in fact a woman is.

But on a more serious note, now is as good a time as any for us to talk seriously about mammaries, and to ask what it can possibly mean when we read in Deuteronomy 22:5 that, "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God."

At a minimum, I gather from this that Target does not employ so many theologians as they do biologists. But perhaps that is for the best. We would not want to study uncritically any books on either theology or biology which this upper middle-class box store could be expected to carry.

Really, though, what else could God have meant about what "pertaineth unto a woman" or man where clothing is concerned except that they belong in separate departments due to anticipated dimensional differences in certain general regions of the bodies of those who will wear them?

Makeup is a lie, as often to accentuate certain feminine qualities which are considered attractive as to mask other undesirable features like zits. But now we have moved on to wardrobe also. So both the crotches of men and the chests of women need a little help where our ambitions tend toward blurring the lines.

On this latter point, can I point out that while Biblical modesty really is more about not attracting undue attention to ourselves and not enticing others to lustful thoughts, not first and foremost about how much skin is covered and precisely where on the body, there must be a line past which such endeavors become unreasonable.

God was not so terribly and sternly specific as the most conservative among us typically are. Cultural context and setting are important considerations here, as must be personal conscience and individual discretion. But I surely do hope the baggy-denim-skirts-down-to-their-ankles crowd is free of internal conflict as to what to make of these chest binders for our females.

But now that we've accepted draconian requirements for face-coverings in public for two years, the addition of Target's new options for LBTQ+ fashion almost make me wonder. Do we have some newfangled variety of Muslim cleric doing the social engineering in this country now? And what's next, rainbow burqas and hijabs for anyone who wants to go out in public?

Perhaps the feminine men will want padding on their hips to make them seem a little wider. Or maybe the masculine women will want padding on their waists to make their hips seem narrower.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think I'll stick to Proverbs 5:18-19, thank you very much.

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The cost of living is going up. Generally speaking, you know it; I know it. But rather than contenting ourselves with vague and fuzzy general approximations like that, let's talk a bit more about the hard math involved here, and use some real numbers.

New rate of inflation data is expected May 11th - that is, tomorrow at time of publishing. But last month's numbers for the previous 12-month period put us at 8.5% nationwide - the highest rate recorded in the U.S. since December, 1981.

Having been born in 1986, that means inflation in America is worse now than its been since five years before I was born. Put another way, this is objectively the worst inflation I've ever seen in my lifetime.

Now suppose you made $44.00 per hour in 2012. USInflationCalculator.com tells me you would have to earn $55.10 per hour in 2022 to maintain parity in terms of spending power with what you had back then. That is, what your money is actually worth in terms of being able to exchange it for goods and services has experienced 25.2% in cumulative inflation over the past decade.

Using bigger numbers, like annualized take-home salary, suppose you made $85,000 a year in 2012. Adjusted for inflation, you would need to be earning $106,000 now to keep up.

Now for the question: What is the spiritual response to such mathematical equations?

To a husband and father, particularly one who serves as the sole breadwinner for his family, whose wife stays home with their many children, and homeschools them, the pressure and dilemma is real.

1 Timothy 5:8 says, "If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." That is to say, Christian breadwinners don't just have the option, liberty, or right to earn a living to provide for their families. They have a duty before God to endeavor at such, and to make ends meet, especially for their wives and children.

Considering such, I think back to when I went back to Montana in 2012 to get a job in the Oil and Gas industry. Some back in Ohio, what was at that time our home, did not at first understand. Surely there were plenty of jobs where we lived. I just needed to do better and work harder, and trust God more.

But are such pronouncements all there is to it, or do other Biblical principles apply as well?

Ecclesiastes 10:19 comes to mind. "Bread is made for laughter, and wine gladdens life, and money answers everything."

Perhaps counterintuitively, so does James 4:13-15. "Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”"

No, there is no contradiction here with 1 Timothy 6:10. "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs."

On the contrary, these two truths apply simultaneously - that money answers everything as Solomon tells us, and also that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil as Paul writes to Timothy.

And consider how God sent dreams to trouble Pharaoh about seven years of plenty being followed by seven years of famine. The too-easy and possibly over-spiritualized response would be to say we need not worry, let not our hearts be troubled, and to be warmed and filled. But God worked the troubling of Egypt's ruler to a good purpose, to promote Joseph to a place of prominence and save his people Israel thereby.

So, then, we should say this and no more, that God provides, but not always by keeping us where we are.

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When asked what the greatest commandment is, the gospels record the answer Jesus gives as being “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” But he continues by saying the second is like it. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

So also, Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” And in what else we read throughout the Scriptures, a great many of God's commands have to do with how specifically we go about loving one another - loving particular neighbors as we love ourselves, depending on their relationship to us and our corresponding responsibilities to them.

For instance, husbands are told to love their wives and hold fast to them. Wives are told to submit to their husbands in everything. Children are told to obey their parents. Fathers are told not to frustrate their children, but to bring them up in the instruction of the Lord.

Always, whether in the Old Testament or the New Testament, under the old covenant or the better one we enjoy the blessings of now, the way we relate to one another is tied back to the overarching claim God has on our devotion to Him.

Based on His infinitude and our finitude, however, we find that we have none of the omnis. We are limited in our knowledge, presence, energy, time, attention, ability, and resources. And so we have to prioritize.

When prioritizing, we will often find competing claims for our devotion and service, our time and attention, and even our resources and ability. And when we find ourselves so challenged, the solution from the Scriptures is not to please everyone. Rather, we work as unto the Lord. We perform for an audience of One, even as we let our lights so shine before all men. The loop and circuit is complete to make this Christian life go, and to power it.

Thus, children are not told to obey everyone's parents. They are commanded to obey their own. Husbands are not commanded to love all the wives in the world. They are commanded to love their own wives. Wives are not commanded to submit to all the husbands they know, but their own husband. And so on and so forth.

All else being equal, we see that any Christian man who shrugs about providing for his relatives, especially the members of his own household, is worse than an unbeliever. But that is to say too that his first priority is the members of his own household, and only secondarily is he to expend himself in caring for his extended family.

Yes, we are told to do good to everyone, as we have opportunity. But we are also told to do good especially to those who belong to our household of faith - that is, Christian brothers and sisters. So if we have opportunity in the way of surplus time, attention, energy, and wealth, our extended Church family gets first dibs after our extended blood relations, and our extended family is served only after the members of our immediate family and household are taken care of.

And, yes, children are to obey their parents. But adults who are married have to reorient their priorities under God. Wives no longer obey their father and mother if they submit to their husbands in everything. So also, husbands no longer obey their father and mother in everything if they are leaving said parents and holding fast to their wives.

Interestingly enough, in this way, we actually serve best both God and the Church, and both those inside our family and in the broader community. Wives and children loved and served well are a blessing, and all the above testifies to the goodness of God even as it lets our reasonableness be known to all. Thereby too we exalt a nation by righteousness, and we also seek the welfare of the city by showing how to have strong, healthy families.

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In Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, set in the first century, the protagonist is a Jewish prince by the name of Judah Ben-Hur. Romans occupy Palestine, and a group called the Zealots plots their overthrow on the grounds of religious objection and national pride. Judah for his part wants to find a peaceful solution, and his conscience prevents him from joining with his countrymen planning an armed insurrection.

But when Judah is approached by his boyhood friend, the ambitious Roman officer Messala, and asked for help identifying the conspirators, here too his conscience prevents him from participating. And for this, Judah finds himself in short-order framed for the crime of trying to assassinate the Roman governor of Judea, and he and his mother and sister are together accused, convicted, and sentenced to be made examples of.

Yes, Ben-Hur is a revenge story after a fashion. But it's also a story about personal conviction and conscience resisting false choices; it's also a story of religious liberty.

As Yuval Levin writes in an article for First Things from 2016 titled 'The Perils of Religious Liberty,'

"Religious liberty, in this view, is therefore not quite a liberal liberty. It is not a freedom to do what you want, but a freedom to do what you must. It describes a duty of society to retreat and give its members space to act on what they deem essential; an acknowledgment not of a human liberty or right, but of a human obligation that precedes the social obligation and so shapes it."

Let's apply this mode of thinking to the abortion debate, then. It is not enough for someone to say that their religion or lack thereof is silent on the question of when life begins, or what life is worthy of living, or whether murder is always wrong. Rather, freedom of religion rightly conceived would ask whether we have an obligation before God to relate to the unborn by either aborting them or defending their right to life. All the while, the position of the Christian is that we will one day give an account for both our active and passive parts played in such matters.

With abortion, then, the Christian insistence on making illegal this particular kind of murder is predicated on the conviction that we will give an account to our Maker for how we treat men, women, and children of all ages who are made in His image and therefore ultimately belong to Him.

To give a counter-example, consider the question of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Ratified by the states on January 16, 1919 and taking effect on January 17, 1920, that law of the land said that both the production and sale of liquor was illegal. And doubtless its proponents held the view that the ends of less public drunkenness and more engaged husbands, fathers, employees, and parishioners justified whatever means necessary to ensure the public good.

Still today, among some of my relatives, the conviction is staunch and unwavering that where drunkenness and alcoholism are both physically and morally unacceptable, unhealthy, ungodly, and foolish, the only correct course for a person of upright and Christian character is to abstain entirely. Where God's Word tells us to not be drunk, we must not even have a drop. Therefore, anyone who does partake even in moderation is even sinning and should therefore be shunned.

Here too, however, the principle of religious liberty must come to bear. And the question ought to be whether we have an obligation before God to act in such a way as we will be able to give an honorable account to the Judge of all mankind concerning. The freedom to partake, abstain, or prohibit is not enough to go on.

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Yesterday was not just Star Wars Day. More importantly, it was our son Daniel Joseph Mullet's 11th birthday.

I missed his first birthday ten years ago. Daniel and his three older brothers - Josiah, Elihu, and Solomon - were back in Ohio with Lauren, but I had gone back to my home state of Montana to look for better opportunities for work in the Bakken oilfield in the midst of the boom.

As of this week, it's been a decade since I got that first real job in the Oil and Gas industry as a lease operator. But would I have gotten that job if Daniel had never been born?

The startling thought is maybe not! Times were tough back then, and we really were not making ends meet. More to the point, I was not making ends meet. But we were kind of getting by, and also not really. All at the same time, we had a place to live and clothes and food. But it was not sustainable, and it was very uncertain, and we knew that. And the realization pained us.

Then Daniel came along, and we were thankful. We wanted to honor the Lord with having children, but we were also feeling weak and vulnerable. Then with our fourth addition the pressure increased just enough that when the advice was given me by an aunt back in my home state out West to call my cousin Brent working in Williston and talk with him about better opportunities there, I jumped on it.

Next thing we knew, I was there and looking for work, then finding it in short order. It took some months to find a place to live, but before we knew it we were buying our first home in Sidney, and trading in our Chrysler Pacifica for a Ford E350 because Evelyn was on the way.

Now that I come to think of it, would Evelyn have been born in the first place had we not moved to Montana? And what about Enoch and John and Andrew? And would we be here in Colorado today, knowing all these fine people we have for friends? Maybe, but more likely not.

Daniel Joseph, then, was a kind of tipping point. The Lord used the fact of his simply being in our lives to push us off dead-center, to get us to stop riding the fence, to nudge us just over the line into needing to up our game and think outside the box.

Now here we are with me doing systems integration work, working seven days on and seven days off, mostly from home. But had we kept on just barely getting by, I don't see how this would be our reality.

That is to say too that if there were an opportunity to do it over again, I would not trade our son Daniel for all the world, much less a little more comfort and the appearance of security. As it turned out, being uncomfortable pushed as to grow and expand our horizons, meeting new people and seeing new sights we otherwise never would have.

With all the talk right now of Roe v. Wade being overturned, this is something young people who find themselves pregnant and scared need to hear. The Lord provides. God gives wisdom to those who ask in faith. Our Maker is also a Sustainer and Healer.

"But He gives grace to the humble," it says. And in another place, "But He gives more grace."

"Trust in Yahweh with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths."

Sometimes the answer is not a lower head-count and to cut back. Rather, sometimes the answer is to increase your carrying capacity and increase your capabilities. This too is one of the ways God uses children in our lives. But we have to recognize this blessing and relate to it as such to reap the benefit.

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Rumor has it the U.S. Supreme Court may have already decided amongst its conservative majority to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that declared abortion. The draft opinion has allegedly just been leaked to Politico, is now making the rounds, and will surely raise a furor on the Left as well as pearl clutching from more "bipartisan" Republicans.

Surely five decades and 60 million unborn children murdered is quite enough, though. It's time to right this wrong, and for the minister of God that is the governing authority in this country to reward those who do good and punish those who do evil here.

Rescue those who are being led away to the slaughter. Call for repentance. Repent! And if we do that, then help our brothers to get the specks and planks out of their eyes after removing the same from our own, the Lord God will surely hear from heaven and turn away his wrath and judgment and heal our land.

For years and decades, the naysayers have said it couldn't be done. But I for one cannot help continuing to hope and pray until the final hour that all forms of murder will alike be outlawed again here in America.

At a bare minimum, if we can establish that, then we build upward and let truth and justice ring out on other issues as well. Equal protection under the law demands it. This is a fundamental human right - you can't get any more fundamental than the right to live; and all other rights presuppose this condition.

While we're at it, let's reform and streamline adoption practices that will match children whose parents are either unable or unwilling to care for them with couples unable to conceive on their own for whatever reason, who want to have children but cannot.

Then let's raise those children up in the fear and admonition of the Lord to steward their God-given potential. Stop treating them like so many disposable animals, and start recognizing the Imago Dei in them as significant and meaningful in the way we teach them to relate to their Maker and one another.

That will exalt this nation, and such should certainly be our hope. Who but the prophet Jonah would either actively or passively hope otherwise? But call the city to repentance, and tell it to turn from its sins and be saved, and be glad if and when it does and God blesses it!

And if we do this thing with regards to the weakest and most vulnerable among us, we will find also a groundswell of mercy for the rest of society also. Then perhaps the tireless efforts of some to make all who seem inconvenient to them as silent and helpless as infants before disposing of them as they will can also be stopped.

After all, "He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does Yahweh require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"

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Proverbs 18:17 says that "The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him." And this truth is central to our understanding of many important concepts and values in Western civilization and American culture, including free speech and due process, not to mention critical thinking skills.

It is all too easy for bad ideas to go unchallenged when we only have the first one to state their case to go on for an accounting of things. Yet this is why peer reviewing academic papers is, at least in principle if not always in practice, an important mark of their trustworthiness.

This is also why when someone stands accused of committing a crime they are said to have a right to not only legal counsel but a day in court where they can face their accusers and question the charges, evidence, and testimony against them.

Believe it or not, this is also why in a healthy political process you will have at least two parties, though preferably more. One party going unchallenged is a danger to themselves and those they are ambitious to govern. But when at least one other party has standing to disagree or propose other solutions, or point out problems with the solutions which have been put forth by the first, we can see thereby possible blind spots and unintended consequences we may want to avoid or else shore up.

This is also why it is so important that unity, for instance, mean more than everyone reaching hasty agreement in the particulars with the first to state their case. To have any enduring value, unity ought to be about a common cause, about shared purpose and values, and about an overriding definition of what success together looks like. When unity becomes nitpicky and precise, demanding absolute uniformity on every particular, the safest and wisest course is to wonder a broader consensus is not acceptable, and to start looking for ulterior motives and selfishness.

The same holds true for how we define what love is and is not. For instance, consider 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.

"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

And see here how love does not insist on its own way, but is patient and kind. And consider how love and unity alike will consider more holistically the needs and, wherever possible, even desires of the other person. Neither true love nor true unity will demand definitions which are so narrow that the slightest second-guessing or proposed deviation destroys them. Rather, those who talk as though real love and unity are that fragile typically turn out to be manipulative and abusive, flattering and bullying by turn because what they really want most is their own way, getting downright irritable and resentful when anything interferes with it.

But here too we do well to consider another gem from Proverbs 18. In verse 21, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits." Which is to say that we have to always be careful how we define such crucial and live-giving concepts as love and unity, checking everything against God's Word both in our own hearts and in what others present to us.

As Proverbs 4:23 puts it,

*"Keep your heart with all vigilance,

for from it flow the springs of life."*

As Jesus says in Matthew 12:34, "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."

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Winston Churchill once said, "Some people's idea of free speech is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back that is an outrage." I can think of nothing which better describes Leftists on Twitter aghast that conservatives might soon be able to freely state their opinions and convictions online again.

But it is not just broader society which struggles with this idea of open discourse and the challenging back and forth of ideas and positions. Within the American church as well, how best or whether to debate issues and positions provokes no small degree of anxiety from some.

Take for instance this thread from Tim Keller posted yesterday in which he bemoans unity and fellowship between professing believers being destroyed over political differences. As he highlights in this post, Tim tweeted earlier this week that "Churches must not maintain unity at the expense of the gospel. Churches should not destroy unity or fellowship over political differences."

Fortunately for me that he did highlight that tweet in a place I could see it. I'm still locked out of my own Twitter account, and would not be able to read it otherwise. But that really is my point. Free speech to the Left means that they are free to be morally ambiguous where it suits them, downright strident and inflexible where they please, and anyone who says otherwise is being divisive and should be silenced.

While we're on the topic, I will add that calls for unity from Tim Keller sound an awful lot to me like calls for unity from Joe Biden. Both lead in with innocuous and fine-sounding sentences and phrases which no one could reasonably deny, then bring in the hook that blasts opponents and critics before saying we all need to rally together. No tag-backs, I guess.

But the idea of free speech is inseparably tied - historically, theologically, philosophically, and politically - to both the conviction that we have a God-given right to speak, act, and live according to the dictates of our conscience, and the reality that the annals and chronicles of the human story down through the ages are filled with instances of bullies, charlatans, manipulators, cheats, scoundrels, and tyrants trying to silence the consciences of those who disagree with them.

Sometimes these latter efforts take the form of mandates; other times they appear as prohibitions. Sometimes they are false advertising; other times they are disingenuous omissions of important details.

And, yes, sometimes even calls for unity mask the stifling of rigorous debate and cross-examination. Whoever can beat everyone else to the buzz-word presents themselves as the embodiment of the noble ideal. He who speaks next with an objection is the divisive one, the intruder disturbing all our peace.

Yet even just taking Keller's thread from yesterday for example, he leads off in large font as follows:

"I recently wrote about how churches should not destroy unity or fellowship over political differences. The replies show that many American Evangelicals have no coherent understanding of how to relate the Bible to politics."

Oh, yes. That is very unifying. Thank you for solving all our troubles in such exemplary fashion, Tim. Nothing like telling those who differ with your takes that they are incoherent, absurd, nonsensical, irrational, immature, and ungodly to show us the way.

Yet in what follows, you do as you often do, feigning confusion over whether God's Word speaks to voting for candidates who believe a certain kind of murder must be legal and our tax dollars should go to promoting and subsidizing it, then leave the door wide open that obedience to God's commands to care for the poor may be satisfied with our tax dollars paying for welfare programs. But here also, which is it? You can only pick one.

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The divorce rate in the U.S. is going down, and that’s nice. Divorce is an ugly, tragic business. Who but the Devil wouldn’t want to see less of it?

And, in fact, the divorce rate is going down quite a lot. According to Statista, the divorce rate in 1990 – when my younger brother Bryce was born - was approximately 4.7 per 1,000. By 2020, just thirty years later, the divorce rate in the U.S. dropped to a mere 2.3 per 1,000.

But wait. Just hold the phone a minute. Before you go celebrating, there is an important detail to unpack regarding the statistics here.

The divorce rate is going down because fewer young people are getting married to begin with.

And not only are fewer young people in America getting married in the first place. Those young people who are getting married are doing so a fair bit later in life – waiting until they’ve finished getting their education and established themselves in their careers – 29-years old for women and 30-years old for men.

Is this really a win for marriage, then? Have we cracked the code and learned the lessons from our parents generations?

Well, maybe. We have at least learned some lessons. Whether they were the right lessons or not remains to be seen, particularly if many of those giving up on marriage are not similarly giving up on cohabitation.

As it turns out, they are not. In fact, living with an unmarried life partner surpassed living with a spouse as of 2018 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That is to say, more young people are living with a significant other than are getting married.

For those of you interested in the hard numbers, four years ago they were 9% and 7% respectively for 18 to 24-year-olds unmarried cohabiting versus living together in marriage. Meanwhile, 25 to 34-year-olds looked a lot better at 40.3% and 14.8%.

By contrast, those statistics in 1968 were 81.5% and 0.2% for the 25-34 age group, and 39.2% to 0.1% for 18 to 24-year-olds.

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With Elon Musk purchasing Twitter, some very curious developments are taking shape.

The top legal counsel at Twitter got choked up talking about the forthcoming change in management. That to my mind seems like a positive sign of things to come, particularly where Musk has a mind to prevent a repeat of what happened with the Hunter Biden laptop story from the New York Post in the lead-up to the 2020 election.

In other news, the day after the official announcement that the buy offer was both made and finally accepted conservative accounts like those of Lauren Boebert, Ted Cruz, and Ron DeSantis saw increases in followers by the tens of the thousands even as progressives like Stacie Abrams, AOC, and Bernie Sanders lost tens of the thousands of followers.

Whether these swings represent actual users rejoining and leaving Twitter, or else the cleaning out of bots and lifting of shadow bans, one conclusion is inescapable.

Big Tech has been picking winners and losers for a generation now. More specifically, Big Tech has been picking winners and losers for my generation that came into young adulthood of our 20's and 30's during the Internet Age.

For all our life they have been mining our data, tracking our every decision online, studying our patterns, playing on our fears and hopes, and amplifying those of us who would advance their social and political agenda while simultaneously suppressing those of us who would undermine their Utopian vision.

A similar question should be asked to what Pro-Lifers have been posing for years with regards to abortion. How many of our great authors, artists, scientists, inventors, and leaders were lost in their mothers' wombs over the past five decades? God only knows.

Yet even with those of who survived to young adulthood, how many great authors, artists, scientists, inventors, and leaders have been suppressed in my generation because the wealthy and powerful status quo had its finger on the scales in the digital realm?

The Jones Effect is so well-known for one very simple reason: it works. But it cuts both ways. And if an army of bots and artificially making a progressive like AOC can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, so also has shadow-banning, suspending, and deplatforming of young conservatives online served to stifle and chill the crop of would-be voices and personalities before they even had a chance, and probably very often without most of us being any the wiser about it.

For years, whistleblower insiders from Big Tech corporations like Twitter have had their interviews with the likes of Project Veritas published online explaining how partisan moderators and third-party fact-checkers can shut down people they don't like online, effectively blacklisting their opposition from participating in the public discourse.

But for just as many years, by the same mechanisms which were being exposed in such stories, a great deal of the public has remained painfully and woefully ignorant of the breadth and scope of what has been lost in the process behind the scenes.

Shadow-banning, by the way, is the underhanded process of making a content creator's published posts invisible to either all or some of their intended audience of followers - all without their direct knowledge, and without them being made aware of how or why.

Have you ever looked at your visibility settings on a post to Facebook, for instance? You can make it public, viewable to friends-only, viewable to all your friends except certain ones, viewable to only certain of your friends, or viewable only to you.

Can any of us really suppose those tools and settings are available only to us for our own content and audience? I should hope not. But then that is a strong possibility by virtue of who controls access to such information.

It would seem that is about to change, and we are about to be set free. And praise God for that.

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As a straight white male, I already check all the boxes. Then add that I'm a husband to a stay-at-home wife and mother, and that we have eight children and homeschool them.

I am the oppressor, then. I am the villain. All that's wrong with the world is ultimately my fault. There is no winning for me except to surrender all my power to others and abdicate once and for all.

Though even there, abdication is no guarantee of absolution. Once the vacuum is created and things fall into shambles, that too will be my fault. And if times are good they will say that I built so-called success at the expense of the less fortunate.

No wonder testosterone levels in men are dropping like a rock. Testosterone levels increase in fans of winning sports teams, and our team is not winning. Moreover, it's not supposed to win. It's not allowed to win.

Check out and you will be called a quitter and a wimp. And you might be a victim to some folks, but we've already established that personal suffering does not make one virtuous. So no guarantees on accolades that direction either.

But double down and get in there, and you will be criticized. There is no avoiding it.

So perhaps what we do to be good men is shrug at the criticism and work as unto the Lord anyways. And perhaps what it means to be a good man is that you turn your back on the frivolous, unscrupulous naysayers and walk away from them.

They're not really listening to us anyway, except trying to hear for something they can use against us.

But in that case, we might as well dig in to what God's Word says about what is true and good and beautiful. Hang our hat on that. Kick up our aching feet beside that fire at the end of the day.

The goal is not ultimately to get our testosterone levels back to pre-war levels. But since our goal is to love and serve God with all our being, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, and to provide for the needs of our own household, we'd better pay some attention to the sorts of things that go into facilitating that.

Only a silly person would say they don't have time to stop for gas when they're running on fumes because they're already late for an appointment across town. You're not going to make it there, brother, unless you stop and fill up.

And whatever the teeming throngs of godless, worthless idealogues want to say about both burning fossil fuels and toxic masculinity, at the end of the day we are ultimately giving an account to our Maker, not them.

As Theodore Roosevelt once famously said in a speech at the Sorbonne in April of 1910, just 112 years ago this week:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actuallyin the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

Maybe just maybe if we embrace that kind of advice and wisdom again we will see not just our average testosterone levels rise, we'll see a lot of other attendant downstream problems in society smoothed over and tamped down as well.

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I'm preparing an apologetics talk on the topic of Christian denominations for our youth group this coming Wednesday night, and it occurs to me that perhaps the best way to organize the information is by going to Acts 15 and Galatians 2 in the New Testament.

Here we have what is referred to as "the circumcision party" - hardly the most fun-sounding shindig, you have to admit. And what was distinctive about this group was that it arose among Jews in the early church who were concerned that Gentile converts to Christianity were not following the law of Moses, particularly with regards to circumcision.

We read in the text that "Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them," and then the Jerusalem Council was convened to discuss the matter fully. The Apostle Peter weighed in there, as did Paul and Barnabas. And then the half-brother of Jesus, James "the Just" said his peace that Gentile Christians should not be burdened with something which neither the Jewish Christians nor any of their fathers had been able to keep - that is, the Law.

Paul for his part would go on to write to the Galatians that before all this he had opposed Peter to his face at Antioch for being a hypocrite and undermining the gospel, and that even Barnabas had been swayed by the Judaizers for a time.

Paul also records somewhat cryptically in the same telling of the events that "certain men came from James," at least insinuating that "the circumcision party" represented James after a fashion prior to the Council of Jerusalem. Though admittedly there is no small amount of debate about how to interpret and understand this.

Suffice to say, not everyone was on the same page. Some held that Gentile believers needed to keep the Law while others were adamant against that position. Still others were certainly undecided, otherwise there would have been no need nor place for persuasive points and the whole lot falling silent at the Council of Jerusalem.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely how most church splits happen. And in our day, were this not a settled question, the losing segment would likely just go across town and start up a new congregation centered on their separate doctrinal distinctives. They might even build up a network of like-minded churches, with a unified central authority above them all. And then we would call them a denomination.

On the other hand, just a few verses down in Acts 15, we see Paul and Barnabas disagreeing about whether John Mark should accompany them on a new missionary journey. Paul strongly objects, citing the last time John Mark was brought along and abandoned them. Barnabas meanwhile is insistent.

So what do Paul and Barnabas do? The text records "There arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other." Barnabas took John Mark with him to Cyprus and Paul took Silas through Syria and Cilicia.

And this is the other way denominations come into being. An important and genuine disagreement as to some personal or strategic decision leads to a parting of the ways. This does not have to mean that only one or the other party is correct or a Christian, or that there is no longer unity between the separating parties.

If both parties remain in Christ, they can go and serve him in separate directions and different ways, maintaining a unity of purpose without uniformity and complete agreement on every secondary or tertiary point.

At the same time, such examples can prove that a secondary and tertiary issue is important even when not critical.

Does any or all of this undermine the validity of the Christian faith? It might if we had been promised that genuine Christians will always agree and stay together on everything. And it might if we had been promised that there will never arise false teachers or false teaching which muddies the waters. We're not promised either of these, however. Quite the opposite.

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An article was recently sent to me by a friend in Montana titled 'Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better.' Published by Forbes in 2016, written by Ida Auken on behalf of the World Economic Forum, the first-person narrative explains what it's like living in a city where we own nothing and are happy.

Everything is free, and so is everyone. And, no, you do not have any privacy. Every move is tracked and analyzed. Hopefully no one abuses your private information or uses it against you. But never mind that pesky business. A bike ride will clear your mind.

One could be forgiven for wondering whether the bright folks trying to govern the world toward this have ever read either science fiction or history. But there I go again, asking ignorant questions about matters I couldn't possibly understand.

This is for our own good that we will own nothing, surely. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

Now where have I heard that before?

Rousseau, Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro - once more with feeling. Surely it'll work this time.

Speaking of feelings, what is the difference between nothing belonging to anyone and no one belonging to anyone?

Could there be a connection between the drive to abolishing private property on the one hand and trends in recent years away from getting married and having children on the other?

Even for those who have children, could efforts in the macro to erode parental rights where children are concerned - with regards to their education especially - also be part of this larger move toward global communism?

Mother and father, husband and wife. Bah! We need "equality."

Communism is what to call this, by the way. That is what it is when nothing belongs to anyone and everything belongs to everyone. That is communism. The back-end necessity in such a system, whatever euphemisms you prefer, is that the state controls the means of production and distribution, centrally monitoring and planning everything. But then you have no rights unless such are considered acceptable and beneficial to the community.

And who serves as primary arbiter of what the community will accept and benefit from? The same kind of bureaucratic middleman commissars, soviets, and political officers who have in every other communist state the last hundred years. They speak for the people and execute the will of the people.

Disagree with them? No, you are disagreeing with the people. And that is verboten. Perhaps the needs of the many require that you disappear, or have your rations cut, or have your social credit score decreased in a way that conserves less tangible resources for those who are more deserving and compliant.

You will own nothing and you will be happy - or else.

And all those concerns about privacy and how yours ceasing to exist might be damaging to you? Why, we'll just question right back whether you have something to hide. Maybe you are not so innocent and that is why you want privacy. Perhaps a little digging is in order, then a little doxing.

See, that's what happens when you live in a State of constant surveillance. Miranda rights? Never heard of her. You have the right to remain silent, and to do nothing. Just understand that anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of Law - or a court of public opinion, whichever comes first.

Of course, saving humanity in this way is curing disease by killing patients. The solution to some people owning more than others is just to have everyone own nothing. Everyone being equally miserable? That's fine. Just so long as we're all equal. That's all that matters.

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My first day off after seven on, yesterday I resolved to reorganize our home library.

Between homeschooling and my wife having been a librarian in another life, plus the both of us loving to hit up used bookstores online and IRL, we have a few titles in our home. And it's been a while since, so everything got all mixed up.

But now I am in the process of setting things right. So my wife's books get their shelf where her primary interest titles reside. A couple of shelves house mine - one for Christian life and thought, and another is literally busting at the seems, sagging under the weight of histories and biographies.

Today I will jump into separating the kids books upstairs. Non-fiction free reads will go on the one in the hallway between Evelyn's bedroom and ours. The shelf in the family room will keep the reference guides and more STEM-related works. Required reading for school will stay on two shelves on the main floor.

We have few books that we would call pretty, or collectable. Though now and again we do pick up antiques we find - first or second editions from the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century.

Some day when our kids are grown and out of the house, perhaps then we will splurge on the pretty ones with the nicer materials on the cover. In the meantime, we try not to judge books by their covers. Preferring instead second-hand titles already showing some wear, the real value is in the knowledge and understanding anyway. Let that endure and not collect dust, and we will be content.

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As some of you may know, I am a fan of word games, but not a fan of either the public schools or Critical Theory.

Scrabble, good. Marxism, bad. That's the big idea.

Imagine my dismay then at this Harris Rigby post at Not The Bee highlighting undercover reporting by Accuracy in Media, exposing public school teachers and administrators in Iowa and Tennessee openly admitting that recent legislation banning the teaching of CRT in their states basically is negated by their ability to modify their language while still communicating the core ideas and principles of CT, CRT, DEI, et cetera.

This sounds familiar. It almost reminds me of some concerns I've raised about authors of church leadership books seeming to talk about diversity, equity, and inclusivity, the patriarchy, and so-called toxic masculinity without using the specific terms which would trigger theological, social, and political conservative consumers.

But alas, it also reminds me of cautions I wrote into my own book on why my wife and I homeschool.

You see, it is not enough for parents to tell activist public schools that they don't want their kids being taught to experiment sexually with one another, or change their gender, or hate capitalism, or deconstruct their whiteness, or check their privilege, or throw out the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence. It's apparently not enough even to get laws written and passed forbidding the same.

As it turns out, the particular words sounds are not the really dangerous thing. It's the substance of the remarks and ideas which really matter.

Establishment Progressives grin wryly, therefore, resolving to keep on doing what by their own admissions they are true believers in: controlling what we and our children think, and telling us what to think without teaching us how to think rightly.

It reminds me of playing computer games when I was a kid and accidentally quick-saving right before my character fell off a cliff and died. Reloading my quick-save over and over yields the same result. And while funny, a winning strategy that is not.

The only way to win in such cases is to reload the save file from before the critical mistake which is going to invariably lead to losing again and again. And if you can't do that, perhaps you play a different game.

So also, it is not enough to tell public schools not to teach CRT and Gender Theory. Reload the save file from before our children were being taught to regard the State as their god and father and mother.

Don't think you're smart enough? Don't feel like you've got what it takes? Remember where it is that you got your schooling. And if, as the statistics would suggest, you got your education in the public schools, why would you want your kids to get theirs from the same place when you're not so sure you got a good one there?

Bear in mind how we got to the point we're at now where our economy is in shambles and society is being ruined, where free speech is under constant assault, and both mothers and fathers are expected to work outside the home in order to barely make ends meet.

At a certain point we have to do the long-game cost-benefit. At a certain point we have to actually do the thing the Left has for so-long hijacked in word only to justify their irresponsibility, only this time for reals. We have to get our kids out of these Leftist indoctrination centers known as public schools.

And this is why we homeschool.

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And This Is Why We Homeschool

Last night while Lauren and Andrew went to ladies' small group, the rest of our kids and I watched the sci-fi flick 'Ender's Game' based on the 1985 novel by the same name by Orson Scott Card. Having just read that book for the first time over the weekend, fascinated by the premise and the themes that work explores, I wanted to share it with my children and hear what they thought of it.

As almost always goes without saying, the book is better than the film. But I will say it anyways, and the movie is alright too. Yet it occurs to me the more I consider this that the truth in our day is much like the plot of a dystopian piece of science fiction.

How else do you explain the double-speak and double-think?

For instance, it was perfectly alright up until five minutes ago for billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg to have a stranglehold on major portions of the internet - and, more importantly, the flows of information therein. But when another billionaire named Elon Musk tries to buy Twitter we are suddenly bombarded with not-so-subtle moralizing and pearl-clutching from the corporate media about the untrustworthiness of wealthy men.

Now all we are supposed to care about with Musk is the fact that he is rich and powerful already. And what does he want with Twitter anyway? Let's question his management of his other companies, actually. And let's all stroke our chins very thoughtfully about whether what he is doing is legal and ethical, strictly-speaking.

Yet no such moral strictness exists so long as the powers-that-be favor the politics and ambitions of the players, clearly. And this is the tell that the whole business is one great, big game of thrones to these people.

Presenting themselves as innumerable objective truth-tellers and independent thinkers, they could more rightly identify themselves with, "We are Legion."

By the way, have I mentioned lately the book I wrote and published? 'And This Is Why We Homeschool' - it's available on paperback and e-book. Get it while supplies last.

But seriously, I am reminded that this is in fact why my wife and I homeschool. And the science fiction treat from Orson Scott Card - in both book and film - has reinforced that. After all, where are Ender's parents?

"With all due respect, you really can't stop me."

So says Colonel Graff to Ender's father at the beginning when an objection is briefly raised to the young boy being spoken with privately. And that sounds an awful lot like the attitude of a lot of public schools and Disney to American moms and dads, and a lot of the corporate and social media status quo to conservatives and other dissenters online.

Yet at just the same time as we find our speech so constrained when we object to the way our country, corporations, and children are being mismanaged and manipulated, we also are treated to spectacles like the defamation suit trial starring Johnny Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard. The two are actors, by the way. Either or both of them could be lying. But accusations leveled in the heyday of the #MeToo movement were tried in the court of public opinion, enough to torpedo the reputation and career of one of the most famous and celebrated actors of his generation.

Whether the accusations, allegations, and insinuations were true or not, it is principled conservatives who were pilloried en masse for pointing out in all such cases that an accusation alone does not due process make. Moreover, it is not for no reason we consistently call for fair trials in courts of law.

Yet the same folks who cranked the BLM riots and #MeToo noise to eleven are much the same folks who have loved so much only certain voices in the court of public opinion being able to say their piece. And again, that thought should sober every man Jack of us. The truth of our situation, in other words, is indeed much stranger than science fiction.

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In 'Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation,' author Kristin Kobes Du Mez seeks to solve the mystery of overwhelming American Evangelical support for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, yet ends up mostly recounting major scandals among conservative leaders due to, as she sees it, toxic masculinity and the patriarchy.

Dr. Du Mez is a professor of history, gender studies, and urban studies at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She holds a PhD in American History from the University of Notre Dame, with specialties in both women's and religious history. Her first book, 'A New Gospel for Women: Katharine Bushnell and the Challenge of Christian Feminism' was published in 2015. And if the subtitle of the work were not enough, all of this together comes through in the kind of book 'Jesus and John Wayne' ends up being.

I am on the opposite end of the theological and political spectrum to Dr. Du Mez, and knew a month ago today from reading an excellent review by Michael Young at American Reformer - we're not going to agree about what to make of conservative Americans, Christians or not. Yet I read her book anyway much the same way a defense attorney or judge or member of the jury would listen to the prosecuting attorney make their case when they know the defendant is innocent, or at least not guilty of the crime they stand accused of.

The trouble with this work is a common one with the worldview of the Left. The conclusions are foregone, and the underlying premise is unquestionable even as it molds and shapes every conclusion drawn from the evidence considered.

If you enjoy Howard Zinn's 'A People's History of the United States' - written by an avowed Marxist as an argument that free market capitalism and the original vision of limited government have served as little more than a veiled will to power by wealthy straight white Protestant men seeking to oppress women and minorities, then you will also enjoy this also. It follows the same pattern.

Present all the worst scandals like a greatest hits album, then use said scandals disgracing leaders and churches and movements to throw everyone who holds to a conservative interpretation of either the Bible or America's historical and founding documents into, as Hillary Clinton put it, "a basket of deplorables."

What gets overlooked, however, is the fact that conservatives also have denounced the abuses Du Mez is recounting here. Otherwise it is a wonder so many of the men mentioned have been defrocked when their indiscretions and sins came to light. Furthermore, were Du Mez correct in her insinuation that such are totally fine and acceptable to "White Evangelicals," then it is very curious indeed that all of the scandals listed were kept secret by the transgressors for years and decades. Clearly the leaders who fell by scandal into disrepute believed their sins would not be tolerated by their followers and fellows were they to come to light, nor were they.

Du Mez plays fast and loose not so much with the facts so far as I as I know, but with her characterization of the facts and what conclusions we should draw from them. That is, the conclusions do not follow.

'Jesus and John Wayne' ends up reading like one long Leftist argumentum ad hominem and non sequitur diatribe against those who stand in the way of "progress," as folks like Dr. Du Mez define it. She offers no meaningful exploration of whether the views and positions of conservatives are true or correct, however, but contents herself with smearing the reputation of the whole lot.

Suffice to say real examples of toxicity are to be found in this work; I just think Du Mez's treatment of the subject is among them.

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First published in 1756, then republished with significant additions the next year, Edmund Burke's 'A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful' is a seminal work in the subject of aesthetics.

What characteristics and attributes do things we universally call "beautiful" possess? So also, whatever else we might call what Burke categorizes as "sublime," there is something about great and terrible mountains and dangerous creatures which is of an entirely different quality and nature from those things which we call pretty and sweet.

Not in a hurry, nor even promising that we will know the thing as well at the end as we will possess greater humility in having faced the daunting challenge of trying to understand better, Burke infuses his exploration of the topic with a love for truth, goodness, and beauty which itself embodies both stylistically and symbolically in this work the same qualities he is endeavoring that we all grasp with greater appreciation.

"We must not attempt to fly, when we can scarcely pretend to creep."

That is, Burke bids us stop and smell the roses here. Appreciate the thorns as well, whatever you call the flower known commonly as a rose. In so doing, we will find that all the other sciences - since there is a kind of science to this appreciation of the beautiful and the sublime - will see their illiberal quality otherwise lessened and moderated with a fuller and more soulful humanity.

Seeing what comes of the stubborn relativizing and purely materialistic trivializing of all that is wild and wonderful, Burke here can help us to regain our civilization. By that I mean that Burke's 'A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful' really is a fine example of a civilized gentlemen. And if we would learn to be more civil relative our enjoyment of aesthetics, we can look to not only what he is saying in substance but also the manner in which we gracefully explores it here.

Dare I say it, we could all stand much more of this kind of civility and gentlemanliness, this combination of intellectual humility and spiritual confidence, and should study to acquire and embody it ourselves as he did in our own contexts and today.

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Today is Good Friday, and what does that mean? Or why do we say that this Friday is "Good" in the Christian calendar?

It's not because we Christians are so good, only ever doing and saying what is right and pleasing to God. If we had been really and truly good there would have been no need for a Savior in Christ Jesus. Yet "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

Good Friday marks the day when Jesus was crucified. And that may be a puzzle and riddle, but it has an answer.

Few things are more opposite "good" than the wrongful accusation, arrest, trial, flogging, mocking, and execution of good men. Yet that is what we celebrate on Good Friday. So how can we?

We call this good, in short, because God is good. It was due to His goodness relative our lack of goodness that we who are in Christ are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, the only perfect sacrifice which could have been offered to ultimately atone for our sins against the Holy and Righteous God.

Non-Christians often struggle with the fact of the imperfection of Christian life and thought, sometimes imagined and other times real. But they miss the point that the promises of God are contingent not on our faithfulness and ability but on the faithfulness and ability of God to fulfill His promises.

To be sure, the response from faithful and obedient Christians to the imperfection of the Church body and individuals is not to shrug but to repent; not to "sin that grace might abound all the more," but to press on in pursuit of the high calling we are blessed to answer in Christ.

In light of that calling we do repent when we sin against God and our neighbor, and only in light of that high calling is restoration and fellowship possible.

"Why do you call me good?" Luke's gospel account tells us Jesus asked the man who came to him calling him "good teacher." And the reason for the question followed immediately after. "Only God is good."

Just so, that is also the reason we celebrate Good Friday and call it a good day. "Only God is good."

That goes for Mark Driscoll as well as JD Hall, and that goes for you as well as for me.

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On a short list of Scriptures that come charmingly to mind from time to time, and comfort me when they do, 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 is nestled in quite cozily and will not be dislodged. There the Apostle Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica:

"Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one."

So much recommends this passage. The affirmation of their love for one another at the outset; the encouragement to walk properly before outsiders and be independent at the close. This is kind and loving and practical and holistic pastoral care.

The context of the whole letter makes it all the more interesting to me, given that the Jewish and Gentile believers in this Greek port city were being persecuted by angry neighbors and "worthless men" who complained to the city council about them. As Acts 17:6 records, "These men who have turned the world upside down have now come here..."

That is to say that part of the impetus for Paul writing what he does to these brothers and sisters is that they stood accused by malicious slander of defying Caesar's decrees for one simple reason. They named Jesus as their King.

So what does Paul tell them? "Aspire to live quietly" and "mind your own affairs" and "work with your hands" and "be dependent on no one."

That is to say also that declarations of independence and the practical pursuit thereof can apparently be a very Christian response to ungodliness. And in part the goal is to "walk properly before outsiders." That is, our Christian testimony is affirmed and demonstrated by practice, by the way we love one another in deed as well as word, and by being industrious and hard-working.

Sometimes people won't listen. And when that happens, admonitions from our Lord to "not cast pearls before swine" may come into play, as well as instruction given to the disciples to "shake the dust off your feet" if the people of a given town or village don't want to hear it.

Or, as Jordan Peterson put it in a recent video clip sent to me, "If people are not listening to you, stop talking to them... because you're devaluing what you have to say by offering it to an audience that does nothing but reject it."

But maybe the folks for whom talk is cheap will be won over by demonstrable acts of obedience to God and love for one another. Or maybe they won't. Either way, a blamelessness and clear conscience serves God better than throwing good time, energy, and attention after bad in trying to win over by words folks who are being pig-headed.

On the other hand, we know from the Scriptures that obedience to God and service to one another must involve communication - of the truth, encouragement, instruction, correction, and coordination if we are going to work together well as the body. Even so, aspiring to live a quiet life working with our hands will positively influence the tone and tenor of what we say when we must say something. And there too God is honored and we serve one another only all the better.

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A Paul Washer sermon excerpt was sent me this morning on the topic of dating and marriage. Given the fact that I'm writing a book on marriage right now, I was keen to give a listen and consider what he had to say. If you'd like to hear the sermon in its entirety, you can find the link I was sent here.

Suffice to say for the purposes of this discussion, however, I found many things to agree with, but plenty also that I cannot agree with because a certain conflation of tradition, convention, and personal opinion seems to be getting all mixed up with what God's Word actually says, and the whole lot packaged together and delivered as if the whole kit and kaboodle is alike in belonging to the 'Thus sayeth the Lord' category of commands.

When giving dating or marriage advice, particularly to young people, it's critically important that we imitate the example of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:1-16. There he weighs in the subjects of singleness and divorce and both marriage and possible remarriage after being abandoned or else widowed. And one of the really helpful things he does is distinguishing between when what is being relayed is a direct order from the Most High on the one hand, and when what follows is actually Paul's own personal opinion and judgment.

If that Paul can do it, any Paul can. And if any Paul can do it, then we all should. The reason for this is very simple. Wise counsel does not invariably belong in the same category as obedience to explicit commands from God. So also, disregarding even the most well-intentioned of godly counsel, or attempts at the same, should not be cause to call into question the salvation of the one going a different way, or keeping their own counsel.

Not all advice from God's people, even ministers, is either necessary or helpful. Sometimes fallible human beings have to be seen as just that, on both the giving and receiving end of direction.

So also, while Washer is right that dating by Christian young people can certainly be an example of us being conformed to the pattern of this world rather than being transformed by the renewal of our minds in Christ Jesus, that is by no means the only possible expression. Going with the flow can also, particularly in more white collar circles, take the form of insisting that the most spiritual and wisest course is for young people to finish their 4-year degree programs and invest 4-5 years into their career before marrying.

Something to keep in mind these days especially is the undue burden we may unnecessarily place on our children and other young people as they come of age in the midst of economic conditions here in the U.S. and around the world which have little to nothing to do with their own choices or contributions, but rather should be blamed entirely on older folks having spent their children's and grandchildren's future on lavish programs and projects to make themselves comfortable. In such a climate, the prospect of shaming and browbeating young men in particular for wanting to marry younger than the older folks would prefer seems not only downright cruel, but frankly unbiblical as well, albeit in a different and distinct way from dating scene.

That is to say, yes. Dating as the world does it finds no support in the Scriptures, and the principles and truths we do find in Scriptures cast an unflattering light on the feature of our modern American popular culture. Let's just not be so quick to presume we know categorically that 35-years old is how old our sons and daughters need to be before we will say "Yeah that's right!" concerning their adherence to the admonition found in Song of Solomon.

"I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases."

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In this episode, I want to talk about my eldest two sons - Josiah and Elihu - attending a dance for homeschooled teenagers this past Friday. Spoiler alert: their telling of the whole business was pure comedic gold, and had their mother and I laughing until we cried about it.

Also, my brother-in-law Kris Duff came to visit us for the weekend from North Dakota. So the whole lot of us piled into our 12-passenger van and visited Rocky Mountain National Park only to realize we should have stopped for a bathroom break in Estes Park before a nearly 5-mile hike on Cub Lake Trail.

In other news, I finished both 'The Princess and the Goblin' by George MacDonald and 'A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful' by Edmund Burke since last episode. Both well-deserved five stars out of five from me. And MacDonald's fantasy will merit a Series Review once I finish the other works.

For this episode, we will talk briefly about Burke's foray into the realm of aesthetics, and how he talks about "that part of a beautiful woman where she is perhaps the most beautiful."

Also, I have some thoughts on the most recent update regarding Elon Musk taking over Twitter. What might his reasons be for declining a seat on her Board of Directors, and could it have something to do with his suggestion that the company change its name to 'Titter'?

All this and more in this episode.

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On receiving my share of inheritance from my Grandma Ranew's estate, I ordered some new furniture for my sons. With selling our home in Montana this week, we're now changing out our daughter's furniture as well.

Maybe it sounds silly, but I find rearranging and swapping out furniture to be a kind of simple pleasure in life, particularly when the new arrangement promises to better serve the people I care about.

New or used, it's all the same. For that matter, even just moving the pieces we already have from one side of the room to another, or from one room to a different room - there is something therapeutic and cleansing about finding tangible ways to experiment with greater efficiency and work flow.

So we did, and we are. And some of the pieces we're swapping out have been in-service now for about a decade. And some of the pieces we're putting in their place are used. It doesn't matter. The fact that we're working on the whole thing together is a good kind of team-building exercise, I think, and it refreshes our perspective.

Sometimes there's nothing for it but to get new furniture. Other times the current arrangement bears a little tweaking. Either way, it's the thought and principle of the thing that counts, and that is worthwhile pretty well whatever the furniture in question is and wherever it goes.

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In 'White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America' by Don Jordan and Michael Walsh, a disturbing and tragic tale is told of indentured servants in Great Britain's colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The importation of black Africans as slaves early in American history gets a lot of attention, and rightly so. But all too often, the narrative seems to be both believed and repeated uncritically and without closer examination that black slavery in the colonies and Antebellum South before emancipation was the only kind of slavery practiced, and the only kind of slavery which the scope and nature of bears much mentioning.

Before black slaves were brought in en masse, however, Britain exported many white undesirables - Irish, Scots, convicted criminals, vagrants, unattended children, prostitutes - and both brought them into the colonies and disposed of them with much the same mindset. Many were pressed into service through lies, false promises, false pretenses, and even against their will. And as this book tells it, many of those pressed into service were similarly whipped, beaten, abused, poorly fed, poorly clothed, poorly housed, and kept under foot.

Be careful with this work. A certain strain seems to run through it which reminds me of Howard Zinn's 'A People's History,' and it would be unwise to see all our history and present circumstances as little more than class struggle pretending at higher ideals.

Nevertheless, there is more than one important and worthwhile take-away to be had here. For starters, people can be awful to people, and find any and all excuses by which to justify their sins.

Second, though actually first in importance, the fact of our sinful nature and what to do with it is actually the really remarkable thing here. What is not special or unusual in human history is that people hurt and oppress one another, nor that the strong and rich prey on the weak and vulnerable. The really rare thing is when there is a turning away from the kind of practices which are cataloged here by Jordan and Walsh.

And if we have similar attitudes and ways of relating cropping up again in our day - since there is no new thing under the sun, and the nature of man has not changed in all our history since Adam and Eve were justly and fairly ejected from Eden - the obvious question is what has proven to work in defusing and disarming those attitudes.

Can we repent on the one hand, forgive on the other hand, when such things become a feature of our civilization and culture? If so, we ought to. Just so, we can in Christ, and find grace for both ourselves and one another there. And I believe this is no small part of why American civilization was able to continue on and build on itself despite the sorts of things happening and being done which we read about in books like 'White Cargo.'

It was not from an excess of Christianity that these things were done, but from a sufficient quality and quantity, depth and sincerity of Christianity that they were stopped to the extent that they were, however completely or incompletely.

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News broke yesterday that Elon Musk, the world's richest man at a net-worth over $200 billion, bought 9.2% of Twitter. The social media giant has become the de facto public square in our day, and significant changes are widely expected as Musk will now be joining the company's board of directors as the single greatest shareholder, owning nearly four times the number of shares as company founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey.

Twitter in recent years has made a lot of controversial decisions to affect and influence the public discourse surrounding the most contentious social and political questions of our day.

For instance, former President Trump is still (at least to my knowledge) banned for life from the platform after having used it with great success for several years to bypass the mainstream media gatekeepers in getting his messages out to the American people, big businesses, and political rivals, as well as other world leaders around the globe.

But I think it's also important to remember that before banning Trump, Twitter censored him while in office more than once for allegedly inciting violence and spreading misinformation in the midst of BLM and Antifa riots, COVID public health policy debate, and questions concerning fraud in the 2020 Election. How much more contemptuously power-drunk does it get than censoring and banning a duly-elected U.S. President? I mean, really.

Speaking of, there was also that time Twitter suppressed sharing of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden's laptop scandal in the leadup to the 2020 Election; the bogus pretext was that the story represented possible foreign interference; but Twitter also suspended the account of the Post over the attempted share of said story, promising to only reinstate it if they removed the offending content.

More recently, Twitter suspended the accounts of popular Christian satire outlet, The Babylon Bee, after Rachel Levine - a transgendered high-level member of the Biden administration - was announced their 'Man of the Year.'

Besides these examples, reports from whistleblowers at Twitter have for years alleged that the company routinely engages in suppressing and manipulating content from critics of the Left both great and small, as well as those promoting traditional values and conservative positions on political and social issues.

Suspension, deletion, and shadow-banning have been broadly utilized at Twitter for years by brazenly partisan moderators to suppress free speech and dissent. And despite several Congressional hearings and routine exposés by the likes of Project Veritas, very little to nothing has been done to check these practices.

Maybe just maybe this move by Musk will lead to a freer and more transparent environment online - not only at Twitter but at several other Big Tech outlets. Dissenters who have for years seen their voices squashed and silenced may just now have the ability to engage in the public discourse and marketplace of ideas in a way they've either never known or else grown unaccustomed to.

Radical Leftists at Twitter, meanwhile, may be sick to their stomach. Many will doubtless stage walkouts and strikes, and some may even resign. To that I say, 'Good riddance.' Let them go if they will; but maybe some of them should be shown the door as well whether or not they want to be. Only thereby will the fat be trimmed so that those who were pushed out and let go from the company in recent years come back and bring their skills and talents with them.

I dare say we will all be much healthier for it in the short, medium, and long-term. For government of the people, for the people, and by the people to not perish from the earth, there must be a place to discuss the important questions of our day honestly and openly. This is very welcome news to that end.

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Typically when I choose books to read, factored into my decision is what is going on in the rest of life - at home, at work, at church, in my extended circle of friends and family, or in broader society. To gain insight, perspective, context, understanding, or to counterbalance excesses, I'll choose books that check boxes.

Yesterday I finished 'China: The Novel' by Edward Rutherford. Published May of 2021, it was the last book in my queue which was a holdover from my previous employment, and that feels good.

Both my own life and the world as a whole look different to me now compared with when I put that book in the queue, now I have a few different strains of thought I want to key in on, explore, and delve into.

But at the time I put this work into the queue, I had just finished the last novel in James Clavell's epic Asian Saga series. Fascinated by the whole East meets West paradigm, I wanted more of the same.

Rutherford's novel was both that and not-that in different ways. Covering much the same period and topic as Clavell's series, there were a lot of similar themes and features that cropped up in both. But the tone and tenor of Rutherford's take definitely feels like a product of the kind of thinking in the West which is du jour these days, and I don't mean that in a good way.

Doing the compare and contrast between Clavell and Rutherford is fascinating, though. One was obviously written in the latter half of the 20th century by a former POW and WWII veteran. The other was definitely written, edited, published, and promoted in the 2020's - and it shows.

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My wife and I bought our first home in Sidney, Montana in April of 2014. Eight years later to the month, we have now sold our first home.

Six months of it being on the market followed two years of renting it out to others. Being out-of-state homeowners and landlords was a stretch and taxed our resources in both tangible and intangible ways. Only now as that circumstance comes to an end are we beginning to realize how much.

But come to think of it, it has been over five years since we first began considering the sale of our first home while at the same time feeling unable to do so. Having bought the house on 5th Street SW in an inflated housing market - the Bakken oilfield boom was still in full swing then - the answer we got from realtors we asked advice from was again and again to wait on selling until prices recovered, or else settle for getting significantly less than we originally paid.

On further reflection, I remember now how when we moved to Greeley in September of 2019 we were still overseeing renovations on our Sidney house from two states away. The kitchen and both bathrooms got new flooring and fixtures, and we replaced a few other sundry items in preparation for first renting the house out, then eventually selling it.

The requisite reliance on others to take care and do a good job was difficult and sometimes profoundly disappointing, and the whole business felt simultaneously both foolish and necessary - never a fun combination, much less over an extended period of time like two-and-a-half years.

Renting our current home sight unseen, we moved from the state with the motto Oro y Plata - Spanish for"Gold and Silver" - to the state with the motto Nil Sine Numine - Latin for "Nothing without Providence." Our family saw our current abode here in Greeley for the first time in-person the day we moved in, almost like opening a present on Christmas morning, or else Congress passing a major piece of legislation to find out what's in it.

But the whole business was cut to fit Colorado's state motto, we think, being really and truly Providential as we believe.

No, the timing of all important points related to buying, renting, and selling homes may not have always been met by us with the utmost enthusiasm or cheer - or even a sense of well-being, for that matter. Yet we nevertheless have to give both credit and thanks to the Lord for prayers answered and all necessary provision faithfully supplied in His perfect timing. And how could we have ever doubted that He would faithfully provide where we endeavored to follow His leading and direction?

Even now as we celebrate the bittersweet reality of selling our first home, we know our hopes and intentions to be more choosy this time around as we see the last chapter closing and a new one beginning. Yet whatever comes to pass next, the wisest and safest course must always surely be some continuation of the theme of all our family life to-date, trusting that God's timing and provision is all-sufficient and the only state of being which can expect blessing.

If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.

We hope and pray, then, that it is the Lord's will that we buy our second home in the coming months here in Colorado - at the proper cost, in the right location, of a certain size and layout. Then we will really, truly, and fully be here - in some sense for the first time in two-and-a-half years of feeling divided in our attention, still in transition so long as we had to keep one eye and ear on Montana.

All such details considered, and more besides, it was good that the Lord brought us to Montana from Ohio in 2012, and from Montana to Colorado in 2019. But I say with the utmost enthusiasm that we are glad to finally feel as though the time has come for us to be here in Colorado, truly and fully, for however long it pleases our Maker that we tarry.

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Will Smith got all worked up about a joke being made by Chris Rock. Mrs. Smith's alopecia is off-limits, it turns out, so Will got jiggy with cuffing Mr. Rock really hard for all the world to see. An open marriage, meanwhile, is nothing to blush at, as Hollywood sees it.

Marriage equality is of a piece with deconstructing gender and sexuality. But if you hold fast to the conviction that God instituted marriage you are either phobic or a hateful bigot. Either way, you are the embodiment of deviance, whereas the abolishment of gender, or else the multiplication thereof into oblivion, is both normal and necessary.

On the flipside, all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable - that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work - but the story of Ehud and Eglon will never be adapted for Veggie Tales and flannelgraph, except perhaps by satirists.

Meanwhile the Apostle Paul writes to the same Timothy he gave qualifications for overseers and deacons to about having a little wine for the sake of his digestion. But even one drink in the evening will be used in some churches to say a man is unfit to pursue an unmarried woman's hand.

Whatever form it takes, being wise in our own eyes is a dangerous thing. And whether excessively severe with regards to disciplining the body, or else rabidly licentious - good things and blessings do not come from supposing we know better than God.

But what does Paul say? He admonishes us to study diligently so we can rightly handle the truth and not be embarrassed. That means more than sloganeering and mantras comprised of Bible verses taken wholly out of context, sometimes very deliberately. In fact, often these two things are exact opposites.

This is not to say we are forbidden from having opinions or focusing in on certain aspects one at a time, or taking some time to develop an appreciation for the whole counsel. But it is to say that we are called to not miss forests for the trees. We are warned against straining out gnats while swallowing camels. A properly reverential treatment of truth, goodness, and beauty does not use the Lord's name in vain - as if He were a sanctifying abra kadabra enchantment to sanctify our agenda. Reverence for God will, however, see us approach what is true, good, and beautiful with a candid and humble appreciation for the fact that God has given us very great blessings in life which are not to be squandered - either by over-emphasis or else exclusion.

Two things are true at the same time: that all things are permissible, and that not all things are beneficial. And when Paul writes that he refuses to make himself a slave to anything, this is because he is resolutely committed to being a slave to Christ. The counterintuitive feature of this slavery is that it is a mutually exclusive state of being to every other kind of slavery. Yet as soon as we say that, we have to qualify the remark by reminding that slavery to Christ requires a commitment to good stewardship of every good gift which the Lord has given us, offering ourselves as living sacrifices holy and acceptable to God as our spiritual act of worship.

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Born in Montana, I was raised there until the age of ten. That's when my parents moved our family to southern Ohio. At twenty-five I moved back to Montana with my wife and our four boys. At thirty-two, we moved to Colorado with seven children in tow.

My parents - a dad who was raised Mennonite and a mom who went to Pensacola Christian and Bob Jones - met at Cedarville University; my wife and I both went there also for a few semesters right after high school and right before marriage.

I've seen Baptist churches across the country up-close. A Willow Creek affiliate was our home for a few years before we moved back to my home state from Ohio. We were very involved in CMA churches for almost the entire time we were in Montana, with a brief exception for JD Hall's assembly in Sidney. Now we have the great blessing of being in a church that's part of the M28 network.

All this to say, I have seen and been very involved in churches across a fairly diverse cross-section of America, and there are a number of influences in my testimony and personal background which give a kind of broad picture of how Christian communities across this country organize themselves, make decisions, and handle problems and disputes.

One of the most disheartening features I have observed time and again is a kind of deferential treatment which the donor class, if you will, is afforded in seemingly direct contradistinction to what James, the half-brother of Jesus admonishes about showing no partiality as we hold to the faith.

The poor brother who comes in wearing shabby clothes very often is told to sit at our feet. The rich brother wearing fine clothes very often is given the seat of honor. As a result, the general testimony and prudence of the church suffers, just as we should expect it would whenever we orient our faith and practice in contrast to the clear commands in Scripture.

Without naming names, I have seen very corporate-like growth strategies given preferential treatment when they seem threatened by a faithful interpretation of relevant texts. I have seen dysfunctional arrangements in the church overlooked and treated with kid-gloves when they involved even a perceived risk to those who "support the ministry."

And about that - why does it always seem to be the case that "support the ministry" is synonymous with fiduciary contributions? I'm not sure I've ever heard that phrase used in relation to non-fungible services and contributions.

But there you have it. Money talks and people listen - even in the Church. Elsewise James would not have issued the corrective and warning.

Jesus warned us also about announcing our giving with tambourines and trumpets. And I think this speaks to a general caution we should have as we enter into troubled waters economically in this country. If we don't watch our step, we may quickly find Christians feeling compelled to not only place their businesses and careers first because thereby they provide for their families, but because thereby they also secure a place of prominence in many churches.

I say this not to accuse anyone, but I cannot help it if several specific people and situations I know come to mind.

"Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets."

By no means is this to conflate poverty with righteousness or riches with wickedness. And yet it is to offer a word of much-needed caution.

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Imagine yourself a contestant on Wheel of Fortune, where you and two others are solving word puzzles to win $10,000. I'll play Pat Sajak and read the clue for you as 'Democrats.'

You and your fellows each take turns buying an H, A, K, I, N, G, and B. So the puzzle is part-ways solved as follows.

"_HAKING HAND_ AND KI__ING BABIE_"

It's your turn now, and you are going to solve. You shout out your answer.

"SHAKING HANDS AND KISSING BABIES!"

You've won! The audience can see it in the smile on your face, and your family and friends are overjoyed. Everyone claps and cheers. Think of all the things you are going to spend those winnings on.

But then I purse my lips and wince and slowly begin to shake my head.

"I'm sorry, that's not the right answer."

Then you remember that the clue was 'Democrats.'

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Curious about who I had been crossing social media swords with prior to my current Twitter suspension, I did a little digging. It turns out @chrisjollyhale ran for U.S. Congress in 2020 as a Democrat candidate for Tennessee’s 4th District.

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I am now 20-hours into my 12-hour suspension from Twitter - which just goes to show that the folks at Twitter are about as good at math as they are fair in their application of penalties and interpretation of their own rules.

What, you may ask, was my violation?

"Violating our rules against illegal or certain regulated goods or services."

That for telling @chrisjollyhale "I say this with respect - what a retarded thing to say."

I'm now on my second appeal, having gotten nothing back from the first one except a colon and assurances that a real-live person reviewed my incident and determined that I did in fact violate their Twitter rules.

"Specifically for..."

Cue the crickets, but read that for what it is.

'We just don't like the cut of your jib.'

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After getting home from taking my wife - who is definitely a woman, by the way - out for dinner at Nordy's in Loveland, I clicked on a notification Facebook had sent me about a post from someone I know. The post was a meme of a doctor holding up a newborn baby with the following captions.

Mother: "Is it a boy or a girl?"

Doctor: "I have no idea. I'm not a biologist."

Having seen this meme a few times in recent days, I chuckled again as I have the other times I've seen it. And mine was a grim chuckle because a part of me really wants to shake my head and cry.

How did we get here? A nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States of America is asked by a United States Senator for all the world to see whether she can define what a woman is, and the nominee laughs and pleads ignorance.

Meanwhile, the headline run in a thousand variations by the Leftist press is that the real scandal here is not that a candidate for the highest court in the land just punted on what differentiates approximately half our population from the other half. No, the thing we are supposed to be outraged about is the fact that a Republican Senator asked a Democrat nominee to define what a woman is.

Racism is the only possible explanation. Republicans are terrified of a strong black woman - whatever that is now absurdly up for debate.

It's not enough that they insult our intelligence. They can't pass up an opportunity to smear conservatives as bigots in every sense.

Just pull the fire alarm next time and clear the building. It'll be a mercy compared with this.

But let's do be serious for a moment, and I'll tell you what I really think.

This whole business about us being confused on the difference between boys and girls is of a piece with the eugenics movement that sprang up in the West a century ago. And that for its part was just a shapeshifting of the mentality white slaveowners in the Antebellum South embraced toward selective breeding of their black African slaves.

Hitler and the Nazis took this Utopian vision to macabre lengths and scaled it up, and that gave the whole affair a well-deserved black eye in the marketplace of ideas. So eugenicists in America changed their tactics.

Instead of campaigning more or less openly about purging the germplasm of society through compulsory sterilization and abortion and euthanasia, they poured their time and money into Planned Parenthood and the legalization of first contraceptives and then abortion. Then they did all in their power to infuse their wacky ideas about people just being clever animals into our education system for a hundred years.

They eroded family ties across the nation, encouraged young people to fool around, and marketed family planning because it resulted in the termination of gene pools they deemed undesirable.

Now billboards are going up in Salem, Oregon telling people who drive down I-5 to straight up stop having children. And the serious men in lab coats shrug and censor us when our women cease normal menstruation after getting the compulsory COVID vaccine. And major corporations threaten boycotts of entire states if laws are passed in them to protect 5-year-olds from being systematically confused about whether they are boys or girls.

The little guy from Kindergarten Cop had it right back in 1990. "Boys have a penis, girls have a vagina." Only you can't say that anymore because some boys are encouraged to become eunuchs and dress in drag, and anyone who objects on the grounds of mental and spiritual health is a hateful bigot.

It really does come back to there being no new thing under the sun, and it really is of a piece with increasing efforts to normalize pedophilia. Never mind that Ketanji Brown Jackson has been exceedingly light in sentencing child rapists and those caught in possession of kiddie porn.

Shut up already or we'll call you a racist again.

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Surveying the present troubles, you worry for the future of your country. Everything is scandalous. Everyone is either lying or all worked up about telling the truth. Wars and rumors of wars assail you in the notifications on your phone and the emails in your inbox. Each time you turn on the news there is some new accusation of bad faith being leveled.

"So much death. What can men do against such reckless hate?" You find yourself echoing King Theoden.

"Ride out with me," comes the reply from Aragorn. "Ride out and meet them."

But suppose with me the possibility that while sometimes the answer is to ride out in literal battle against evil armies of orcs, or their human equivalent, other times the most correct response takes a very different form.

Cynicism about "the American dream" noted and put aside for the time-being, we should consider what our response would be were God himself to tell us that the answer was building a nice house, planting a pleasant garden, taking a pretty wife, having lots of children with her, and raising those children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

Then when those children come of age, you give them away in marriage too so they will have children of their own - being fruitful and multiplying, filling the Earth and subduing it. You know. All that jazz.

But what if every step of the way you busy yourself with your house, garden, wife, children, marriage plans, and grandbabies, you are praying for and seeking the welfare of the city to which the Lord your God has brought you in your exile because in its welfare you will find your own?

For my part, I believe this is the takeaway from Jeremiah 29:1-23. Whatever happens in the coming weeks, months, years, or decades, there is a long and rich Biblical tradition of God's people loving and honoring God in their cultural and societal context by starting with the faithful, diligent, optimistic, and cheerful administration of their own home.

And what might we find in a few generations if this is our tact? Nothing less than God having brought the much-needed and prayed-for revival, and it having begun with us.

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Some folks don't think the Jews should have a country, and that is a puzzlement to me.

'O Jerusalem!' by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre is the story of how the Jews founded the modern state of Israel in 1948 after the close of World War II and a failed but ambitious effort on the part of Nazi Germany to exterminate their race.

Being now in my mid-30's, I think it's difficult for my generation and those younger than us to believe that a mere 40-years before I was born the Jews were homeless as a people. They were found in many if not most countries on Earth but lacked a country of their own to call home.

Images and stories from the liberation of concentration camps shocked the conscience of the world, and undeniably contributed to a receptiveness regarding giving Palestine back to the Jews.

The trouble with that plan, however, was that the land was occupied territory.

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Not the Bee reported yesterday on Twitter suspending The Babylon Bee for supposed hate speech, and we need to talk about that.

In case you haven't heard, the infraction is tied to the satirical news site declaring transgendered person Rachel Levine their "Man of the Year" in response to USA Today naming the Biden administration appointee their "Woman of the Year."

Once again we see how the Left calls "hate speech" that kind of talk which they hate. And when they can't rebut the logic and irony, they resort to cancellation, silencing, diatribes, and ostracization.

Yet how can it be hateful to say that a biological male is a man? And what is a woman these days anyway?

It feels more and more as though what is really at issue is that there is such a thing as women. The real "War on Women" is not Republicans and conservatives - not synonymous, it should be noted - endeavoring to protect unborn children from state-sanctioned and subsidized slaughter, but perhaps is the Left insisting that womanhood is an arbitrary social construct which they are going to do us the kindness of deconstructing into oblivion.

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Dan Jones' second book, the 2012 title 'The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England' spans the nearly three centuries of the dynasty from the reign of William the Conqueror's great-grandson Henry II (1154-1189) to its end with the death of Richard III (1452-1485) at the Battle of Bosworth Field.

If you can keep all the various kings Henry, Richard, and Edward straight, 'The Plantagenets' is a story filled with drama, intrigue, and battle.

Here is Eleanor of Aquitaine and her sons Richard the Lionheart (1157-1199) and John I (1166-1216).

This is the period of English history which made Magna Carta necessary in 1215, and which saw the formation of what we now know of as the British Parliament, and which saw the idea form and face testing that even the monarch must himself be subject to the laws of God.

Here are found the armies of Edward Longshanks (1239-1307) facing off against the Scots led by William Wallace, concluding with the arrest and public execution of that man, and the reassertion of Scottish independence under Robert I (1274-1329).

So also, here is the back and forth of fighting, sometimes alongside, sometimes against, the kings of France across the English Channel.

This is the period of the Crusades, with Knights Templar - which Dan Jones deals with more fully in another work focused entirely on their order - facilitating the transfer of men and arms and money and information to fight the armies of Islam for the Holy Land.

So also, this is the time of the Black Death and struggles between Rome and the kings of Europe for who should wield ultimate authority in matters both ecclesiastical and civil.

This then is the setup for the showdown which happened during the reign of the second king in the Tudor line which immediately followed the Plantagenets, Henry VIII (1491-1547), with the breaking away of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534.

That is to say that the 269-years in which the House of Plantagenet ruled and reigned - longer, it should be noted, than the 246-years in which this American Republic has now stood - should be seen as the prologue for the wars of religion and debates about separation of powers which themselves culminated in the American Revolution and the founding of the United States of America in 1776 out of thirteen British colonies which held that their king had broken faith and was trampling on their rights as Englishmen.

With the history of both Plantagenet and Tudor monarchs still fresh and doubtless in mind, Scottish minister and theologian Samuel Rutherford wrote 'Lex Rex' in 1644 asserting in no uncertain terms that even the king must be subject to the Natural Law, or God's Law. What is more, if or when the king failed and refused to be so subject, it was not only the right of his Christian subjects, but even their responsibility and duty to provide accountability up to and including unmaking him king over them, just as kings of Israel are said to have been made by the assembled people of that nation.

The king then cannot just declare traitor anyone who seeks to provide said accountability, taking their lands and disposing of them and their wives and children however suits his imagination. No, there must be both a separation of powers and a system of checks and balances.

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For years, Ecclesiastes 7:16 has puzzled me. I come back to it again and again. How can the wisest man who ever lived tell us to not be overly righteous or overly wise?

To counsel as much is the same thing as declaring that there is such a thing. You can be excessively righteous. You can be excessively wise. But how can that be?

The answer has everything to do with motives. Wisdom and goodness are perhaps not ends unto themselves, but must be understood in the context of loving God with all our being and loving one another as we love ourselves.

Otherwise we fall into the same trap the Pharisees did. Otherwise we run the risk of trying to beat God's high score on the pinball machine that is morality and virtue.

As it turns out, trying to be holier than the Lord is a very hubristic ambition, and not one with even the slightest chance of success. And this must be understood as a subset of what it means when we read "Be holy for I am holy."

Our righteousness is filthy rags unless it is actually Christ's righteousness. And our wisdom is actually folly unless it is the wisdom of God.

But in that case, we are bound to subordinating our definition of what does or does not constitute righteousness and wisdom. God sets the standard, and we cannot improve it by making it more strict or severe or austere.

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As a jumping off point for this episode, I offer up for your consideration 'Jesus and John Wayne among the Deplorables' by Michael Young.

Published March 11th at American Reformer, the subject of the book review is a title from last summer by Kristin Kobes Du Mez, 'Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.'

With a name like that, you can't but help tip your hat. Putting Christ and the Duke together is a sure-fire way to get people's attention. But the subtitle contains the substance, and herein lies the rub - like when you find out that the real-life actor and comedian who plays Ron Swanson is not actually a conservative.

How precisely white Evangelicals are alleged by Du Mez to have corrupted the Christian faith and fractured America I mean to find out in more detail when I soon read her book in its entirety. But for this episode in the meantime we can work off Michael Young's review.

The long and short of it is that American Christianity needs deconstructing.

Oh, we've got trouble, right here in River City. It starts with a P and it ends with -atriarchy.

One gets the distinct impression that we are being told to never mind what the Bible says. And listen to Michael Foucault instead.

We've all been reading and studying and teaching and applying the Scriptures wrong all this time. And that is the fault of Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea and over a millennium-and-a-half of truth claims disguising repressive power plays by men.

Scandal after scandal among conservative culture warriors in American Evangelicalism, culminating in the majority of American Evangelicals voting for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 - it all adds up to one thing. We are to believe that our Christianity is rotten to the core.

We thought we were striving for sound doctrine and careful exegesis. What really happened was that women and minorities were being kept down all this time by straight white men pursuing sex and power, cloaking their selfish ambition in a lot of fine-sounding talk about Jesus which they really didn't mean, and therefore we shouldn't either.

Once again, what is needed with the deconstructionists is to deconstruct their deconstructionism. When we do this, what we find is a direct line of thought back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau who worked from the premise that "Man is born free, but everywhere is in chains."

This for its part led to the deeply-held conviction many of us now cling stubbornly to that authentic self-expression is the greatest good we can pursue. This in turn leads to one inescapable conclusion that we are inherently good, not born with a sinful nature which we must be saved from by the Almighty.

Furthermore, we find also if we go even farther back the original question from the serpent to the first woman Eve. "Hath God said?"

But suppose the answer to the question is in the affirmative and God hath said. What then? Put simply, sometimes then we will just argue ourselves in circles that we can only understand what God said rightly if we have the Devil translate and interpret the plain meaning for us. And then we write books like 'Jesus and John Wayne.'

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Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation

Broad brushes get a bad wrap. How come no one ever says someone is painting with a broad brush in a good way?

Think of it, though. Suppose you are painting the side of a house. You don't go for those little craft brushes your mom used to buy you for water colors. Supposing a sprayer is out of the question, what you use instead is - wait for it - a broad brush.

The reason for this is simple enough when we are talking about actual painting. When a larger surface area needs painted the same color, it helps to have a brush that applies more of that color to more area quicker.

Time and attention are valuable in proportion to how much of them we have and what else needs doing. So you paint with a broad brush to get the job done in a reasonable amount of time.

It's like that with broad topics too. To talk intelligently about them and hope to be heard, you have to paint with a broad brush for the main body. And once you come to the edgework between the main part of the wall and the trim, let's say, you probably do want to switch to a brush that will do a quicker and finer job of painting sharp lines.

Nevertheless, there is no escaping the fact that you are well within the bounds of reasonableness and good taste to work in generalities when the scope in question is a general one. And sometimes all there is for it is having several brushes you switch back and forth between depending on the application. And, yes. That includes having a broad brush when the situation requires one.

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For the fun of it, plus also as a way of thinking about the importance of honesty by examining its opposite - dishonesty - consider the curious case of Fletcher Reede and Cal Lightman - two fictional characters used to explore the subject of lying.

First, Fletcher Reede, Jim Carrey's character from the comedy 'Liar, Liar' - he's a compulsive lawyer - I mean liar. But I repeat myself.

Second, Cal Lightman, Tim Roth's detective psychologist from the drama 'Lie to Me' which was cancelled before its time.

What if it was impossible for us to lie? And what if we always told the truth in some form or fashion?

Suppose with me what it would be like if we were incapable of saying out loud something we knew was untrue, or what it would be like if we always invariably gave it away through facial expressions and body language when we were trying to conceal the truth.

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As part of an ongoing personal quest to improve communication, understanding it rightly so as to do it better, the thought occurs to me that radical honesty may make us feel better for a time, but it may not always be the best service either to ourselves or those we are communicating with.

For instance, when it comes to prioritizing what information we share and in how much detail, we must consider whether we are being quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Furthermore, if we are loving our neighbor as we love ourselves we will also similarly endeavor to help them to do likewise.

To my way of thinking, this is the difference between customer service and selling something.

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Closely related to the question of manners from our last episode is the topic of honesty.

Every adult learns the reasonable limitations on honesty depend on one's audience and subject. And speaking frankly, how honest we can afford to be in a given circumstance often depends on the power others possess to reward or punish us for what details are included or else left out in our communiques.

What passes for good manners all too often has more to do with what we can reasonably get away with saying. But we know that love rejoices with the truth, and this goes a long ways for the Christian in narrowing down with whom we associate most intimately.

By turns, the question of with whom we associate most intimately is a two-way street with who we come to understand we can or cannot be honest with. And this in turn has everything to do with who can be trusted with our vulnerabilities to cherish rather than tarnish us.

It is a fact of life in this fallen world filled with sinful people that not everyone is safe. Not everyone can be trusted to keep our secrets, or even to keep them in such a way that will build us up and protect us rather. And even those who can be trusted we must take with a grain of salt so long as we continue on having two natures - one being sanctified as we follow Christ, and the other still the sinful man or woman it ever was.

But honesty is about more than just what we do say. Vulnerability is comprised of the things we do not say because we do not need to say them, because they go without saying because we are seen and known and understood. And this is what is meant when we say that someone is considerate.

To a great extent then Christian community depends on the extent to which we are able to trust that others keep a store of grace regarding our imperfections. They know our flaws, and have set something aside for them in the way of patience, time, energy, and care.

All the same, before we can be honest with others we have to be honest with ourselves.

Is what we are endeavoring to communicate true and good and helpful, and is it necessary that we should say it?

If supposing the thing we want to say is all of these and more, can the person we want to tell be reasonably expected to bear it? And do they have a store of grace for our potential imperfections in saying this thing, or do we in turn have a store of grace for the potential imperfections in how they will respond however well we say what we mean to?

All of this also goes into a closer study of good manners and what it means to be polite.

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Do good manners exist anymore? And what are they if they do?

America is divided on seemingly every question of truth and morality. As a result, what is meant by being polite or rude can be relied on to differ as well.

Depending on the religion and politics of the part of the country you find yourself in, and depending on the people you are interacting with there, what might pass without notice in one place will be seen and heard as very offensive in another.

In a rather progressive setting, for instance, you will probably find that it is considered rude to not use preferred pronouns and celebrate when a gay or lesbian couple announces their engagement.

In more conservative settings, meanwhile, efforts at liberalizing the tone and tenor of a convention are met with outrage.

To disagree substantively about politics and religion in many settings may be considered impolite. Passions will likely be excited. People will get upset, and everyone will feel uncomfortable.

"Love is not rude" and "it is not irritable or resentful." So writes the Apostle Paul in his first epistle to the church in Corinth in what we typically refer to as "the love chapter." To my mind, this more than suggests that there is such a thing as rudeness, however it might differ from place to place and depending on your company.

And if rudeness exists, so also must its opposite. But that is just another way of saying that politeness and manners exist in some objective sense.

Where Paul writes that love is not rude then, we have to conclude also that love is polite and has good manners. Inversely, we must assume that actual good manners are aligned with love.

As with good manners, defining love can prove tricky depending on our context. What passes for love in the mainstream and what God tells us about true love are more and more two wholly different things.

Perhaps these two things are closely related, though - our changing definitions of love and our changing definitions of good manners.

Proverbs comes to mind where we are told that open rebuke is better than hidden love. And in the very next verse we read "Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy."

This too should be instructive when we try to define good manners, since we need to define these things in order to learn them and teach them to our children.

In the Deep South, for instance, it is usually understood that when someone says "Bless your heart" what they really mean is that someone is being foolish and naïve. And people in that part of the country say "bless your heart" instead of calling the person simpleminded to their face because of the kind of manners which are understood as proper.

But when there is a shared understanding of how things will be taken, and when love is understood as the driver of the comment, we are not easily offended. Moreover, even when the meaning is less than clear, love will see us not taking offense too easily anymore than risking that we will give offense without careful consideration.

The fact that love is not rude therefore means we do not give needless offense. But what about when we have to risk the other person being upset with us by disagreeing with them because we do love them? This is where things get tricky. And herein lies dilemmas which must be resolved. Yet without a fixed and objective standard of truth, goodness, and beauty, they can never be resolved, and we will argue endlessly about what is or is not polite.

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Should we continue buying oil from Russia, or should we produce it ourselves?

On the one hand, we certainly could try to content ourselves with shutting Russia out of the global economy to punish Putin for what he is even now doing to the people of Ukraine in trying to reconstitute the former Soviet Union.

We could confine ourselves to grandstanding, decrying his barbarous aggression, superimposing flags of Ukraine on our social media profiles, engaging in hashtag diplomacy about how we #StandWithUkraine - all the while continuing to subsidize Putin's war efforts to the tune of $700 million a day in purchases of Russian oil and gas.

On the other hand, we outright ban Russian oil from the market. We could promise we will not buy it. Both before and after this proves hasty in the absence of a backup supply, we could wax eloquent about our addiction to fossil fuels, and how now is as good a time as any to switch to renewable energy.

Only now is not as good a time as any. It's the worst possible time. And as the rising cost of transportation and fuel drives up the price of everything else, perhaps even making many things flatly unavailable if the fuel runs out in some places, we will #StandWithUkraine in a very special sense - that of seeing our country also in ruins as our economy grinds to a halt. This in turn will leave us to the tender mercies of both President Putin and Chairman Xi.

There is another option, and this one I do not recommend, particularly in light of the circumstances.

We could go to outright war with Russia. We could declare a no-fly zone over Ukraine and then enforce it very effectively. But then the nukes will fly and we will find WWIII has commenced in earnest. And with a disastrous duo in the White House as well as generalized partisan gridlock in Washington, plus our own energy industry having been stymied to an irresponsible and reckless extent, we are not in the best position for WWIII.

This not coincidentally is why Russia and China are on the move right now, it should be noted.

But there is at least one more option - and this one I favor most. Without outright banning Russian oil when we still apparently need it, and without continuing to make ourselves dependent on Russian oil, and without firing a shot in Ukraine, we should make ourselves energy independent again. Force Russian oil out by supplying our own to displace it. This will bring the price of oil and gas down, relieve our dependence on our adversaries and would-be enemies, cut off a major source of power and wealth for them, and meanwhile make our own people prosperous and independent again.

The simple answer to whether we should be buying Russian oil is that we should not have been in the first place. But better late than never, it is time for America to commit to energy independence for the long haul starting now.

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Was Edmund Burke a genius, and have we given him enough consideration?

Many Americans know little to nothing more about the 18th century statesman than perhaps recognizing his name. But the more philosophically minded, particularly those concerned with conservative political philosophy, harbor something of a reverential regard for Burke.

I should add here for those unacquainted that Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was the father of what we now regard as conservative political philosophy. Born in Dublin, Ireland, Burke served as a member of British Parliament from 1765-1794, during which time he played the man engaging the major issues of his time.

A supporter of the cause of the American colonists in their War for Independence, Burke nevertheless opposed on principle revolutions and revolutionary thinking, preferring instead reform with a view to expedience and the social and national interest.

Just so and for the same reason, Burke strongly denounced the French Revolution on the grounds that it was hubristically and wickedly destroying everything that stood between its instigators and remaking the world in their image without regard for either posterity or the legacy of previous generations.

Speaking personally, I am inclined to agree with Russell Kirk, and liked very much his biography of the man. Edmund Burke was a genius, and we have not given him enough consideration.

For all the revolutionary talk in our day, and questions of what conservatives are for rather than against, and what it is exactly that we mean to conserve when we say we are conservatives, Burke serves as a thoughtful, principled, clarifying resource.

Don't let the intervening years trick you into thinking we are far removed from the debates in Burke's day. His 'Reflections on the Revolution in France' is as timely now as it was when at its publication Jean-Jacques Rousseau had only been in the grave a mere dozen years. And the reason for this is because the ideas of Rousseau are still very much with us, both in their consequences and in their ideological descendants.

In studying Burke through the lens of Russell Kirk, you will find a man who stood not just firm but forcefully against those ideas. And this is because Burke recognized these ideas the potential for destruction and death of all kinds - including the destruction and death of civilization and its attendant blessings.

Arguing for ordered liberty, Burke understood that human freedom cannot be unlimited and abstract. It has to be tempered with reasonable discipline and restraint in order to live for long or to a fruitful end.

To those wondering what conservatism is or should be about, we do well to study the life and times of Burke, and his response to those times. Indeed, it's hard to imagine a better way to honor the substance of Burke's ideas - where they were founded on considering the intentions and lessons learned from previous generations - and incorporating the same into our own plans, purposes, and principles.

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"Give me liberty or give me death" as American founding father Patrick Henry so famously and passionately said nearly two-and-a-half centuries ago. Yet defining liberty and what it means to us can prove surprisingly difficult.

I was reminded of this difficulty last night during the weekly meeting of our In Gladii Veritas writing club when one of my fellow club-members brought the question up during one of our routine discussions of theology, politics, and philosophy.

Maybe I am a simple man, but I first think of what John records Christ as saying in the eighth chapter of his gospel.

“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

After this, I think of what Winston says in George Orwell's novel '1984.'

"Freedom is the freedom to say that 2+2=4."

Taken together, Christian liberty is inseparably tied to truth, goodness, and beauty being defined by God. As such, liberty for the Christian cannot divorce itself from a commitment to being a slave to Christ for the sake of righteousness as opposed to being a slave to sin.

Consequently, Christian liberty is the opposite of slavery to sin, which leads to death. Freedom is the freedom to obey God, and for the life of a living sacrifice holy and pleasing to God.

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Is man free to do whatever he chooses, or are all his paths both foreknown and forechosen, predetermined by the Almighty hand of Providence?

On the one hand Arminian theology says that man must be free to choose in order to be held accountable. How else could God punish sin unless the sinner were personally able to choose to sin and to not sin? And how else could man truly be saved except by choosing to accept the gift of salvation in Christ?

On the other hand, Calvinist theology says that the sovereignty of God necessitates a corresponding forechoosing of all events to the foreknowing and foretelling of events. How else could it be said that God is the one who saves us except that every facet of the offering and receiving of the gift of salvation is attributed solely to God?

Into this debate Jonathan Edwards wrote 'The Freedom of the Will' in 1754.

Born in East Windsor, Connecticut in 1703, Edwards is regarded as the foremost philosopher and theologian at the center of what we now refer to as the 'First Great Awakening' of the 1730's and 1740's.

I just recently finished Edwards' 1754 work about election and free will, and I am not embarrassed to admit that it was a challenge.

Previously I read Martin Luther's much less appealing title, 'The Bondage of the Will.' Covering much the same topic two centuries earlier, I found Luther deserving his reputation as a witty brawler unafraid to throw a jab and taunt and insult at those he disagreed with.

By contrast, Edwards is disciplined, rigorous, organized, logical, and restrained. But all the more rather than less, what 'Freedom of the Will' lays out is more challenging in some ways because of the lack of entertaining quips to distract from the meat of the subject.

Of course I'm not saying Edwards was smarter than Luther, though he may have been. But I am saying that Edwards was far more disciplined. And in his discipline I think we find sterner and more sober stuff, and a better example to follow.

Who could argue with the logic of Edwards? They will find themselves hard-pressed. He does not leave much daylight between one point and the subsequent counterpoint he presents. But from the standpoint of focusing on ideas and truths he rains down blows in the process of elimination.

This is simultaneously more helpful and harder to keep up with because the only way you really catch your mental, emotional, and spiritual breath is by taking a break from the book to consider the substance of his claims.

The long and short of it is this - the freedom of man is nothing compared to the freedom of God. And both alike are free to do what is in their nature. When we are talking about God, the Almighty is the only entirely and wholly free being who has ever existed, does now exist, or ever will exist. But when we are talking about man, freedom in the abstract is something of a moot point unless we also consider what is in the heart of man that he will freely choose one thing instead of another.

And who presides over all the factors internal and external which might persuade or influence man toward freedom of one kind or freedom of another, whether free to live or freely choosing to destroy himself? As Edwards argues forcefully, only God is sovereign, and therefore only God is free in the purest sense.

But this is just another way of saying that only God is actually free. Everyone else is limited to being free on God's terms. And this itself is just another way of saying that freedom for life and goodness can only be had for those made free by God.

I stop short of saying more than that in specificity because I am still mulling it over. But you should do yourself a favor and read Edwards here for yourself.

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Last night was Joe Biden's first State of the Union address since being sworn in as president late last January. As annual fare goes in terms of the strict number of minutes, I was surprised to hear it came in on the short side. It did not feel like a short speech. It felt intolerably long.

To borrow a line from the only piece of Adam Sandler's 1995 film 'Billy Madison' I have ever seen, "Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

It's a sad thing to say about a great country you call home, and which you have high hopes for - not least of all because this is where my family and friends reside.

But one positive thing can be said about the first year of the Biden presidency. His weakness and our vulnerability now putting us on the precipice of World War III notwithstanding, Biden has taken the masks off the Democrats in a way no amount of pleading and convincing by conservatives was able to.

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"Then Yahweh God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.""

Thus the Biblical narrative introduces the first woman, Eve. She is made after the first man Adam, and indeed after every other created thing. Last but certainly not least, she is a kind of crowning glory.

You need not take my word for it. The Apostle Paul says as much in his first letter to the church at Corinth when he writes,

"[Man] is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.For man was not made from woman, but woman from man."

The way in which the first woman is made is curious also. You might even call it bizarre how God causes Adam to fall into a deep sleep, then removes one of his ribs. And this rib from Adam's side becomes the raw material for fashioning that first man's bride to be.

Adam was made from the dust of the Earth, formed by the hands of the Almighty then breathed the breath of life into by God Himself.

Are we curious at all why the difference? Do the distinctions in the creation of the first man and the first woman give us any pause? They should, since nothing God does is accidental or a mistake.

Since this is true, we have to at least agree that God had a particular purpose for making Eve how and when He made her.

But the text is not so mysterious as it is difficult in our day to agree with when it says God made the woman because "it is not good that the man should be alone," and described her purpose as "a helper fit for him" - that is, her husband.

Our rebellious hearts react immediately at this, complaining inwardly that being a helper is demeaning. But just as surely as we wrestle with this, it can't be demeaning for the Christian to embrace God's design for humanity, male and female, particularly in the context of marriage.

Also in this episode:

'The Decline Of The American Family Shown in 4 Statistics' - Ben Zeisloft, The Daily Wire

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For about a week now, a bad cold has been working its way through my household. Starting with our second youngest son John and now firmly entrenched in myself and my wife and most of the other kiddos, this weekend has been a lot of laying low and trying to rest and take it easy.

Yesterday, not feeling like doing much of anything else except intermittent napping and watching old favorites TV shows, I made a deal with my daughter Evelyn that we would alternate one episode of Little House on the Prairie for every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

What a study in contrasts that proved to be.

On the one hand, Little House on the Prairie ran from 1974-1983 as a look backward to a picturesque pioneer family in the nineteenth century with a series based on the "Little House" series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The cover photo with Ma and Pa Ingalls plus their three young daughters smiling on their farm in the countryside says it all. This is a story centered on family settling down and building civilization in the wilderness, navigating the ups and downs of life guided by their love for the good Lord and one another.

On the other hand, Gene Roddenberry's second Star Trek series ran from 1987-1994 as a look forward to a progressive future for secular humanism and scientism in the twenty-fourth century. And with the first Star Trek series (1966-1969) as a reference point, here is a new enterprise with a Enterprise in which the crew is always moving, always in a new place, always doing new things with new people. And this is a story about social constructs, and philosophy, and science, and technology, and interspecies diplomacy guided by social constructs and a Prime Directive based on man's Reason.

Would it be overstating things to say that on the one hand we see a conservative understanding of where we are at based on the hard work and traditions of previous generations, and family, and going to church every Sunday, and building a community outward from our home? And on the other hand, we see a liberal understanding off where we are based on where we will presumably go in the future as man's Reason and Science evolve our capabilities and sensibilities past crude economic and political considerations like free market capitalism and republicanism into something more closely approximating purely secular technocratic socialism?

I for one don't think that would be overstating things at all.

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I hear a lot of talk over the past several days to few weeks about how the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is none of our business here in the U.S. This is not our fight, and though it's sad what is happening to the Ukrainian people, we don't need to be concerned or involve ourselves in this as a primary stakeholder.

And that is true if you look at these sorts of things from a very short-sighted perspective.

I mean, it's not like America helped Russia talk Ukraine into giving up it's arsenal of 5,000+ nuclear weapons in exchange for guarantees that neither country would do just the thing Vladimir Putin is currently doing for all the world to see.

Oh, wait. Yes. Yes, we did. Actually we did do that.

But it's not as though Ukraine has been seeking to join NATO for the past decade-and-a-half to deter the exact actions Putin is taking right now for all the world to see. Furthermore, it's not as though NATO has strung Ukraine along with pats on the heads and assurances that they're well on their way, and we'll get around to adding you guys here soon we promise at our next meeting...

Oh, wait. Yes. That one is also true, actually.

But at least Ukraine is a backwater of little to no importance strategically. I mean, it's not as though we're talking about a country which is fourth in the world in terms of the value of its natural resources. If Ukraine had a lot of agricultural and mineral value for a potential future expansion of regional and global power projection aspirations, that would be one thing.

Thank goodness we're not dealing in Putin with someone who says that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. And we can all be glad the strongman of Mother Russia has not signaled in speeches that actual NATO members are next because they formerly were part of the USSR.

And it's not as though China is simultaneously threatening to take over Taiwan when Taiwan is a leading producer and supplier of semiconductors in the world, a very valuable strategic asset both economically and militarily for a nation with global superpower ambitions like Chairman Xi has expressed.

Oh, wait... Yes, actually. Those are also the current conditions.

So what are we going to do about it? Why, we'll try some tepid sanctions openly admitted to have zero chance of preventing anything, and we'll openly fret about all this distracting from combatting Climate Change and micro-aggressions.

But at least Biden just announced his Supreme Court Justice pick to replace Breyer. And you'll furthermore be glad to know she is fully qualified, being both a female and a person of color.

So move along, folks. Nothing to see here. This is fine. This is all totally fine and will definitely not come back to haunt us and our progeny in the coming years and decades, mark my words.

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Like Alexis de Tocqueville, Os Guinness is a figure I have heard quoted often in books and interviews for several years but never read directly myself - until now.

His 2021 work, 'The Magna Carta of Humanity: Sinai’s Revolutionary Faith and the Future of Freedom,' is then really my first experience considering his views and appraisals in something approaching their entirety.

On that note, the premise of Guinness's 'The Magna Carta of Humanity' is so profound as to need more consideration and mulling over before I can give anything approaching a satisfying verdict, but there is a lot here. And the reputation Guinness has for thinking big picture and communicating about the complex relationships between our beliefs and ideas and the reality we experience is well-deserved.

For instance, have you considered how closely related what the Bolsheviks did in Russia and what the Maoists did in China was patterned after what happened in France in 1793? Guinness clearly has, and he invites you to join him in such considerations - not as some arcane ivory tower thought exercise, but as an entirely practical way of viewing our current circumstances with BLM, Antifa, Progressivism, Cancel Culture, CRT, Surveillance Capitalism, and the censorship of conservatives online and IRL, to name just a few features of modern political discourse and policy-making.

It's worth noting also that Guinness wrote his work before the recent troubles in Canada, now possibly on their way to the U.S. via another Freedom Convoy American-style and however the Democrats under Joe Biden feel lucky enough to respond to that.

Yet the bend toward totalitarianism based on the elevation of Reason to the place which should be occupied by God alone is easy to anticipate when we look at how men who have played God throughout history have acted when questioned about the treatment of their inalienable rights.

As Guinness puts it succinctly, "Only when God is God can we be us." And what he means by this is that whether governed or governing, we don't relate to one another in a fully human nor humane way when we reject the basis for human rights - the divine authority of God Almighty.

The dignity which each man, woman, and child possesses by virtue of being God's possession, and made in God's image, must be understood in the context of the righteousness of the Lord of all Creation Himself in order to be preserved and protected.

Just so, Guinness argues that better than comparing and contrasting the American Revolution and the French Revolution directly is something which had not occurred to me - comparing history's greatest liberation of an enslaved people at Sinai, where God took a people who were no people and made them His own, delivering them out of 400-years of hard bondage to the Pharaoh of Egypt and giving to them the Promised Land and His covenant.

This is a more apt comparison in many ways, not least if Guinness is right to say that the revolution at Sinai was the inspiration for the revolution in the thirteen colonies which became the United States. As I was reminded in reading 'The Magna Carta of Humanity,' the first proposed Great Seal of the United States [before 14 August 1776] was Moses leading the children of Israel through the Red Sea, Pharaoh and his chariots visible as well, with the motto inscribed.

"Rebellion to Tyrants Is Obedience to God."

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Carl R. Trueman published a piece in WORLD Magazine yesterday titled 'Decadence on display: Depravity is no disqualification at Biden's Department of Energy,' not so much taking President Biden and his administration to task as scrutinizing the #NeverTrump evangelical arguments regarding the last election in light of where we find ourselves now.

With the appointment of "queer activist" Sam Brinton, it is right to question both the lipstick and the pig as well as those who are silently ignoring the oinking noise in the barnyard.

They were warned that insistence on so-called equality would soon give way to some of us being more equal than others, and yet did not care.

Judging by their silence, the #NeverTrump evangelicals still do not care - not about things like consistency and testimony, in any event. They loudly decried the bad orange man for four years and counting yet have said not a word about Biden and cross-dressers with hybridized fetishes being trotted out as fearless leaders.

One can be forgiven for wondering on many fronts whether we need more fearful leaders of the type who fear God rather than men.

And this brings me to the topic of a question asked by a listener from Ohio, currently in talks with a pastor friend of his about what the Christian response to someone announcing themselves LGBTQ should be.

Is it unkind for me to suggest the appropriate Christian response would be a different kind of "coming out"?

I'm not saying we should be unkind. But that's the Devil of it for you. We all race to qualifying and apologizing for our loving truth.

But why do we apologize for calling grave-digging implements what they are, as if encouraging someone to not dig their own grave means we really do hate them?

Our fear of man shows through when we are more chilled by what the men of Sodom might do to us if we plead with them to not rape the angels who came to get us and our family out of the city than we are the incisive analysis of Romans 1 and Ezekiel 33.

We should wish instead that what was said of Paul and Silas in Acts 17 would be said of us too.

"These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.”

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Francis Schaeffer's 'How Should We Then Live?' was published in 1975, making it 11 or 12-years older than I am. No matter. Schaeffer could have just as easily have been writing today.

The thoughts and accounting here are not old, they are timeless. And their timeliness may only be greater today than when he first published because the fruition of some of what he explains is more and more becoming apparent as secular humanism wreaks more havoc than many would have been willing to suppose four-and-a-half decades ago.

As Ezekiel 33:10-11 puts it, in the passage from which the title of Schaeffer's book drew its inspiration,

“And you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, Thus have you said: ‘Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live?’ Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?"

And just before that, in verses 7-9.

"So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul."

And thus we do so live.

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In this episode:

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President - Candice Millard
Is Tik Tok a THREAT to American kids? #shorts - Titus Ellis Smith, YouTube
China: The Enemy Within - Lee Smith Docuseries, The Daily Wire
Former Amb to Russia: Could Be 'The Largest Conventional War In Europe Since 1939' - Frank Camp, The Daily Wire
Senator Tuberville: Focusing On China More Important Than Russia, They Want To 'Rule The World' - Ryan Saavedra, The Daily Wire
British PM Boris Johnson Warns: Putin Planning To Launch 'Biggest War In Europe Since 1945' - Ryan Saavedra, The Daily Wire
Bill Maher Shreds LeBron James, John Cena, Eileen Gu: Stop Kowtowing To China - Daily Wire News

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Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President

In this episode:

"Why would anyone keep their money in a Canadian bank after this?" - NTB Staff at Not the Bee, Feb. 18, 2022
"Things just keep getting more fasci-tastic in Canada as Ottawa police threaten the media with arrest if found in "areas undergoing enforcement" - PlanetMoron at Not the Bee, Feb. 18, 2022
Amusing Trudeau Headlines - The Babylon Bee
'Freedom Convoy Organizer Daniel Bulford Peacefully Turns Himself In, Arrested By Police' - Tim Meads at The Daily Wire, Feb. 18, 2022
'Religious Liberty and Inalienable Rights: American public policy and human dignity' - Joseph Crampton, Feb. 18, 2022
'Run' - AWOLNATION

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“What the masks showed us, the parents, the most powerful group in the country, is that we are taking back the wheel.” So said Brian Echevarria at a school board meeting in North Carolina. “We are taking back the wheel from Washington to Raleigh all the way to the local school board. Because CRT - the parents don’t want it.”

Meanwhile, the host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher sounds increasingly like a conservative. Calling out the madness of the radical Left, he insists he hasn't changed so much as the Left in this country has. But what has changed is that the chickens have come home to roost.

Maher would be wiser to meditate on Proverbs 26:18-19.

"Like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows, and death

is the man who deceives his neighbor

and says, “I am only joking!”"

So also a recent exchange comes to mind between Republican Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana and Fox News host Jesse Waters in which Senator Kennedy quipped "To be a smart ass, you first have to be smart."

Bill Maher meanwhile says he's the same unmarried, childless, pot-smoking libertine he's always been. And I think that's true. Therein lies the explanation for how we got here and why he's speaking out now.

The radical Left in its tireless crusade is harshing Maher's groove and killing his buzz.

The bastards fathered by generations of self-indulgent radicals whose guiding principle was making their responsibilities everyone else's problem have been calling the shots, and the revolution in fact is not so sexy as it before looked in theory.

Vapid sloganizing about the rich paying their fair share and the need for more regulation, taxation, and welfare programs sounded lovely when it absolved individuals of the expectation that they would get married, raise a family, and steward well their church, town, state, and nation.

If only we had been more the students of Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, and Alexis de Tocqueville, and less the uncritical admirers of Thomas Paine. The conservative tradition - first theologically, then socially, fiscally, and politically - could have saved us a lot of trouble.

But wise King Solomon told us true when he said "there is no new thing under the sun."

To quote Margaret Thatcher, "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."

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Democracy in America

Reflections on the Revolution in France (Oxford World's Classics)

The Age of Reason - Thomas Paine (Writings of Thomas Paine)

The Wealth Of Nations

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has definitely not declared open season on the most basic freedoms of Canadian men, women, and children either actively protesting continued lockdowns and mandates related to COVID, or else actively supporting the protests.

Trudeau's administration declaring a national emergency is most certainly not a move to silence dissent or crush his political opponents at the grassroots level.

Nor is Trudeau moving to force compliance with his government's efforts to freeze bank accounts or tow vehicles or suspend private insurance for the trucker protests in any way, shape, or form in violation of Canada's founding documents and overall legal strictures on what the government can and cannot do to its citizens.

The Canadian men, women, and children earnestly yearning to be free are most definitely terrorists in clever disguise, and Justin Trudeau cannot afford to negotiate with terrorists. Freedom is actually slavery, and truth is a lie, and love is hate, and nothing about any of this should bother you unless you selfishly want people to die.

Fortunate for Trudeau, Canadian law and order has an ally in President of the United States Joseph R. Biden.

Why just last week our glorious Department of Homeland Security put out a bulletin reassuring our peaceful Republic that the public good will be safely guarded from a new and very dangerous acronym called MDM.

Like MBP (Man-Bear-Pig), MDM - which stands for "mis-, dis-, and mal-information" - is most definitely real, and is most certainly out to get you.

What is considered MDM, you may ask? The Biden administration in conjunction with Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas tell us in the latest National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin. In short, MDM can be anything from criticizing the glorious revolution to disagreeing with our fearless leader to opposing freedom-loving activists in government who simply want to take everything you own and redistribute it to people they feel more deserving at home and abroad.

Sowing discord and division - in an election year no less - will only subvert Democracy, and we certainly wouldn't want that. Therefore, in the interest of unity, violators who are found to be spreading what is regarded as MDM online may find themselves put on a terrorist watchlist alongside other latent white Christian nationalists, such as parents who show up at their local school board meeting to disagree with the tenants of the glorious revolution being taught uncritically to their children.

The future looks bright and sunny, folks.

Please, please, please don't cancel me.

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Executive Director and publisher for Baptist News Global, Mark Wingfield writes February 7, 2022 a truly appalling hit piece titled 'It’s time to stop the insanity that is killing public education'in which he repeatedly calls "insanity" American parents doing such laudable tasks as opposing CRT and the propagation of LGBTQ+ and Gender Theory ideologies and sex education, the teaching of evolution, and running for school boards across the country to make a push for more conservative public education experiences for their children.

And this is why we homeschool.

One can only imagine what Wingfield would say to Sara Foster - daughter of Canadian musician, composer, arranger, record producer, and music executive David Foster. The day after Super Bowl LVI, she took to Twitter to take politicians and celebrities to task for their rank hypocrisy in mandating masks in LA County, particularly for schoolchildren, while at the same time packing into SoFi Stadium with 100,000 other people entirely unmasked.

As Amanda Harding for The Daily Wire reported February 14, Ms. Foster is quoted, “Attn Los Angeles law makers: you guys are a fing joke,” Foster wrote in the caption of her Instagram stories, Fox News reported. “While 100,000 people enjoyed the super bowl unmasked in our city, our children will have a very different experience in school tomorrow.”*

Meanwhile Mr. Wingfield at Baptist News Global is here to accuse parents across America of being racists and white nationalists if they try to take the schools back from radical Leftists for the sake of their children.

The masks, Gender Theory, CRT, evolution - it's all of a piece. And no I'm not a racist for preferring we all homeschool our children or else send them to private school instead of committing them to Statists and totalitarians.

Again - and not to put too fine a point on it - this is why we homeschool.

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And This Is Why We Homeschool

Maybe it's just me, but for as long as I can remember Super Bowl commercials have been a primary rather than secondary reason to watch at least one game of football per year.

This year the Super Bowl commercials seemed to feature two distinct patterns worth commenting on. One was the conspicuous absence of white people. The other was the conspicuous absence of beautiful people.

And not only were there few to no beautiful people, there were also just a lot of decidedly weird looking folks.

Like no one wearing masks in a stadium located in one of the most mandate-happy counties in America, the prevalence of people of color and also ugly people should tell us something about the sort of country we live in now.

Is this the United States of America anymore? One could fairly ask what sort of country but a divided one has more than one anthem in the name of racial justice.

So also, the whole affair should tell us at least how the NFL and corporate America and NBC see us, and want us to see ourselves.

And maybe just like cementing racial divides with selective and segregated patriotism on the basis of melanin, corporate America wants you and I to see ourselves and our country like they do - as ugly and misshapen and odd. We are eccentric, off-beat, and maybe a little deranged.

Admittedly, I don't watch the NFL more than once a year, nor even every year. But the suddenness of this shift in the look and feel of the 2022 spectacle is a little jarring.

I wouldn't put it past the whole lot to suppose this is how you head off a resurgence of Make America Great Again sentiment - and more to the point, voting.

The joke's on them, though. With any luck and by God's grace, the negative association and optics backfires and they only cement our negative opinion of them and their taste rather than our view of ourselves and our national heritage or destiny.

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"Why can't a woman be more like a man?" So sings Professor Higgins, played to perfection by Rex Harrison in the 1964 musical 'My Fair Lady.'

Such a tidy summation of the real war on women, as opposed to the phony alleged one you have been sold a bill of goods with. And radical egalitarianism could not ask for a more apt explanation of what it champions.

Women should not need to become men in order to be valued, respected, esteemed, and validated. Yet modern secular progressives call enslavement liberation and liberation oppression when they insist that for a woman to be content with the role of wife and mother she has abandoned the fulfillment of her full potential.

In the past century, American society has believed too much of such drivel on the grounds that experts very seriously dished it up for us. And loving expertise, following the science, and earnestly desiring the achievement of all we were made to be, it is a wonder that we so rarely if ever stop to consider that God is the foremost expert in every field, including what it means to be a man or a woman.

Who else but God could tell us where the science leads that we must follow? Our Creator knows better than any and all of us what our created purpose was and is and will be.

The simple answer to Professor Higgins' question then is that a woman can't be more like a man because God gifted her differently, and suited her for a different set of critically important tasks - namely, being a wife to her husband and a mother to her children.

Yes, yes. Some women do not marry or have children. And perhaps sometimes God calls women as well as men to life-long singleness. Yet we have tried to normalize such in a thousand ways by denigrating marriage while at the same time spiritualizing singleness as a matter of course as though to be unmarried necessarily is or will be a pious thing.

And not content with that, we now have real oppression on our hands where the most celebrated women are those who are actually men. It's as though Professor Higgins got his hands on the levers of power and culture in this country, and answered his own question in the affirmative - 'a woman can be more like a man.'

Only there is a deep and stubborn problem with that, whether we are talking about radical egalitarianism, gender theory, feminism, or transgenderism, all of which make war in sundry ways on womanhood. It's all pretend and make-believe to suppose any of this is healthy or functional. And while we fix our eyes on such illusions, we wander around in the desert chasing mirages until we finally stumble dying to our knees from dehydration.

A woman can't be more like a man because she is a woman. So also, a man cannot be a woman - nor should he ever wish to be. Nor should a woman wish to be a man.

But all of this really boils down to whether or not we are content with God's design. And that in turn goes back to whether we think God should be the authority or we should.

As Jeremiah Burroughs points out at great length and great pains in 'The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment,' we count our little afflictions of so much more account than our many great blessings. And in choosing to fixate on all the dissatisfaction, we make the blessings of no account as they lie fallow and uninvested, unfruitful, unenjoyed.

No wonder we're all so miserable and self-medicated and disconnected.

Yet there is hope, and it comes in the form of embracing authentic masculinity for men and boys and authentic femininity for women and girls, and repenting of all our rebellion and grumbling against God for not having done it the way we think best.

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Adam was created first with a little bit of soil and the Lord Himself breathed the breath of life into his nostrils. So far so good with the image-bearer of the Almighty. But the first thing God ever said was not good was that the first man was alone.

If anyone but God had said it, the typical trendy Christian literature response might be to say that Adam had his relationship with the Creator and that should have been enough. But that relationship with the good Lord was not enough as God saw it. Thus God made a helpmeet suitable for Adam.

From then 'til now, I am convinced most of the dysfunction in how we approach marriage has to do with our either not knowing, underestimating, or actively rebelling against what Genesis says here.

Proverbs tells us that the man who finds a wife finds a good thing. And yet how we approach and steward marriage goes a long way in our appreciating this.

In the origin story of how God made man, some might complain that we don't have a lot to go on. But I disagree. Every detail and every nuance in the Genesis account is borne out in the rest of what we read in the Bible from cover to cover.

So when it says God created woman in a certain way at a certain time and for two reasons - because it was not good for the man to be alone and because she was to be a helpmeet suitable for the man - we would be wise to lean in and listen close.

In the context of marriage, a wife is the appropriate antidote to loneliness. God Himself says that loneliness is not good, and the remedy is provided in marriage.

But so also, when Genesis describes the woman as a helpmeet suitable we should ask what Eve was created to help Adam with.

Consequently, we should ask what God had made Adam to be and do. And there also Genesis provides the answer. God made Adam to be His image-bearer for one thing. And God putting Adam in the garden to keep it is another.

Subsequently, God gives instructions to the man and woman, Adam and Eve. "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the Earth and subdue it" - hardly an easy task without a breeding pair.

Even my referring to those two or married couples in general in such terms is sure to cause some to shift uncomfortably in their seats. But there you have it. And if the good Lord made it a core part of marriage, I am not going to leave it unattended as we discuss the topic.

So then it would seem that in order to talk intelligently about marriage, and to think rightly about it, and to steward it well and productively, we have to build on this foundation.

God made man in his image and put him in the garden to work it. God made Adam first, then made Eve. Eve was made because it was not good for man to be alone, and to help Adam in fulfilling the purpose for which God had made him. And a large part of the purpose God made man for was to exercise dominion over the Earth - to fill it and subdue it, to work the ground, to reproduce himself and spread God's representation through all of Creation.

But is that how we think of marriage? Is that how we treat this thing, whether on the front-end or in the thick of it?

I think not. And yet I want us to remedy that rather than being content with it, firmly believing as I do that a blessing comes with the rectification of certain untruths we have come to believe as a matter of course because we are told in so doing we will be liberated.

The reality is entirely other. And the most liberating thing possible is know the truth of God's Word and be set free by it - the context of marriage being no exception, of course.

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In 1831, French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville traveled across the ocean to the United States and spent nine months traversing what is now the eastern half of our country. Observing, listening, engaging in conversation, Tocqueville studied our ways and manners. The end-result was an epic treatment of our society at that moment in history.

For years I have been reading more recent historians and political commentators as they make reference to Alexis de Tocqueville and his monumental work, ‘Democracy in America.’ For just as many years I have been impressed whenever the 19th century French observer is quoted.

This past weekend, I finally set myself down to listen to the audiobook. And it was a wonder indeed. This should be required reading for every American.

Being only a few decades removed from the founding of this great nation, Tocqueville was able to speak with men and women who had either some first-hand memory of the American Revolution, or else had been raised by parents who participated in it.

What is so refreshing about it all is that Tocqueville engages in neither hero worship of early America, nor in the demonizing revisionism which is so typical of our day. This lends his account powerful and compelling credibility.

Where America merits a chiding and just criticism, no punches are pulled. But where America deserves full marks for extraordinary and laudable qualities, these are not glossed over or ignored just because the nation is peopled by imperfect creatures who made mistakes.

In short, ‘Democracy in America’ is not just instructive to our nation’s history. It’s exemplary as a way of studying and discussing people and events. Give it a read with a view to personal growth, and you won’t be sorry you did.

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"It's what ya D-O do with what you got that counts," as the wise old owl says in one of my favorite childhood movies, 'So Dear to My Heart.'

The song these lyrics come from comes to mind as I recall an analogy to describe the contrast between establishment media and all its resources over and against smaller independent podcasters and journalists when it comes to reporting on current events and their corresponding scientific components.

It's like a rich man buying a brand new Buick with all the amenities then using it as a garden tarp to kill grass and weeds before tilling and planting, if for no other reason than to have all his neighbors see him flaunt his disposable monies.

And suppose the rich man with the extravagant show of wealth started berating a poorer man in the neighborhood for riding his bicycle to pick up groceries for himself and other poorer members of the community.

The rich man would be right to point out that his Buick is a much better vehicle. He could make lots more trips in a lot more comfort and style carrying a lot more groceries. Only he's not. That's not how he uses his car.

Meanwhile the poor guy with the bike may have a much humbler mode of transportation. But he gets where he's trying to go because he wants to. And just so, the guy with the want-to easily gets props from most of the folks in the neighborhood in a way the rich jerk with the Buick never will so long as he loves flexing on everyone around him more than actually serving someone besides himself.

That's what I would compare establishment media like CNN trying to mock and censor individual podcasters to.

But I'll leave the wise old owl with the last word as an encouragement to the folks out there like myself who are going to keep on trucking anyway.

*"You gotta start with whatcha got

If whatcha got ain't such a lot

To make the most of whatcha got

Here's what I recommend*

*You start by a-tryin' and applyin' your best

If you try, there ain't no denyin'

There's a way to feather your nest, Hey!

You gotta add how whatcha do

And multiply by whatcha do

You think you can't win

But you do

And you get that dividend"*

So keep the faith, fellows. And don't let the bastards grind you down.

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Good science is predicated on the humble admission that we do not know or understand everything so well as we should like. For that matter, good science invariably requires finite, limited creatures share information with one another, and be open to challenging and being challenged on their presentation of the facts and any attendant conclusions derived from the same.

So also with athletic competition. Great athletes only become so because they possess the requisite humility to at least admit that they need to train and exercise to become stronger, faster, more agile, more enduring, and more skillful at their game of choice.

But we must also appreciate the teleology of the respective arena of human endeavor. The 'telos' or purpose of the thing needs to be understood in order to approach it with any meaningful concentration or hope of success.

Lacking humility, we will tell ourselves and others we have arrived and are sufficient for the task without preparation or effort. Consequences will contradict us. Pain is a teacher. And the wiser of us will learn from our misapprehension and be the better for it.

But possessing humility is not enough. We need also to think about the purpose of the thing. Why is it worth doing, and why do we want to do it? If it is not worth doing, we ought not to do it. But if it is worth doing, knowing why will help us to commit ourselves to doing it well.

Rogan and Stelter There is so much furor now about whether Joe Rogan or CNN are more trustworthy sources for information on COVID or any other thing. And I notice a very distinct contrast between two very different voices.

On the one hand, we have Joe Rogan with a humble premise which also encapsulates the teleology of the thing. He talks with interesting people on his podcast to find out what they think about various topics because he wants to hear what they have to say and learn from them. So also, his listeners want the same thing, and that's why they tune in.

Rogan for his part seems to be speaking in good faith and sincerely.

On the other hand, we have Brian Stelter at CNN insulting the intelligence of both Rogan and his audience while at the same time insinuating that he and the other folks at CNN are smart, and you should listen to them because... They are smart. And let's just leave it at that. Do you really need to know anything else? If you think so, this too is another reason folks like Stelter will berate you.

Discerning Motives from Methods We find the tell on the telos as CNN sees it when listening to what Stelter and his colleagues cover and how, as well as what they don't cover and why. But perhaps most interestingly, we can see how they view their role and the role of viewers and the general public discourse in they relate to questioning and challenges from competition.

Between the two - Rogan and Stelter - we are all much better off approaching topics like race and sex and gender and sports and science, and everything else really, with the goal of wanting to know the truth so we can make better decisions individually and together. Rogan sets the better example, and serves as a better role model in this regard.

Being quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry - or stir up an audience to anger - this is what God's Word calls us to and commands of us. Between the two examples considered, Rogan does a much better job than anyone I've seen on CNN even attempt to do. In fact, I think such would be antithetical to their model and aims.

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“As I see it, only God can be all-powerful without danger, because his wisdom and justice are always equal to his power. Thus there is no authority on earth so inherently worthy of respect, or invested with a right so sacred, that I would want to let it act without oversight or rule without impediment.”

So said Alexis de Tocqueville in 'Democracy in America' (1831), a book I am now overdue in reading for the first time, and which I hope to finish up this weekend.

Now consider this statement and its sentiment from nearly two centuries ago, and imagine if in any of all possible universes you can imagine its echo from the big names in mainstream Evangelical Christianity in America listed in this excellent article by Megan Basham at The Daily Wire and its brief synopsis by Joel Abbott and Not The Bee.

In summary of the summary, the likes of Ed Stetzer, Russell Moore, Joe Carter, N.T. Wright, Tim Keller, Rick Warren, and David French conspired with former NIH director Francis Collins to lecture American Christians early on in this pandemic about the responsibility before God which good Christians had to unquestioningly obey the settled science.

We all saw the effects, yet it is stunning to see the deliberateness and coordination between Collins and Big Eva notables to marginalize, stigmatize, and rebuke under the guise of Christian humility and obedience any efforts at accountability for those wielding authority in highly questionable ways, or making claims which have since turned out to be dubious at best.

The mainstream American Evanjelly talking point has been that Romans 13 requires that Christians submit to governing authority. Yet what is not talked about in any depth is whether all persons claiming authority have sufficient lawful authority to be mandating and requiring all that they do, or whether in our system of government the checks and balances laid out in our Constitution depend on our ability and willingness as the People to be one of the layers of multi-factor authentication when it comes to the legitimacy of commands and penalties.

In short, Romans 13 tells us that governing authority ultimately comes from God and is a minister of God to reward those who do good and punish those who do evil.

Yet a shallow treatment of the passage summarizing it as nothing more than a blank check to whosoever would claim to be an authority, admitting them to our blind and placid acquiescence and obedience is actually a dereliction of duty - particularly when the real rebels are those exceeding their authority and decrying any notion of accountability through the system of checks and balances inherent to our Constitution and form of government.

Not only can Christians have a good testimony when correcting or rebuking governing authorities who reward those who do evil and punish those who do good - it is hard to imagine how American Christians in particular could have a good testimony any other way except by providing that oversight and impediment which de Tocqueville wrote so eloquently about nearly two centuries ago.

Yet just as he says in Democracy in America, “Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.”

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It's hard to believe 'The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy' was published in 1997. Yet it's equally hard to believe this way of viewing history and current events and predictions for the future is so seldom employed or adopted. Why have I not heard more about this before?

Instead of viewing history as linear - either toward inevitably greater and greater human progress or else toward devolution and destruction - Howe and Strauss tackled American history in particular as cyclical.

Like the four seasons of a year - Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter - our history looks very interesting when we see it in terms of four generation cycles of High, Awakening, Unraveling, and Crisis periods lasting about 20-years each, and general archetypes of generational personality and mode - Artist, Prophet, Nomad, and Hero.

Each generation is born in one of the four repeating periods in the cycle, coming of age and having certain general characteristics in each of the four cycles based on five stages of life - Childhood, Young Adulthood, Midlife, Elderhood, and Late Elderhood.

Like so, our history begins to look something like a sine wave.

The whole book feels like a long-form application to our nation's story of what wise King Solomon wrote in the first chapter of Ecclesiastes.

*"A generation goes, and a generation comes,

but the earth remains forever."*

And also,

*"Is there a thing of which it is said,

“See, this is new”?

It has been already

in the ages before us."*

Of course this is a lot to take in, and it bears careful examination and consideration. But I am entirely fascinated with the premise of 'The Fourth Turning,' and feel certain I will be returning to its claims and predictions for quite some time as I ponder the implications for my understanding of my grandparents, parents, self, wife, and children, as well as the times we have lived through, are living in, and may yet live to see.

Perhaps Robert Jordan was onto more than I appreciated with his epic fantasy series. The reincarnation business therein is nonsense, of course. But maybe "the wheel of time" does indeed turn something like what Jordan portrayed. And maybe human affairs and general themes repeat over and over like that in something approaching a predictable pattern.

The more I think on it, the more convinced I am that such is the case.

Indeed, as Ecclesiastes 3:1 puts it, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven."

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Have you read Spotify's Platform Rules? I thought I had, but then a new notice started appearing yesterday morning when publishing my latest episode on Anchor.fm - a Spotify property.

So I clicked there, and read through everything. And I copied and pasted the whole page into Microsoft Word so I could highlight and underline the wording of certain sections which seemed odd, or overly broad, or cryptic.

And all together, the juxtaposition of such things as barring the promotion of violent extremist organizations and their symbols with "promoting dangerous false or dangerous deceptive medical information" needed unpacking.

Given the fact that I want to talk about everything, I naturally also wanted to talk about these updated Platform Rules. Here you go, then. And let's be sure to talk about the context of The Joe Rogan Experience in the crosshairs of the corporate media and angry Leftists.

That same notice is popping up on Anchor.fm again today, and I trust it will for some time to remind content creators like myself to be tireless and diligent with our self-censorship.

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Last night, while enjoying lasagna brought to us by our dear friends Roy and Susan Garcia, Lauren and I and our eight children watched the No. 1 movie on IMDb right now, Disney's Encanto.

All but our youngest son Andrew and our eldest sons Josiah and Eli had seen the movie already. But everyone was eager to watch it for either the first or second time, and no complaints were to be heard by any at the end.

As critical as I have been of Disney animated fare in recent years, I really have no major complaints with this film, though I do have some caveats.

But on the whole, I think Encanto may just be a new favorite as it tackles some weighty issues where family dynamics are concerned while at the same time being lively, fun, colorful, and entertaining.

Those familiar with my reflections on Walt Disney animated films will know how I have often keyed in on the absence of one or both parents in so many of them. If both mother and father are in the story, they have somehow been sidelined or else serve as opposition figures who need to be proven wrong or overcome.

Just so, I like that there are fathers and husbands in Encanto's family. I like that Maribel feels like she can talk to both her mom and dad about what she's going through. And I like that they try to give her helpful advice and encouragement, even when such does not carry her the whole way as far as she needs to get.

So also, Maribel comes into conflict with her Abuela - a strong conservative Columbian grandmother who keeps a stiff upper lip and tolerates nothing which might weaken or threaten her home and family. And she argues with her sister Isabela who can do no wrong. But they talk it through and work it out. And that too is good to see.

Then we come to the figure of Bruno - Maribel's long-lost uncle who had the ability to see the future. We don't talk about Bruno. But as it turns out, when the family and townspeople can't help themselves now that Maribel has brought him up, their complaints about the mysterious figure sound rather irrational and unfair.

Everyone feels like Bruno was causing bad things to happen by virtue of predicting that they would. Of course, that's not the way such things work unless we're talking about self-fulfilling prophecies which come true in our obsessive efforts to prevent them.

And lo and behold, we do have some self-fulfilling prophecies here, but not so much where Bruno is concerned as where Abuela's tight reins on the family have even the most gifted members close to nervous breakdowns under the overwhelming pressure to be strong and perfect.

The moral of the story? We need to talk about Bruno. And family is very important. But avoiding talking about family problems doesn't mean those problems cease to exist or else work themselves out on their own when swept under the rug.

Also, if you really think about it, husbands and fathers are a crucial part of healthy families. And when absent or passive, undue burdens are put on women which they shouldn't be asked to bear.

At least that's what I took away from Encanto.

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Joe Rogan is in some hot water with the Left - ostensibly for conducting interviews with cancelled scientists, physicians, and experts whose disagreement with and criticism of the official response to COVID is being dubbed "misinformation."

Aging rockers like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell have pulled their music from Spotify to protest that music and podcasting platform not sufficiently censoring Rogan's content.

I think the corporate media meanwhile is actually up in arms because The Joe Rogan Experience is more popular than their programs.

But for his part, Rogan released a 9-minute and 43-second statement video on Instagram yesterday which as of the publication of this episode was already at nearly 7-million views. And in his response to the controversy, Rogan admits he could always do better, yet finds the furor about his interviews with COVID policy dissenters odd.

These are just conversations. Rogan just wants to get at the truth and be honest. He just wants to hear what other people think who have something to say so he can learn from them.

The episodes aren't carefully scripted - they're natural and free-flowing long-form dialog. And that's just why so many folks tune into them.

Speaking for myself personally, I believe we need to protect that and encourage more of the same, not stamp out the last vestiges of it.

But of course, the powers that be are not having it because they gave up on substantive, meaningful dialog a long time ago in favor of carefully curated soundbites and the kind of marketing tactics Edward Bernays pioneered and Machiavelli would have approved of.

All the same, the whole business has me thinking about why it is cancel culture has such a hard time with dissenting views and meaningful dialog.

I have a theory, and it has a lot to do with worsening marriage and childrearing trends in America over the past several decades.

The home really is the test-bed and laboratory for getting along with people you don't always agree with about important decisions that effect you all. And when that training ground for civil discourse has little kids growing up seeing their parents fight and separate because they didn't know how to kiss and make up and work things out, all of society spirals down with successive generations of folks who only know one outcome from conflict - separation and banishment.

And in the spirit of such realizations and theories, today and tomorrow I begin writing the first chapter of my next book - 'And This Is Why We Got Married.' So stay tuned for more on that in the weeks and months to come.

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Going into John H. Walton's 'The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate,' I knew little more about the book than what the publisher's summary on Audible told me. Recently recommended to me by someone who had not read the book either, I thought the book had been billed by Ken Ham and the Answers in Genesis crowd as a must-read.

As it turns out, Ken Ham has recommended everyone read the book, but not for the reasons I assumed on the front end. And only after some remarks by Walton raised my eyebrow did I double-check what a search of AIG's website for the author might yield.

This is a comfort to me personally, and I know now that I was paying attention rather than letting anyone do my thinking for me uncritically.

But what struck me here in 'The Lost World of Genesis One' was where Walton - professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, alma mater of luminaries like Billy Graham, Mark Noll, Jim Elliot, and Wes Craven - quipped at a certain point that he is saddened by the plight of college students who are raised on a literal interpretation of the origin story in Genesis when they start taking science classes in college.

Seeking to relieve the burden and resolve the conflict, Walton has devised a creative solution to the thorny problem of modern secular science contradicting a literal interpretation of Genesis.

No, Walton does not believe the days described in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible are anything other than literal 24-hour periods. 'Yom' means what it means.

But where the word 'created' is used, Walton disputes the conventional interpretation as having anything to do with material creation.

Let me say that again. Walton contends that what the author of Genesis originally meant by "God created" is that God gave purpose to the physical matter which may have existed for any amount of time whatsoever prior to the beginning of the Biblical narrative.

What the author of Genesis is describing is a teleological origin for everything described, not a physical origin. And just like that, we can sidestep and avoid all the now unnecessary conflict and contention.

Apparent contradiction, be gone!

Abra kadabra.

Open sesame.

Kamehameha!

Perhaps also the good professor can explain to us what the definition of the word "is" is.

Methinks that such quarrels about words do no good but only ruin the hearers. And arguing semantics aside, why would it necessarily follow that God would separate out the act of creating the physical matter of the universe and everything in it from the act of creation of the telos or purpose of the things He created?

The intuitive answer as Walton sees it seems to be that God foreknew we would have conflicts with modern secular scientists who say there is no God. And the good Lord in His infinite kindness wanted to relieve us of the embarrassment of disagreeing with said scientists. Consequently, God ordained in eternity past that all these decades and centuries and millennia of misunderstanding the face-value meaning of Genesis would be cleared up by Professor Walton with the aid of ancient mythologies outside the Bible.

What a mercy.

Either that, or else this is not a new and better understanding of the Biblical text so much as yet another fatal compromise with liberal theology. And my money is on that latter explanation.

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"Proof" is an ambivalent term according to 'McCormick on Evidence' (1954), a law school textbook I picked up on a whim a few years back from a Goodwill store someplace.

"Sometimes," McCormick writes, "when we say a thing is "proved" we mean that we are convinced by the data submitted that the alleged fact is true."

Just so, widespread fraud in the 2020 Election has been proved to my satisfaction and to my mind, though by no means proven to Democrats and establishment Republican types. Methinks they don't want it proven. But that is neither here nor there.

Good faith participants in such discussions should pick up a copy of Mollie Hemingway's 'Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections.'

Now I know what you will say. What's the point of rehashing this? What's done is done, and it's time to move on. Whatever happened happened, and whatever didn't happen matters only in the sense that we need to forget this whole messy business already and move on with life.

But Hemingway's book is a must-read for one very important reason: we are still planning on holding elections in the United States of America moving forward - this coming November, for instance.

And which laws and procedures and technologies and persons safeguard our elections and why will continue to be thorny and entirely relevant questions for so long as we continue having elections.

Here we find the history and rationale for why the safeguards were in place to begin with before they were bypassed in 2020 "due to COVID." And by looking at what happened when the safeguards were bypassed, we find renewed reason to make certain the safeties are not bypassed or circumvented again.

Whatever your political persuasion, you have a vested interest in our nation's elections being free and fair. Only legal votes should be counted, and the process for making sure no one cheats has to be clear, transparent, accountable, and verifiable.

When the safeguards are bypassed, and when threats and intimidation and misinformation are proliferated even as dissent is censored, we know the result. The middle half of the country feels disenfranchised, abused, and oppressed rather than empowered and respected.

Win, lose, or draw, making a long line of extremely questionable decisions with regards to the vote, then silencing and threatening anyone who dares ask the reasonable questions is bound to engender distrust, animosity, and resentment.

But for our part as losers, we must not give in to resentment and bitterness if we want to carry the day tomorrow. "Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry," James writes in the New Testament, "for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God."

Be calm. Be cool. And for all our sakes, be principled and resolute before God and man. Only in that way will we be able to unrig our political process and seek the welfare of this country God has placed us in and in some measure entrusted us to steward before Him.

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Author of The Jungle Books and several other works, Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was born to English parents in India during the heyday of the British Empire.

Having just this week finished The Jungle Books for the first time, I like them better than the Disney animated classic I grew up with, or that film's live-action and CGI remake from 2016.

As is usually the case, the book version is richer and more complex. And not just more complex, the book version of The Jungle Book is more complicated.

It would arguably never have been written for us to enjoy if not for the British Empire having colonized India. And that is not to say that all the noted abuses of colonialism were worth it just so you and I could read a good story - or series of stories, as it turns out. But it is to say that colonialism like good novels is more complicated than modern readers usually want to entertain.

More than spices and finished goods are traded internationally. The marketplace of ideas, history, and culture is also in play.

Kipling wrote The Jungle Books because he was born smack dab in the middle of a very diverse and rich marketplace of ideas. And I can't help wondering if Mowgli is actually the man-cub Rudyard surrounded by animals of various kinds, being perceived just another kind of animal himself even within the moniker of "man-cub."

In the jungle of India, the red flower is fire. But the red flower scaled up could just as easily be Western instruments of war like the latest firearms and gunships.

And just like Mowgli dealt with two very different cats - one Bagheera who mentored and protected him, and one Shere Khan who wanted to kill him before he could grow into full manhood - so also, one imagines British Indian children by turn instructed by wise, kind, gentle Indians and threatened by angry, territorial, bitter Indians who wanted the foreign devils to leave.

Again, life and history are like a good novel. Or a good novel is like life and history. And we are the better for embracing the complexity and richness rather than deconstructing and reducing it to overly simplistic tropes and self-serving narratives.

The British Empire wasn't all good, but it wasn't all bad either. As with all human endeavors, we are a mixed bag, and so also by extension is everything we do and touch a mixed bag.

But Kipling's The Jungle Books is a good read, and I enjoyed it thoroughly - only all the more rather than less for its richness and complexity.

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Let me start this podcast episode write-up with a correction. Evangeline Lilly actually posted about her support for the Canadian trucker convoy on her Instagram, not Twitter as I stated in the audio for this podcast. As it turns out, Ms. Lilly's Twitter account has laid dormant since the summer of 2021. So go figure.

But the big story is not a popular Hollywood actress getting on board with protests against vaccine mandates and lockdowns. Though that is welcome, the bigger story is that perhaps tens of thousands of truck drivers are already in or else on their way to Canada's capital city to shut the city down as a kind of park-in protest against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's devastation of the country and its economy in the name of fighting the spread of COVID.

As the son of a semi-retired truck driver - pun intended - I've long held that truck drivers are a sort of unsung hero class, bringing goods to market which we depend on for every day life. I wish our big rig captains of the road up north well in their effort to liberate the land of maple syrup and hockey from tyranny. Hopefully their loyalists don't come south to find refuge in the U.S.

Imagine what the domino effect might be if they succeed in pressuring Trudeau to step down. Our mainstream media in the U.S. apparently is. Otherwise, why would I be hearing they're refusing to cover this?

Meanwhile, they will cover in spades, and amplify, calls on Spotify to censor or deplatform Joe Rogan's podcast for covering, among other things, the Canadian truck driver protest. Go figure.

Perhaps we should have the audacity of hope that it's just time for the English speaking world - in Canada, the U.S., and maybe even Australia - to throw off the shackles of our globalist overlords and their petty tyranny who say like so many digital Mary Antoinette wannabes, "Let them eat VR cake" even as they collapse our economies and force our children to wear masks and endure story-time outside in the cold of winter, or throw husbands and fathers out of work if they refuse experimental COVID vaccines and an endless number of follow-up booster shots because the first one clearly didn't work.

I too wish the Canadian trucker convoy well, and hope they succeed. But even if they don't, perhaps these power-mad safety czars are cruising for a bruising, at least in America.

The announced retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer so President Biden can appoint his successor before the mid-term elections in November more than implies that Democrats expect to lose at least the United States Senate to Republicans, but perhaps the House of Representatives as well.

At last count, 42 current representatives have announced they will not seek re-election this November. And of those, 29 are Democrats and 13 are Republicans.

Though our ultimate hope as Christians is not with princes or politicians, it is still proper to hope and pray for the leadership of our country so we can live peaceful, quiet lives under authority which rewards those who do good and punishes those who do evil instead of the other way around.

In closing, give a listen to a little diddy my cousin Brent sent me recently by 'Drive-By Truckers' called 'Where the Devil Don't Stay.' And imagine with me the Democrats

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Our seventh son and eighth child was born yesterday morning, and we are all of course still resting and recovering. But the morning after our meeting Andrew Matthias Mullet face-to-face, I find Psalm 127 is on my thoughts and in my heart.

Now more than ever, I should understand our situation better in light of what God’s Word says here. So how does a father of eight children and seven sons read this passage?

Resisting Two Temptations For starters, there are at least two temptations for a father with as many children as I now have.

One is to feel angry at the scoffers who mock us for having a large family, growing still larger. At a time when most folks are having few to none, we are extreme outliers in our culture at this point in history, though I would love to see that change. But some people are rather liberal in their criticism and scorn about that fact, and it does get my goat from time to time.

But the other temptation is equally hazardous. And that is that we would allow ourselves to be put on a pedestal and become conceited as others admire us for such a big family, and so many sons.

It seems to me this morning that both temptations are checked in Psalm 127 by reminding me that God Himself builds our house and watches over our city if our hope and trust is in Him.

I do not need to be anxious or sleepless. I rather need to not be. And I can be at peace and settled when the Lord of all Creation Himself protects and provides for us.

On the other hand, by reminding me that it is God who deserves the credit, Psalm 127 keeps me from being puffed up as though I have done this thing if it is or will be successful.

Again, the Lord Himself establishes what is established according to His good pleasure and tender mercy. The only way I can boast with decency and dignity is in the Lord and His goodness and grace.

A Godly Legacy Beyond resisting temptations, I am comforted in taking the long view as I read this passage. Psalm 127 recast the children of my youth – particularly my sons – as arrows in the hand of a warrior.

This speaks to strength and the ability to deter enemies from foolhardy attacks on my household and city, but it also speaks to an ability to defend against enemies should they make an assault.

And this I think means that I can look forward to the Lord blessing my house and the city to which He has brought us in the years and decades and generations to come, even as the arrival of this newest son and child is a blessing already.

“Children are a heritage from Yahweh” means that however tired or overwhelmed we may feel in a moment as we reorganize ourselves and our dynamics, and rest from labor and delivery, we take the long view and look forward to relief and security from the hand of God Himself.

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In 'The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses' by Dan Carlin, the host of the Hardcore History podcast surveys the rise and fall of civilizations and cultures to put present-day concerns about the impending end of the world into perspective.

While I like the idea, and there are certain topics I appreciate Carlin bringing up, his positive references to Will Durant's epic series 'The Story of Civilization' are something of a tell. The same pitfalls from the Durant works I have read thus far are to be found here.

Neither the author nor the reader suffer a shortage of facts and anecdotes, but the understanding of how best to connect the dots to reach conclusions is in question due to the fundamental presuppositions never questioned, always assumed. And that is regrettable because there are plenty of dots needing connected, and it is sad to see them connected so often in a misunderstanding and misleading way.

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With Russian forces amassing on the border with Ukraine, the world watches. Threats of consequences are traded back and forth between Vladimir Putin and leadership in the UK and the US. It appears as though any day now we will see Russia attempt to take over their neighbor and install a puppet regime there.

Will America and her NATO allies do anything to stop Russia? Time will tell.

Yet Russia and China are doing precisely what adherents to the philosophy of peace through strength predicted when Afghanistan was surrendered to the Taliban last year. And I fear we are going to see a repeat of that debacle as I read reports this morning that the U.S. State Department is signaling its inability to evacuate American citizens from Ukraine, encouraging them to secure their own transportation out.

Compare and contrast Russia laying claim to Ukrainian territory on the grounds that Russian-speaking persons live there with actual American citizens - men, women, and children - being told for the world to hear that their own government cannot get them home once again.

Just when we should be projecting strength we are projecting weakness. And this again is a symptom of the judgment our country has brought on itself. In thinking ourselves so wise, we have become fools. Our foolish hearts are darkened.

And if you thought America was bad, just wait until you see the alternative.

Yet the silver lining is there if we are not stubbornly insistent on being fatalistically passive. And while it may not seem like much, the coming vacuum of leadership which our present failed leadership portends means Americans with courage, sense, and good judgment need to be preparing themselves to step up to the plate soon.

If those countrymen do not so prepare themselves, only then are we sunk. And in the meantime, we should view the current happenings with a view to learning all the lessons that can be gleaned from them so as to not repeat the mistakes unfolding in real time before our eyes.

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Solomon Emmanuel Mullet joins me in this episode to talk about art, tips for how to improve your drawing, how he approaches sketching, and whether he is going to grow his hair into an afro and become the YouTube Bob Ross of his generation.

"We don't make mistakes," as the televised painter was famously fond of say, "just happy little accidents."

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It may seem strange to hear, and I feel strange for saying it, but Rod Dreher's 'Live Not By Lies: A Manual For Christian Dissidents' was a breath of fresh air to me.

Perhaps all the glazed looks I have gotten over the years when talking about creeping totalitarianism and the rise of communist sentiment in America have something to do with it.

But Rod Dreher does not do the all-too-typical contemporary American Christian thing in sweeping away very realistic concerns about our Leftists here with superficial platitudes to not be anxious for anything, or remembering that our citizenship is in Heaven and this Earth is not our home.

While true, those reminders are only really helpful when they are taken with the whole counsel of God to temper the wise caution which we do well to issue and heed. Otherwise they strike the therapeutic and ignorant keys on the pianos in our souls, and leave us flat-footed for the troubles coming.

And what did our Lord say? He said that the wise man was the one who heard his words and lived by them. Like a man who builds his house on the rock before storms come with hard rain and blowing winds that would knock down homes built on sand.

The Lord then promised storms in life. And in our day, the storm is the torrential onslaught of Leftist tyranny. Embrace the doublespeak and doublethink that writes headlines about not all women having the attendant physical characteristics of women - or else.

But Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said "Live not by lies." And that was what got him and other Christians who lived under communist rule through to the other side with their souls intact. And Dreher does us a great kindness in telling the stories of those saints. Here in this book he teaches us their lessons and passes along their words of warning.

Only the fool sees this trouble coming and goes on without a thought or care, shushing the advice of those who have gone before.

But if we are prudent, and if we love God and our neighbor, we will refuse the false choice of either being anxious for nothing or else taking the danger we are in seriously. If we are wise, we will batten down the hatches and board up the doors and windows of our hearts. And if we are smart we will gird up our loins and prepare for spiritual battle because the battle is already joined, whether we knew it or not.

Our families need to be discipled. Our wives need loved and protected. These children God has blessed us with need an education in morals and the truth of God's Word first and foremost, and they need us to set the example of courage and faith.

We need to strengthen our churches to faithfully hold to the gospel which was delivered once for all for the salvation of our souls. And if we persevere under trial, we will obtain the crown of life prepared for those whose names are written in the Book of Life.

God gave us a spirit of boldness and a sound mind rather than timidity, the Scriptures tell us. And only by leaning into that can we withstand what is coming, and what is already here.

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Shoshana Zuboff's 2019 book 'The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power' is a long, hard read. But it reminds me of Proverbs 1:17.

*"For in vain is a net spread

in the sight of any bird..."*

While the facts and quotes and studies and history presented here are unpleasant to look at and realize, still more unpleasant to imagine is the prospect that all these things would be true and us not know anything about them.

For us to not know anything of them and yet uncritically participate in the grand social engineering experiment would be a disaster. Yet knowing what is being done to all of us, and what has been done, is halfway to undoing it and breaking the spell. And we must by God's grace break it.

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Conservative commentator and children's book author Matt Walsh was recently invited to appear on Dr. Phil's show to discuss transgenderism, and the results were pretty fantastic.

Walsh points out, for instance, that we're not entitled to our own preferred pronouns anymore than we're entitled to our own adjectives. And insisting that everyone else refer to us in precisely the way we want them to or else be discarded as a hateful bigot is just plain silly and deluded.

But consider with me if you will the implications of our ongoing divorce from reality and what it means as Russian forces sit poised on the border with Ukraine, or China threatens any day to invade Taiwan and crush whatsoever country tries to stop it.

It is a sign of our cultural decadence and decay that so many of us are more afraid of drag queens destroying our careers and social lives than we are of World War III.

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The preoccupation in our day with inequality - of wealth, power, influence, and ability - could benefit greatly from a careful reading of what Christ says the kingdom of heaven will be like in Matthew 25:14-30.

'The Parable of the Talents' is the story of a master who gave different amounts of money to his three servants before going away for a while. To one he gave five talents, to another two, and to the third he gave just one.

But when the master returned, two servants had doubled his money, and the third had lazily buried it in a field. And what was the master's response?

Did he take the talents from the two servants who had wisely invested to give more to the servant who hadn't? Of course not.

One might say then that the kingdom of heaven will be like free market capitalism. To those who have been faithful with a little, more will be given. And those who have squandered rather than stewarded what the Lord gave them, even what little they have will be taken away and given to those who were faithful.

So much for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity. And so much for Socialism.

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Young Earth Creationism is the view that God created everything that exists – including the earth – in six literal consecutive days and rested on a literal seventh consecutive day according to a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis in the Old Testament, specifically the first eleven chapters.

Central to the argument by Young Earth Creationists is the fact that the Hebrew word ‘Yom’ translated into English as “day” in the Genesis account of Creation is used throughout the Old Testament. And every other time that word ‘Yom’ is used throughout the Hebrew Old Testament it is understood most directly to mean a literal 24-hour period of time.

Another core argument Young Earth Creationists use is the explicit nature of the phrase “and there was morning and evening on the [such and such] day” used with each successive day of Creation described in Genesis.

Proponents of an Old Earth, poetic, symbolic, or figurative reading of Genesis are fond of pointing to where in the Scriptures the prophet tells us that “a day is as a thousand years" and "a thousand years is as a day” to the Lord. And by connecting that passage to a figurative interpretation of Genesis, they assert that the days being described in Genesis could be any other length of time whatsoever – even millions or billions of years. And thus they excuse themselves for accommodating modern, secular science in its claims that the universe and the earth are millions and billions of years old, and that all life on earth arose by random, unguided, evolutionary processes which God could have initiated.

Young Earth Creationists meanwhile typically oppose this accommodation on the grounds that there is no need for it. There is no need to compromise with the mainstream of modern science and its secular humanism. But there is a great deal of need to not compromise with it.

Modern science, after all, rejects as a rule all references to divine revelation like the Bible, and similarly rejects all supernatural explanations that would amount to giving God credit for Creation.

Accommodating modern secular science in its purely naturalistic insistences about our origins, or the origins and age of the Earth, opens the door to compromising on everything else God’s Word tells us God ever did to intervene or reveal Himself throughout history. And that includes but is not limited to the incarnation, the virgin birth, and the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

As should be obvious, if we throw out the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ then we have nothing left of Christianity. Our entire faith is based on the claim that Jesus was raised from the dead after living a sinless life and atoning for our sins through his literal death on the cross. And if we don’t believe that, we’re not Christians. It's as simple as that.

So how far do we compromise with modern science when the claims of modern science contradict what the Bible teaches? That’s really the central question, and Young Earth Creationists like myself have a simple answer. 'Not at all.'

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Our family Christmas gift last year was an Oculus Quest 2, and I must say that for all my concerns about the so-called Metaverse we have had a great deal of fun with our first foray into VR.

Walkabout Mini Golf is delightful. Eleven Table Tennis and Thrill of the Fight provide surprisingly intense workouts.

We've spent some time on the International Space Station and swimming with Great White sharks off the coast of South Africa.

At some point we hope to visit some world-class museums we wouldn't otherwise be able to physically travel to. And soon we'll tour the Anne Frank House VR I downloaded when we first set this thing up.

For myself personally, I plan to reduce my fear of heights by exposure therapy in The Climb 2 - once I muster up the courage and manage to break away from ping-pong, that is.

When the gun stock arrives in a couple of weeks, I'll hit up Gun Club VR to get in some shooting practice.

With four older boys aged 10-14 - especially keen on playing every chance they get - we instituted turn timers so they don't overdo it. And of course their chores and schoolwork have to be done before they can play. And I keep the headset charging at my desk to manage who gets turns and when.

Besides that, our biggest concerns have been the course language of some players in the more popular multiplayer games. But even on that point, there are easy mitigations - muting individual offenders, for instance, or else playing single-player games.

In sum for now, then, it's still too early to say what the final result will be for both good and ill with our family's venture into Virtual Reality. All the same, our experience has been positive and the potential is definitely here to get in better physical shape and expose ourselves to some very creative, educational, and enriching experiences with this new technology.

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Two weeks into this new year, and now on days off from my new job which promises two weeks off a month, and half the weeks of the year free to myself and my family, my attention now turns once again to plans which were shelved for a span of time while more pressing and immediate concerns were settled.

It is time to write the next book. But the follow-up to 'And This Is Why We Homeschool' goes back to an earlier precondition for educating our children at home: a healthy view of marriage.

Work begins straight away on outlining 'And This Is Why We Got Married.' And stay tuned for more on that as I flesh out the substance of each section and chapter.

Lord willing, that book will be finished this year, and you will hear all about it. But before I begin that, I start with the why of writing this book, the last, and the series I have in mind. The purpose is closely related to where we are at as a society and culture right now, and where my children are at in terms of maturation and development.

I wish someone would have given me the books when I was a teenager which I am now writing. And realizing that I wish as much, there is no reason for me to not write such books so they can be given to my own sons - to instruct, encourage, and equip them for the years and decades ahead, so their lives can be as full and rich and fruitful as possible.

Being fully persuaded that it is right for me to feel this way, and to act accordingly, I go forward boldly and enthusiastically, trusting that I love God and my family and my neighbor better as a result.

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And This Is Why We Homeschool

The first book I've finished this year is a game-changer. Mary Eberstadt's exploration of crucial questions in 'How the West Really Lost God: A New Theory of Secularization' takes all the dots we've been connecting together for years and connects them in somewhat the opposite way I had assumed.

We all know, for instance, that America is decreasingly religious and increasingly secular and godless. Similarly, we all know that both the marriage and birthrate in this country is much lower than it ever has been before. And knowing these things together at the same time, the popular theory is that fewer of us are getting married and having children because fewer of us believe in God in any serious way.

But what if the relationship between these trends works in the opposite direction?

Perhaps the reason we believe in God less is related to the fact that fewer of us are getting married and having children. Even just to posit that possibility opens up fresh lines of inquiry we would all benefit from exploring with Eberstadt's help.

As with most chicken and egg dilemmas, the ultimate explanation is probably comprised of more both/and than either/or. All the same, all of the attention elsewhere has been invested in the other direction, and I am grateful to this book for having gone a long way to balancing the discussion.

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Yesterday brought both good news and bad news from the Supreme Court of the United States.

On the one hand, relief pours over millions of Americans who were concerned about President Biden's vaccine mandate for the general workforce through OSHA.

Dubbed a "workaround," Justices asked this administration's legal counsel why they needed a workaround. The answer from Biden's lawyers was uninspired, and a 6-3 majority struck down the overreach of the executive branch of our federal government which had stated all companies employing more than 100 persons would have to require either COVID vaccination or testing twice a week, or else pay $14,000 per violation for non-compliance.

Make no mistake, it is a very good thing that this portion was struck down and called what it is - a dangerous power grab.

On the other hand, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh double-mindedly sided with the Progressives to allow the mandate for healthcare workers to proceed undeterred.

Consider me confused. From my vantage point, the pandemic must not be so severe anymore if we do not need all these healthcare workers who have as-yet declined vaccination. But if the pandemic is not so severe anymore, why is there such urgency to either vaccinate or terminate these healthcare workers? Which is it?

Never mind that the European Union this week announced that persons who have received multiple boosters for the COVID vaccine may actually be immunocompromised and therefore more susceptible to COVID.

And never mind that health care workers would presumably be the best informed decisionmakers for whether they themselves should receive this experimental gene therapy.

Thanks to Roberts and Kavanaugh, the government has elected to stow the consciences and independent judgment of individual doctors and nurses or else terminate their employment.

While we may rightly celebrate the OSHA ruling having been struck down - and I do - and be glad that the power to force vaccination on the general public has been stripped from the executive branch who never should have presumed it had that authority to begin with, it is nevertheless deeply concerning that SCOTUS abandoned healthcare workers to the mercy of Biden and his bureaucratic tyranny.

Speaking for myself, I should rather not go to doctors and nurses who care more about money than their conscience and better judgment where their own individual health is concerned. Yet with this decision from the highest court in the land, it would seem we will only have that kind. Only healthcare workers who are willing to shelve their religious objections, or practical and personal medical judgment, will be allowed to keep their jobs.

Yet it is not the healthcare workers who have held out thus far I am disappointed in or resentful toward. It is our elected leaders who presume that the really important decisions are best made centrally and at the top. This should not stand, and I hope and pray it does not for all our sakes.

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As I have with the 100th and 200th episode, so also now with the 300th - let's recap the most popular content covered and explore what resonates. Some highlights as far as number of listens goes include the following.

210 - Omnipotent Moral Busybody Announces Vaccine Mandate Plan - 09/09/21
213 - How To Disagree Agreeably - 09/12/21
223 - Where Rights and Responsibilities Intersect - 10/6/21
227 - Preparing Our Children to Defend Against Atheism - 10/10/21
233 - Nearly A Decade Working in the Oil and Gas Industry - 10/20/21
236 - Joe Biden, John Piper, COVID Vaccines, and Freedom - 10/24/21
238 - Show No Partiality As You Hold the Faith - 10/26/21
244 - Romans 9-11, Age of Empires IV, and Job Hopping - 11/2/21
250 - We Should Thank Kyle Rittenhouse, Not Charge Him - 11/11/21
259 - Christina Wyman, CRT, and the Waukesha Christmas Parade Attack - 11/22/21

Feel free to go back and listen to those episodes if you haven't yet. But it seems to me as though a certain theme stands out in this batch. Work, freedom, disagreement, belief, wealth, self-defense, and domestic terrorism are especially on our minds these days.

That's not terribly surprising, but it is interesting to see on my end and with regards to this audience in particular something of particularly how much relative other things these topics are on our minds.

Generally speaking I see the audience for this podcast growing steadily month over month, season over season. The floor for how many listens each episode typically gets rises as we go on. And I celebrate that.

All the same, the goal is to produce high quality content first and let the growth of this audience by numbers attend to itself. I should rather it be said that the audience is growing on an individual basis - wiser, more intentional, godlier, bolder, and more thoughtful and loving and gracious - than to merely entertain a lot of folks but give you nothing or near enough to nothing of substance.

And of course, if it is possible to help you grow individually and also grow the number of the audience who is growing in heart, mind, body, and spirit, that is ideal.

In any event, thank you for being a listener. Your encouragement and attention are much appreciated. As always, thank you for listening. Until next time, God bless.

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Two exchanges yesterday between United States Senators and representatives from powerful federal agencies highlight succinctly the distrust many Americans feel toward their government, especially over the past two years.

First, Senator Ted Cruz from Texas questioned Jill Sanborn, Executive Assistant Director for the National Security Branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Asked repeatedly whether plainclothes FBI agents in any way participated in instigating what happened at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021. And just as repeatedly, the FBI declined to answer whether in the negative or the affirmative.

Second, Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky grilled Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases on leaked emails exposing collusion on his part with efforts to discredit epidemiologists at Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford who had questioned or contradicted the official narrative regarding the government's characterization of and response to COVID. And just as adamantly, Dr. Fauci tried to flip the script on Rand Paul by making the whole business into a kind of dueling argumentum ad hominem game.

"I know you are but what am I" hardly inspires confidence in 'The Science.'

So also, "I can't answer that question" repeatedly from the pre-eminent national law enforcement agency with regards to the active role that agency may have played in an alleged instance of domestic terrorism for partisan political purposes cannot engender anything other than fear and distrust in the Department of Justice.

But both of these exchanges really get to the crux of the problem with our government. When direct, specific, substantive, important, and relevant questions are asked by Senate committee members tasked with providing oversight of unelected government officials and their respective bureaucracies, the public and our elected representatives have a right to clear-cut answers which are simple, concise, and sensible. Script-flipping and unresponsiveness will not do.

The "conspiracy theorists" can be forgiven then for having said for some time that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. And this really does get to the problem with supposing that anyone but God is basically good.

If people were inherently good and could be relied upon to act in accordance with justice and science, what need would we have for these agencies in the first place?

The darker and more unsettling answer is the one which those who are quick to dismiss all uncomfortable questions have chiefly in mind when they wave off attempts at connecting dots and calling spades by their names. Sometimes the greatest threat to justice and good science comes from those who are chiefly tasked with guaranteeing those things. Sometimes indeed the fox is assigned guard duty at the hen house.

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The appointment with the midwife yesterday confirmed our suspicions that Lauren is in early labor. She is of course uncomfortable and exceedingly ready to conclude this pregnancy and meet our son Andrew face to face. And holding him in her arms, she will be able to rest in a way she has been unable to for weeks and months now.

That all sounds very good to me also. I too will rest easier once Andrew has been born and both he and Lauren are safely and soundly on the other side of this birth and recovering from it all.

For all the labor and delivery not only my wife has been through, one might imagine it's old hat by now. But it's always exhausting. It's always uncomfortable. And it's always a difficult thing in its own way, even for fathers.

And as much press as the woman's experience gets - and rightly so, don't misunderstand me - this episode is for the husbands and fathers out there. You too have a struggle. So I will share my experience, and hopefully that sharing will help you to be as calm and helpful to your wife and child as you can be in these times.

First of all, you have to remain calm. And you have to pay attention, but not in a frantic or spastic way. Your job is to provide for and protect your wife and child. But sometimes the counterintuitive thing is that - in these times more than most others - you can help your wife and child most by knowing when to be patient and watch and wait as the process proceeds apace.

Your wife will have an easier time with labor and delivery if she can be as calm and comfortable as possible. And she will have an easier time being calm and comfortable if you remain calm.

Also, on that note, sometimes you will find that by asking her too often if you can do or get anything for her you will make yourself into a perfect nuisance. So know when to ask her for her benefit, and when you are only asking to make yourself feel like you are doing something. And if you find yourself pestering your wife just to feel like you are doing something, stop that. Don't be self-indulgent, particularly right now.

Sometimes what you can do for your wife in labor is to give her some space, or just be with her patiently and calmly. Still other times, she clearly does need something and she does need you to ask if you can get her something because she won't think to. Just make sure you're serving her for her sake rather than to feel good about yourself.

Other than all that, it can't hurt to deliver a well-timed and tasteful joke now and again if it'll make her smile and lighten her mood. And tell her she can do this, and that she's doing well, and that you're proud of her, and that you love her.

You might not believe how much help little encouragements like that can be.

But now too is as good a time as any to come to terms with the fact that you yourself, oh man, are a limited and finite creature. And you cannot provide for and protect against everything the way God can. So own that. Your wife being in labor and delivery is a perfect opportunity to go to the Lord in prayer for wisdom, endurance, strength, patience, and grace - not only for your wife, but for you too.

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Four out of five Americans recently reported in a poll conducted by the Trafalgar Group and Convention of States Action that they believe the U.S. is in "a state of decay," Not the Bee reports.

And check out this viral song by Canadian Christian artist Matt Brevner titled 'More of Us' released the day before Ontario went back into lockdown.

Next, consider this segment from Kim Iversen at The Hill laying out a theory called 'Mass Formation Psychosis' to explain the widespread acquiescence to mask and vaccine mandates and other draconian measures which have been imposed on us across the country and the world.

Lastly, give a listen to J.R.R. Tolkien reading the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, also known as the Ride of the Rohirrim from the Lord of the Rings and imagine with me if you can that sort of heroism and leadership in our context.

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Laying down some basic, formative truths to serve as the foundation for sound thinking, we need to come to terms with where we come from, who we are, and where we are going.

First comes the premise that there is a God, and we are not Him. Genesis tells us He is the Creator who made the heavens and the earth and everything in them in six days and rested on the seventh.

Then there is the fact that God created man in His image - male and female - to reflect the character and goodness and purpose of God in Creation informs the dignity, respect, and love we ascribe to ourselves and one another.

Third we must consider the most basic of human relationships - the two who become one flesh as man and wife. Marriage is the basis of family, and children come as a consequence in most cases.

Next, God tells us His purpose for marriage is to produce godly offspring. Children then are supposed to be trained up by their father and mother in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

Fifth, man is not basically good. He is not inherently good, nor is he fundamentally good. Rather, as inheritor of a sinful nature as descendants of our first forefather Adam, we are broken, and so is the Creation. This is what is commonly known as 'Original Sin.'

The Good News is that God purposed to resolve this thorny problem of our sinful nature by sending His Son to live a sinless life, suffer and die in our stead, and be raised from the dead after three days as a foretaste of the restored Creation God has promised.

In these truths we have cause for both confidence and humility. On that psychological tandem and God's favor do human flourishing depend.

Therefore, any conservative resurgence which might succeed, in this country or any other, must first work at a restoration of these convictions. All other ground is sinking sand.

So also, we predicate love for God and one another on the informed sensibilities in this framework. Only from that fertile ground of these truths do we have some hope of bearing the fruit of loving restoration - for ourselves, our families, and our communities - to a place of peace and prosperity.

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January 6, 2021 - a day that will live in infamy. Yet it was not a terrorist attack, Senator Cruz. And claiming that it was even briefly represented a lapse of good judgment on your part.

Whether we describe the disruption of Congress with the entry of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. as a mostly peaceful protest, a riot, or a terrorist attack makes a great deal of difference.

During a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Senator Ted Cruz decried all violence against police officers in the strongest possible terms, and that is proper. We must all agree that law enforcement is to be respected, honored, and protected as its members strive mightily in our neighborhoods, cities, states, and nation to serve faithfully.

Yet even there it is worth pointing out that the vast majority of concerned Americans who went to the capital city of these United States of America a year ago to march and make their voices heard were similarly motivated to the brave officers who patrol our streets upholding the laws of this land.

Democrats have made much political hay out of trying to flip the narrative. As they see it, they are the law, and their will and whim reigns forevermore. Complaints from flyover country therefore represent a coup against the established order and the right side of history.

Yet a much stronger and more durable argument can be made that law-abiding, God-fearing citizens who objected to the certification of the 2020 Election better represented the rule of law, and that Democrat operatives carried out the real coup - with some success, I might add.

Peacefully assembling and petitioning our government for a redress of grievances is a sacred right protected by our Constitution. Above that, however, the Constitution is not the source of this right, but rather an acknowledgement of the God-given right which exists transcendental. Human governments are always made of fallible men, and sometimes those men err. And when they err, they should be respectfully invited to correct themselves before God.

Similarly, with the utmost respect for the senator from Texas, it is a poor use of language and tact to describe January 6, 2021 as a terrorist attack. And it is good to hear Ted Cruz admit as much the day after.

All the same, we do well to consider why Senator Cruz made this blunder, whether intentionally or not.

Yet more crucially, we need to resist the temptation to adopt a kind of conservative cancel culture even as we strive to be wise as serpents. The harmless as doves piece may mean we need better representation than Senator Cruz. I hope not, but it may.

Even so, let us take care that we remain gracious rather than embittered and vengeful. Our enemies do enough of that, and if we become like that I dare say we have given up on conserving truth, beauty, and goodness in this country.

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For my son Solomon's 12th birthday, he asked to see the newest Spider-man movie in theaters. So on December 30th, my four older boys and I went to see it, and we need to talk about that.

Spoiler alert: I will be exploring some major plot components from the beginning of the film to the end. Go out and watch this movie before listening to me talk about it.

That said, if you don't plan to watch the movie, or if you don't mind finding out ahead of time what is going to happen, carry on. Just remember you were warned.

Suffice to say for the purposes of the write-up, this film got me right in the feels. I laughed and I cried. It moved me, Bob.

But magic is dangerous. Higher education is highly overrated. And cancel culture is a super-villain.

Of course there needs to be another installment in which the annihilation of Peter Parker is rectified.

Also, to the folks who think these comic book superhero films are shallow, repetitive, and predictable, I say you are really missing out. A deep-dive into the nature of purpose and belonging and what it means to be human is here in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, particularly in its latest entry.

If you ask me, Spider-man needs to settle down with MJ and raise a family. The critics and detractors be damned.

And so what if MIT won't let you in? You're Spider-man! You're amazing! You don't need to have your value and worth validated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. If anything, it's the other way around and they could benefit from being validated by you.

Work and study hard. Do the right thing. Marry the girl. Raise a family. If the wider world doesn't understand or like you for it, that's no reason to give the world a hocus-pocus lobotomy and destroy yourself. Just make a mental note, accept it, and move on.

There's a lot more to life than being liked and understood by everyone. And thank God for that.

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Today's homework - check out this refreshing commentary from Elon Musk on the declining birthrate and what the science tells us about what to expect in the coming years and decades.

The short version is that overpopulation is not the thing we should be most concerned about. If anything, demographic implosion is the real danger. People are just not having enough children.

By the way, for all those who think my wife and I crazy for expecting our eighth any day now, Elon Musk is father to seven.

But on this whole business, as with every other sphere, our worldview goes a long way to molding and shaping the sorts of decisions and value judgments we make. Whether we think of children as a blessing or burden is downstream what we believe about who we are, where we come from, and why we are here.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And to that end, we embrace the Dominion Mandate to "be fruitful and multiply, fill the Earth and subdue it."

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As famed science fiction author Frank Herbert wrote in his epic series 'Dune,' "fear is the mind-killer." In other words, fear makes you stupid.

COVID panic has for two years made a great many of us very stupid. And a select few among us have found our niche in playing off the fear of the rest. But it is well past time to say enough, and reclaim our wits.

Being overweight greatly increases your risk of serious illness or even death due to COVID. So does stressing out about whether COVID or our fear of man issues are more dangerous.

We should not be controlled by fear of would-be tyrants any more than we should allow ourselves to be controlled by fear of a virus, however deadly and dangerous it is or is not.

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On the first day of the New Year, I finished copying notes from 2021 from Lauren's and my Ink+Volt personal organizers into a Word document on my computer. The finished document contains 11,008-words and is 29-pages long. Gleaning the big takeaways may yet take a few more days at least, but for now I am trying to break everything into major categories.

Family, church, work, friendships, podcasting, book-reading, trips taken, current events - all of them affected and were affected by our choices and attitude. It stands to reason then that goals set for the new year should be informed by a strong commitment to personal growth and maturity through the good, the bad, and the ugly.

At the end of the day, week, month, and year, we want to make better decisions. And avoiding tired platitudes or truisms which may fail to engage our hearts and minds fully, we have to be honest about where we have been, what we have done, and who we are. Only through that honesty can we humbly move forward in strength and confidence.

Yet again - and I cannot stress this enough - our ability or inability to execute perfectly is not the point. And in point-of-fact, meditating on God's grace in Christ can set us free to learn the lessons we need to in order to achieve more faithful stewardship of what the Lord has entrusted to us.

Now I begin to do both things at the same time, since we are in January already. Analyzing last year systematically while at the same time beginning to put down intentional goals and expectations for myself, my family, and my engagement in every other sphere, all parties concerned will be better served in the coming months.

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Picking up where we left off in our last episode, the remaining 30 titles I finished in 2021 were as follows:

Our Oriental Heritage by Will Durant
That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis
The Revolt of the Elites and The Betrayal of Democracy by Christopher Lasch
Lead by Paul David Tripp
The Civil War as a Theological Crisis by Mark A. Noll
Constantine the Emperor by David Potter
The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto
Amsterdam by Russell Shorto
The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. by Grant Ulysses S. Grant
The Democratization of American Christianity by Nathan O. Hatch
The Ancient Celts by Barry Cunliffe
The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard
1491 by Charles C. Mann
Leadership Strategy and Tactics by Jocko Willink
Beyond Order by Jordan B. Peterson
The Supremacy of God in Preaching by John Piper
Coolidge by Amity Shlaes
What Is Marriage? by Sherif Girgis and Company
A Holy Baptism of Fire and Blood by James P. Byrd
Black & Tan by Douglas Wilson
Lincoln's Last Trial by Dan Abrams
Heirs of the Founders by H.W. Brands
The Life of Greece by Will Durant
Charlemagne by Johannes Fried
The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther
Whirlwind by James Clavell
The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs
Of Temptation by John Owens
The First Wave by Alex Kershaw
The Templars by Dan Jones

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This year, I set my Goodreads 2021 Reading Challenge to 55 books. With just two days left to the year, I am three titles short and do not think I will have the bandwidth to meet my goal. Yet for all that, I got closer to my goal than I perhaps would have without setting the goal.

For that matter, 95% is still an A in most grade scales. So an A for effort will have to suffice, and 52 titles seems like quite enough given the circumstances.

But as the year draws to a close, let me share with you what I read and a brief takeaway for each title. Perhaps in the course of this rundown you will get some inspiration to join me on Goodreads and set a reading goal for 2022. Or perhaps you will just get some good ideas for titles you might be interested in reading, or not reading, in the year ahead.

Without further adieu, here in the first part I will talk about the first twenty-two books in the sequence they were finished.

Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell
After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre
The River of Doubt by Candice Millard
The Upside of Stress by Kelly McGonigal
Perelandria by C.S. Lewis
The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine
Last Stands by Michael Walsh
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl R. Trueman
Hero of the Empire by Candice Millard
Return of the Strong Gods by R.R. Reno
Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton
The City of God by Augustine of Hippo
The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle
How to Be a Conservative by Roger Scruton
The French Revolution by Ian Davidson
The Twilight of the American Enlightenment by George M. Marsden
Grant by Ron Chernow
Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen
Fault Lines by Voddie Baucham
The Children of Ash and Elm by Neil Price
Fools, Frauds, and Firebrands by Roger Scruton
The Church History by Eusebius

Stay tuned for a treatment of the remaining thirty works.

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As 2021 draws to a close, my wife and I continue our annual tradition. Listing the major events of the past year, we strive to understand our lives better so as to be more intentional in the coming year.

Another pregnancy, all our children growing older, homeschooling, striving to achieve and maintain the right work-life balance; going places, cultivating relationships, and investing ourselves; building a godly legacy, trying to influence those around us toward a fuller love for God and toward deeper faith in His unchangeable character of purpose - all of this and more goes into the mix.

Making sense of it all can feel a bit like searching for needles in haystacks.

The whole year is made up of four quarters. Each quarter is made up of three months. Each month is broken down into days on which major events happened in our family life.

Compiled from the record-keeping we have done together a week at a time throughout, it all goes together into a timeline. And from this timeline, we are able to study certain trends.

Sometimes those trends are happy to reflect on. Other times, we wince with pain and regret about situations we wish we had handled differently.

All together, the whole process is predicated on one simple truth. Life is a gift from God, and we are stewards entrusted with that gift by a Master who calls us to invest ourselves in loving Him and one another truly and comprehensively.

Thankfully, the expedition does not succeed or fail on our ability to execute perfectly. Instead, by God's grace we overcome all manner of trials and temptations and the testing of our faith which develops perseverance. At the end of it all, our hope is receiving the crown of life which God has in store for us in Christ.

In the meantime Lauren and I will be busy from now until the official close of 2021 striving to catalog and assess our recent investments and their returns. How did we spend our time, attention, and money? And what was the result? The answer to these questions sets the stage, we hope, for yet wiser investment of our talents in the years ahead.

"God willing, we will live and do this or that."

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Frustrated with censorship, I deleted my Facebook account November 25, 2020. Yesterday, I returned.

The whole business bothers me. In an effort to sort through why, this episode is dedicated to unpacking the whole messy situation.

Facebook is so Meta now. And where the Metaverse is concerned, we need informed opinions rather than emotional outbursts and tired platitudes. The practical reality for the foreseeable is that Big Tech owns the lion's share of the internet. There is no living in the modern world without maintaining some kind of presence in this space.

But I want to do more than rail against infringements on free speech. No one will be charmed or won over by begrudging and bitter engagement on this subject, and that includes me.

The simple fact when it all boils down is that my reasons for both leaving and returning to Facebook are the same. Our first responsibility is to love the Lord our God with all our being, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

When I left, my hope was to do both better by leaving than I could by staying. So also, my return is predicated on the belief that to continue on being a conscientious objector and abstainer under the circumstances would be less than the best I can offer, and that I can love God and my neighbor better if I rejoin.

The trouble with boycotts is as it always has been. Where do we draw the line, and how far are we willing to go in forsaking all interaction with an organization based on their objectionable practices? And what if all the alternatives, or near enough, become similarly objectionable?

Whatever valid objections a person might have to the corporate policies and practices of Walmart or Amazon, it is very hard to buy groceries or nearly anything at a reasonable price apart from them right now. And starving, though an option, is also objectionable.

So also with the technology by which we stay in touch and communicate with one another. Will I forgo a cell phone and internet if all the available service providers have dirty hands and hearts? And what if the power and water companies go woke?

At a more basic level where the Christian conscience is concerned, I don't believe we are commanded to by God. If anything, the requirement that a man provide for the needs of his household may require that we have to buy our necessities from people we profoundly disagree with, and who even loathe and resent our believing as we do.

Just as I readily refuse to become enslaved by newfangled social media technologies, neither can I afford to become a slave to protesting them. And this holds true particularly if engagement with them is a precondition for reforming society and seeking the welfare of the city, which seems to be the case.

Often over the past year and a month of being off Facebook I have meditated on why God would tell exiled Jews in Babylon through the prophet Jeremiah to "seek the welfare of the city" to which they had been brought. And what I conclude is that however pagan Babylon truly was, it pleased God to be represented in those circumstances by His people continuing to live in a way that brought glory to Him. In other words, God commanded His people to continue loving Him and their neighbors - and even their enemies - despite the idolatry and wickedness of Babylon.

So I hope I am not a dog returning to my vomit, and a fool returning to his folly. Yet even more hopefully I am not wise in my own eyes, nor self-righteous, nor tired and embittered.

As James tells us to have the proper attitude where plans are concerned, we do well to remember the principle in this context. "God willing, we will live and do this or that."

Therefore, when God leads us underground, we go underground. And when he leads us back into the open, we follow Him there also.

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Lauren now "great with child," as they say, Christmas feels a bit different in our household this year.

Few of our countrymen are having children these days. And very few indeed are having more than two if they can help it. My wife and I thereby find ourselves receiving the gift of commentary from time to time. Much of the feedback from broader society is congratulatory, albeit puzzled and bewildered.

But population growth in America last year was the lowest it's ever been in this country's history - a mere 0.1% due in part to a perfect storm of conditions and attitudes which have persuaded most people that now is not a good time to increase their family size.

Psalm 127 rings in our ears all the same.

"Behold, children are a heritage from Yahweh,the fruit of the womb a reward."

All the while, it would seem the mainstream folks are more in the mindset described in Isaiah 3.

"My people—infants are their oppressors..."

All the more, Christmas is wonderful for the fact that the fulfillment of the promise of God to redeem His people was the birth of the Messiah to the virgin Mary. This innocent babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and laid in a manger would save his people, lifting the curse of sin and death.

King Herod saw the child as a threat, sending soldiers to Bethlehem to find and kill him. But not taking any chances, Herod ordered his lackeys to murder every baby boy under the age of two.

Tragically, far too many Americans have more the mindset of Herod than of Joseph in this regard.

Yet we should admire Joseph and Mary all the more. Rather than bemoaning that this was hardly the best time, or that they weren't in the best position to have and raise a child right now, Joseph and Mary saw the greatest fulfillment of their God-given potential as humble obedience to the perfect and holy will of the Most High.

Though their country was under foreign occupation, the wicked king of Judea would hunt them, and people might talk, they would diligently care for this baby boy entrusted to them, even though it meant fleeing to Egypt until the threat had passed.

All the more we should see in God warning Joseph in a dream a comforting truth about the Lord that the unchangeable character of his purpose will not be thwarted, whatever cruelty and malice would try against those who belong to God.

We are in the position of the shepherds here, to whom the angel appeared as they were keeping watch over their flock by night. As Luke 2:10-14 records,

"...The angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”"

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December 18, 1997 an episode of Seinfeld aired titled "The Strike" in which George Costanza's father Frank celebrates a made-up holiday called Festivus to protest Christmas and all its attendant pressures and consumerism.

Fast forward 24-years, and I find myself encountering people at work hedging their bets when varying their holiday greetings and well-wishing. "Merry Christmas" no longer suffices. Now more than one coworker in a week's span has floated references to the "Festivus for the rest of us."

Replacing colorful lit-up ornaments-filled evergreens with an aluminum pole, or substituting feats of strength for gift-giving, or airing grievances with one another in place of reading the Christmas story. All of it is so very post-modern.

As such, I find myself sad about it rather than amused.

Enter Bradford Littlejohn at American Reformer with his essay 'Reimagining a Christian America,' published December 22, 2021. And now is as good a time as any to explore the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future where Christianity in public life is concerned.

With the loss of Christian America celebrated in too many quarters, Littlejohn's article is a breath of fresh air. Common sense should tell us if our theology no longer does that life in Christ is to be lived out publicly.

"This little light of mine," went the song. "I'm going to let it shine."

And didn't Jesus tell us to not hide our lights under a bushel, but to let them shine before all men? He did indeed.

And so we come to a more thoughtful and intentional extrapolation of that command in Jeremiah 29:7 where the exiles in Babylonian captivity are commanded to "seek the welfare of the city" in which the Providence of the Almighty has seen fit to place them.

I may differ with Littlejohn in his call to reclaim American public education for Christ. That ship has sailed, in my view, and it is time to give up on it once and for all, preferring Christian private and home education as the new institution which will revive our national religion.

All the same, Festivus is as good as any a proof of the need for us to speak to the broader culture publicly and boldly about telos again in light of God's Word.

So Merry Christmas, you filthy animals. And put away your aluminum poles and post-modernism already.

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December 20, 2021 Sukhayl Niyazov published a piece for Public Discourse titled 'Is Marxism Self-Defeating or Self-Fulfilling?' In it, Niyazov explores the historicist tendency of presuming that currently observed conditions have always been so and always will be so.

A kind of confirmation bias will have us finding proofs in our view of both the past and the future based on our limited, finite understanding of the mechanics of the present.

Just so, Marx presumed a kind of inevitability to the socialist revolution and programme based on the conditions he was then observing. And insofar as the ideas Marx promulgated took hold in some places - Russia and China, for instance - the freer-thinking world took note, and the ruling class made concessions over the past century to institute welfare states which approximated a kind of communist evolution.

Yet we would do well in our study of history to incorporate a biblical understanding of God and man, and humbly concede as Gandalf the Grey does in Lord of the Rings. "For even the very wise cannot see all ends."

There is no new thing under the sun. And James tells us to be content with saying "God willing, we will live and do this or that."

On that note, I would encourage you to watch and listen to Elon Musk's interview with The Babylon Bee podcast. Who but God could have seen that coming? And who knows what the end-result of it will be?

The point is not to hitch our hope-wagon to the horse of South African billionaires, however much we may and do admire them, becoming friends of Jesus like the rich man Lazarus. But the point is to say that Musk clearly sees in Christians a bulwark against the threat to civilization posed by Wokism.

Neither unbridled optimism nor fatalistic pessimism about the future should dominate our plans and purposes. The character of God's purpose remains not only unchanged but unchangeable. And in that, we can continue to labor and love and work and play and relate with humble, sober, faithful hope.

And thank God for that.

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My wife and daughter attended a birthday party yesterday afternoon into the evening. That left my sons and I home. To celebrate, we moved four bookshelves upstairs from the room formerly known as the library to my office. And from the office, we moved two desks and attendant computers downstairs. And to unwind at the end of it all, I ordered pizza and we watched Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

One of the newest entries into the Marvel superheroes movies franchise, Shang-Chi was lively, interesting, and entertaining. But I found myself thinking, as I often do, about what the political implications of the film might be. More to the point, how did the film play in China?

It would seem from the Wikipedia article at least that it has not.

"In September 2021, Deadline Hollywood reported that a theatrical release in China was unlikely due to comments Liu made in an interview with the CBC in 2017, referencing negative comments from his parents about living in China."

If the reports are true, then, this film was not shown in China because the CCP objects to the main star, Simu Liu, having referenced his parents views in an interview four years ago. And without looking those comments up, one could reasonably surmise that those comments from Liu's parents were contrary to the party line.

There is, then, a philosophical and metaphysical conflict here. And I would draw your attention on this point to an article published yesterday in WORLD Magazine by Carl R. Trueman titled 'Dueling Ideas of Reality' in which the divide in America over abortion and LGBTQ really stems from a more fundamental divide over what it means to be human. This divide in turn stems from a more basic disagreement about God.

It always comes back to what we believe about God and ourselves and one another, it seems. And CCP censorship of major American corporations is no exception.

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"This is a No." With that short four-word sentence, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin has announced he cannot in good conscience vote for President Joe Biden's "Build Back Better" legislation.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is responding by essentially triple-dog-daring Manchin to forget his scruples and change his mind.

ABC News panelists are audibly aghast.

How will we endure this "threat to our democracy"?

Imagine the gall of a duly-elected member of the United States Senate reserving the right to vote anything other than 'Yes.' Oh, the temerity! Oh, the audacity! Oh, the humanity!

The whole business reminds me of the difference between the Borg collective and the crew of the Enterprise from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

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During what should have been a cordial, light-hearted exchange between "Charlamagne Tha God" and the Vice President on Comedy Central, Kamala Harris well and truly lost her temper.

Asked during the interview who the real president of the United States is - whether Joe Manchin or Joe Biden - Harris let loose an angry and stammering volley of obvious statements before changing the subject to a lot of non-sequiturs which had little or nothing to do with the question posed.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's Joe Biden."

One can appreciate the reasons the Harris staffer Symone Sanders tried in vain to shut down the interview by pretending the mics had stopped working.

At the risk of making my own obvious statements I would point out that when you have to answer questions like this in the first place, we have a problem. Furthermore, when you begin your answer to questions like this with seven repetitions of the word 'no' in rapid succession, you are in very real trouble politically.

Yet now seems as good a time as any to turn from piling on the Vice President who reminds us her name is Kamala Harris. And I would draw your attention to the broader question of tempers and how we should keep them, particularly when we are in a position of authority.

For one thing, flashes of anger by authority figures are not a good look. They do not inspire confidence. They do not project strength. And perhaps most importantly, they do not set a good example for those under authority to follow.

Prickly sensitivity and insecurity are a set up for failure, strife, and infighting.

As a father of seven with an eighth on the way, I'm no stranger to questions from my children. And those questions are not always charming and delightful. Even so, when the questions are frustrating or even obnoxious, my responsibility as a father is to be patient rather than irritable. And if I lose my cool anyway, I love and lead my children best by admitting my mistake to my children.

This builds credibility and also sets the example for them to follow for when, not if, they themselves make a mistake.

As Ephesians 6:4 charges us fathers in particular, "do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." This pairs nicely with Proverbs 15:1. "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger."

In our household at least, the mother typically has an easier time with these things - not provoking the children to anger, and not stirring up anger with harsh words. All the same, it is interesting to me that God does not only command those under authority to obey the instituted authorities. He also commands those who are in authority to not abuse their authority in ways that are needlessly provocative or contentious.

As James 1:19-20 says, "Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God."

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You better not pout.

You better not shout.

You better not cry.

I'm telling you why:

Saint Nicholas is coming to town!

Legends about the historical Saint Nicholas arguably have more in common with Bruce Willis in the movie Die Hard than Tim Allen in The Santa Clause. Check out the Wikipedia entry if for nothing else than gazing on the featured image of an icon by Jaroslav Čermák.

Redeemer of young girls headed toward prostitution. Saver of sailors bound for execution. Heretic puncher.

The bishop of Myra merits the Frank Miller graphic novel treatment.

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December 13, 2021 - Kaivan Shroff wrote for WBUR, Boston's NPR news station, 'Men like me benefit from safe abortion access.' In his piece, Shroff explains rather candidly that at 28-years-old, he is not yet ready to be a father. But he is happy to keep having sex with women he's not married to.

Reading between the lines of his commentary, one could surmise that Mr. Schroff is already a father. But if and when he has impregnated women, he has shamelessly hoped they wanted what he wanted - abortion.

Lamenting the possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court may overturn Roe v. Wade, Shroff wonders what might happen if a woman he has sex with were to become pregnant and it wasn't a good fit.

But allow me to translate. Schroff has sex with women he has no intention of committing to, and it would be a terrible inconvenience to him if he had to think "longer term" about the way his life choices were going to impact those women and the children which might result from his union with them.

Yet for all this talk of potential, conspicuously absent is any mention of the potential of Schroff's hypothetically aborted children. And supposing he has encouraged women he impregnated to get abortions, Schroff is already a father and has already experienced fatherhood.

If Schroff did impregnate women he had sex with, then presumably he chose to do with his parental responsibilities what he speculates he might do in the future - deny them entirely, even going so far as supporting the murder of his unborn children so he would not be burdened with having to divest from his ongoing commitment to self-gratification.

Kaivan - a political commentator and alumnus of the 'Hillary for America Digital Team' according to WBUR - fills his article with references to himself and his ambitions, desires, and wishes. It's all 'I, I, I,' and 'me, me, me' until he comes to the topic of recreational fornication. And then he starts in with the 'we' and 'us' language.

But when the question turns to an unwanted pregnancy resulting from casual sex with women he is not married to, Shroff is adamant. The woman has the right and responsibility to make a decision as to what she does with her body.

Only, again, abortion is not about what a woman does with her body. Abortion is about what is done to and with the body of an unborn child. What rights does that child have to not be murdered? And where did all that talk of consent go when we stopped talking about casual sex and started talking about the right to exist?

Oh, that the laws of our land would protect the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for the most vulnerable and innocent among us - particularly from serial users and abandoners like this Kaivan Shroff apparently is. Maybe then such men would have to think a little "longer term" about their choices and relationships, and their responsibility to the women and children they discard and dispose of so selfishly.

Seen rightly, all this talk of corporate responsibility is a hollow temper tantrum no nobler or more virtuous than wanting to use others for pleasure without having to offer anything in return. Let it be society's responsibility just so long as it doesn't have to be theirs. That's what the whole program of the Left boils down to, and the abortion debate is no exception as Shroff's commentary makes clear.

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Not the Bee reports on Kay Gabriel, faculty member at New York University, explaining that the transgender revolution is actually about instituting communism.

Far from frustrated, I find the honesty refreshing. For years folks like myself have been met with glazed eyes as we tried to connect the dots between critical theory, gender theory, and cultural Marxism as a way of gradually bringing about full-fledged communism.

We were crazy. People wrote us off. We were imagining things and making it all up. And then it turns out we were right, and the transgender activists are admitting it now.

So before you go declaring yourself an ally of the LGBTQA++ movement, stop and ask yourself. Where is this all headed? And what is the cost in the end? If you wouldn't pay that ultimate cost now, then perhaps it's time to cut losses and stop paying any further price.

Or what have we been sacrificing all our moral agency, political freedom, and critical thinking skills for? The answer is communism, as it turns out.

Enough, and no mas.

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Gas prices are up 58% from last year. Meat prices are up 13%. Congress is passing, and President Biden is signing, spending bills with price tags in the trillions.

Inflation is eroding our wealth, and there is no free lunch.

But in conjunction with these realities I want to turn your attention to the parable of the prodigal son. He too was short-sighted. Asking his father for his share of the inheritance now, he then proceeded to spend it on lavish parties. And when the money dried up, so did his circle of friends.

History is replete with such stories. And such may be the end of the American story - at least as far as the United States being a pre-eminent superpower.

But such does not need to be our personal story. And even if we have been prodigals individually or as a nation, we do well to remember that Jesus likens God to the father who welcomes the wayward son home with a feast and gladness.

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Once upon a time...

Twice Told Tales for Teens, by Poojaa Makhijani - Publisher's Weekly, October 15, 2021
'Disney’s Snow White Remake Will Update Classic Story With A ‘Stronger’ Narrative, Lead Actress Says', by Amanda Harding - The Daily Wire, December 13, 2021

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What is Christmas all about? You're on, Linus van Pelt.

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For many, the time of the year from Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year's Eve is filled with overdoing it. We have parties to throw and go to. There are meals to plan, prepare, and clean up after. We have gifts to pick out, buy, wrap, and give.

George Bailey feels a kindred spirit, what with his frustration at things not going perfectly, and feeling like he's to blame. Everyone would be better off if he had never been born, he muses to himself in 'It's a Wonderful Life.'

But what is at the heart of this is a preoccupation where what we bring to the table is concerned. And yet Christmas isn't about that. Christmas is about what God already brought to the table.

If we were able to execute perfectly and make everything alright, there would have been no need for the incarnation of Christ, since baby Jesus in a manger was the lead-up to the Savior going to the cross to atone for our sins.

When it turns out we can't be perfect even for a relatively short season, there is great comfort and peace in remembering the good news that God knew that, and still knows it, and bids us trust in his provision of the righteousness of Jesus on our behalf.

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Today our second to youngest son turns six, and I want to take a little time to talk about how much I love his name, plus the story of how we came up with it.

Enoch in the Old Testament book of Genesis walked with God, lived to be 365 years, and then God just took him. He didn't die. God just took him. and that puts Enoch in a very rare category of men who have not died because the good Lord decided to just skip that part.

The name Enoch is Hebrew for 'dedicated.'

Theophilus meanwhile is found in two New Testament books - the Gospel According to Luke, and also The Acts of the Apostles - both written by Luke the physician.

Both the Gospel of Luke and Acts are dedicated to, and I quote, "most excellent Theophilus." And some scholars believe this man may have been the sponsor and financer of Luke's efforts to travel and collect eyewitness testimony to the events and happenings recorded in his two books.

The name Theophilus is Greek for 'friend of God.'

Taken together, then, our son who turns six today gets one name each from the Old and New Testaments, one name each from Hebrew and Greek, and his name translates into 'dedicated friend of God.'

He is a joy to our family, and fills a very special place in all our hearts. Today we celebrate this ray of sunshine who loves watching Paw Patrol and playing with Duplos and jumping on the trampoline with friends and family, and we thank God for him.

Happy Birthday, Enoch T. Mullet.

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Is the 1988 Bruce Willis flick 'Die Hard' really a Christmas movie? To gain an informed opinion, I watched it for the first time with my older sons last night while my wife and daughter were at a cookie exchange party for the ladies in our church small group.

Here is my take.

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A few weeks back, I was having a conversation with my friend Jeff and my cousin Micah when the subject of 'Let's Go Brandon' came up. And we all were weighing in on what we make of this stand-in phrase which euphemistically tells President Biden how we feel about him.

While many folks enthusiastically embrace the slogan, and plenty of other dignified ladies and gentlemen are unequivocally opposed to it, I am inclined to wax more philosophical.

It would be one thing if trashy people were only saying how they feel about Joe Biden when they say this thing, or wear the t-shirt, or fly that flag, or proudly display this sticker in their window or on the back bumper of their pickup truck.

But that is just it. 'Let's Go Brandon' doesn't just say something about the President of the United States of America; it says something about our accumulated pent-up frustration with the dishonesty of our mainstream media in this country.

As Mike Rowe explained in his podcast from last week, people are tired of being told that what they are seeing and hearing is not what they are seeing and hearing. To put things more succinctly, we are all very tired of being lied to twenty-four hours a day. And we should be.

'Let's Go Brandon' then becomes a kind of stand-in catch-all for being fed-up with the games the Left in this country plays with language. It is also a kind of anthem for the blue-collar, working class people who get looked down on for not having graduated expensive colleges and universities.

Meanwhile, the gal with he advanced degree in women's studies - which may as well be rebranded 'the new humanities' if we are all women now - finds out she must take a job handing us our coffee in the morning. And the gal who went to trade school to learn how to weld is meanwhile making fat stacks of cash doing skilled labor.

For more on that last bit, check out this PragerU video from a month ago - 'Trading Up: Our Case For Trade Schools.'

But the point is that hard-working Americans are rightfully sick and tired of being told its raining when a never-ending procession of Lefties line up to pee on their leg. And that being the case, perhaps 'Let's Go Brandon' can be cut a little slack for turning the newspeak against its originators.

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Comedian Drew Lynch has a very funny sketch on how to stop school shootings. His idea is simple and to-the-point: ban schools.

Be warned that there is some bad language in the full bit which you can find here.

But the problem is not the guns, and completely eliminating mental illness is not feasible.

As Lynch says, "You can't shoot up a place that doesn't exist!"

Funny though this may be, the laughing and cheering bear closer examination, and good humor always has an element of truth to it. And usually the funniest things are funny because the thought had not occurred to us, or we did not feel free to say aloud what we all were thinking.

The same holds true here. Drew Lynch suggesting we ban schools is not a bad idea, at least where public schools are concerned. I mean, think about it.

The public schools teach our children that they are cosmic accidents. There is no God. We are here by chance. There is no Creator, and there is no Judge. And this means that the purpose and meaning of life is entirely arbitrary.

It is no wonder then that we have so much mental illness. The public education system casts mental illness as a feature rather than a bug of the human condition.

Just so, the problem is not violent video games. Rather, what games we play - and how, and why - are in large part a product of how the majority of Americans specifically were brought up and educated.

On that note, 'tis the season to buy my book 'And This Is Why We Homeschool' for someone you love and care about who may be thinking of homeschooling.

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And This Is Why We Homeschool

Andrew Yang ran for president as a Democrat in 2020, and he sparked enthusiasm and earned respect on all sides for communicating his ideas and proposals outside of the typical rhetoric and talking points we have grown accustomed to.

Back in October, Yang took to Twitter to announce the founding of a new political party which he dubs the Forward Party.

The premise is simple enough. Democrat versus Republican is broken, and the increasing polarization of seemingly everything is destroying America. Political affiliation is the basis for an acceptable type of discrimination, and our countrymen are downright ugly and mean to one another on the basis of who lines up on the red team or the blue.

According to a Gallup pole from October 2021, 26% of Americans consider themselves Republicans, 26% consider themselves Democrats, and a whopping 44% identify as Independents.

To Yang's point, close to twice as many of our countrymen prefer associating themselves with neither of the two major political parties. And this is where he wants to focus his efforts at reforming the way we elect our representatives to government.

Meanwhile, "Commodore Vanderbilt" over at Not the Bee reported yesterday on the underwhelming November jobs report and how the Biden administration and Democrats at CNN, CNBC, and MSNBC were spinning it.

To Jen Psaki's point, most voters are left cold by numbers and statistics. They want to know how the news and proposals of elected officials and political parties are going to effect them personally. When the rubber meets the road, how is their life going to be impacted? How are their loved ones going to be either helped or hindered?

And this all relates back to Andrew Yang's proposal of a Forward Party to cure the gridlock and political animus because the establishment types in both dominant parties have a vested interest in relating to fresh ideas based on how they personally would be affected.

When more and more folks have planned their entire lives on the current status quo being maintained politically, economically, and socially, good luck getting them to keep the gates open to anyone trying to upset the applecart.

Yet there is still a better way, and it has everything to do with 2 Chronicles 7:13-14.

"When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land."

At the risk of over-spiritualizing the situation, what we need is not a new political party. What we need is a humble and contrite heart towards the Lord which desires to turn away from wickedness and seek his face.

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With starting a new job last week, I have had a lot of introductions to make the past several days at work. And new associates ask a lot of the same questions. Where was I before this? What is my experience? Do I have a wife and kids? What do I do outside of work? All of that is standard fare.

But when I tell them we have seven children with an eighth due January, the reaction is almost always the same.

"Wow, that's crazy!"

"Don't you know how that happens?"

"Are you done yet?"

"Let me guess. You guys are either Catholic or you're Mormon."

"Man. I don't know how you do it."

Of course, none of these things people say are new to my wife Lauren and me. But rarely have I had so many of these conversations back-to-back in so short a time. And the number of times this script has played out in the past two weeks has me thinking.

The answers - particularly from guys who are my age and younger - seem scripted because they are in a certain sense. And the script these young bucks are following comes from the broader mainstream culture in America.

To be clear, Lauren and I did not arrive at our decision to welcome this many children because we wanted to be countercultural first and foremost. Rather, our ambition was to let the Bible inform our attitude and perspective on children as blessings from the Lord.

As soon as you try explaining that to someone you only just met, you run the risk of seeming legalistic - particularly if the young man you are talking with regards himself as a Christian also.

And we do not want to be legalistic. When we strive to let God's Word inform our attitudes and convictions, we do not confine ourselves to what the Bible says about children. And we are not saved by works - least of all the work involved in having and raising children, however many or few.

We are saved by God's grace through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. What God has already done and is doing and promises to do in Christ is the object of our faith.

Even so, I find myself thinking of PEMDAS, the order of operations for solving mathematical equations. Parenthesis, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction; get one or two of these out of order, or forget about one or more, and the math is not going to come out right.

So first we start with the Doctrine of Creation.

"In the beginning God" is how the first book of the Bible, Genesis, sets the stage. And from there we learn that God is the Creator, that man was made by God in the image of God, that mankind was created male and female, that marriage was instituted by God, and that God gave the command to "be fruitful and multiply, fill the Earth and subdue it."

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In Philippians 3:12-21, the Apostle Paul writes some things which I think bear mention in relation to yesterday's episode - 'Post-Evangelical Pastors Questioning Their Faith Post-Trump.'

"Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself."

This then is the prescription I would give to those who have fallen away. Forget what lies behind, and strain forward to what lies ahead. Join in imitating the Apostle Paul.

Our citizenship is in heaven if we are indeed in Christ. But notice how that last line in this passage ends. Christ is enabled to subject all things to himself. That means all our lifestyle choices, preferred pronouns, political affiliations, questions and answers, and efforts at organizing ourselves and one another.

This is the key to understanding how to holistically live on-mission for Christ. This is the key to the kind of unity which we are called to pursue and embody as the Church.

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October 22, 2021, Sarah Pulliam Bailey wrote for The Washington Post, 'In a post-Trump world, these pastors are ditching the evangelical label for something new.'

In her piece, we find a number of contradictions and internal inconsistencies. New communities of faith are forming which are predicated on nothing solid except affirming the LGBTQ+ movement, abortion, and so-called racial justice. Literally everything else is up for grabs.

Conspicuously absent is what God has to say about these matters. Instead, these are the Woke outcasts who love radical doubt and deconstructionism, and they love the trappings of Christianity without the Christianity itself.

Even calling their new movement 'post-evangelical' is called into question because referencing evangelicalism in a negative sense is going to trigger people still angry that 8 in 10 evangelical Americans reportedly voted Republican in the 2016 election.

To be clear, the concern for me is not with whether we vote Republican. By all means, and increasingly as time goes on, let us call out people with 'R' behind their name if they are being unbiblical. But let that be the standard rather than our feelings.

This group in Bailey's Washington Post piece, however, like worshiping God - whoever the deity is or is not in their minds - in spirit, but not in truth.

As the Preacher says in Ecclesiastes, there is no new thing under the sun. And that holds true in the case of this new movement which is not so new as it seems. Historically, since the beginning of Church History, there have always been heretics, apostates, and false teachers.

And that is what we should call these post-evangelicals who elect a Black-Mexican lesbian to be their "spiritual guide."

Thankfully, by the grace of God, we have a better way. Let Christ be our spiritual guide, and let God's Word be our test for what is good and true. All other ground is sinking sand.

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The trial of Jeffrey Epstein Madame Ghislaine Maxwell is set to begin today. Rumors circulated online last week that the judge issued a media gag order and was not going to allow members of the press in the courtroom for the trial which is expected to last six weeks. Unlike the recent Kyle Rittenhouse trial, no footage of the proceedings will be made available to the public.

Epstein and Maxwell stand accused of sex trafficking, particularly with regards to underage girls. Or at least they both would stand accused if not for Epstein's untimely demise.

I still do not believe Epstein killed himself, by the way. Or if he did, he certainly had the help of wealthy, powerful people for whom his death before trial and testimony was all too convenient.

That said, according to this piece in Newsweek by Isabel Van Brugen, federal courts as a rule do not allow cameras either for photographs or for video footage, and the judge has issued no general gag order.

From my brief researches, that bit about federal courts in general looks to be true. However, audio recording is typically allowed and released to the public. So we will see what we get on that front.

But the whole business really gets to our collective distrust of the powers that be in our country. After all, have they given us a lot of reasons to trust them as of late?

The Kyle Rittenhouse verdict came as a pleasant and relieving surprise for a lot of us here in America who believed all along from watching the footage that the 17-year-old had acted in self-defense on the night of August 25th, 2020. Yet the Left in this country still carrying on as they did all throughout that debacle really is the point here as well.

The mainstream media and Democrat politicians and government officials lied to us repeatedly about Rittenhouse and the riots, and they are still lying to us about all that. So why would we expect them to suddenly turn truth-tellers in the case of Epstein, Maxwell, and the prospect that many of our most powerful, wealthy, and famous folks in this country are engaging underage girls for sex?

Of course we cannot assume we are being told the truth. But we can rest easy in the knowledge that God knows the truth and will see justice served. And if that is all we have to go on, that will be enough. Let us hope and pray there is still some truth and justice in our time as well, though. And let us be sure to be on the side of it before God.

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With Thanksgiving officially behind us now, our sons Eli and Dan worked together to put up a couple strings of colorful lights on the front of our house in Greeley. Our boys also pulled the totes of Christmas decorations out of the shed yesterday, and the plan this afternoon is to decorate - put up the trees, wreaths, candles, and other miscellaneous knick-knacks which are part of this festive season known fittingly as the hap-happiest time of the year.

There will be kids jingle-belling in our house - particularly in preparation for their first piano recital in a week or so.

But last night being Family Movie Night and Homemade Pizza Night, we had our neighbors the Chavezes over and watched Jon Favreau's excellent seasonal flick, 'Elf.' We like smiling. Smiling is our favorite.

As I made up a watch list of Christmas movies on Prime Video, I found myself thinking of some things Moscow, Idaho Pastor Doug Wilson said recently in his podcast about Thanksgiving.

In that podcast episode, which you can find here at DougWils.com, Wilson points out the hazard to our spiritual health inherent to pietism. More specifically, too many Christians have grown anemic where a theology of material blessings is concerned because they unwittingly embraced a tradition of equating the "spiritual" with good and material things with de facto carnality.

No, we do not want to go along with the kind of materialism which rejects all supernatural claims as a lot of hokum. Darwinism is unfit for healthy Christian life and thought. So also, we reject egalitarianism.

But neither do we want to so spiritualize everything that we miss worshiping God in our enjoyment of material blessings which a good Father gives to beloved children. Therefore, in order to worship God in both spirit and truth, my house enjoys Christmas movies and Christmas cookies and Christmas decorations and Christmas music to the glory of God.

By all means, let us be intentional. But let us be holistic in our intentionality, avoiding the twin perils of materialism and pietism.

'Joy to the world, the Lord has come!

Let Earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare Him room,

and Heaven and nature sing!'

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Mairead Elordi reports for The Daily Wire on Lauren Boebert, Republican Congresswoman from Colorado, apologizing to the 'Muslim Community' in America, as well as fellow House member Ilhan Omar from Minnesota, for a video that went viral over Thanksgiving in which she made some jokes in poor taste during a speaking engagement in Pueblo, Colorado.

So, yes. Boebert referred to Omar as 'Jihad Squad' and quipped a little something about Omar potentially being a terrorist.

Consequently, Omar and other Democrats are now calling for Boebert to be stripped of her committee assignments by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

This is no laughing matter, of course, that a Congresswoman would be so disrespected by another member of Congress. Thus Omar calls Boebert "this buffoon," and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Republican from Illinois, calls Boebert "TRASH."

But that, of course, is alright.

So is Jimmy Kimmel asking low-information voters in Democrat strongholds to help him mock Boebert after he compares her podcast videos to "step-mother porn," and says the Congresswoman wears glasses so people will think she can read.

By the way, this is the same guy who referred to Senator Ted Cruz as a "human boil" in a popular YouTube video from 6-months ago.

Give the Democrats a minute, and maybe they will get wise like Saturday Night Live just did with their skit 'Republican Or Not?' It's actually funny. What a refreshing concept!

In conclusion, I would leave you with the aggregated sage wisdom of famed American General George S. Patton, as portrayed by George C. Scott in the 1970 film.

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On Saturday, November 25, 2006, I married Lauren Elizabeth Duff in Hillsboro, Ohio and she took my last name. I had just turned 20 and Lauren was 19.

At the end of July 2007 our first son Josiah David was born at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, Ohio.

Near the end of June 2008, our second son Elihu James was born, also at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, Ohio.

At the end of December 2009, our third son Solomon Emmanuel was born at home in Jamestown, Ohio. The midwives were late to our early morning homebirth. So I delivered him the day before New Year's Eve.

In 2010, Lauren and I found out we were pregnant again, but decided to keep the news to ourselves for a while. Our hearts broke when Lauren miscarried, and we wrestled with whether we had cared too much what people would say.

May 2011 our fourth son Daniel Joseph was born at home in Hillsboro, Ohio. On the encouragement of the midwives, since we had done so well with our first unassisted homebirth, I delivered Daniel as well - on Star Wars Day, no less.

July 2012, Lauren and our four boys followed me out West and we moved into our rental home in the countryside north of Glendive, Montana - my hometown after I landed a job as a lease operator with ConocoPhillips and started my career in Oil and Gas.

Near the end of September 2013, our daughter Evelyn Grace was born at home with the help of a very dear midwife Lauren had found in the area.

In April 2014 we bought and moved into our first home in Sidney, Montana.

December 2015, our fifth son Enoch Theophilus was born at St. Vincent Hospital in Miles City. We had hoped and planned for another homebirth with the assistance of a midwife, but were relieved all the same that everything worked out.

October 2016 I decided to leave my first Oil and Gas job with ConocoPhillips to explore other options.

January 2017, I started a new venture with Zedi and worked my way by into Automation by the end of the year.

Toward the end of May 2018, our sixth son John Lazarus was born at St. Vincent Hospital in Miles City, Montana. Once again, we had hoped and planned for a homebirth, but the Lord had other plans.

At the beginning of September 2019, Lauren and I moved our family to Greeley, Colorado as I took a job with Sterling Energy.

Twice in 2020 - once in February and a second time in June - we suffered two miscarriages. The first Lauren learned at the ultrasound was an ectopic; the second was a miscarriage at home. Again, our hearts broke.

November 2021, Lauren and I got away to a cabin in the mountains, just the two of us, for three days and two nights to celebrate my 35th birthday, our 15th wedding anniversary, and a new job with Eagle Automation.

By God's grace, we have come a long ways, and are excited to see what the Lord has in store for us from here on - particularly with an eighth son named Andrew Matthias due January 2022.

This is our story.

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On my drive to work yesterday morning, I listened to the latest episode of Al Mohler's podcast, 'The Briefing.' That episode - titled 'Wednesday, November 24, 2021' and available at AlbertMohler.com - was good and helpful; and it got me thinking about what an increasingly secular mainstream American culture makes of Thanksgiving Day with each passing year.

Who or what do wholly secular folks give thanks to?

Increasingly as I get older, I see more complaints that Thanksgiving Day should not be celebrated because it commemorates and sanitizes what European colonizers did to Native Americans - stealing their land, spreading smallpox, making war on them, et cetera.

But that take on this holiday really does miss the point, and I think I understand why that is after thinking about Thanksgiving in light of what Dr. Mohler shared yesterday.

When Thanksgiving is just "Turkey Day" to us, we see it as an opportunity to eat and express gratitude to one another and ourselves. And when that is our outlook, it probably is very easy to project backwards a critical eye on the character of our forebears.

But Thanksgiving should not be about what we or our ancestors have done for good or for ill. Wherever we hail from, whatever our ethnicity or skin tone, Thanksgiving Day should be about what the Lord Almighty has done in creating and sustaining all that is.

Reframing the holiday as an opportunity to recalibrate our hearts and minds to the unchangeable character of God's purpose as the author of Hebrews writes in the sixth chapter of that New Testament epistle, we realize that God was good to all our ancestors, and that God is good to us.

We may not have all that we wish we had. But fixating on that is the opposite of giving thanks to the Lord for what we have by his grace, whether common or special. So we choose something far better and more blessed.

Whatever is happening in our lives or the wider world, the fact that we have breath in our lungs and the opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving with friends and family is all the reason we need to give thanks to the one in whom we live and move and have our being.

On this day in particular, we give thanks to God for what he has done, is doing, and will do, and for who he has been, is, and always will be.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family from me and mine.

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Facebook changed its name to Meta, and three weeks ago Zuckerberg and company released a video explaining the 'Metaverse' they are working to create. The comments are turned off, and YouTube won't let us see how many likes and dislikes Meta's video viewed 3.3 million times thus far has - which is telling.

And this really gets at the manipulation of our view of reality which these Big Tech companies are only all the more capable of perpetrating in the next phase of the Internet Age, and why I am not so sure the Metaverse is going to be a net good for us.

As a funny aside, check out Iceland's parody of the Metaverse announcement video here. It really is worth a watch or two.

But at a bare minimum, we should consider the ramifications of engaging with what is coming down the pike. Hopefully Big Tech does not get to run the whole shebang. Hopefully there is a less centralized - and more human - way of interacting in the future.

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Three important stories to cover in connection to one another in this episode:

John Rigolizzo at The Daily Wire reports - 'NBC Columnist: Parents ‘Aren’t Qualified,’ ‘Should Keep Their Noses Out’ Of Education,' November 19, 2021
Joel Abbot at Not the Bee reports - 'This Chicago mob shouted "the only solution is communist revolution" after the Rittenhouse verdict and I'm just glad they're finally saying it out loud,' November 21, 2021
Katabella Roberts at The Epoch Times reports - 'Witness Describes Wisconsin Christmas Parade Attack Suspect as ‘Black Man With Dreadlocks’,' November 22, 2021

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SPOILER ALERT:

Prime Video's adaption of Robert Jordan's beloved fantasy series, The Wheel of Time, is dead on arrival in episode one.

In all the same ways the latest Dune film was so fantastic because it honored the author's original intent and vision in the case of Frank Herbert's 1965 science fiction novel, what Amazon did with WoT is a travesty.

But this is what you get when the fulfillment of Carl R. Trueman's Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self meets the Woketopia Progressive penchant for revisionism and treating every written work as a living document.

All you had to do, Bezos Inc., was tell the story we already liked. Instead, you decided you knew better. And whatever this is, it is not the Robert Jordan fantasy epic we have come to know, nor do we like it.

Blech. Unsee.

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The verdict is in, and Kyle Rittenhouse has been found by a jury of his peers to be not guilty on all charges.

By way of reminder, due process in this country is predicated on the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

But of course the Left does not mean for due process to get in the way of their foregone conclusion driven by emotion and outrage over anyone daring to stand up to their lawless mob violence.

Never mind that Mr. Rittenhouse was defending himself from violent assault when he took the lives of two other white men advancing on him with professed deadly intent, vaporizing the bicep of a third who was conducting himself similarly.

Never mind that the video evidence made clear from the outset that Rittenhouse was the victim here, not the aggressor.

No, Leftists in political office, the media, and on Twitter want to burn Kenosha, Wisconsin to the ground now, push for gun control, and declare open season on "white supremacist" conservative white people.

President Biden is "angry and concerned." Martin Luther King III says this "sends a clear message that violence, hatred, and racism can and will win in our nation."

But the violence, hatred, and racism is primarily on your side of the political situation here, Democrats. The soft bigotry of low expectations is so tired. Put it away, already. And stop with the race baiting and dehumanization of the folks who hold nothing so controversial as that we should be a nation ruled by laws instead of the will and whim of arbitrary men.

As clear as ever, we should all be able to see now that this has been from the beginning a question of the nature of truth and goodness, and whether such are transcendent realities which find their origin in God Almighty, or whether they are entirely arbitrary and based on us getting whatever we want whenever we want it.

One of those positions is based in hubris and corruption, and it cannot endure. The other of those positions God has always promised to bless and prosper, and that is never going to change.

We should plan and conduct ourselves accordingly.

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November 17, 2021 - Jeff Dunetz writes for Climate Depot: U.S. Oil Producer To Biden: Don’t Ask OPEC To Increase Production - ASK US! A Year Ago America Was An Oil Exporter.

November 19, 2021 - Katabella Roberts reports for The Epoch Times: Biden Asks China to Consider Releasing Reserves of Crude Oil in Effort to Meet Supply Demands: White House.

The Biden administration needs to reconsider its stance on asking our rivals abroad to come to our rescue where making energy more affordable is concerned. We have a domestic oil and gas industry. It is well-past time to let them do what they do so well. Our national security depends on it.

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My neighbor JP Chavez sent me a really encouraging article hot off the presses yesterday. James Hankins, history professor at Harvard University, writes for First Things magazine 'How to Be on the Right Side of History.'

In his excellent piece, Hankins pushes back against the idea that we know what if anything will be seen in coming decades as "the right side of history," pointing out that the whole idea of a right or wrong side of history comes from the Hegelian dialectic. It should not be assumed that future generations of historians will all be as ideologically uniform as intellectuals in our day routinely are conditioned and required to be.

But what if the future actually does not belong to the woke? What if the future actually belongs to the children who are now receiving a classical education in good character, rhetoric, logic, and knowing stuff?

If we knew for a fact that such children and not the woke K-12 public schooled majority were going to be the "true elites" of coming decades, surely that would put some pep in our step if we are part of the brave few. And for those of us who are not part of the brave few, perhaps thinking along these lines will encourage a change in tact.

One can certainly hope, in any event.

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Up early this morning, I watched the first two-thirds of John Pilger's 2016 documentary, 'The Coming War on China.' As if written and directed by Howard Zinn, the film so far is heavy on familiar themes.

America is a corrupt, hypocritical, and arbitrary imperialist Western power. China for its part has been the victim of predation for centuries, and communism is not so bad after all.

According to Pilger, the present course of conflict between the US and the CCP is actually about America being beaten at our own game. We are the tyrannical aggressor, and China is really for free market prosperity - albeit a "free market" managed and controlled by the communist party.

As was the case with Zinn's history, the truth is abused by which facts are emphasized or downplayed by turn to support the underlying premise which is taken for granted.

Once again, we must return again to the decision of which is preferred. Should America at home and abroad operate according to a fixed, transcendent standard of right and wrong?

If the answer is in the affirmative, then it is a wonder that American Christians are so often derided in our day for insisting on accountability at home and abroad based on firm, set convictions, as if such is the biggest impediment to progress.

If the answer is in the negative, however, there is no basis for complaining about American conduct as somehow untoward or contemptible.

This is a hard, unpleasant challenge for critics of the United States the world over to answer. Yet it must be answered.

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Refugees from Afghanistan have sought asylum in America after the Biden administration surrendered that country and 20-years of coalition investment of blood and treasure to the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and ISIS.

Some of these asylum seekers are Muslim Afghanis who served as informants and translators for our forces. Staying in Afghanistan would have meant certain death or slavery for them and their families. It is the least our country can do for these folks to welcome them in.

Other asylum seekers are Afghanis who have converted to Christianity. They also would face certain death or brutal slavery if they stayed in Afghanistan. And there is no question in my mind that America should grant entrance to Christians from majority Muslim countries, especially Afghanistan.

Still other supposed asylum seekers may well be undercover terrorists seeking to infiltrate our country so they can plot and carry out reprisal attacks against America now that the shoe is once again on the other foot. If at all possible, we should not allow such people to come into our country. And if and when we identify them, the kindest thing our government should do to them is send them back to where they came from as quickly as possible.

But what is the responsibility of Christ's Church in America toward the whole lot? Should Christians donate to Afghanis who have come to this country? Should we feed, clothe, and shelter them, even if or when we do not know whether we are aiding Christians or Muslims or even potential terrorists?

To guide us in answering this question, turn with me to Romans 12:9-21.

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Let us consider two things in relation to one another and our present condition.

First, read Gene Edward Veith's piece 'Modern Fascism Revisited' in this month's issue of Tabletalk Magazine for reflections on Veith's 1993 book, 'Modern Fascism: Liquidating the Judeo-Christian Worldview.'

Second, Frank Herbert's 1965 science fiction novel 'Dune,' which just a few weeks ago had a most excellent film adaptation released in the U.S.

Spoiler alert: fear is the mind killer.

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In nearly a decade of working in the oil and gas industry, one major principle of safety that has been drilled into me is, and I quote, "you have the right and responsibility to stop unsafe work."

This statement is also known by the phrase "Stop Work Authority," or SWA for short, and is derived from section 5 of the OSH Act of 1970, which states in part A that each employer, "(1) shall furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees; (2) shall comply with occupational safety and health standards promulgated under this Act."

Similarly, in part B of the same it is written that "Each employee shall comply with occupational safety and health standards and all rules, regulations, and orders issued pursuant to this Act which are applicable to his own actions and conduct."

As I see it, SWA therefore gives me the right to decline the COVID vaccine. Furthermore, it is also my contention that threats of disciplinary action and coercion for refusal of the COVID vaccine constitute a grave violation of section 5 of the OSH Act of 1970 and must not be tolerated or accommodated much less complied with.

Doubtless those who are in favor of vaccine mandates will counter that the health and safety of employees is precisely the reason for the vaccine mandates. They will further say that employers have a responsibility under the very same section of US Code to threaten and punish employees, up to and including termination, for noncompliance.

But this really does get to the heart of the issue with the COVID vaccines. For one thing, the lack of confidence in the efficacy of the vaccine to protect the vaccinated from those who are unvaccinated is not a selling point.

More importantly, though, no one can truthfully claim that the COVID vaccine is free from hazard. And given the fact that there are recognized hazards inherent to COVID vaccination, who can show me the mitigation for those risks of injury or even death related to the COVID vaccine?

Furthermore, where does the liability reside in the event of vaccine injury or death when nemployers participate in mandating the COVID vaccine per President Biden's order?

If you are compelled on pain of job loss to get this vaccine and then are injured or die because of complications related to the vaccine, can you or your family file a lawsuit to recover damages? And if so, who can you file suit against? Not the vaccine manufacturers or distributors. That is out. But what about your employer? Or what about the U.S. government? Or what about Joe Biden personally?

My point in this line of question is not to figure out who to file a lawsuit against. My point is that coercing employees to get the COVID vaccine or else face retaliation up to and including job loss undeniably does include the risk of injury or death due to the vaccine. Therefore, this mandate represents a violation of 29 USC 654, section 5 of the OSH Act of 1970, also known as Stop Work Authority.

Remember, "you have the right and responsibility to stop unsafe work." Just say 'No.'

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Kyle Rittenhouse is on trial this week for the shooting deaths of two Leftist rioters who violently attacked him in Kenosha, Wisconsin on the night of August 25th, 2020 during "mostly peaceful protests" related to the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

Having watched Mr. Rittenhouse - who was 17 years old at the time of the shooting - take to the stand to give an account of his actions, my heart broke.

If you ask me, we should be thanking Kyle Rittenhouse for service to his community and country. That young man sets an example we would do well to follow. But at a minimum, if we cannot bring ourselves to thank him lest we encourage more of the same, the young man should not be punished more than he has been.

What would he be punished for? Defending his life? And what was his crime which justified his life having been threatened in the first place? Telling a Leftist mob by his presence and precedent the one word they have heard so precious little of - 'No.'

To that call for punishment, we must also give an answer clearly and unmistakably. 'No.' No, we will not punish Kyle Rittenhouse for doing what decent men all over this country should have done in their communities last year.

I dare say it is not Rittenhouse who should have to give an account for his whereabouts and actions on the night of August 25th, 2020. It is most of the rest of us who stayed home and left 17-year-olds to face the woke mob alone.

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As Daniel Payne at Not the Bee reported yesterday, 'Al Gore is promising to use satellites and artificial intelligence to I.D. those responsible for producing greenhouse gasses so activists can "hold them responsible."' Let me be as clear as I can manage: Al Gore and the folks at the Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland want to save the planet from us, not for us.

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Having spent most of our recent episodes talking about more personal matters, let us turn our attention again to the news. Three stories from yesterday and today in particular deserve special attention.

First, from Chris Pandolfo at The Blaze, 'Pelosi stops mid-speech after Republican laughs at claim 'Build Back Better' bill will reduce the debt.'

Second, from Jack Phillips at The Epoch Times, 'Biden Administration Weighs Shutting Another Pipeline, White House Confirms.'

Third and last, but certainly not least, Not the Bee reports, 'State Farm stood up for Aaron Rodgers' right to not get vaxxed and refused to pull their sponsorship with him.'

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The Lord has been good to us. Long overdue and for the first time ever, Lauren and I got away for three days and two nights to a cabin in the mountains to celebrate 15 years of marriage a little early, and to celebrate my 35th birthday.

We cannot thank Luke and Cait Bergman enough for holding down the fort and hanging out with our kiddos.

A big thank you too goes out to Cory and Ellen Olson for having set up such a beautiful cabin for us to stay at.

It was such a nice getaway, and we are glad we had the opportunity to enjoy it. And now we are glad to be home again. And now here is the story of what we did and saw while we were out and about this week.

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As reported at Not the Bee, take a look at the victory speech of Virginia's new Lieutenant Governor, Winsome Sears.

"When I joined the Marine Corps, I was still a Jamaican. But this country had done so much for me, I was willing, willing, to die for this country. USA!

There are some who want to divide us and we must not let that happen. They would like us to believe we are back in 1963 when my father came. We can go where we want, eat where we want – we own the water fountains. We have had a black president elected not once but twice, and here I am, living proof!

In case you haven't noticed, I am black. And I have been black all my life, but that's not what this is about.

What we are going to do now is be about the business of the Commonwealth. We have things to tend to. We are going to fully fund our historically black colleges and universities. We're going to have safer neighborhoods, safer communities, and our children are going to get a good education."

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It looks like the state of Virginia has won the 2021 elections with Republicans taking governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general seats.

MSNBC's Joy Reid says this upset is best explained with accusations of racist white parents. But the reality is that American parents of every ethnos and shade of skin do not care for being told they should butt out when it comes to what their children are being taught in public schools.

Who could have predicted that asking the FBI to investigate as potential domestic terrorists parents angry at their children being molested and raped would have so alienated and offended those parents?

Who could have foretold that locking down the economy, throwing American men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers into unemployment and bankruptcy would have backfired?

What else but racism could explain the allergic reaction to tyranny in Virginia?

To answer Joy Reid over at MSNBC, this is not about parents not wanting their children to learn about race. This is about Americans growing weary of being insulted, lied to, and oppressed in every imaginable way by Democrats.

By the grace of God, perhaps there is hope yet for this country in embracing our God-given and inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If what happened in Virginia last night is any hint at what may happen in the coming years, we do well to not grow fatalistic or despair.

Trust in God. He gives more grace.

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Revisiting an episode from several weeks ago, I want to consider again the question of 'Why a Good God Would Allow for Evil and Suffering.'

"Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!"

Romans 11:33

Also, in other news, I recently tried out Age of Empires IV multiplayer with my three oldest sons. While fun, we have been having issues with crashing. So there's that.

Finally, I want to touch on the subject of my working life and how I discuss and think about it on this podcast.

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On Friday I celebrate my 35th birthday. To mark the occasion today, I want to delve into some interesting trivia about where and when I come from. What follows is my origin story.

I was born at the Glendive Medical Center on November 5th, 1986 in Glendive, Montana to Byron Doyle Mullet, a native of Eastern Montana, and Alice Ann Mullet, maiden name Ranew, originally from Milton, Florida, near Pensacola in the panhandle of that state.

You will forgive me for not remembering, but the Weather Underground tells me the historic average for that day of the year is 36 degrees Fahrenheit, with the record high and low being 72 and -6 respectively.

The history of the naming of my hometown is that Sir George Gore, a wealthy Irish sportsman, named his favorite hunting area in 1855. "Gleanndubh" was at some point anglicized after a combination of two Irish words meaning 'valley' and 'black.'

Thus I come from a town named after "the black valley" nestled on both banks of the Yellowstone River on the outskirts of Makoshika State Park, said park named after the Lakota Sioux phrase meaning "bad land," or "bad spirits." The local high school sports mascot is the Red Devil.

Interestingly enough, my wife's maiden name is Duff, a Scottish name which my research has concluded comes from that same Gaelic word 'Dubh' which helped form the name of my hometown.

The day I was born being November 5th, the people of the United Kingdom across the waters celebrate every year as 'Guy Fawkes Day' to reflect on the famed and failed Gunpowder Plot, an attempt in 1605 to blow Parliament to retake the country for Roman Catholicism.

But the year I was born in being 1986, the United Nations designated the 'International Year of Peace.'

A decent number of famous movie stars, musicians, and athletes were born the same year as me. And now I am officially old enough to run for President of the United States. But what does all of this really mean or matter? Can anything be gleaned about who I am as an individual from pulling on all these diverse and eccentric threads?

"Vanity of vanities" the Preacher says in Ecclesiastes. "All is vanity." And while my rehearsing these factoids may be interesting in its way, it may also be chasing after wind.

Nevertheless, it is interesting to ponder. Where we are from, what family we are born into, when we reach certain stages of development and what is going on in the wider world when we do - all of these have some kind of bearing and influence, even if only God knows precisely to what extent and end.

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We have for some time been known as "that family with all the kids." With six sons and one daughter, now a seventh son due at the end of January, people notice our entrance. To our amusement, it is not uncommon for people to proactively ask if we homeschool. A family of this size, people can be forgiven for guessing.

But there are some ways we want to be weird, unusual, uncommon, and atypical on principle. And to some extent, we want to different just to manage expectations that we do not go with all flows, follow all trends, do whatever is popular just because everyone else is doing it, or blindly serve the broader culture and consensus - particularly if and when doing so would mean violating conscience and conviction.

Nevertheless, there are ways in which our conservative theology informing our conservative politics and social engagement actually predisposes us to look favorably at change. And then there is the added conviction that I have that we should not be slaves to tradition just for the sake of being 'old fashioned.'

"All things are permissible," the Apostle Paul writes. "But not all things are beneficial." And we do not want to be a slave to anything or anyone except for Christ. Yet where it is possible to do as the Romans do in some measure for the sake of expedience without disobeying or dishonoring God, we want to and will. 'Pick your battles,' and all that.

So also, no humble servant should be conceited and think more highly of themselves than they ought. And in the interest of not being seen - either internally or externally - as thinking we are better than everyone else, we do well to subordinate our ambition to being different to the overarching contention that while we are not better than everyone and everything else, Christ is.

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Every year about this time, I get questions from people who have not known us as long or as well, but do know we are a large, fairly conservative homeschooling family. The questions typically go a little something like, "Do you guys do anything for Halloween?"

In the interest of full disclosure on the front-end, I will say that I do not personally feel strongly about Halloween one way or another. Watching Tim Taylor on Home Improvement growing up, we will never go that far or care that much. But neither are we the stodgy kind who believe this holiday is entirely of the Devil.

Frankly, I could hardly care less one way or another.

But that means I could just as happily carve a pumpkin and watch a suspenseful movie while wearing a costume and eating some candy as I could not do anything whatsoever on October 31st.

This year, though, I am a bit curious to learn more about the history and origins of the holiday. So let's take a look together at the Wikipedia entry, shall we?

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The story of Joseph in Genesis 37 has been on my mind a lot here lately.

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"Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety."

Proverbs 11:14 (ESV)

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"My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in,and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,”have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court?Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment."

James 2:1-13

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"What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead."

- James 2:14-17 (ESV)

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President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. held a townhall with CNN this past week in which he mocked freedom and said as many as one-third of first-responders should be told to stay home or else lose their jobs if they refuse to be fully vaccinated.

In other news, Dr. John Piper wrote and published another winning op-ed in which he defended all our freedom to get vaccinated because we are Christians who love people and don't need to prove anything to our conservative friends and families.

You need to read the response to Piper by Dr. James White, available here at Not The Bee.

"What Piper has missed, badly, is the role these vaccinations play in a much bigger, much more basic movement into a technologically based, chemically and medically controlled secular totalitarianism. That elephant is intent upon staying, and until we are all intent upon removing him from the living room, he will continue to create soul-destroying havoc for all. Oh that John Piper would stop examining the tip of one of his tusks and help us all with the bigger issue."

Boom! Roasted. And cue the mic drop.

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The grass is nowhere greener than when we submit ourselves humbly and completely to the plans and purposes of Almighty God. Even just in the title of Jeremiah Burroughs 1648 work, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, we are told that contentment for the Christian is precious and valuable, and that it is uncommon.

For my part, reading through this book took five months, nearly to the day, and inspired a great deal of reflection and meditation on what my attitude toward setbacks, disappointments, and trials says about my heart towards God and what I believe about God.

There is a great deal of merit to the questions Burroughs asks throughout this work. Am I more fixed on my afflictions or the mercies God shows me? Do I trust that God is holy, wise, good, and gracious toward me, and do I believe God's grace is sufficient for me?

Whether the topic is poor health, professional setbacks, economic woes, political turmoil, conflict with people, or uncertainty about what the immediate future holds, I found in reading this book that I have not before grasped the extent to which contentment is closely related to my faith in the character and promises of the Lord.

Yet even in the closing remarks Burroughs leaves off with, in some of the final lines of the book he admits that it is easier to preach about contentment than it is to fully grasp and understand contentment. And that, along with assurances we have in God's Word that he gives more grace and his strength is shown perfectly in our weakness, is a great comfort.

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From time to time, I clear out the seven books in my audiobook queue to start fresh. When I do, I enjoy thinking about my selections strategically. Do I want to focus on a given subject, or do I want seven diverse subjects which are only related to one another in very tenuous ways?

This time around, I have elected to replenish my currently reading Audible titles with a lot of history spanning the past millennium from the Crusades to the present. As I list the titles and give you their summary, I want also to revisit this idea of seeing the connections between seemingly disparate things by intentionally overlapping and overlaying subjects with common threads and themes.

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This coming May will mark 10-years of my working in the Oil & Gas industry. Allow me to share a few lessons learned, particularly for any young bucks thinking of jumping in to get a piece of the high wages and excitement this sector has a reputation for.

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Yesterday marked the conclusion of over 250-hours of listening over probably 4-years of my going through James Clavell's 6-part historical fiction series known as 'The Asian Saga.' Spanning internally the years 1600 to 1979, and set in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Iran by turns, the stories all add up to one thing - a compare and contrast of East and West, and the beauty and horror of what happens when they meet.

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With so much in flux at present, it is easy to find our understanding taxed. What has recently been, what is now, and what may soon happen - all is complicated and disputed and controversial.

Given this and other related facts, Philippians 4 is on my mind this morning, particularly the fourth to seventh verses.

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Note here how Paul says the peace of God surpasses all understanding. That is, the peace of God is better, fuller, richer, and more valuable to us than our own ability to understand in terms of its capacity to guard our hearts and minds.

But this introduces another question. What are our hearts and minds being guarded from?

For at least one answer, anxiety. Stress, worry, and fear are mind-killers. Discouragement, despair, and depression can make us fruitless and ineffective in living the life of faithful obedience to God and love for one another which is ours in Christ by God's design.

And as Proverbs 4:23 admonishes us, "Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life."

That is to say, our very lives depend on our hearts and minds being guarded by the peace of God in Christ Jesus. And part of how this happens practically is that we remember in our thinking that "the Lord is at hand." And besides this, we let our requests be made known to God rather than being anxious.

Continuing on further into Philippians 4, we see also that what we choose to fix our attention on in life matters. For this reason, Paul instructs thinking on "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise."

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Concerning the question of the extent to which evangelical Christianity can be made palatable and respectable to mainstream American culture in our day, there is an oft-played out conflict between those on the one hand who want to winsomely get and maintain as much influence by having as little direct conflict as possible, and on the other hand those who insist we must call sinners to repentance all the more the greater their prideful embracing and affirming of those sins.

Exploring this subject as excellently as usual is Carl R. Trueman in the November 2021 issue of First Things. In his piece, 'The Failure of Evangelical Elites' Trueman writes:

"Let me put it bluntly: Talking in an outraged voice about racism within the boundaries set by the woke culture is an excellent way of not talking about the pressing moral issues on which Christianity and the culture are opposed to each other: LGBTQ+ rights and abortion."

And here we come to the crux of the divide between respectable establishment type evangelical Christians and those who are cast into the outer darkness as deplorables.

Bitter clingers are we, with our guns and Bibles, believing in Young Earth Creationism and antiquated ideas of right and wrong, truth and falsehood. On the wrong side of history are we, supposing direct confrontation is the only winning strategy sometimes.

Meanwhile, the winsome Evanjelly crowd is able to get and secure respectable positions in academia, politics, and publishing companies. But the cost is twofold: for one, they must keep their peace and hold their fire when it comes to the pressing litmus test issues near and dear to the Left; for another, they must pile on in diatribes - usually subtle, but often enough not-so - against professing Christians who are clearer, bolder, and more courageous.

Everyone in American Christendom does the cost-benefit analysis. But some of us conclude that friendship with the world is a poor tradeoff for enmity with God, and we conduct ourselves accordingly. Meanwhile, others conclude that removing all the offense from the gospel can somehow make the gospel message and testimony of the Church better, purer, and more fruitful.

Trueman finishes up his piece pointedly.

"Harkening to Jesus’s words is not an excuse for sloppy scholarship any more than it is an excuse for indifference to injustice and evil. Nor does it justify treating with contempt those with whom we disagree. Christians who act despicably should not complain when they find themselves despised. But Jesus’s warning surely reminds us that we do not need to take our cultural despisers seriously; still less ought we to side with them against those who actually share our faith. Christianity tells the world what it does not wish to hear. We should not expect to be embraced by those whose thoughts and deeds contradict the truths of our faith. Nor should we seek to make our faith more palatable, lest the salt lose its savor."

Amen to that.

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Having just finished up Martin Luther's 1525 work, 'The Bondage of the Will,' I am struck by the utter lack of concern that father of Protestantism showed for what we would consider good manners in contending for what he held to be good doctrine.

Today we play more pattycake than contending, it seems. But Luther was operating in a very different context, and it is important to mark his bravery in taking his life in his hands disagreeing not a little but a lot and at-length with the Roman Catholic status quo.

There is no doubting his erudition and eloquence, nor his boldness. Yet I wonder if he got a little carried away sometimes, and whether his legacy would have been more helpful had he moderated his tone a little.

Nevertheless, tedious questions of tone aside, it is hard to disagree with the force of ferocity of Luther's arguments from the Scriptures and from reason regarding God's Sovereign choice versus what so often is called "free will."

Does man have this thing? Can he, even? Or must God get all the credit for man having any ability to choose whatsoever, and is that how we must make sense of what the Word says about predestination, election, foreknowledge, and forechoosing on God's part?

More because of the strength of Luther's reputation and reasoning than despite them, I am still trying to decide what to make of these things in their particular mechanics and detail. Nevertheless, reading Luther is food for thought which I would recommend to any serious scholar of church history or this question of man's ability to choose.

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Dovetailing off my last episode, #227 - 'Preparing Our Children to Defend Against Atheism,' let's read some comments left by listeners yesterday and respond to them a bit more fully.

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My neighbor two houses down, JP Chavez was recently listening to a different podcast in which William Lane Craig was being reacted to.

There was a video clip of Craig – a Christian apologist with a more formally academic and philosophical type bend – being asked about the first eleven chapters of Genesis, and Craig was doubting that the first part of Genesis is to be taken as literally true.

The striking thing the reactors pointed out was Craig’s tone, and that he seemed to be trying to appease atheists in academia who point to things like the first eleven chapters of Genesis as why they can’t take the Bible seriously. Science has allegedly debunked the claims about origins made in the Bible, et cetera.

Now it does seem as though that kind of atheism isn’t quite as prevalent these days compared with years ago. But there are at least two kinds of atheists.

The first kind of atheist I would call the scientific atheist. In this camp belong those who say that modern Science has debunked the claims of the Bible, therefore we must reject the Bible and God as invalid.

The second kind of atheist I would call the moral atheist. And in this category are those who say that the God of the Bible is a villain, and that those who believe in God and the Bible are oppressed and oppressive by virtue of their faith.

The question JP asks is this, if he will forgive me for paraphrasing him:

'Which kind of atheism do we need to spend more of our time and energy trying to equip our kids to defend against?'

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Topical or expository - which type of preaching is better? This was among the chief topics of discussion this past week in one of the private message groups I am a part of.

In the course of the discourse, from the comments of the other men engaged, and from pondering privately to myself, it seems there is some overlap.

On the one hand, every expository message has a topic - even when a sermon is part of a series going through a book of the Bible. The topic just so happens to be chosen by the text itself.

On the other hand, even every topical sermon should be expository - literally exposing the original intent of meaning in the passages considered.

The question then seems to be one of where the emphasis is placed. And as with so many other subjects, what we stress as of chief and primary importance does in the end turn out to make a great difference.

Being overly simplistic, we may be tempted to look at these sorts of things as being either one way or the other rather than both ways. But the challenge is in holding these two things in our hand at the same time in the proper proportion and relationship to one another. And the struggle is the glory.

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What goes into making silence awkward sometimes?

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Exactly four months ago, I started Johannes Fried's biography of Charlemagne, the man often referred to as "the father of Europe." Yesterday I finished the work.

The man, if not his treatment by Fried, reminded me of Constantine the Emperor by David Potter. And it makes sense to consider these two emperors together.

In both Constantine and Charlemagne, we have heads of state who endeavor to combine Christian Church and the governing of the state in ways which stand out in history as transformative. Their legacies echo through the centuries, even though their ways of thinking about themselves and their roles seem so foreign to us in our modern, Progressive, secular humanist context.

But it would be overly simplistic to project too much on the likes of Charlemagne from our current mode of thinking and organizing. While it may be inescapable that we interpret him through the hindsight of twelve-hundred-years, we should take care to not throw babies out with bathwater, or relegate his aspiring Christian governance to shrewd political calculation and self-promotion.

Charlemagne thought very differently about his responsibilities as king and emperor in large part due to the influence of Augustine's City of God. Moreover, the situation facing Charlemagne was like that which confronted Constantine, one where violent and depraved pagans threatened Christendom with not secularism but a form of rule informed and guided by cruel, capricious, and merciless mythologies.

"The father of Europe" was not faced with a choice between sophisticated secularism on the one hand or Christian theocracy on the other - not with Viking raids from the north and Muslim conquests to the south.

Moreover, we do well to consider what else a Christian ruler could have done in those circumstances. Perhaps even our forebears saw matters more clearly than we do in our day. When threats from communist China and radical Islam still threaten us, our leaders slough them off on the presumption that godlessness in the West will prevail due to technological superiority, or some innate supremacy in renouncing religion.

What if Charlemagne had the right of it, though? At least in some important ways, though certainly not all respects, I think he did. Nature abhors a vacuum, and Charlemagne understood this in light of a Christian faith which was sometimes of questionable sincerity and certain imperfection. And we for our part would be wise to study him to glean lessons from an large-scale attempt to apply Augustine to the task of ruling a people.

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When we find that our freedoms are being challenged and curtailed at every level these days, the cost of objecting comes readily to mind. Too seldom do we consider also the cost of not objecting.

To insist on retaining our God-given rights is not conceited or selfish. Rather, in order to fulfill our responsibilities before God, we must retain our rights. The two - rights and responsibilities - are intimately and inseparably codependent.

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Having just finished The Story of Civilization, Volume 2 by Will Durant this week, let's talk about The Life of Greece.

Did the Jews make up Ecclesiastes as a way of keeping up with the Greeks and their philosophy? Durant says they did. But the fact that Durant claims such is borne of what C.S. Lewis calls "chronological snobbery," as well as a bias to invalidate the truth of God's Word.

If only the self-impressed scholars of the last century would concede that their framework for understanding the ancient past is an impediment. Perhaps then they would be able to consider alternative theories to the prevailing view that the Bible is borrowed from greater, richer, more sophisticated neighbors of the Jews, the Hebrews, and the ancient Israelites.

Why can it not be that what we read in God's Word actually happened? And why can it not be that the borrowing and modifying happened in the opposite way to what the likes of Durant suppose?

If all ancient mythologies have some kind of global flood myth which resembles the account of Noah in Genesis, it is not the Jews who borrowed from everyone else. Nor is it self-evident that some committedly secular psychological explanation accounts for a bug in the human subconscious which gave rise to such stories in diverse places.

We would be wiser to suppose that if all the ancients pointed more or less to events at the outset of human history, something actually happened which they all have some vaguer or clearer memory of.

And what if rather than the Greeks borrowing from the Jews, the wisest of the Greeks were like those the Apostle Paul encountered on Mars Hill as having an altar dedicated to "the unknown god"?

The truth is that the truth being sought more fully, yet still in some measure of futility, by the Greeks, and later by the Romans, compared with other peoples, was used by the Most High God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to prepare the world for the arrival of the Messiah through God's chosen people Israel, and that the conditions were by design prepared beforehand for the gospel to go forth to all nations at that time.

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Yesterday, within the course of a day, the Ron Paul Institute YouTube Channel was deleted from the platform. An appeal was made, but automatically rejected. No explanation was given other than "severe or repeated violations of our community guidelines."

Dr. Ron Paul, elected to Congress a dozen times, took to Twitter to ask for help.

So Chris Pandolfo writes for The Blaze a follow-up story - 'YouTube says Ron Paul Institute's channel was removed by 'mistake,' is now reinstated.'

Funny how these "mistakes" never happen to Democrats or those on the political Left in this country.

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The Apostle Paul's letters to his younger disciple Timothy have been on my mind a lot in recent months. In this episode, I want to ponder and explore a selection from the first epistle to Timothy.

1 Timothy 4:12-16 reads,

"Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you.Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress.Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers."

As for many young Christians, this passage has been an encouragement to me since my late teens and early twenties. And it reminds me of Elihu from the book of Job.

In Job 32:1-6, we find this gem.

"So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes.Then Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, burned with anger. He burned with anger at Job because he justified himself rather than God.He burned with anger also at Job's three friends because they had found no answer, although they had declared Job to be in the wrong.Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job because they were older than he.And when Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, he burned with anger.

And Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite answered..."

I would encourage you to read the totality of Elihu's remarks in Job. And see if you can find in what follows them when God steps into the narrative to answer Job any rebuke of Elihu for all of what he says or how he comports himself. I could not when I was a young Christian man, married with children in my early twenties a decade-and-a-half ago.

That is why Lauren and I named our second son Elihu.

Taken together with what Paul tells Timothy, we find that older men are not always wiser for their years. And younger men not only can serve as a good example to all - including older men. They ought to, in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity.

This can lead to conflict. And sometimes when older men feel threatened or challenged by younger men - even just by their example - they act out in confusing and irrational ways.

But this is all the more why we do well to heed the wisdom of Proverbs 22:1.

*"A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,

and favor is better than silver or gold."*

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I have always hated the phrase "perception is reality." Similar to "the customer is always right," it is too flattering, and too easily turns into an excuse to take the path of least resistance when mishandled.

Yes, to a certain extent, we can cultivate and shape perception. And we have a responsibility to be clear in communicating in all the ways we possibly can the truth. So if we have been careless about giving the wrong impression, a reminder of the need to rectify that is appropriate.

But what worries me is that we all are too content with our perceptions - or moreover feelings - going unchallenged. We are too addicted to being entertained, and quickly. And when all of this is combined with believing that most people are inherently good, that truth is subjective and ultimately unknowable, what we get in the end is a recipe for everyone affirming everyone else's unreality until the jig is up and we destroy ourselves.

What would be nearer the truth and healthier would be to say that our initial impressions of a person, place, or thing certainly inform how we perceive additional information as it comes in. But also, we need to grant that a lot of factors can contribute to a poor first impression.

This is to say nothing of confirmation bias and groupthink, or the tendency of some people to claim their perception is such and such as a way of masking their real agenda and motives.

But all the same, and considering all these things, we as Christians do well to look to the example of Jesus. How much responsibility did Jesus take for the perceptions - or perceived perceptions, if you want to get even deeper - of the teachers of the Law?

He confronted them, and warned the crowds about them who came out to hear him teach and to see him heal and forgive. Jesus said they had eyes but did not see, and had ears but did not hear, and that they heard and saw without understanding, all the while claiming they understood.

Whether anyone approached Jesus and told him "the perception is" in so many words, Christ did handle that same tendency in the more wishy-washy among us to placate when we should contradict.

Sometimes similarly that is what we too must do if we are to fear and obey God rather than men.

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"Stop beating around the bush, and just say what you mean." In our current social and political circumstance, this feels harder than ever. People are too easily offended, and the truth is not rightly understood or prioritized. Cancel culture would have us all bowing and scraping and praying to the mob to not destroy our careers and social lives.

But the truth must enjoy an unwavering commitment from Christians because we serve and worship a God who commands such. Moreover, Christ our Savior calls himself not only true in some general sense, but "the Truth."

Like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah in the Old Testament book of Daniel, we can in our day expect to be plotted against, resented, and persecuted for excellence in word and deed. Yet there is a God in Heaven who sees and rewards those who faithfully serve him, and those who are unwavering in their obedience to the Most High will never be put to shame.

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"All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation."

2 Corinthians 5:18-19 (ESV)

This is a direct consequence of the gospel. And reconciliation is predicated on at least one party having been sinned against, and at least one party having sinned against the other.

In the case of the macro level gospel message, God is the one sinned against, and we are the sinners who have transgressed the holy standard of conduct. Put another way, we have loved him poorly or not at all. And in having failed to love the Lord as due, the gift of salvation is entirely about God having extended the olive branch to those who were his enemies to make them right - to restore and reconcile us to God in Christ.

This being the macro, the implications are inescapable. When we are sinned against and have opportunity to forgive wrongs, we do not only have the option to forgive as we have been forgiven. We have a duty.

After all, this is the ministry that has been given to us in Christ - the ministry of reconciliation.

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Lt. Colonel George F. McFarland, my great-great-great grandfather, commanded the 151st Pennsylvania at the Battle of Gettysburg, successfully defending the vulnerable left flank against attack by numerically superior forces from North Carolina long enough to allow for an orderly withdrawal of the First Corps under General Abner Doubleday.

As General Doubleday would later attest, "At Gettysburg, they won, under the brave McFarland, an imperishable fame. They defended the left front of the First Corps against vastly superior numbers; covered its retreat against the overwhelming masses of the enemy at the Seminary, west of the town, and enabled me, by their determined resistance, to withdraw the Corps in comparative safety. This was on the first day. In the crowning charge of the third day of the battle, the shattered remnants of the 151st Pennsylvania [...] flung themselves upon the front of the rebel column […] I believe they saved the First Corps, and were among the chief instruments to save the Army of the Potomac, and the country from unimaginable disaster.”

To read more of the story, I recommend this article by Marcie Schwartz at The American Battlefield Trust titled 'Trading Rulers for Rifles: The Schoolteachers Regiment: The Story of the 151st Pennsylvania.'

Lt. Colonel McFarland was severely wounded in both his legs on that first day of Gettysburg. One of his legs was amputated below the knee as a result, and the other one was permanently disabled though he kept it.

The 151st Pennsylvania meanwhile suffered a 72% casualty rate, and the two regiments from North Carolina they squared off against - the 26th and 11th - suffered the first and second greatest total losses of any regiment during the Battle of Gettysburg. That is to say, "The Schoolteacher's Regiment" gave as good or better than they got, despite holding the Union left flank.

Due to the heavy losses, the 151st Pennsylvania was mustered out and sent home after the battle. And if that had been the end of George McFarland - holding the line to save the First Corps, the Army of the Potomac, and the Union - that would have been quite enough. But that was not the end of McFarland.

After going home, James 1:27 may have been on the good professor's mind, where we read that "religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world."

Returning to the McAlisterville Academy in Juniata County, Pennsylvania, where he had been the principal prior to raising a company of schoolteachers to form Company D of the 151st, McFarland converted the school into McAlisterville Soldier's Orphan School, and founded a printing company and a nursery.

"During this same time, the Pennsylvania Legislature, after many debates passed an act accepting from the Pennsylvania Railroad $50,000 given for the “education and maintenance of destitute orphan children of deceased soldiers and sailors”. The following November of 1864, the academy, at the request of Dr. Burrowes, newly appointed as Superintendent of Soldiers’ Orphans, became the first soldiers’ orphan school effective November 3, 1864."

The point of telling you all of this is two-fold:

For one, I am fascinated and mesmerized by my ancestor, and I enjoy reading and talking about him.

But for another thing, I am struck by what an outsized influence one man can have when he endeavors to take a stand in mind, body, and soul. And even once his legs are shot out from under him, a man can still do great good by not giving up on the purpose of his life.

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In the ongoing pursuit of being transformed by the renewing of our minds in Christ Jesus rather than conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, I turn now to the question of selfish ambition. What is conceit except for supposing that we are the center of the universe, and that everyone and everything revolves around us?

The Apostle Paul writes to the church in Philippi in the second chapter and the third and fourth verses, "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others."

Elsewhere, the Lord directs us to "be wise as serpents and harmless as doves."

But when in the practice of fearing God rather than fearing men, those around us feel confused and even intimidated by the effectiveness of keeping our heads and maintaining our integrity, we may find ourselves in sticky situations. And as we try to balance being both wise to the schemes of others and also blameless before the Almighty with soberly avoiding anything which might be construed as selfish ambition or conceit, we will find that this is easier said than done.

Yet there does seem to be a clarifying detail in that we are told to look to the interests of others. And in that is our test.

Are we imitating Christ who sometimes answered entrapping questions with revealing questions of his own? Yet are we imitating the humble obedience to God the Father even where it meant suffering at the hands of wicked, unjust men?

If we are, then we can have a good conscience.

And are we operating out of a genuine love for those around us - even sometimes our tormenters when we are being tormented? That may not be all smiles and handshakes and "Good mornings" when they are sinning against us. But even where we may confront them, if our motivation is their ultimate good and well-being, then we are free and can have peace in our own minds and hearts.

Admittedly, again, it is a tricky thing to be wise as serpents while also doing nothing from selfish ambition. The world would tempt us to strike down Darth Vader only to become the Emperor's next disciple. But Star Wars metaphors aside, a firm reliance on the good Lord coupled with a ready willingness to wait on him and acknowledge him in all our ways will not see us put to shame.

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The Old Testament book of Job starts with a conversation between God and Satan in which the Lord calls attention to his servant Job.

“Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” (Job 1:8)

In what follows, Satan accuses Job of only worshipping God because of all the good things God has given him. God has blessed him, giving him a beautiful family, status, wealth, and health. If not for these blessings, Satan says Job would curse God openly.

God next grants permission to Satan to take everything from Job so long as he does not touch his person directly.

Before the first chapter is concluded, Job loses his livestock, his servants, and his children. He is distraught, and he mourns.

When Job gets the news from three servants in rapid succession that they alone escaped to tell him of these disasters, Job stands up and proceeds to tear his robe and shave his head. But then he falls to the ground and worships God.

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,

and naked I will return.

Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away.

Blessed be the name of Yahweh.” (Job 1:21)

In the second chapter, Satan attacks Job’s health. And we see a repeat of the scene from the first chapter. God again highlights the righteousness of Job. And again, Satan claims Job will curse God to his face if God removes his blessings – this time keying in on the hypothetical of taking Job’s health away.

As with the first time around, God gives Satan permission to test the genuineness of the faith of the Lord’s servant. The only limitation is that Satan is not allowed to kill Job.

So Job is struck with sores from head to foot.

Next thing you know, Job’s wife is bitterly challenging him.

“Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.”

But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. (Job 2:9-10)

As a point of speculation more than revelation, I wonder if Job’s wife thought to herself that her husband cursing God and dying would bring an end to their troubles. Maybe she wanted the easy way out.

God Reframes The Question Job 38:1-7 (ESV)

"Then Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

Dress for action like a man;

I will question you, and you make it known to me.

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell me, if you have understanding.

Who determined its measurements—surely you know!

Or who stretched the line upon it?

On what were its bases sunk,

or who laid its cornerstone,

when the morning stars sang together

and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"

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The art of disagreeing agreeably seems lost on most in our day and age. Even to use the word "argument" is taken one way - as describing fighting, bickering, quarreling, and contention.

If you do not believe me, you may be living under a rock or on another planet. But if you have access to the internet on that other planet or under that rock, do a quick image search on any search engine for "argument," and that will tell you all you need to know about how most folks understand the term now.

But there is an older sense of the word which has everything to do with making a proposal using evidence, reason, and respect. As Merriam-Webster puts it in the first definition - and the one I prefer - an argument is "the act or process of arguing, reasoning, or discussing : ARGUMENTATION; b: a coherent series of reasons, statements, or facts intended to support or establish a point of view."

Toward the end of MAGA - Make Arguments Great Again - consider Proverbs 9:7-9.

*"Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse,

and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.

Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you;

reprove a wise man, and he will love you.

Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser;

teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning."*

Perhaps it should be a relief to us to have not only permission but a command here to not correct scoffers and mockers. To tell a wicked man he is being wicked will inspire him to hurt, abuse, curse, and injure you however he can to dissuade you from doing it again.

Correcting wise and good men, however, earns their respect. They will love and thank you for it. And why? Because by being corrected clearly and effectively when they need to be, you give them an opportunity to be wiser and better men.

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In the third chapter of the Old Testament book of Isaiah, we read a number of things which will never be expressed in Veggie Tales, flannelgraphs, or Illustrated Children's Bibles.

For one, the Lord God says he is taking away support and supply from Jerusalem and Judah because they have embraced their sin and flaunted their sin, "defying his glorious presence."

Included in the list of things which will no longer be stocked are the following:

bread
water
the mighty man
the soldier
the judge
the prophet
the diviner
the elder
the captain of fifty
the man of rank
the counselor
the skillful magician
the expert in charms

What the people will get instead is a lot of chaos, confusion, and oppression.

*"My people—infants are their oppressors,

and women rule over them.

O my people, your guides mislead you

and they have swallowed up the course of your paths."*

It is telling here that infants oppressing the people is a sign of judgment. To be oppressed by infants is indicative of spiritual and moral decay, and a loss of the strength of character and qualities which are required to be a good parent and see children as a blessing instead of a curse.

Furthermore, to say that women rule over a people reveals that men have grown weak and feckless, and no longer lead their families and homes, much less their communities and nation.

By contrast, God tells us that marriage and children are to be a blessing. And we can take comfort in the tenth verse of the third chapter of Isaiah where we are promised, "Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds."

In days like these, when America seems ripe for judgment - and moreover, when one could argue with merit that we are seeing evidence of already being under judgment - we do well to acquaint ourselves with passages like Isaiah 3, and to ponder the implications of righteousness for the individual, family, community, city, state, and nation.

By God's grace, may we be found faithful in that day. And may it be well with us to the end of eating the fruit of our deeds.

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Just having finished up Lincoln's Last Trial: The Murder Case That Propelled Him to the Presidency by Dan Abrams and David Fisher, I am struck by another thing. For one, Lincoln was a fine lawyer and a great man. For another, the right of self-defense is a tried and true principle of jurisprudence which endures through the ages.

When a larger man publicly threatens repeatedly to whip you with the help of his friends, then stomp your face, you can be forgiven for keeping a weapon on your person and being prepared to use it in defense of your person.

That is something of the lesson we should take away from the last murder trial Lincoln presided over as a defense attorney. And it is worth noting that Lincoln had something of a reputation for only taking up cases he believed in for clients he could in good conscience plead the case of.

I might personally go a step beyond to say that I wonder in reading this how this last case impressed on the man who would be our nation's 16th president the justice and even necessity to defending with manly vigor life and limb when pressed, even as he came to wield in due time authority over a nation which faced an existential crisis from a class and culture of people in the South who would rather see the country torn in two than give up their superiority to some men they regarded as so many cattle.

Dare I say it, we find ourselves in a similar predicament in our day - or we may shortly.

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Three pieces to consider today as President Biden announces new requirements that Americans of companies with 100 or more employees must get the COVID-19 vaccine or else be tested at least once weekly.

Biden Plans COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate for 80 Million Private-Sector Workers by Jack Phillips, The Epoch Times
President Biden announces sweeping vaccine mandate for employees of large businesses; plan will affect more than 80 million Americans by Carlos Garcia, The Blaze
Governors Immediately Push Back On 'Unconstitutional' Biden Plan: 'Will Fight Them To The Gates of Hell' by Ryan Saavedra, The Daily Wire

Fair warning: some of the "push back" from governors here is a bit weak sauce, and carries with it what could be construed as a signal of a readiness to surrender from the outset on this despite a desire to look to constituents like a fighter before surrendering.

"We don't like it either," they seem to say. "And we hope this gets defeated in the courts. But we still want you all to get the vaccine. And you should get the vaccine. But we also want you to believe we are opposed to you being forced to get the vaccine. But we also are not pledging to do anything to protect you from such forcing. But we want you to believe we would if we could. But we wouldn't even if we can right now."

This then is just one more in a series of important character tests as-late. And the question in our minds ought to be one of principles and precedent - both ours as citizens, and theirs as governing officials.

If 100 million Americans can have their livelihood and income and businesses threatened with abolition if they do not inject themselves and require injection of a vaccine which so many of our countrymen do not feel is satisfactorily safe, then what precisely separates this Republic from tyranny?

'Oh, ho!' you may say. 'But, Garrett. This tyranny is being exercised for our own good. Therefore it is not really tyranny after all.'

But then I remind you of the quote by Clive Staple Lewis, and will leave you with it as food for thought, whether we are not in the thick of such a circumstance as he describes here.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

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The National Archives online catalogue is now putting trigger warnings on America's founding documents, according to reporting from September 8, 2021 by Emily Zanotti at The Daily Wire.

Historical materials and documents - including, but not limited to our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights - which may contain "harmful language" have been given a trigger warning at the top of the page if they "reflect racist, sexist, ableist, misogynistic/misogynoir, and xenophobic opinions and attitudes; be discriminatory towards or exclude diverse views on sexuality, gender, religion, and more; include graphic content of historical events such as violent death, medical procedures, crime, wars/terrorist acts, natural disasters and more; demonstrate bias and exclusion in institutional collecting and digitizing policies."

As the DW piece by Zanotti points out toward the end, one of the recommendations provided by a little noticed report from a National Archives task force suggesting major changes included providing context to the rotunda for the building for the National Archives in Washington, DC through 'dance or performance art in the space that invites dialogue about the ways that the United States has mythologized the founding era.'

Setting aside the patent absurdity of dance and performance art in the rotunda being used to undermine and desecrate America's founding, is it too much to ask for more specificity here? What specifically is the "harmful language" being warned about by our own nation's bureaucratic recordkeepers? Where is this alleged racism, sexism, ableism, misogyny, misogynoir, or xenophobia?

But then that is not first and foremost the point. And as David Horowitz has put it, "the issue is not the issue; the issue is the revolution."

The revolution here is not first and foremost about all of these forms of alleged discrimination. The revolution is about tearing down our nation's founding, and we should all be concerned by what will fill the vacuum.

As a brief aside, it would be an interesting exercise to task the folks at NARA with rewriting our nation's founding documents to their likings, and seeing what they come up with.

But in all seriousness, this story underscores the great need to pull our children out of the public education system, and homeschool them. Teach your children at home about civics, political science, philosophy, history, critical thinking, and theology. Teach the next generation to be able to govern when this all falls apart, because there is no sustainability to our nation being governed and ruled by persons and parties who resent and despise America.

Either we select new leadership and a new government for ourselves which actually loves this country, or else it is only a matter of time before some other more self-confident and assertive nation takes us over and rules us from elsewhere.

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There is a kind of restraint which is good, appropriate, and wise. Self-control is the fruit of the Spirit. And how we should control ourselves is toward the end of saying what is true and doing what is right, and not saying what is false and not doing what is evil.

But there is another kind of restraint which is a bit trickier, and it has everything to do with fearing man.

In the first case, when we are led by the Spirit, we act out of a deep and abiding love for and faith in Christ. In the second, we make tactical decisions to avoid telling the whole truth, and we falter as we endeavor to act in ways we know we ought to because there will be a cost.

Dovetailing off yesterday's episode, I want to delve deeper into my own personal insecurity. And in doing that, I find that I am not taking my anxieties and worries to the Lord as I ought to be.

The truth and wisdom of God's Word warns us against casting pearls before swine or giving to dogs what is holy. Dave, a good friend of mine, reminded me of this in different words recently.

Christ did not always answer his accusers and detractors. And neither do we need to always. Sometimes it is better to not answer a fool according to his folly lest you be like him, as the Proverbs say.

Yet there is another way to answer a fool according to his folly which refuses to feed into his being wise in his own eyes. And sometimes that way of answering is to not give the foolish scoffer and agitator the satisfaction of any answer at all.

Still other times, communicating frustration is appropriate. And that last bit may be the biggest thing I am struggling with from an interpersonal standpoint right now.

When being "nice" is so faddish and fashionable in pop-Christian culture these days, it feels sometimes as though the worst sin you can commit is to be not that. And conveying frustration, disappointment, or even sadness at the conduct of those around us is seen as not nice.

To be clear, we ought not to be irritable if we are going to be loving. But there is a difference between being irritated by an objective irritant and just being grouchy all the time.

All the same, one of the insights the Lord is helping me to realize when I earnestly ask him for wisdom in these trying times is that curbing my own unnecessary and inappropriate irritation necessitates doing all I can about what is actually my part in all this. And having done all to stand, I need to accept that at a certain point it is appropriate to merely stand firm and wait on the Lord in peace and satisfaction and contentment, trusting in his ultimate goodness, faithfulness, and authority.

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Popularity - who and what enjoys it and for what reasons is in a constant state of flux. Today or tomorrow, trends bestow greater attention and affection for this or that person, place, or thing. And just as quickly, the critical mass evaporates or else shifts to some other.

According to Wikipedia, which should itself be regarded as a kind of popular consensus encyclopedia, and the amalgam of what the online world wants to know and believe about everything, popularity as a concept stems from the Latin word popularis, or "common."

In a world dominated by modernism and post-modernism, by every kind of idol and rejection of idols, what is regarded as agreed in common may change from day to day, week to week, and month to month. From one year to the next, decade after decade, popularity ebbs and flows.

Yet one thing which is increasingly unpopular is to believe in the truth found only in Christ - that God is the Creator and Lord of the Universe; that the Word has been given to us to know truth from falsehood, righteousness from wickedness, and wisdom from folly.

If you believe that truth, you will act and speak accordingly. And increasingly, as current trends go and historical precedent should inform us, this particular kind of unpopularity will translate into persecution.

We do well, then, to not hitch the wagon of our identity to whether we are well liked by the world for following Christ. And all the more as we see trouble coming, we are wise to grapple with not fearing man, not casting pearls before swine, and not being conformed to the pattern of this world.

"The fear of man lays a snare," as Proverbs 29:25 tells us. "But whoever trusts in Yahweh is safe."

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The poem 'Opportunity' by Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887) has been memorized and recited now by two of my sons - first by Solomon a few years ago for the 4H Speech & Demo Day in Sidney, Montana; second by Daniel last Fall for a more private gathering of homeschooling families here in Greeley, Colorado.

Published in 1880, the Colorado city which would eventually be renamed after Horace Greeley was a mere 11-years-old when Sill wrote about the king's son picking up the blunt thing the craven had tossed away.

"Go West, young man" was the admonition of Horace Greeley, and it was fitting thereby that this city would be named after a man who offered such encouragements in print to people in the East.

The fuller remarks concerning westward expansion and Manifest Destiny included more fully the following compare and contrast.

"Washington is not a place to live in. The rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting and the morals are deplorable. Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country."

This morning, though, I woke up to a comment on YouTube from some scoffer who might as well be anonymous that it is so cliché that I have seven children and live in Greeley.

The specific video this remark was left on was my reaction to the second Trump Team mid-term campaign ad. It would be all the more fitting if the one who is mocking me there is from Washington, D.C. I almost hope that is the case.

But undeterred, I want to think more deeply about opportunity - what it looks like, where it can be found, and what to do with it. And all the more, not less, we should remember that sometimes cravens and cowards lurk around the battle edges and fling away whatever they think unworthy. And as often as not, those things flung away end up being used by the good Lord to win great battles.

As 1 Corinthians 1:27-29 says,

"But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God."

We do well to meditate long and hard and persistently on such things, and live accordingly, in humility and confidence and by God's grace.

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The first Monday in September looms just around the corner, and that means Labor Day in the United States.

Originally conceived as an annual celebration and honoring of the labor movement in this country, Labor Day now as often as not marks the beginning of a new school year and the unofficial end of summer.

For me personally this year, Labor Day Weekend caps off my first week back after quarantine for my wife's positive COVID test. And with that first week back, I find myself pensive about nearly a decade in the Oil & Gas industry.

One of the biggest lessons learned in nearly a decade of working life is that supply and demand dynamics have a dramatic effect on working conditions. This holds true for commodities like oil and gas, and what price they command on the market is tied to how much people are consuming relative the amount available to consume. But this also holds true for labor.

When I first moved back to Eastern Montana from Southern Ohio in 2012, the scenery and local culture were by no means the only changes. The labor markets could hardly have been more contrasting.

Southern Ohio in 2012 was still lopsided from the Great Recession of 2008, with more prospective workers looking for jobs than there were jobs available. This in turn drove down wages, benefits, and working conditions, with employers knowing they could pay less and treat their employees rougher and still have workers as their employees were told to "just be happy you have a job."

Eastern Montana and Western North Dakota, by contrast, were home to the Williston Basin, better known as "The Bakken" for a shale play that was booming then. Every business great and small was hard up for workers. And this not only drew job-seekers from far and wide; it also drove up wages, benefits, and working conditions, as employers were loathe to needlessly upset or offend the employees they already had for fear they would leave for a better opportunity at some other company in the area.

After nearly a decade in the Oil & Gas industry, I have seen the market go up and down, and rampant speculation around the water coolers has persistently centered on how regulatory and tax environments, as well as broader economic factors at home and abroad related to supply and demand would effect the prospects of hard-working men and women and their families.

Big Government types are quick to offer solutions predicated on higher taxes and more regulatory oversight. But the truth is that the best thing for labor is competition between prospective employers. When employees have options to take their skills, experience, and services elsewhere, employers bring their A-game to the process.

Labor Day 2021, I think we do well to ponder such things deeply and make the most of the decisions we make and how we relate to our working lives accordingly, whichever side of the equation in which we find ourselves.

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Nathanael Blake published a piece at The Federalist August 31st, 2021 titled 'A Supreme Court That Capitulates On Roe V. Wade Will Unleash A Whirlwind' in which he lays out what is likely to happen among conservatives in America if a 6-3 majority on the U.S. Supreme Court upholds rather than overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case which established abortion as "the law of the land."

He is right to posit that such an outcome would implode the Republican Party, which for nearly 50-years has funded and ran its campaigns against abortion, and extracted a great deal of loyalty from voters who are incensed by the State-sanctioned mass murder which is euphemized as "abortion."

The history of the Republican Party in America is replete with moderates who care more about being "bi-partisan" than they do about staying faithful to the promises made to their constituents who elected them. Since the Civil War and Reconstruction, moderate Republicans have routinely sold out conservative causes for the sake of short-term personal comfort and deal-making with the opposition.

Yet we do well to remember ourselves and remind moderate Republicans, be they on the Supreme Court or anywhere in or out of power, of what Proverbs 24:10-12 says.

*"If you faint in the day of adversity,

your strength is small.*

*Rescue those who are being taken away to death;

hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.*

*If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,”

does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?

Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it,

and will he not repay man according to his work?"*

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The first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one. But anyone who is unwilling to admit there is trouble is going to be impervious to calls from problem solvers to participate in the troubleshooting process.

We will not solve problems we refuse to admit we have, in other words.

And while this all may seem very obvious and self-evident, the current state of things in the United States of America increasingly beggars belief in the wisdom and decency of the mushy middle folks.

"It's just so hard" may be true. But there's more to the story than that, and we do not make things less hard when we are more stubborn than the facts about not acknowledging or reckoning with the facts of the situation.

It will be less hard to know what to do about all these things if we stop trying to play pattycake with the folks on the Left - inside and outside the Church - who with each passing day show themselves to be inept control-freaks who view themselves as the ultimate judges and arbiters of truth and justice.

The Leftists among us will, if given enough time, erect golden statues of themselves and demand we all bow down and worship, or else. And when the 'or else' takes the form of very hot furnaces made for disposing of non-compliant people, we will have to know which side of the furnace we stand - whether the inside or the outside.

But if there is a line - like bowing down to a golden image of the king, for instance - which the mushy middle folks will eventually refuse to cross, it is not impolite or unloving for us principled types to start asking them to tell us where specifically it is.

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In Episode #56, 'Reservations Regarding 'Lead' by Paul David Tripp,' I laid out my concerns with what Tripp was and was not saying in his book regarding leadership in Christ's Church.

Among the things I highlighted was a concern about the emphasis placed on eliminating "sexism."

My trepidation here should not be mistaken for a defense of sexism. But as anyone who studies the news cycle knows, particularly where politics is concerned, accusations of "sexism" these days more often than not are leveled at anyone who merely disagrees with, criticizes, or contradicts a woman when she's advancing liberal or Leftist causes.

The same goes for accusations of "racism" and people of color.

Sexism and racism are actual things we ought not to embrace. But the Devil is in the details of when, how, and why. And if denunciations of "sexism" are too broad and general and stressed through repetition, theological liberals in America will seize on them as grounds for insisting on the ordination of women as overseers and deacons, in direct contradiction to God's Word.

Some of the feedback I've recently got on Episode #56 led me to dig deeper and see if there was anything to confirm or refute the deductive reasoning I employed in that episode regarding Tripp's personal views on this subject. And being home on quarantine the past week-and-a-half has given me ample time to research. So I share here the results of my researches.

It should be noted clearly that I have found nothing yet which states one way or the other Tripp's position on the ordination of women as overseers and deacons, whether he is supportive or opposed to it.

However, in my searching, I would draw your attention to something I found regarding the man Tripp identifies as his own pastor, Dr. Eric Mason of Epiphany Fellowship Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

More specifically, consider the curious case of a Twitter back-and-forth from 2018 in which Dr. Mason publicly called for a Council of Philadelphia to "call those who are heretics on this stuff heretics and make a move to clear the air of these false doctrines on race [and] justice like the church of antiquity."

In the Tweet preceding this, Mason lets slip something else I want to draw your attention to.

"We need a modern day ecumenical council on race [and] justice! We need canons and synods and creeds on this! Come to Philly and we can call it the Council of Philadelphia! Limit it to 300 key men and women pastors and scholarly secretaries. Rebuke the heretics [and] affirm the sound."

(emphasis added)

Reading down through the other comments, several respondents caught what I did, and seized on Mason including women pastors in his invitation. Some asked him if he had missed a comma, while others insisted as much. However, as far as I was able to see, Mason never clarified what he meant in this regard.

Whether Paul David Tripp's pastor is being misunderstood here is somewhat beside the point to my chief concern with Tripp, Mason, and the whole Woke Church crowd. From this exchange and many others from leading Evangelical in recent years, it becomes clear this whole Woke business is being regarded by them as a primary issue, not a secondary one on which we can disagree.

But then there is the definite possibility that Mason subscribes to theological liberalism with the ordination of women just like he subscribes to theological liberalism with regards to racial issues.

It seems all the more that my initial concerns and suspicions were justified.

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On the encouragement of Micah Hershberger, I did a new thing for the first time yesterday. I recorded a reaction video.

You can view my foray into this internet trend here: Reaction to JD Hall on Protestia 'Podcast ALONE' Rant.

In my entirely subjective and self-serving opinion, I think it's not half bad for being my first try. But you can watch and be the judge, and do be so kind as to let me know if you have any other videos you'd like to see me do a reaction to.

But then you may be wondering why I am doing this. And I'll tell you - it has everything to do with the intersection of my quest to get better at communication, how and why Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb, and a keen desire to bring my whole person into this effort to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind.

That isn't to say that every reaction video is going to be me presenting my best self. But it is to say I think we need to be looking our actual self in the mirror when we need touching up and greater discipline, rather than looking at an image of our idealized self and trying to reckon with that.

Reaction videos are admittedly - at least according to some critics quoted and referenced on the Wikipedia article on the subject here, at least potentially "graceless" and "narcissistic." But then how many folks are trying to take to the reaction video enterprise with a view to loving God and their fellow man, or a public dependence on God's grace, or out of a desire to improve social graces?

Now you know of at least one person - yours truly.

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In celebration of the 200th episode of this podcast, I want to do a recap on what I have learned, am learning, and hope to continue on learning as we continue on this journey of talking about everything.

First things first, communication is hard, and there is more to it than just figuring out what you want to say because how we say things is a critically important part of what in the end people actually take away.

When I started out blogging in earnest in 2015, each piece of writing required read-through after read-through, with little tweaks and edits each run before it was ready to be published.

So also with podcasting, though in a different way, I listen back through each episode at least once before contentedness settles in that what has been said adequately represents my actual position.

All the same, things I don't mean to be taken a certain way still make it through regardless. And such is life. That is the risk we all take when we communicate or do anything. The only thing for it is to keep on refining.

For now, then, here were the most popular episodes of the past 100.

175 What is Going On at McLean Bible Church - 7/27/2021
103 Voddie Baucham's Fault Lines - 4/24/2021
144 Making Sense of The Great Resignation - 6/17/2021
135 American Trucking Simulator - 6/3/2021
121 Reservations Regarding 'Lead' by Paul David Tripp - 5/18/2021

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Still being home on quarantine last night, I did not have an opportunity to deliver the second sermon I prepared for the Preaching & Teaching class at Summitview Community Church, though I did prepare a sermon.

However, being home as we were yesterday morning, I did preach both the first and second sermons for class to my wife and children over breakfast, and it is a funny thing to realize that even preaching to your own family can induce feelings of nervousness.

To hear the first sermon, you can go back to the episode I recorded last week titled 'The Breath of God' concerning 2 Timothy 3:16-17. But in this episode, I would like to share with you the second sermon concerning 2 Timothy 2:14-15.

Here Paul tells Timothy,

“Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”

Feeling convicted as I did after teaching my children and wife such yesterday morning, I went back and listened to my episode from yesterday with fresh ears, and I heard myself saying some things which I was not convinced could be called "rightly handling the word of truth." So I went back and edited the audio to remove the offending part.

If we are servants of God, we are not to be quarrelsome, about words or any other thing. Nor are we to embrace "irreverent babble" as Paul calls it in 2 Timothy 2:16. Rather, we are to avoid such, even as we strive to rightly handle truth and present ourselves to God as approved workers who have no need to be ashamed.

That said, some of us say things which are not good in other ways. And just because I sometimes offend in saying things which are true but delivered too harshly, and I need to get better at that, the mainstay issue confronting many American Christians today is an undue deference to claims and practices which God's Word says are false and evil.

As Isaiah 5:20 puts it, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" And let it not be said of us that we do any such thing ever, whoever we might offend, and whatever temporary benefits or security we might desire by flattering.

We must not confuse flattery for gentleness, or ambiguity for humility. Rather, we must be bold in telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help us God.

"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable," therefore we must "do [our] best to present ourselves to God as workers who need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."

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One week after the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, we do well to do a brief inventory of the fallout at home and abroad. Three points to consider from reports at home and abroad over the past few days.

Biden Not Only Gave Afghanistan Back to the Taliban; He Also Armed Them Biden not only gave Afghanistan back to the Taliban. He also allowed them to take possession of military bases, vehicles, communications equipment, small arms, and ammunition.

The New York Post reports the Taliban now has billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. weapons, including Black Hawk helicopters, Humvees, and up to 600,000 rifles

The Daily Wire reports the Biden administration is considering air strikes to destroy American weapons in Taliban possession.

France is Lecturing America About the Need for Swift, Decisive Action Biden is trying so hard to control the narrative, his administration is trying to censor the president of France.

The Blaze reports the White House is accused of removing from the transcript of Biden’s call with French President Macron a plea from the French leader that Biden share ‘moral responsibility’ for rescuing Afghanis

Hollywood and British Lords Roundly Condemn Biden for Bungling Hollywood royalty and British Lords are coming down hard on Biden, and rightly so.

The Blaze reports Angelina Jolie is ‘ashamed’ of Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, describing it as having been undertaken in “the most chaotic way imaginable.”

The Daily Wire reports British Lords roundly condemned Biden administration for catastrophic bungling in Afghanistan, calling this a loss for not only the U.S. and her allies, but the West as a whole.

How Will Our American Generation Be Remembered? The blessing and curse of representative government is that when we Americans are led by great men, we can walk tall on the world stage and in the annals of history. But when we are led by the corrupt and ineffectual whose best defense for overseeing catastrophic failure is either incompetence or cognitive decline, then also are we represented.

Perhaps it is fitting that Biden is the so-called leader of the free world right now. Confused, defiant, willful, stubborn, and dishonest - the humiliation is too much to be borne, unless this is God's judgment on our nation. The wind has been sown, and perhaps now we reap the whirlwind.

However, I for one do still pray that the good Lord delivers us from evil and leads us not into temptation.

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Nearly 2,000 years ago, a very real danger presented itself to the early Church. As the Apostle Paul writes to the church in Galatia, the claims of the Judaizers represented a different gospel than the one he had preached to them, by which they had come to a saving faith in Christ.

Central to the controversy was the Old Testament Law, and circumcision in particular.

Gentile believers in Christ had been told by Paul that repentance and faith in Christ's atoning sacrifice on the cross was primary. The death, burial, and resurrection of the Messiah was a promise for all who believed, whether Jew or Gentile.

But then the Judaizers came insisting that circumcision was also necessary. And Paul was very clear and direct in confronting them, and in warning the Gentiles not to believe their alternative claims.

Not only new converts were deceived and led astray. The Apostle Peter was even intimidated for a time. And Paul told the church in Galatia that when he had been in Antioch, he had rebuked Peter to his face publicly for having tried to appease the Judaizers by no longer associating with Gentile Christians.

Peter had been afraid of offending the Judaizers. But in his effort to placate them, he had undermined the gospel message.

At heart was not circumcision in and of itself. Paul demonstrated that clearly when he had his disciple Timothy circumcised before undertaking missionary work with Jews.

Rather, the chief concern was that circumcision was being made into a primary issue, and the Judaizers were dividing the early Church in a way that represented a real threat not only to unity among true believers, but to the very message of the gospel.

In America today, the modern equivalent of the Judaizers is this new brand of Woke Christianity which insists that embracing Leftist ideology is the "works" when James the brother of Jesus says that "faith without works is dead."

If we are not clear about that, and if we do not confront this threat of false teaching from within, we will undermine the gospel just as Peter did for a time before he was reproved by Paul at Antioch.

As Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8-10,

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."

If social and political activism according to the new Woke orthodoxy are the "good works" which God prepared for us to walk in, we should all be asking how the Church - even the Apostles and all the Church Fathers - missed this for 2,000 years.

But then that is just it. They did not miss this because it was not there, and it still is not. Nor will it ever be there, however persistently the manipulative claims confidently issued from the most persuasive sources might tug on our heartstrings.

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Woke pastors, woke churches, and woke Christianity are front and center in America. But is Wokism a primary, secondary, or even tertiary issue? Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory, Social Justice, charges of White Supremacy, "White-Centeredness," inequity, and America's original sin being racism. All of these and more have been picked up, embraced, and preached from pulpits and books and YouTube channels by prominent, popular, leading Evangelical Christian pastors in recent years. Many Christian laypeople are still grappling with what to make of it all. And we know that we are called to unity of mind in Christ as believers. Ephesians 4:1-6, for instance tells us clearly. "...Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." But why does unity in Christ always seem to mean embracing theologically, politically, and socially liberal positions as valid and true? Why do calls for unity never seem to work in the opposite direction toward conservative, historically orthodox stances? Perhaps rather than asking conservatives to do yet more never-ending soul-searching for whether they have prioritized Wokism too highly, regarding as a primary issue something which is secondary or tertiary at best, we should instead examine more closely the claims of primacy being made clearly, boldly, confidently, and repeatedly by the likes of Paul David Tripp, David Platt, and Tim Keller. Read and listen to them in their own words. Do they consider these to be primary issues? They do. And if such men regard Woke ideology and theology as central, primary, and essential to Christian life and thought, should those who seek to correct and reprove this false teaching be regarded as the divisive ones who have lost sight of the primacy of Scripture and the gospel of Jesus Christ? Take heed to what 1 Corinthians 14:7-8 says. "If even lifeless instruments, such as the flute or the harp, do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is played? And if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle?"

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Before my wife contracted COVID recently, I planned and prepared a short sermon for the Preaching and Teaching training I have been undergoing with several men from our church in Evans, Colorado.

My text for the sermon was and is 2 Timothy 3:16-17.

"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."

Having our plans change Sunday morning when my wife lost her sense of taste and smell, I did not deliver this sermon as planned. Hopefully there will still be an opportunity in the future to do so with the other men in that class.

But in the meantime, I would like to deliver the sermon here, and to you. And having a bit more time to unpack the sermon on this podcast than is feasible in class, I would like to unpack this sermon a bit more than just reading its manuscript to you.

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Continuing on the cultural enrichment project in my home, and perhaps needing a little levity, my seven children and I sat down last night to watch 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,' the 1954 musical starring Howard Keel and Jane Powell.

As my son Solomon pointed out near the end of the film, this is in part a story about Stockholm Syndrome.

But it's more than that. And we ought not to take this too seriously. It is a comedy, after all.

The year is 1850. Adam, Benjamin, Caleb, Daniel, Ephraim, Frank, and Gideon Pontipee occupy the family farm in the mountains of Oregon. When eldest brother Adam comes back from town with his bride Milly, his younger brothers - dirty, rude, and utterly devoid of all charm and grace - realize they want wives too.

Milly sets to work reforming her new brothers-in-law, cleaning them up and teaching the rough-and-tumble lot some manners.

It just so happens that when they all attend a barn-raising with the local townsfolk, the unwed brothers take a liking to some of the girls from town. And those girls take a liking to them too, what with their now-tempered confidence.

Don't necessarily try this at home, kids. But it all ends up happy in the end when the whole lot take their vows. And I think we could all learn a thing or two about being civilized and polite, but not too-too civilized.

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As a follow-up to 'Afghanistan Reconquered by the Taliban,' let us take a closer look at the ideas that contributed to the failure of the Afghan government to hold the country against Taliban aggression, and the failure of the U.S. government to nation-build a feudal-minded Islamist culture into the 21st century.

Meanwhile, Hank Barrien at The Daily Wire reported yesterday 'Seizing on U.S. Weakness, China Warns Taiwan U.S. Will Not Defend Them.'

NBC News presents President Biden's full speech addressing the nation on Afghanistan yesterday, taking no questions from reporters, and promptly returning to his vacation at Camp David.

For more backstory on Afghanistan, check out 'Why Afghanistan Is Impossible to Conquer' by Real Life Lore on Nebula, and 'Afghanistan 1979' on Curiosity Stream.

Also read 'Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power' by Victor Davis Hanson.

In sum, ideas have consequences. Elections have consequences because ideas have consequences. And ideas are upstream of elections.

And as Sextus asks Messala in Ben-Hur (1959), 'How do you fight an idea?' Messala was right about one thing. You fight ideas with other - and better - ideas.

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News reports this morning are that Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, is surrounded. The Afghan government has announced it will oversee a peaceful transition of power. The Taliban for its part has issued a statement that everyone can stay home with no need to panic. All are forgiven for their complicity and cooperation with American and allied forces over the past two decades.

As reported by Paul Sacca at The Blaze, President Biden issued a statement while on vacation at Camp David that America will commit 5,000 U.S. military troops to evacuating American and allied personnel still in-country.

Not only was this outcome entirely foreseeable, it was foreseen, whatever the assurances a month ago that 100,000 Taliban fighters would absolutely not overrun 300,000 Afghan soldiers and police.

Our reasons for originally going into Afghanistan were valid and just, even if our efforts at nation-building were naïve, foolhardy, and doomed to fail from the start, at least along the lines they were pursued.

The reasons the ruling class in America and allied countries thought Afghanistan could become a moderate, Pro-Western democracy are the same reasons they opposed the populist policies of President Trump at-home in the U.S.A.

The post-war consensus of secular, global values vastly underestimated the "Old Gods" as R.R. Reno calls them - loyalty to God, family, nation, and culture. Holding them in contempt as the cause of destructive conflicts like World War I and World War II, our betters around the globe thought they could create peaceful, prosperous, sustainable new political situations the world over by boiling us all down through various ways and means.

Their errant, self-indulgent, conceited ideas proved fictitious and unrealizable once again. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the 300,000 Afghani soldiers and cops surrendering without a fight show us that in a way all the hypothetical and theoretical arguments somehow fail to.

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Eastern Montana native and resident of Sidney, Montana - Micah Hershberger joins me on this episode to talk about discernment ministry bloggers in general, and Jordan "J.D." Hall more specifically.

To what extent should we get into the personal lives of public persons in the Church, politics, and popular culture?

How can we guard ourselves against self-promotion and conceitedness - in ourselves and those we listen to - when it comes to engaging in public discourse and the marketplace of ideas?

Tune in as we strive to separate fact from fiction and distinguish the good from the bad and the ugly in the sphere of apologetics and the world-wide-web of self-proclaimed Christian polemicists.

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A Loudoun County, Virginia school board meeting made headlines Tuesday, August 10th after proposals regarding Critical Race Theory, transgender pronouns, mask mandates, and vaccines prompted fiery responses from parents and teachers.

Sarah Taylor at The Blaze reported that Laura Morris, a fifth-grade teacher in Leesburg, Virginia resigned publicly stating among other things:

"This summer I have struggled with the idea of returning to school, knowing that I'll be working yet again with a school division that, despite its shiny tech and flashy salary, promotes political ideologies that do not square with who I am as a believer in Christ."

Phil Shiver, also at The Blaze, reported that at the same meeting, an unnamed father identifying himself as an Iranian Christian immigrant spoke also.

"These are our children, not yours," he added defiantly. "Their job is not to raise my child or my neighbor's child. Their job is to teach our kids math, science, biology, literature, and that's it. Not ideology. Now you want to push garbage crap like 'pronouns.'

"How the hell does that keep a kid from succeeding? How does that help them?" he shouted. "You wanna push that garbage down my kids' throats, I will make you call my kids king and queen. That's how you will address my son and daughter. And when you look at me, you will call me master."

Kudos to these two, and well-said. You are my heroes, and we need a nation full of parents and teachers willing to take a stand now just like you did.

On a related note, order a copy of my book, 'And This Is Why We Homeschool,' available on paperback and Kindle E-reader from Amazon.com, or orderable from the homepage for the book at AndThisIsWhy.us - and find out not only why we homeschool, but why you should too.

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I have very real concerns about J.D. Hall being embraced as a partner in this campaign against Woke Christianity and radical Leftism in America – concerns that his partnership serves as a kind of poison pill for such efforts and will ultimately help rather than hinder Wokism and Leftism, both inside and outside the Church. These concerns are not merely hypothetical, but are borne of my personal interactions with Jordan, having attended his church for a brief time, and having gotten to know him directly, family-to-family, over the course of several months.

To be clear, we did not move to Sidney, Montana or start attending Fellowship with any foreknowledge of the his controversial backstory. I was completely clueless as to who Jordan was prior to that first Sunday in 2013.

As memory serves me rather fuzzily, it may have actually been a few years before I read up and researched the controversies surrounding Hall and his public life. But in any event, I was not acquainted with his infamy when we decided to attend, nor when I felt strongly led to stop attending.

But I wrote about Hall twice at On The Rocks Blog – once in November of 2017 after he and another man from his church were dragged out of a Pentecostal revival in Dickinson, North Dakota; another time in January of 2020 when my earlier publication was picked up by a local reporter at the Sidney Herald and was being used to try and quash efforts at making Richland County, Montana into a 2nd Amendment Sanctuary.

In other words, I have written publicly about Hall as the intersection of occasion and conscience has necessitated, and no more.

But let me be clear: whatever he likely thinks or is liable to say, I am not obsessed with Jordan Hall. But still having friends and family in Eastern Montana, and having lived in Sidney, Montana for several years, I maintain roots despite having moved to Weld County, Colorado two years ago. And I still hear about Hall's antics from time to time, without prompting or pursuit on my part.

Before moving to Northeastern Colorado, I had even entertained some thoughts of running for public office at a certain point – for Montana House District 35, for instance, if Jordan ever ran for that seat. And I had close ties with a few persons who were very involved in Eastern Montana politics and had encouraged me to join onto movements – Richland County Republicans, for instance.

I ultimately declined to join that last movement in particular when I learned that Hall was the leading spokesperson. And I declined precisely because I believe him to be a mad dog who will in the end hurt the causes and people he embraces, and who embrace him in return.

It is one thing to say that a guard dog is good to keep around when there are wolves in the wooded hills. And I do say that, heartily.

But when the guard dog either cannot or will not distinguish between the wolves and the sheep, and might as soon bite your guests and family as defend them from the wolves, that sort of guard dog is more of a liability than an asset.

So also with J.D. Hall. So consider yourselves warned.

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Both the North and the South, Union and Confederate, knew their Bibles.

As President Abraham Lincoln said in his Second Inaugural Address, which was as much a sermon to the nation as it was a summary of the Civil War, men on both sides of the conflict "read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other."

In James P. Byrd's excellent book on the subject - A Holy Baptism of Fire and Blood: The Bible and the American Civil War' - the extent to which Americans were familiar with God's Word is laid bare with quote after quote, and one Biblical reference after another in a long procession, like soldiers marching.

But did Americans understand God's Word? And did Americans apply what God had said to every facet of life consistently?

The tragic conclusion I come to after studying this in some depth is that the Civil War would never have happened if the answer to these questions had been in the affirmative.

Yet we find ourselves in a very similar predicament in our day, and not by accident.

We are not divorced from the theological problems which plagued professing Christians in the United States before, during, and immediately after the Civil War. If anything, we are more deeply mired and entrenched in those same problems in part because of how that conflict came to be, was handled, and is still thought of and taught about today.

To understand this issue better and more deeply, I would recommend Mark A. Noll's 'The Civil War as a Theological Crisis,' Nathan O. Hatch's 'The Democratization of American Christianity,' and Douglas Wilson's 'Black and Tan: A Collection of Essays and Excursions on Slavery, Culture War, and Scripture in America.'

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As part of a training I am going through these weeks, our class is going to be tasked with delivering three small sermons. The first will be manuscripted, the second will be outlined, and the third will be - if memory serves - extemporaneous.

Merriam-Webster defines 'extemporaneous' as "composed, performed, or uttered on the spur of the moment."

What could be more dangerous? Speaking off the cuff is risky business. But then it is also a potentially rewarding business to learn how to do it well, because it has more of a believable quality to it.

When I go down to the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee in the morning and see my sons sitting there at the dining room table, I do not pull a script from my pocket to bid them 'good morning.' I improvise.

When I go to work and my boss greets me on my way through the door, I cannot ask him to wait while I refer to my outline - not if I want to escape a queer look.

Then again, scripting and outlining can go a long way to improving the quality of our communication when we have no choice but to improvise. How we script ourselves and edit ourselves can carve meaningful channels of discipline and the organization of information into our brains which are still there when someone surprises us with an unplanned conversation.

Any way you slice it, I am excited. If I say something dumb, okay. What else is new? Now let us fix it. And if I say something helpful, great! Let me know that was helpful so I can keep the good stuff coming like that.

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Sometimes I think we have grown immune to what the acronym 'PG' in a movie rating actually signifies. What is 'parental guidance' anyway? Is it merely parents watching a film with their children, oohing and aahing and laughing along with their sons and daughters?

Too often, we imagine that a movie is safe so long as it does not contain sex and violence - at least the kind of violence where blood and viscera are shown. If my children do not learn crude terms from a film, that means the dialog and messaging are clean. And so long as we do not see more than a baby's bare bottom very briefly, all ages are welcome and we can step out of the room to attend to our adult responsibilities while the little ones are distracted for an hour or two.

What we too seldom consider is the need for us as parents to be active agents in the cultivation of the worldview our children develop. They need to apprehend what is true, good, and beautiful, and to differentiate these from what tis false, bad, and ugly.

Raya and the Last Dragon is a beautiful film. In terms of visual artistry, you could not ask for a higher standard. The colors and textures are vivid. The characters and costumes are dynamic, and the cinematic scenes are well framed and proceed like a parade and feast for our eyes.

Beyond this, however, the danger may be the greater for how susceptible a piece like this leaves us to being distracted by the shiny object.

I feel the same concern with Raya and the Last Dragon that I felt after watching another Disney animated film four years ago. In my piece published June 27, 2017 at On The Rocks Blog, 'The Morality of Disney Movies and The Problem with Moana,' I explained how we need to take care regarding the statements and impressions embedded in these stories. And here I will recommend again Mark Pinsky's book, 'The Gospel According to Disney: Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust.'

We do not want to be kill-joys as parents, watching popular films and tearing them to pieces bitterly or malevolently. Nor do we want to fall prey to the same error the Apostle Paul warns against in Colossians 2:20-23.

"If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of man? These are matters which do have the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and humility and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence."

Better than saying "Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch," we as parents can and should teach our children to be discerning in light of what God says is true, good, and beautiful in the Bible.

By all means, watch Raya and the Last Dragon with your children. But be sure to really, truly watch the film with them, and listen to what is being subtly communicated in every scene and line of dialog. And help your children learn these things as well.

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

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Once upon a time, "the right side of history" was the side where marriage was defined as a man and a woman committed to one another for life. Marriage was not a man and a man, or a woman and a woman. Whatever we wanted to call those alternative lifestyles, they were just that - alternatives.

But then came loud calls for affirmation and legitimizing of everything which is not marriage. The folks who were not in a faithful, monogamous marriage wanted all the honor and recognition that comes with marriage for themselves, but without putting in the actual work to deserve it.

Defenders of traditional marriage said that redefining marriage more broadly would not expand marriage, but would rather undermine and destroy the institution. And like the prostitute who stole the baby of another prostitute after her own baby died (probably due to neglect or contempt), wise King Solomon's command that a sword be brought to split the live baby in two so each could have half was just fine to the so-called "marriage equality" crowd.

In other words, the "love is love" folks showed themselves content to have half of someone else's now-dead baby rather than the other harlot getting a whole live baby all to herself. And so the powers that be in the United States of America redefined marriage to include other relationships besides a man and a woman committed publicly for life to one another.

Right around the time when all of this was decided, Sherif Girgis, Ryan T Anderson, and Robert P George wrote 'What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense.'

Published at the tail-end of 2012, reading this book is like stepping into a time machine. Remember the bygone days when we were arguing about the traditional definition of marriage? Those were the days indeed.

Plenty of arguments can be made from a legal, philosophical, sociological, historical, cultural, and practical standpoint without bringing religion into the equation. And these three men brought those arguments here. But by the time they had published their work, the matter had already been decided. And now we reap the whirlwind.

What will future generations say of us? Likely, we will spend a number of generations reaping what wind was sown in the form of broken children growing up to be broken adults who beget still more broken children, and so-on and so-forth.

All the same, I am reminded that the first thing God is recorded as having said was not good was that the man should be alone. Furthermore, I am still old enough to remember when God making a help-meet suitable for Adam was interpreted without controversy as Eve, a woman. And I am still stubborn enough to agree with God that this arrangement as a means to fulfilling the Dominion Mandate was looked on by God and not just called "good," but "very good."

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Consider with me the curious case of Doug Wilson and John Piper, prominent American evangelical pastors with large, high-profile ministries, colleges, and major platforms for preaching and teaching.

From the 2000 Ligonier National Conference: Mohler, Piper, Sproul, and Wilson: Questions and Answers #1 - Ligonier Ministries - 34:25.

From the 2012 Desiring God conference for pastors: "A Pastor & His Worldview" / John Piper and Doug Wilson - 1:59:41.

These two disagree in some significant practical details regarding the way we think and communicate about sin and folly inside and outside the church.

On the one hand, you have the polemicist Wilson who routinely employs biting sarcasm to highlight and ridicule persons and movements who are calling good evil and evil good.

On the other hand, you have Piper who has grave and abiding misgivings about emulating anger and disgust, even where we find examples in the Old Testament and New Testament of God's servants expressing such in their rebukes of sin and folly and their calls to repentance.

But I want to draw your attention to the manner in which they express their disagreements and agreements with one another. For all that we can, and should, bemoan the often frenetic and superficial way dialog and debate are handled in modern American society - inside and outside the church - at least some of the antidote to the chaos and disfunction may be these sorts of long-form, respectful, in-depth dialogs.

When everyone is chasing the 30-second soundbite and the mic-drop accolades of teaming throngs of internet fanboys, where so-and-so just "destroyed" such-and-such or whomever, perhaps we need to be measuring our disagreements in hours and days rather than seconds and minutes.

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In 1937, news reporter Herbert Morrison uttered a phrase which has endured for eight decades. Reacting to the Hindenburg fire, he was heard in footage of the disaster crying "Oh, the humanity!"

The largest aircraft ever constructed to-date had caught fire on its maiden voyage. A luxurious zeppelin filled with hydrogen with skin made of the same stuff matchsticks are erupted in a giant fireball. 30 people died.

Like Icarus flying too close to the sun, modern man had not taken enough care to consider the components for this flying machine.

To say this thing which Morrison said is so interesting, though. Why wail and mourn humanity in a moment like this? Certainly, the loss of individual life was tragic and stomach-turning. But why cry aloud about humanity in the abstract?

In our day, the consequences of modern man increasingly divorcing himself from the reality of our origins have the American Medical Association announcing last week that sex should be removed from birth certificates moving forward. Sex and gender are no longer meaningful distinctions between people.

"Oh, the humanity!"

But this is what happens when we become doggedly humanistic. We forget that we were created in the image of Almighty God, and that it is our Creator who establishes what is and is not meaningful by way of distinctions.

God did not need to sink the Titanic anymore than he needed to set fire to the Hindenburg. And he will not need to bring ruin on us, but he might as a mercy to put us out of our collective misery.

When man forgets God, his reason is turned to folly and he might as well say "Oh, the huge manatee" as "Oh, the humanity." What, after all, is the difference? When honest absurdities make more sense than very serious untruths peddled on a massive scale, we should eye on the lifeboats and parachutes and keep them close at-hand.

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The 30th President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge often gets a bad wrap. Amity Shlaes makes clear in her excellently researched and written biography of the man who held the highest office in the land from 1923-1929 that there is much more to admire than we have been led to believe.

Where too many conclude that "Silent Cal" was passive, I see him as Shlaes portrays him - respectfully and circumspectly restrained.

As almost an opposite in temperament and governing philosophy to my favorite president to study, Theodore Roosevelt, Coolidge was always concerned with setting bad precedents and fostering undue dependence. In Coolidge's mind, good intentions in the short-term were no excuse for causing potential trouble for future generations.

More concerned with removing bad laws than adding good laws to the books, Coolidge embodied the principle that "less is more." Less government from the top makes room for more self-government and self-sufficiency on the part of the common man. Less talk makes room for more listening. Less expense makes room for more saving for the future.

By not elevating himself as most men with power do, Coolidge in turn held up for America and the world an example of self-restraint at a time when technological innovation and political trends were promoting a more grandiose and ultimately illusory mindset about humanity's prospects.

Despite what you may have read or heard elsewhere, Coolidge was not to blame for the Great Depression having been so disastrous economically, socially, and politically. We can thank first Hoover and later FDR for that. If only they had possessed the humility and sobriety of Calvin, a normal and healthy market correction would have been much milder and short-lived rather than being protracted and exacerbated through intervention and experimentation.

Coolidge stands as an understatedly heroic figure for the ages precisely because he was endeavoring stubbornly not to impose his will left and right as most presidents in the past century have.

Even in his famous announcement, "I do not choose to run for President in 1928," we have a mercifully contrasting vision of public service moderated by consideration of his and his family's personal needs to lead a quiet life tending to their own private affairs.

Do yourself a favor, then. Check out this excellent biography by Amity Shlaes about an entirely underrated and underappreciated public servant we could all learn a thing or two from.

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"Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene."

When we look at these words from the Apostle Paul to his disciple Timothy, we should do an inventory of our attitude toward the truth and communication. Do we bicker about semantics? Do we present ourselves to God in a way which we would not be embarrassed by were the instant replay brought up on the jumbotron?

Paul tells Timothy to avoid irreverent babble. What is that but the working out in language of our lack of wisdom because we do not fear God? Forgetting our Creator, we conclude that there is no Judge. We then become nihilistic and frivolous. We say things flippantly which we either know are not true, or else do not care whether they are true. And who gets hurt by that? Who cares?

Yet Paul tells us that irreverent babble leads to more and more ungodliness. What we say, then, is the precursor to what we do. So if we are going to wrongly handle the word of truth, not be studious, and quibble about trivialities in definitions and grammar, or be godless in our expectations regarding the spoken and written word, what will come next is that we live like the truth has no bearing. We treat one another and ourselves in a contemptuous, callous, careless way.

By God's grace, we can study to show ourselves approved workmen who need not be ashamed. We can be more intentional in our speech and conduct. We can do good instead of evil, and speak truth instead of falsehoods. And by God's grace, we can bring the effects of disinfectants into corrupt, polluted, gangrenous situations.

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My oldest son Josiah turned 14-years-old yesterday, and we celebrated in part by watching the movie Gladiator.

The film opens with an epic battle between Rome and the barbarian hordes. Then secret meetings are called by the emperor.

Commodus soon casts Maximus as the rebel. Yet it is Commodus who murders his father, Marcus Aurelius, and usurped the throne.

So long as everyone around affirms the madman as the rightful ruler, Rome is doomed. It is not a question of whether, but when. Excepting the proper and needful defiance of Maximus, the whole empire descends into chaos, poverty, and starvation.

"Fear is the mind-killer," as Frank Herbert famously put it.

So long as Commodus is able to terrorize everyone into affirming him and treating Maximus as the traitor, the truth will not win out. Neither will justice. But insofar as Maximus is given a free hand to stand on principle, he is maintaining the best of what the tradition of Western Civilization affords.

Who knows what Marcus Aurelius told Maximus in private about restoring the Republic prior to the suffocation of the hoary-headed philosopher king at the hands of his immoral son? None save Maximus until the end.

So Maximus is to be taken outside the camp and executed for refusing to kiss the hand of Commodus. And not only he, but also his wife and son are to be killed by the dutiful soldiers of Rome. This is not to punish Maximus still further, but to serve as a warning.

Whoever would dare to oppose Commodus can expect the same. Whatever faithful service they rendered to the wise, good king who preceded this pretender is now forgotten or even resented.

Meanwhile, Senators Gracchus and Gaius work behind the scenes, meeting with Lucilla in secret to discuss the situation. Rome will starve in two years because all the stores of grain are being sold to finance the bread and circuses designed to win a fleeting, temporary love for Commodus.

They settle on waiting until Commodus has more enemies than friends. That is when they will strike. Only that day will never come so long as all are too afraid of personal loss to risk meaningful, manful opposition.

Does all of this sound familiar? It should.

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One of the consequences of being an honest non-conformist is that people who love standardization and so-called normalcy have their attention drawn to me, often with less-than-harmonious, happy effects.

I am not anti-authority, per se. But being a non-conformist who comes by it honestly on both my father's and mother's side, popular and typical ways of relating to authority are a puzzle to me.

When someone tells me to jump, I do not necessarily ask how high I should jump. Rather, the question which comes first to mind is whether this person actually in fact has the proper authority to be making this particular request in this particular situation. And if they do not, or if it is not clear that they do, the mere fact of raising the question is more often than not enough to produce conflict.

Growing up, my Dad especially impressed on me the importance of Romans 12:2, which says "...do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect."

Now it is worth noting that the very next verse should contextualize. "For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith."

What Paul is getting at here is the need for humility even amidst our God-ordained non-conformity. Where this gets sticky is at precisely the point when non-conformity leads to pointed questions of just who do we think we are that we would dare to do things differently than others do them.

It is admittedly hard to answer that we are trying to maintain integrity and excellence whatever everyone else is doing without being accused of lacking humility. What is more, it is admittedly difficult to remain patient when the very fact of non-conformity, or of questioning conformity, is taken as proof that we are arrogant, stubborn, or rebellious.

Hear me now, then, and mark this well. Christians ought not to be rebels without a cause. Moreover, we ought not to be rebels at all. But it is easy to be mistaken for rebels when we question whether lower authorities are acting in accordance with higher precepts and principles derived from greater authorities.

Therein lies the rub. However much the larger body politic needs non-conformists to question why everyone is going about things in a certain way, the non-conformists are historically the ones who get the pointed questions first of where they get off doing things differently.

And when the cause of standardization and normalcy becomes an end unto itself, the clipping of wings and rounding off of square pegs follows close behind.

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“To err is human; to forgive, divine.” So says Alexander Pope, 18th century poet in his rare poetic essay, ‘An Essay on Criticism: Part 2.’ Most essays are written prosaically. Hence, our expectations so disturbed, we might fault Pope for having surprised and confused us. Transferring the embarrassment of surprise from ourselves to him has some advantages. But greater advantages are had from embracing rather than criticizing this work regarding criticism. That really is the point, after all. For every single writer, ten critics wait in the wings. And too often, those critics – joyless in their outlook – rob joy from others even as they criticize for the sake of criticizing. So what if Pope wrote his essay in poetic form? Perhaps that is not a mistake, as Bob Ross would say, merely a happy little accident. And where is it written that persuasive essays have to be prosaic rather than poetic, mathematical rather than artistic? In every man, woman, and child there is both a head and a heart. Some live the life of the mind, while others are carried along by the wind wherever their emotions take them. But if we – as writers and critics – can endeavor to show up as the whole person, both head and heart, in whatever our hand finds to do, as unto the Lord, that is much better than half-heartedness and half-baked ideas. Once upon a time, before my wife Lauren was Lauren Mullet, back when she was Lauren Duff, she had a Yahoo email address. ‘Entiercoeur@Yahoo.com’ is where I sent my letters to her when I did not handwrite them. And when I first asked her to be my girl in high school, it was over Yahoo Messenger, and it was to Entiercoeur that I messaged. That was her name, and that was how I knew her. And that was, whether I knew it at the time, a large part of why I loved her. If I had taken French instead of Spanish as my second language, and if I had tried to dress to match her after a fashion, I might have called myself ‘Entieresprit’ – Whole Mind – for I was living the life of the mind, and I still am. But how much better am I to be completed, challenged, encouraged to a full heart in addition to a full mind? “It is not good that the man should be alone,” the Lord God says in Genesis when first a thing that is not good is commented on by the Supreme Judge and Creator of the universe and mankind. “I will make a help-meet suitable for him.” Just so, I imagine that God looked on a young Garrett Mullet much the way he looks on this now older self of mine, commenting in High Heaven that it is not good for me to be alone and that a help-meet suitable for me has been fashioned and provided.

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Remember those commercials on Saturday mornings when we were kids. The crime dog came on the screen and told us all to stay in school and not do drugs. And what was the simple strategy for how to accomplish this? "Just say 'No'" is what the crime dog taught us. Now here we are. The ability to "Just say 'No'" is as important as ever, but we may not recognize it in this form just yet. Mask mandates, vaccine mandates - they may seem like no big deal to most folks. But they are a very big deal for what they represent, and for what will come after them if we acquiesce against our better judgment and interests, and regardless our legitimate health and safety concerns.

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Ten-year-old humorist and all-around charming guy, Daniel Joseph Mullet joins me on this episode of the podcast to talk about what he has learned driving a big rig in American Trucking Simulator, the state of the world today, our favorite colors and numbers, and more.

Stay tuned until the end to hear Daniel's advice for cold-call sales of grass-mowing services.

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What is going on with David Platt and McLean Bible Church? ChurchLeaders.com ran a story July 22, 2021 titled 'David Platt and McLean Bible Church Elders Sued After Recent Elder Vote Exposes Major Problems.' Christianity Today came out with a similar piece the same day, titled 'Platt’s McLean Bible Church Hit With Attempted Takeover, Lawsuit from Opposition.'

For footage and a breakdown of what happened at the church service and congregational meeting in question, check out A.D. Robles video from July 21, 2021 titled 'Chaos at McLean Bible Church Business Meeting/Worship Service.'

The long and short of it seems to be that the increasing Wokeness of many evangelical Christian leaders in America - notably including David Platt - is receiving impassioned pushback from lay Christians.

At first blush, it may seem as though the laypeople objecting are the ones out of order. And they no doubt are sometimes. But then that is to be expected when the leadership is itself also out of order, presuming to write Progressive politics into God's Word and present it as a new and better orthodoxy.

As Proverbs 18:17 tells us, "The first to plead his case seems right, Until another comes and examines him." And whatever is really going on at McLean Bible Church, a team of security guards escorting a member from the building rather than allowing for a cross-examination of leadership does not speak to an abundance of integrity in the process or paradigm of those leaders.

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Kwon and Thompson have struck once more their hammer blows against DeYoung's review of their book. Publishing 'Distinctively Christian? An Additional Response to Reverend Kevin DeYoung' at The Front Porch, they get more into the substance of DeYoung's criticism this time. Mercifully, they are more succinct. Yet tragically, they are not more correct than they were before.

Consider again the poem by 18th century Englishman Alexander Pope, 'An Essay on Criticism: Part 2.'

"A little learning is a dang'rous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again."

For our part, perhaps reading the entirety of that long poem would be a better use of our time than studying overmuch the tired and very old complaints of Kwon and Thompson. Like the house of Israel to which the prophet Ezekiel delivered the word of Yahweh, they contradict the justice of God and say that "The way of the Lord is not right."

And what is it that Ezekiel 18 says? "Therefore I will judge you, house of Israel, each according to his conduct,” declares the Lord GOD."

Even if Kwon and Thompson were correct that we, like the 18th century bishop Tillotson arbitrarily reasoned, should limit restitution for theft to one generation, they wrongly claim that only one generation has passed since Jim Crow laws were struck down in America.

A quick search of the internet for how long a generation is tells us simply enough that it spans 20-40 years. And even if we take the upper range value and judge the White American Church with the same strictness with which God judged the children of Israel who grumbled against him on the edge of Canaan, we are now more than a generation removed from 1965 - over 50 years ago. So their argument fails here too.

Yet they persist in accusing and condemning the White American Church in the present unjustly on these grounds. And even God himself would seem to be guilty of White Supremacy, in their view, where God gives the Promised Land to the next generation of Israelites after their grumbling generation - save Joshua and Caleb - died in the desert.

Social Justice apparently recognizes no statute of limitations, nor does it respect individual guilt and innocence. Whatever their protests to the contrary, their argument is as simple as all White Americans being guilty merely by virtue of being born White.

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The phrase "err on the side of caution" annoys me. Subtly baked into it is the foreknowledge that a course of action is error, and we are accepting that. Given the fact that a double negative makes a positive, I make a concerted effort to push back on cautious errors. We should err on the side of caution when it comes to erring on the side of caution.

That is to say, why err at all if it can be helped?

"To err is human; to forgive, divine." So says the poem by Englishman Alexander Pope in 'An Essay on Criticism, Part II' published in 1711.

By God's grace, there is forgiveness in Christ for our errors. Yet we should endeavor to not err, by God's grace. And where we see an error we are about to commit - whether one of caution or brashness - we ought to ask of ourselves and God how to do what is right and proper in light of the circumstances and God's Word.

Consider this: Christ our Lord never erred on the side of caution. We know this because we know that he never erred at all. Yes, "he was tempted in all ways as we are, yet without sin." And Hebrews 4:15 comforts us with the reminder that we do have a high priest who is able to sympathize with our weakness.

But what do we find? When caution was warranted, Christ took care. And when boldness was required, Christ was direct and aggressive in the best senses of those terms.

It inescapably follows that we should study the actions and reactions of our Lord to discern better when caution is correct and when boldness is. In so doing, we will ourselves better master when we ought to be cautious and when we ought to be bold.

"The wicked flee when no one pursues, But the righteous are bold as a lion." So says Proverbs 28:1.

And, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."

What the Apostle Paul is getting at with his disciple Timothy is that teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness has as its end our completion and equipment for every good work.

This means we adopt a position of humility, yes. But we also speak and act in boldness. And the truly difficult maintenance is in living, working, and relating from a depth of both humility and boldness.

Christ was tempted in all the ways we are - both to be cautious when boldness was necessary, and to be brash when gentleness was appropriate. But he deftly maneuvered between these two sets of sharp rocks. And by God's grace, so can we.

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The idiots need to be told what to do says the arrogant rich man brought on as a guest by Joe Scarborough. "You don't have a choice." But of course not. And I suppose you do, Mr. Hubristic Know-it-all.

But let us all celebrate our fearless leaders in the Senate sub-committee voting this week that our daughters must sign up for selective service - also known as "the draft." Here is that much vaunted "equality" we have heard so much about. This individualist is not having it, particularly where his own daughter is concerned.

If we cannot say that America has become totalitarian just yet, we must be close.

Whether renewed discussion of whether to impose lockdowns and mask mandates produces one result or the other, the underlying premise is the same. You and I get to do what the centralized authority explicitly permits, and nothing more. We have rights only so far as they are granted by our government, and nothing more. That is what totalitarians believe.

For our part, we need to study diligently where the line is, and be ready to hold it.

Though many may say - wrongly, I would add - that individualism is just another word for selfishness, it is actually collectivism which creates the ideal growing conditions for the worst and most pernicious kind of selfishness. When all our life choices must be filtered and strained through the collectivist rubric, nothing whatsoever about our lives is sacred. For that matter, neither is anything about the lives of those around us.

In a totalitarian society, there is no God either to fear or to love. And while the wicked may celebrate being free from the constraints of the Lord of the universe, they will not celebrate long.

Horror vacui - nature abhors a vacuum. And in the absence of the Lord God Almighty, one strong man (or woman) after another will strive to sit on his throne and fill his shoes. We may all be made in God's image, but we are very poor substitutes for him, especially when we have no knowledge or fear of him or his ways.

In a totalitarian state, you have no right to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. Nor are you truly free to love your neighbor as you love yourself. You are free only to love the state as a representative and embodiment of all your neighbors. Pay your taxes and obey uncritically. That is the whole duty of man.

Fortunately, the laws of the universe which God instituted in eternity past will not sleep forever. Indeed, they are not sleeping now. There will come a reckoning for this folly, and we ought to pray that it comes swiftly if there will not be repentance and renewal first.

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A fault line in American evangelical Christianity is increasingly apparent. As Exhibit A and B, consider two articles of the past three months: one ‘Reparations: A Critical Theological Review’ published by Kevin DeYoung at The Gospel Coalition on April 22, 2021 dealing with the book ‘Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Renewal’ by Duke Kwon and Greg Thompson; the other, ‘Sanctifying the Status Quo: A Response to Reverend Kevin DeYoung’ by the authors of that book DeYoung reviewed and critiqued, published July 19, 2021 at The Front Porch.

Wrapping up an examination of these two pieces, let us turn our attention more fully to the response of Kwon and Thompson to DeYoung and see it for what it is. While assuring us all that they do not believe DeYoung to be in any way, shape, or form a racist or White Supremacist, the authors nevertheless also insist over nearly 10,000-words that DeYoung is doing the dirty work of White Supremacy. This they do by attacking his methodology as being White-centric, excluding black voices, minimizing White Supremacy, and prioritizing White comfort.

The argumentum ad hominem is strong with this one. And it has an all-too-familiar feel to it for me which I recognize from many painful interactions with old friends and family who have embraced Woke ideology, particularly when wedded with a form of Christianity. Smiling, friendly, and complimentary, they nevertheless bury the rhetorical knife deep between the ribs repeatedly and without mercy as they carry out their revolutionary work.

In sum, Kwon and Thompson demonstrate in their response that the truth is malleable. We should all come away from their piece with a renewed appreciation for the importance of Western civilization even as they make an all-out assault on its foundations. Like sappers digging subterranean tunnels to plant petards beneath a besieged city's walls, these two pastors need to be called out as the traitors in our midst they truly are.

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Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair

In our last episode, 'An Interesting Back and Forth About Reparations,' I introduced a pair of links regarding the book 'Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Renewal' by Duke Kwon and Greg Thompson. The first link is a review of that book at TGC by Pastor Kevin DeYoung. In this episode, I want to talk about DeYoung's review.

To give a review of a review may seem like an odd thing to do, but I think we can learn a lot from examining closely DeYoung's treatment of this work. DeYoung is well-spoken for the most part, but he is like us in this one key regard. We can all get better at communication. And though I agree with all of DeYoung's concerns stated in the nearly 6,000 word piece he published, he does pull his punches and send mixed signals.

How is it possible for a work from two pastors to be presenting a competing worldview and Biblical framework, to be wrong in so many key and foundational ways, and for those two pastors to still be publicly affirmed for loving Jesus, the gospel, and the church? Why compliment them for their work while at the same time calling out that same work for being dangerous, misguided, and antithetical to orthodox Christian life and practice?

Perhaps it is not necessary to or helpful to attack them personally. But what about describing them clearly? Are we still trying to wrestle with what precisely to make of Critical Race Theory and anti-racism, and proving indecisive and muddied as a result? Are we afraid of being decried as a "White Supremacist" and racist, and consequently pulling our punches to the greatest extent possible? If so, the concerns are not unfounded. Caution is warranted. All the same, we need to steer well clear of flattery and ambiguity.

The truth of where the new brand of Woke Christians are coming from is, just like the subjects they often prefer to talk about so confidently, a bit complicated. Nevertheless, the complexity of the whole business is more a reason to be clear and direct rather than a reason to be less clear.

And so, in the interest of encouraging greater clarity and boldness, I contend that we who care about doctrinal purity and faithfulness to God in every facet of life need to be more bold ourselves even as we refrain from affirming a twisted kind of boldness on the part of men like Kwon and Thompson where their aggression should be more rightly called brashness.

Either this is false teaching or it isn't. Either these truth claims are compatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ or they aren't. And if we are not quite sure one way or the other, perhaps we do well to examine the source and origin of these "analytical tools" as being what they are - Cultural Marxism, plain and simple.

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Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair

Today my neighbor JP Chavez shared with me "an interesting back and forth," as he put it, in the form of two links. One 'Reparations: A Critical Theological Review' published by Kevin DeYoung at The Gospel Coalition on April 22, 2021 dealing with the book 'Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Renewal' by Duke Kwon and Greg Thompson. The other, 'Sanctifying the Status Quo: A Response to Reverend Kevin DeYoung' by the authors of that book DeYoung reviewed and critiqued, published July 19, 2021 at The Front Porch.

Time at present does not permit me to do full justice to either, much less both. But you should make time to read these two pieces and prayerfully and studiously consider them. Consider also this YouTube video of Voddie Baucham addressing why the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a resolution affirming Critical Race Theory instead of roundly condemning it as Marxist infiltration of Christ's Church.

For now, let me just point out the low-down dirtiness of smearing a critic for being a racist supporter of "White Supremacy" merely for having the temerity to disagree openly and at-length with some measure of authority a pseudo-theological, pseudo-historical, pseudo-psychological, pseudo-economical, thoroughly political attempt to argue for reparations being paid by white Americans generally and the white churches in particular.

Kevin DeYoung, Kwon and Thompson assure us, is not a white supremacist and racist - per se. But his methodology is thoroughly racist and white supremacist. And if we were not such racists and white supremacists we would have the wisdom, godliness, and maturity to take their word for that. If only we could get a non-racist word in edgewise, maybe we could talk about Antonio Gramsci. Alas, wisdom is too high for the fool. And civil discourse is the last thing on the minds of proponents of CRT. Indeed, the whole notion of civil discourse is merely a product of that very "Whiteness" which we are being ceaselessly called to repent of.

Grace? What grace? Don't change the subject to salvation. And don't you dare go pleading the cause of anything which might even sound like innocent white people having their lives and livelihoods destroyed in the name of anti-racism. We don't countenance that sort of talk around here where the new Woke gospel reigns supreme.

Heaven help us. With all this talk of reparations, it will take a miracle to repair the damage being done in the pursuit of naked self-promotion, virtue-signaling Leftism. And pay heed to the example of Pastor DeYoung. Being gracious scores you no points - not really. Surrender or die. Agree wholly or be cast out into utter darkness where there is only weeping and gnashing of teeth. Those are the rules.

Or perhaps there is another way. And maybe, just maybe, we should try a little more clarity and directness, and a little less of trying to be winsome with wolves in sheep clothes.

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Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair

In Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson delivers the follow-up to his 2018 best-seller, '12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.' And liking most of what Peterson has to say though I sincerely do, there are points of concern which bear mentioning.

But first let us talk about the good in this book. Ecclesiastes 7:16 comes readily to mind. "Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself?" That admonition of wise old King Solomon pretty well sums up this book, Peterson's personal anecdotes and musings on psychology, philosophy, and religion considered in sum.

And we do need to hear that, particularly if we read 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos and came away realizing we needed badly to make our beds in all the symbolic, metaphorical, emotional, intellectual, and relational senses of that phrase.

Yet I cannot help feeling concerned for the author, genuinely and without affectation. And I cannot help worrying about his audience of many desperate, drifting young men especially who - if they are straight, white men living in the ruins of Western Civilization - have been told that they are the villains of the world's story. They are the oppressors. They are what's wrong with the world.

There is a form of godliness in Peterson's ample references to Biblical stories. Yet does he affirm their power fully and truly when he treats them as only psychologically useful? I am not convinced they have staying power - personally or culturally - if we refuse to believe they are literally true, pre-eminent, necessary, and essential.

What prevents us from going down the same path pre-Nazi Germany went down in its insistence academically and theologically on a merely "historical Jesus"? Backing up a few decades on the number line and having another go at it, why are we not going to end up in the same place?

But that is just it. We cannot. And insofar as we cannot have it any other way, perhaps this book and its attendant enthusiasm - sympathizing with that hungry reception though I do given the circumstances - bears remembrance of another saying of King Solomon.

"What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun."

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Our third son Solomon is only 11 years old, but already has demonstrated a remarkable artistic talent. If it were up to him, I think he would work on art all day for the rest of his days.

The trouble comes where he still has math to finish up from last year. As he tells us often, "I just get so distracted. I can't focus."

Though we try to be patient and work with him in this, I tell Solomon that he has to learn to focus. He has to learn to control and discipline himself to do what he needs to do even when he would rather be doing something else. In short, Solomon needs to learn what all of us must learn - to want to do what we must do.

Of course, that does not mean Solomon needs to grow up to be a mathematician. And we do not want him to abandon art. But this country and Western civilization needs more artists who believe in math, conveying through their mediums the fact and truth that reality must be transcendent and knowable by virtue of God having created us in his image, and by virtue of God giving us the Scriptures to know as much as we do about his character, deeds, promises, and plans.

But so much art in the past century has been a war on objective truth. To post-modern philosophy and its attendant artistic expression, truth is subjective. The only truth we can truly know and tell is what we feel. No wonder American society is in the mess it is.

For more on the history of art and philosophy, read Francis Schaeffer's 'Escape From Reason.'

And for more on the need for transcendent, knowable truth pervading the visual cues which society has come to depend on for people to get and develop their ideas and lives, read Charles C. Mann's 'The Wizard and The Prophet,' as well as Edward Bernays' 'Propaganda.'

Two plus two equals four and will always equal four. And we need more artists who are able to convey that in all the possible ways to a people who have lost the ability to be reasonable.

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Escape from Reason: IVP Classics

The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World

Propaganda

Fox News reported yesterday, July 15th 2021, that the Biden administration is consulting with Facebook to flag and censor user content critical of, or contrary to the official government talking points on, COVID vaccination. Critics are in a tizzy, and rightly so.

There is no freedom left in this country if we are not free to talk openly and critically about the government's handling of a crisis - past, present, and foreseeable future.

We have no freedom whatsoever if we cannot even talk freely with our friends and family about our concerns with the policy of our mayors, governors, legislators, and president where our liberty, livelihood, and health are concerned.

But then these folks don't believe that truth is an objective, universal, transcendent, and knowable thing anyway. So why not suppress your truth and allow only for their own truth if that's what can be sold as "the greater good"?

The more distant we are from the Protestant Christian ideas and ideals which founded the United States of America, the less distinctly we appreciate the original reasons freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms were originally enshrined as inalienable and God-given rights in the first place.

And now we are very distantly removed indeed. COVID is just an accelerant. All the components and necessary pieces of this implosion and self-immolation were already there in increasing measure.

One may be called crazy for suggesting the political establishment in the U.S. fostered the release and spread of COVID-19 from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. At a minimum, however, there is no denying that the political establishment - whether Democrat or Republican - has exploited COVID-19 in mercenary, self-serving fashion to ram down all our throats a great many things they wanted but couldn't excuse before.

And, yes, an open partnership with social media giants like Facebook was on that list. Claiming an imminent public health need to co-opt our freedom of speech is the excuse of the moment, but it'll stick around forever if we let it.

See also concerns about massive, wide-spread, decisive, and coordinated fraud in the 2020 Election, as well as any number of other topics which the Biden administration wants to control your thoughts, feelings, opinions, and influence on.

The bigger their power grab and the smaller our response, the less we will be able to ever again in our lifetimes challenge them. Give a mouse a cookie, and he'll ask for a glass of milk.

*"It's just not that simple

I'm not trying to save it all I just want to create a ripple

And even if one individual is affected it's monumental with an unusual perspective

That's beautiful in essence traditional thinking won't suggest this

Is life really that precious well yes it is"*

Chapter 1, The Boy Vs The Cynic by John Reuben

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Cuba rejecting communism at the same time the United States of America increasingly embraces it is surreal to say the least. Oh, the irony.

For several generations, Cubans have fled their communist dictatorship off our coast to come to America, yearning to be free. Happily, many of these Cubans have been the most outspoken voices for conserving American ideals in the face of an onslaught in recent years of naked Marxism.

No wonder the Biden administration is drawing an uncharacteristically hard line when it comes to a new wave of Cubans fleeing their government's brutal crackdown on protest and dissidence. If these refugees could be relied on to vote for Democrats, they would be welcomed with open arms. Make no mistake about that.

But we in America do well to pay close attention to the images coming out of our southern island neighbor now. Do not be naïve, ignorant, or evasive. Take a good, long look. And realize that this is what our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will suffer if we do not find the strength of character and conviction to oppose the present darkness trying to envelope our own homeland.

Despite growing efforts to infuse Woke Christianity into the Left-Right debate in America, we need to be Bereans. Search the Scriptures - particularly Romans 13 - more diligently. See that the responsibility is not for us to blindly, dumbly, passively validate and affirm every action taken by a supposed authority.

Yes, we are to submit to governing authorities. But there is a limit to the acquiescence which God requires us to achieve and maintain - and that limit lies where the supposed governing authority punishes those who do good and rewards those who do evil as a matter of course.

God is slow to anger, but his judgment does not sleep and wait forever.

In the meantime, we do well to look to our own affairs. Mind your own business, but understand more fully and completely what actually is your business. There might be more to it than you have been led to believe.

So also, let us strive to be content with whatever is our lot in life, and whatever the Lord ordains for us to endure or overcome. May we love and lead our families well, and love our neighbor as we love ourselves. And may we pray that God would have mercy on us and save us from the godless, covetous enemies of our souls, preserving us forever in his truth, wisdom, mercy, and loving kindness.

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Jocko Willink's 'Leadership Strategy and Tactics: Field Manual' (2020) is a helpful follow-up to his other co-authored works - 'Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win' (2015), and 'The Dichotomy of Leadership: Balancing the Challenges of Extreme Ownership to Lead and Win' (2018). In it, he drives home and further explains concepts which bear repeating and emphasis.

For instance, consider the phrase "discipline equals freedom." Why would that be true, and what can we do about it?

Or for another example, how important is keeping our own selfish pride in check to being able to work together and collaborate with others on projects and in teams?

The short answer is that whether we lead or are striving to understand better those who lead us, these are worthwhile books to add to the library in pursuit of greater faithfulness and effectiveness.

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Continuing our discussion from Episode # 97 of Season 3 - 'War Crimes and Genocide in the Old Testament,' I eluded in that episode to Deuteronomy 20 and the laws concerning warfare which God gave to Israel. It is entirely too easy in our present context as Americans living in the 21st century, to see this passage and hear what it says, and to come away with a kind of latent disgust at the brutality and harshness of what is prescribed. Again, though, we have to be very careful not to suppose we are the ones who are more righteous, just, and fair than God is. If we have a different standard, where did it come from that we are so confident in its greater holiness or utility? Believe it or not, there is a remarkable amount of mercy in Deuteronomy 20. We just have to know where to look for it, and we have to be looking for it. Besides that, though, there is the critically important matter of not being embarrassed of anything which God has commanded or instructed. We may not always understand what he was, is, or will be doing. Nevertheless, our aim should be to trust that the ways of the Lord are just and pure and perfect. So if this passage gives us some difficulty and challenge in that regard, let's lean in rather than ducking out.

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What does the Bible say about the rules of war? Or can we say there are any rules for war in the Bible when God not only permits but commands the total annihilation of certain of Israel's enemies?

An anonymous reader of my works published at On The Rocks Blog contacted me back in January to ask these and related questions. A Chinese university student in America, he came to faith in Christ about 2-years ago after having been a Democrat and Progressive up to that point. Now he is grappling with thorny problems like what the Bible has to say about war-time atrocities - for instance, the Rape of Nanking in World War II by Imperial Japan.

Honored though I am that Mr. Pseudonymous Chinese University student contacted me - "Internet Man," as he calls me - to answer these questions, I nevertheless have procrastinated until now to even begin to answer with more than a pledge that I would answer.

In short, let us begin by recognizing that "All is fair in love and war" cannot be true. As surely as there is a God in heaven who rules and reigns over the affairs of men, there must also be a standard of righteousness in the waging of war. And operating outside of this standard should not cease to be called wickedness just because "war is hell."

But let's take a closer look at the way war is waged in the Old Testament. Is God guilty of "War Crimes," and ancient Israel complicit with him? When taking certain cities occupied by certain people groups of the inhabitants of Canaan, God commanded that no creature be left alive - not men, women, or children, and not even the livestock.

Elsewhere, God commands that when other cities are made war against besides those singled out for complete destruction, the cities are to be given an opportunity to surrender. If they surrender, they are to be taken peacefully. But if the men of those cities insist on fighting, all of the men are to be killed and all the women and children taken as slaves.

However we might feel about this, this way of war does not comport with modern international legal codes. And if a nation today were to conduct war in this way, we would say that nation's government and military was guilty of war crimes and "crimes against humanity."

But we have to take a step back - intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually - and consider the specific context which Israel operated within as God's chosen people in the Old Testament.

Furthermore, we need to recognize that God not only establishes the standard of what is good and right. He is the standard. And consistently - in war or any other sphere of human activity - we are in very real spiritual and moral danger if we try to impose on God our own standard of righteousness, particularly when we then say that God has been weighed, measured, and found wanting. We are not more righteous than God. And if we think otherwise, we are the ones in error.

In short, this is a complicated business. But there are a great many threads that need to be pulled on and followed if we are going to understand some things which are a mixture of clarity and mystery. So let us begin to do that if we have not yet.

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Let's talk about contentment. As the Scriptures say, "godliness with contentment is great gain." And that promise has been very much in my thoughts in recent weeks as I grapple with when and how and why I am not always so contented in the midst of trials or setbacks.

This line of thought intersects so many others that it's hard to know where to begin. But developing perseverance and resilience requires that I get in there and stay on it.

When so much of post-modern American society is addicted to instant gratification, the counter-intuitive is that we are actually better off accepting that the Lord does not always give us what we want, and that he almost never gives us what we want when we want it.

Yet in Christ we have everything we need for life and godliness. And in that realization we can find peace - with God and our fellow man and ourselves. And when we meditate on this fact, it helps us to stand up under trial in a way that is gracious, good, and wise.

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Sometimes the meaning of one synonym is given a positive connotation while a negative association is ascribed to another word which means the same thing, or near enough. And when that happens, those discriminating persons who can still be found in society will find themselves puzzled.

Take for instance the prominent case of the word ‘Critical’. Cropping up in news piece after scandalous news piece in the context of ‘Critical Race Theory,’ how many of us are pausing to consider the oddity that discrimination is bad, but criticality is apparently good? Moreover, for a theory about race to be ‘Critical’ is such a good thing that all our children must be taught from little on up about it. Only do not dare discriminate.

If we were more discriminating, and better at it, we would not fall for these shell games. The sleight of hand would not trick us.

But now the winds and rains have come and all the houses built on the shore must be tested now to see what sort of foundation they were built on. Those who do not know and refuse to learn how to critique along the correct lines – moreover rejecting the idea that there is any such thing as ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ – will find that their homes were built on shifting sands and fall accordingly.

What is needed is not a new and better theory for understanding class struggle and inequity from 30,000 feet. Very ancient, even eternal, principles of planks and specks are what we need to recall. And on these we predicate the right judgment Christ told us to judge with.

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An article by National Review senior writer Michael Brendan Dougherty titled 'Critical Race Theory as Metaphysics' was sent to me yesterday by my cousin, Micah Hershberger. In it, Dougherty makes the tepid statement that "It might be time to admit that education is an induction into a metaphysical and moral worldview."

Ya think?

If even National Review is starting to wake its readers up to the truly deplorable condition of American public education, you know its bad. Upper middle-class conservative conservatives trying to maintain their own personal status quo are reluctant to concede that the Progressive programme of American public education has declared war on everything they hold dear. Not even the thin veneer of love for country remains.

The handwriting on the blackboard could hardly be any clearer if teachers unions were announcing a new education initiative to 'Eat the Rich.' As such, we have to do better than saying we maybe, perhaps, possibly, if we feel like it should do something else with our children besides sending them to public schools.

Toward that end, check out my just-launched website for 'And This Is Why.' You can find it at andthisiswhy.us, and there also you can learn about my book, 'And This Is Why We Homeschool' - available on paperback and Kindle e-reader from Amazon.com and, if you prefer, Walmart.com. Buy a copy today for yourself and your friend or family member either currently homeschooling or considering homeschooling.

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As Hank Berrien at The Daily Wire reported July 6, 2021 - 'Internet Erupts After Biden, Psaki Push ‘Door-To-Door’ Plan Targeting Unvaccinated People' - President Biden and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki both announced that a strike force is in the works to make up for the Biden administration having missed its own benchmarked goal for vaccinating Americans by the Fourth of July. Funny how that is always the way it goes with the Left, Progressives, and Democrats. When the government fails to meet its own metrics, the fault lies with the governed and not the governing. 'Once more with feeling,' the conductor tells our orchestra. This is a dark precedent, though. And despite what wise old King Solomon says in Ecclesiastes - that bit about there being no new thing under the sun - show me when in our national history this sort of thing has been proposed or tried. It ought to be enough that we who are plugged into the news or internet have been hearing about vaccination non-stop for the past year. If we are not yet persuaded as to the efficacy and safety of these products of Operation Warpspeed, coming and knocking on our door to bully or cajole us into getting the shot anyways is disrespectful and a waste of time. In the words of Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino: "Get off my lawn."

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“The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.”

― John Adams, Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife

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As my oldest sons begin high school this coming fall, I need to begin talking with them about their plans for after high school. What do they want to do with their lives? Depending on the possible answers to that question, a college degree may be necessary. But it also may not be.

Is college worth it anymore, if you don't already have a set direction you know will require a post-secondary diploma? Ask the colleges and universities, and they can be relied on to answer in the affirmative. And perhaps in decades past, they were mostly correct. Now, however?

The cost-benefit needs to change when free speech, freedom of inquiry, and critical thinking are under such relentless and persistent attack on campuses from coast to coast. And when even many historically Christian universities become indoctrination centers for Leftist, liberal, Progressive, and Woke propaganda, we have to re-evaluate and double-check our math.

If college were free, that would be one thing. It most certainly is not, however.

If college were necessary to success, then the answer would be obvious. And where the path is certain and certainly requires college, then our minds are made up for us.

Otherwise, perhaps the most enlightened thing is to encourage our children to think and study deeply and independently on their own, and pursue the trades instead of diplomas which with each passing year seem less and less valuable adjusted for inflation and the laws of supply and demand.

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July 4, 1776 - on this day 245-years ago, the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence, thereby officially separating the thirteen colonies from Great Britain, and instituting The United States of America as a separate and self-governing Republic.

To read the text of the Declaration of Independence in its entirety, you can find its transcription at the National Archives website here.

Pay special attention to two features of the Declaration. First, that the signatories of this document finished it off in the last sentence with the following:

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

A Calvinist, an Arminian, and a rather agnostic Christian where the precise dimensions of predestination and free will are concerned will each read and interpret this differently.

Speaking for myself, I spend a day like today pondering the mystery of how God's authority institutes our authority to conduct our affairs, both as individuals and corporately.

The second thing you ought to pay attention to in the Declaration of Independence is that the key thing is not that we would sacrifice all we have in defense of our country or countrymen or liberties. We are no less Americans or Christians or Christian Americans if we have not died a martyrs death in proclaiming the gospel or defending our rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

As 1 Samuel 15:22 records, "Samuel said, “Has Yahweh as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of Yahweh? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.""

That is the stuff nations and peoples are made of, so help us God. That is the stuff on which countries rise and fall.

As James Madison puts it in The Federalist No. 51, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

So then, the enigma of American liberty is that it is predicated on restraint and the obedience of our conscience to the Word of God, and God's Law - also known popularly in the 18th century as Natural Law.

In other words, the mystery of government is that we must be subject to authority for God's sake. And at the same time, we must recognize that human government itself needs to be subject to God's authority for all our sakes.

Unless we understand such things as these, and how they were perceived by the Founding Fathers, we cannot understand the Fourth of July. And therefore, we cannot fully and truly celebrate it in all its glory.

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An odd phrase I frequently tell my children on their birthdays is "I'm glad you were born." That sentiment really is what we are communicating when we celebrate birthdays, isn't it?

Just so, when in the United States of America we celebrate the 4th of July, or Independence Day if you prefer, we ought to do more than go through the motions and check the box of what is expected of us.

Or perhaps a great many of us are not happy this nation was born. In that case, those persons should not celebrate the 4th of July. And if they think some other country on Earth is better than this one, they should make arrangements to move there.

As for my family, we will celebrate with gladness and thanksgiving that day in 1776 on which the Declaration of Independence was signed by the Continental Congress. And we will thank God that we have the great privilege of having been born citizens of this great country.

May we be faithful stewards of our civic responsibility, and this great heritage which has been passed down to us as our inheritance. And may God bless us and America as we endeavor to make a more perfect union of these states, E pluribus unum, striving to honor him in the conducting of our affairs and in the exercising of our rights and liberties. So help us God.

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Micah Hershberger recently reached out to me to ask my opinion on a question he is pondering.

What do I believe are the three greatest struggles facing men and women in American churches today? That is, what are the three greatest struggles facing men? Just so for the ladies also, what are the three greatest struggles facing women?

Believing as I do Solomon when he says in Ecclesiastes 1:9, "There is no new thing under the sun," my answer to Micah's thought-provoking question mostly sidesteps the peculiarities of modern technology concerning transportation, entertainment, food supply, the internet, and smartphones.

In short, I believe men and women alike have three main responses to the threats to purpose and belonging inherent to modern American society. Those three responses are: Fight, Flight, and Surrender.

But that is where the similarities pretty well dry up. The ways in which men and women fight, flee, and throw in the towel look markedly different. Listen in to find out how.

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Why do we read the books we do? And when we read a book more than once, why is that?

Having just finished Colin Woodward's 'The Republic of Pirates' for the second time in less than a year, and now closing in on a third read-through of Charles C. Mann's '1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus,' I am trying to figure out what the common denominator is for me.

Then I consider this piece at CNBC from January 2019 stating '24 percent of American adults haven’t read a book in the past year' - and I am baffled that anyone can help reading at least one book in the course of a year, much less stopping at one.

If you read some books regularly or routinely, why do you go back to the books you go back to?

But if you do not read books at all, then you should. Fix that. Amend that. Add regular reading of good books to your routine. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, after all.

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Yesterday afternoon, I had a follow-up appointment with a dentist in Greeley. At a minimum, he would be giving me a dental crown. However, he might also get into the procedure and find that he needed to perform a root canal.

On the way home, I called my brother who was moving his earthly belongings from his old house to his new house, and he sounded out of breath and tired. Joking, we discussed trading places. He would go to my dentist appointment, and I would go do his moving for him.

But of course it doesn't work that way, and that's the joke.

Similarly, it is odd to me that we think men and women are interchangeable authority figures - in the home, in church, or in broader society. And it makes about as much sense to say that anyone at all will do, so long as they are willing. Yes, willingness is an important component. But even more important is calling and qualification, as well as necessity. And most important of all is God's design and purpose and command.

Check out this article from 1948 by C.S. Lewis for more fine thoughts on these matters.

But suffice to say for now that when we think we need to modernize the Scriptures to meet our ideals of equity and fairness, we are not just fostering strife between one another, between conservatives and liberals inside and outside the church. We are fostering strife between ourselves and the Most High God whose created order we are expressing deep and abiding discontent and dissatisfaction with.

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My neighbor two houses down, JP Chavez wrote to me yesterday afternoon with the following:

"I was listening to a podcast on Carl Trueman's 'Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self.' *They pick up some aspects that Trueman himself doesn’t go into in the book - namely... the idea, “I think therefore I am,” and how that kind of introspection influenced the church.

I am curious to get your thoughts on how those ideas have influenced the church, both in the past when those ideas started to be purported, and today."*

So let's dive right into who Descartes was and where this idea came from. And, perhaps more importantly, what has been the effect of doubting absolutely everything except our own existence, and building all our sciences off of that one truth?

In short, the result has been to build up a philosophy which is not the love of wisdom at all. Philosophy is supposed to be the love of wisdom, but believing that we are the only certain reality in the universe, and that "Man is the measure of all things" as the ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras put it, necessarily goes hand-in-hand with fundamentally rejecting the existence of a knowable, understandable, actionable transcendent and objective truth and reality.

Yet to reject the existence of that sort of reality and truth is also to fundamentally oppose the truth claims of the Bible and of the God of the Bible.

Perhaps in all our radical doubting and deconstruction we would do well do doubt our own interest in that kind of anti-philosophy approach to truth and wisdom. And perhaps we would do well to embrace the fact that we exist regardless our believing and doubting, and must exist because "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

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The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution

Back after my vacation last week, capped off with a busy and breathtaking trip to New Mexico for my son Eli's 13th birthday, I want to talk about comments made by President Joe Biden last week concerning the 2nd Amendment.

For those unfamiliar, you can listen to his remarks for yourself here.

Needless to say, I remain unconvinced. And vaguely threatening to use F-15's and nuclear weapons against proponents and advocates of the 2nd Amendment as an anti-tyranny protection is itself a good argument for why we should not allow the 2nd Amendment to be infringed upon.

In other news, a bi-partisan resolution in the U.S. Congress condemns a century of Maoist CCP oppression of the Chinese people. And isn't it an odd sight to see our lawmakers condemn a century of atrocities committed by communists in China while at the same time listening to ascendant radical Leftism threaten Americans who want to keep and bear arms and remain free?

I definitely think so.

But let me end off with a word of encouragement. Rights that are God-given can only be opposed by men. They cannot be taken away unless we surrender them. And if my trip to New Mexico with my son Eli underscored anything for me, it is that regimes change, but culture endures.

New Mexico was once Nuevo Mexico. And before it was a part of the United States, it was a province of what is now the United Mexican States. And before Mexico was an independent nation, it belonged to Spain. And before that, it was the ancient land of various tribes of indigenous Puebloan, Apache, and Chacoan peoples.

My point being that all of those cultures still live in to varying extents today. Regimes come and go. Illegitimate presidents and governments rise and fall. But if we maintain a culture of celebrating, affirming, and defending what is good and true according to God, our heritage and posterity will endure.

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In the 2006 Alfonso Cuarón sci-fi flick ‘Children of Men,’ Clive Owen plays Theo Faron, a man tasked with delivering the last young woman on Earth capable of having children to a place where she will be protected and looked-after. For some unknown reason, everyone else has become infertile.

The film is set in the not-so-distant future, the year 2027. And the premise is gripping. With years having passed since the last child was born, humanity has devolved into chaos and disorder at the realization of the finitude of mankind. And now that a woman has been found who is somehow fertile when none of the other women on Earth are, everyone is going to want to use her for their own political aims.

“He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future,” as Adolf Hitler is often quoted.

Reign of Fire Fast-forward to the present. Or rewind to the present. I suppose it all depends on whether you work from when this movie was made and released, or else work from when the film is set to take place.

This past weekend, in celebration of Father’s Day, I introduced my own seven children to another apocalyptic vision of the future. Or should I say, ‘last year’?

I had forgotten that the 2002 film Reign of Fire, starring Matthew McConaughey, Christian Bale, and Gerard Butler, was set in the year 2020. Funny, that. Or at least we all thought so.

But here too, the subject of having children to continue on the human race features prominently. And the importance of fathers to this plot also cannot be understated. Just look at Christian Bale’s character Quinn Abercromby. Or, for a darker example, consider the final dragon needing slain.

Like Arrows Psalm 127:3-5 reads as follows.

*Behold, children are a heritage from Yahweh,

the fruit of the womb a reward.**Like arrows in the hand of a warrior

are the children of one's youth.

Blessed is the man

who fills his quiver with them!

He shall not be put to shame

when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.*

So what should we make of the COVID vaccine being dangerous to women who are pregnant or who may become pregnant?

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As American Christians, I think it's hard for us to imagine being persecuted in our own country. Perhaps if we were trying to serve as missionaries in North Korea or China or the Middle East, we could expect to be arrested, beaten, or put to death just for sharing the gospel. But here in the United States?

Why not? What prevents violent and systematic persecution of Christianity from our shores?

The COVID lockdowns of the past year have proven to me with alarming rapidity that we are not so far removed from the plight of the church historically in diverse places and times. Church services forbidden. Singing songs together banned. And major alleged news media outlets running stories blaming Christians for being "anti-science" and thereby spreading the pandemic.

Despite not usually being a fan of John MacArthur, I must admit he has been a true American hero through the past year. For just the latest example of what I mean, check out his sermon from June 17th, 2021 titled 'When Government Rewards Evil and Punishes Good,' sent me by my friend Lukas Abernathy yesterday afternoon.

And to further drive home the point MacArthur is making about our current circumstances, consider the new documentary 'The Government War on Worship' highlighted yesterday in this article by Jon Brown at The Daily Wire.

Who would have thought a few short years ago that the Chinese Communist Party's repression of Christians in that country would be juxtaposed with some merit alongside images and footage of Canadian law enforcement arresting and repressing pastors and laypeople just for trying to hold church services in North America in violation of public health orders?

If you didn't see that happening - at least so soon - neither did I. And what else might come sooner than we think next? But whatever comes next, it's important to remember what's in play here. It's critical to recognize what is really at the center of this conflict. And most importantly, it's imperative we remember who wins in the end.

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JP Chavez messaged me yesterday afternoon to ask the following question:

"How does one get better at communication? Specifically in regards to what you are having Josiah do this summer, how do you train yourself o organize your thoughts and distill information, then train yourself to express them in a coherent way?"

As part of my answer to JP's excellent question, I explained how I have filled out a personal reading list toward the end of understanding the elements of communication better. As promised, here is my list:

Humilitas: A Lost Key to Life, Love, and LeadershipBy John Dickson
Good Leaders Ask Great QuestionsBy John C. Maxwell
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are HighBy Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler
Influencer: The New Science of Leading ChangeBy Grenny, Patterson, Maxfield, McMillan, and Switzler
The Culture CodeBy Daniel Coyle
The Talent CodeBy Daniel Coyle
Outliers: The Story of SuccessBy Malcolm Gladwell
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without ThinkingBy Malcolm Gladwell
The Marshmallow TestBy Walter Mischel
Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALS Lead and WinBy Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
The Dichotomy of LeadershipBy Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

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The Dichotomy Of Leadership: Balancing The Challenges Of Extreme Ownership To Lead And Win

The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How.

The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups

The Marshmallow Test: Understanding Self-control and How To Master It

Outliers: The Story of Success

Good Leaders Ask Great Questions: Your Foundation for Successful Leadership

Humilitas: A Lost Key to Life, Love, and Leadership

Crucial Communication: Control Difficult Workplace Conversations Using Essential Dialogue Tools to Achieve Positive Results More Often

Influencer: The Power to Change Anything

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win

Last night as I was sorting and folding laundry, I called my 13-year-old son up and handed him two books. Then I outlined for him a summer reading plan project.

The two books I handed him are co-written by the same two men: Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. Seasoned and experienced Navy SEAL leaders who have had long, full careers in the military and outside of it putting leadership principles into practice.

How do we take ownership of the situations around us for the benefit of those who depend on us in various spheres of life? How can we think rightly about self-discipline, hard work, communication, and our own personal attitude? It's all here.

And I think as far as summer reading projects go, you couldn't ask for much better for a teenage boy about to turn 14 at the end of next month.

But before I could recommend to Josiah reading these two books, I read them. And that's part of how we fathers of young men in the making have to approach these things. What example are we setting to influence our charges and lead them in the right direction?

Consider Proverbs 24:3-7.

*"By wisdom a house is built,

and by understanding it is established;*

*by knowledge the rooms are filled

with all precious and pleasant riches.*

*A wise man is full of strength,

and a man of knowledge enhances his might,*

*for by wise guidance you can wage your war,

and in abundance of counselors there is victory.*

*Wisdom is too high for a fool;

in the gate he does not open his mouth."*

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LinkedIn Senior News Editor Andrew Seaman wrote me yesterday morning asking my thoughts on what is being called the 'Great Resignation' - 30-40% of the workforce signaling in polls and surveys that they want to change jobs post-COVID lockdowns.

What is my advice for people looking to make a move, either now or in the near future? Listen in to find out.

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I just finished this book by Nathan O. Hatch - 'The Democratization of American Christianity.'

So let's talk about it, shall we?

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"The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools." So said Sir William F. Butler, according to the meme sent to me yesterday by my neighbor JP Chavez.

This quote is also attributed more anciently to Thucydides, the ancient Greek philosopher (460BC-395BC).

And we know that this sentiment is true and universal, regardless who said it first or best.

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In Pt. 2 of this series, I make the following claim:

"In a healthy marriage, in a functional marriage...you're serving your spouse, your spouse is serving you, and together you're serving God in the way that you serve one another. And we need to be mindful of that."

And on this point you may be asking yourself, ‘Where is this idea of husbands serving their wives and wives serving their husbands found in the Scriptures?’

Well, I’m glad you asked, and I shall endeavor to tell you. For starters, consider Ephesians 5:22-33.

"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish."

This isn’t to say that every Christian man loves his wife as perfectly or blamelessly as Christ loved the church anymore than it is to say that the excellent wife described in Proverbs 31:10-31 is every Christian woman.

But what the aforementioned is talking about is the ideal. This is the target we’re aiming for. Women need love, and men need respect. And since we have these commands, I’m assuming that with God’s help men are capable of loving their wives and women are capable of respecting their husbands.

And who wouldn’t want that?

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In reading The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, I have especially enjoyed the parts where Grant talks about his relationship with President Lincoln. And within their interactions Grant recounts, I found particularly amusing the fact that Grant pledged to the President – amidst a statement of his general intentions for prosecuting the war against the Confederate armies – that he would endeavor to not annoy the president.

A little later, however, Grant moves on to trying to execute his plans for defeating the South in battle, and one thing he says he was trying to do with regards to the generals and armies of his enemy is annoying them.

So also with marriage, our goal ought to be to not unnecessarily annoy our spouse in the prosecution of our battles and wars, but to annoy our Enemy.

God said it is not good for the man to be alone; so God made a helper suitable for Adam.

Ideally, marriage is an opportunity for men and women to learn to submit themselves to someone else’s needs and desires on a daily basis, as well as being an opportunity to be loved and served by someone else on a daily basis. And when we do that, we annoy the Devil, that Enemy of both God and our souls.

Before we get any further into that, though, let’s talk about singleness. In particular, let’s address the elephant in the room in what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:1-16.

If we are going to have a Biblical attitude and mindset when it comes to marriage, we need also to examine singleness and divorce. And here in what Paul writes to the church at Corinth we have an opportunity to talk about all the above. So let's.

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Someone recently asked me why anyone should bother with marriage. Isn't it more trouble than it's worth, particularly for men in our society?

The courts are biased against them and in favor of women. The churches also in the way they typically emphasize passages pertaining to the responsibility of men in relationship while also de-emphasizing the responsibilities of women.

What feminism has wrought is a generation of men in America who are doing the cost-benefit analysis on taking a wife, settling down and raising a family, and concluding that the potential rewards don't justify the risk.

But here I am as a homeschooling father of seven with an eighth on the way. Lauren and I are coming up on 15-years of marriage in November. And we have a tall order in front of us - to swim upstream against culture on this issue as well as we endeavor to embrace and believe what God says about us and marriage, parenting, and family.

And as my sons are now becoming teenagers and starting high school, the time has come to earnestly prepare their minds for manhood and, we hope, marriage to lovely young ladies, as well as fathering sons and daughters of their own.

But first, before we can prepare the hearts and minds of our sons, we have to organize and arrange our own thoughts on these matters. What is good? What is true? And how can we make the case clearly so they understand rightly and orient themselves accordingly?

Such questions and related others have me thinking now is as good a time as any to begin working on a series of podcast episodes. #AndThisIsWhyWeGotMarried #AndThisIsWhy

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Yesterday morning my family stayed home from church. We also stayed home from church the Sunday before that.

Before you go wondering, let me assure you our reasons for staying home were not anger and bitterness.

The sky is blue, the grass is green, and Lauren is pregnant. And with pregnancy at this stage also comes nausea and fatigue. So we felt it best to stay home and help her (and the rest of us) rest from the previous week, and rest up for the week ahead.

But a friend of mine who listens regularly to this podcast reached out to me to express concern with the bitterness I harbor for previous bad experiences with church. And I want to take his concerns and feedback seriously.

So in the spirit of thinking through how I'm doing on this front, let's take a look at Ephesians 4:17-32.

If you too like me have been hurt and betrayed in bad experiences in church, listen in. And hopefully we can all come away with a recalibrated understanding and sentiment on this thing and others besides.

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For this week's Family Movie Night, we watched another Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical - 'Oklahoma!'

Having built up all my expectations off The Sound of Music and The King and I, this experience was not those.

Or at a minimum, Oklahoma! is not The Sound of Music.

For some idea of what I mean, check out this page for the 1955 version at Common Sense Media.

With songs like "I Can't Say No," and a traveling peddler telling a certain eligible young bachelorette that she's his "Persian Kitty" because they both have "soft round tails," there is a lot of innuendo and double entendre here.

Perhaps the 1950's weren't so prim and proper after all.

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Dovetailing off recent episodes of this podcast - Episode #116 'Why Men Hate Going to Church' and Episode #130 'Reverse Sexism in American Churches' - I want to talk about the Men's Rights Movement.

Micah Hershberger sent me two videos this week to mull over. Watch for our forthcoming episode of On The Rocks podcast in which we discuss those further.

But for this episode, I want to take some time to process and unpack Cassie Jaye's documentary The Red Pill, and also this YouTube summary of what is being called MGTOW - the acronym for "Men Going Their Own Way."

What should we make of these responses to feminism in our day? And do they perhaps in part explain why fewer young people today are getting married and settling down to raise a family than in previous generations?

Let us bravely embrace the risk of offending everyone except the Almighty by delving into these matters so we can discern what is good and true, and how men and women can and should live in peace and harmony with one another according to God's Word.

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My son Daniel recently talked me into playing American Trucking Simulator with him on our computers, and I have to admit that this is a fun little game.

Yesterday morning before going to work, I had saved up enough money to buy my first big rig. And as of last night before bed I had nearly completed my first run in the new truck - taking a load of large buoys from Colorado Springs to Spokane, Washington.

Where the game goes from here, I think, is that I keep on trucking until I can expand my garage, purchase more trucks and trailers, and hire drivers to work for me.

But as the son of a long-time truck driver, I find the premise of the game somewhat amusing for how popular it's recently become. Who would have thought so many people would find the idea of truck driving so romantic?

But on the whole it is a good thing that we as a society would better appreciate how our raw materials, manufactured goods, and food magically gets to the store and our front door.

Perhaps too this game can serve as a driver safety course when we all appreciate better how much longer it takes for a big rig hauling a heavy load to come to a stop, or how much wider a tractor trailer has to swing in order to make turns which for small cars, pickups, and vans are much tighter.

If you are looking for something to pass the time and might enjoy a digital tour of the western half of the United States, this is a good little game to turn on some music or an audiobook and pedal down with.

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis should have the R for Republican behind his name changed to a C for Courage.

The Daily Wire reported yesterday: 'DeSantis On NCAA Threat To Pull Events From States That Protect Girl Sports: ‘To Hell’ With Your ‘Events.’

DeSantis, then, has done what South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem lacked the nerve to.

Are you taking notes, Republican Party? This is what your constituents want. This is actually an effort at conserving.

But it does take courage to stand up to Woke, Inc. and tell the NCAA and others where the boundary lines are.

As David Horowitz puts it in his 2019 book, 'Dark Agenda: The War to Destroy Christian America' - "The issue is not the issue. The issue is the revolution."

But so also, we need to be more than just against the woke mob and its corporate sponsors. We have to know what it is we are conserving and why. If the issue is not really the issue for the Left, what is the revolution?

And if we are the counter-revolutionaries, then whose authority are we insisting on still respecting and obeying? If not ultimately the Lord God Almighty's, all this moving and counter-moving is for naught.

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DARK AGENDA: The War to Destroy Christian America

Arizona Republican Governor Doug Ducey made headlines over the weekend by vetoing 22 bills passed by his state's legislature. He claims he vetoed these bills because Arizona lawmakers need to pass a budget and have it on his desk ASAP. But is that the real reason?

Also, I am down to the last little bit of Russell Shorto's 'The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America.'

Let's take some time to unpack how the attitudes and organization of the Dutch imprinting themselves early-on in the colony of New Netherlands and the trading port of New Amsterdam helped to shape how the 13 colonies ultimately came together to form The United States of America as we know it today.

If one looks closely, one can almost see current New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and the comedians at Saturday Night Live in the 17th century historical sketch Shorto provides.

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For this weekend's family movie night, we watched The King and I (1956).

Starring Yul Brynner as King Mongkut of Siam and Deborah Kerr as Anna Leonowens, this classic musical was another standby for me growing up.

Lauren and the kids never having seen it before, they now can say they have seen it.

And a whole host of interesting topics came up in the course of watching. For instance, "Who is Buddha?" Also, "Why would you give a person to another person as a gift?" Also, "How does that work that he has so many children by so many different women?"

Are my kids ready to talk about those sorts of things? I figure there's only one way to find out, and that's by diving in and seeing how it goes.

And so we did. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

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60 Minutes uploaded a video to YouTube on May 16, 2021 titled 'Navy pilots describe encounters with UFOs.' As of May 30, roughly 7.5 million views have racked up, and there are over 42,000 comments.

It seems every time I refresh the home pages for The Blaze, The Epoch Times, and The Daily Wire, there is another story on new disclosures from the U.S. government regarding UFOs.

For instance, I read one this morning from Paul Sacca at The Blaze - 'Leaked video reportedly shows swarm of UFOs circling US Navy combat ship; Pentagon investigating.'

For another example, consider this piece from Emily Zanotti at The Daily Wire - 'Head Of Pentagon UFO Office: Government In Possesion of ‘Exotic’ Materials From ‘Mysterious Vehicles’'

The images and footage are eerie. So also are the statements from officials and military servicemembers.

If we define our terms, all a UFO means is that something is in our skies that we cannot identify. We don't know who it belongs to, where it came from, or what it's doing here. All we know is that we are reckoning with something which has capabilities which surpasses the capabilities of the most advanced technology we know we possess.

Perhaps our own government has developed something we just haven't been told about. Or maybe some other nation's government has.

But the third possibility is that some other form of life from elsewhere in the universe is visiting us. And it is that third possibility I want most to explore here.

As a Christian, I reserve my fear for the Most High God who created the heavens and earth and everything in them. And if some other form of life besides God and man exists, my Sovereign God knows it fully and made it. And I do not need to fear what that life is capable of because I know it is not capable of anything more than what God permits.

But beyond that general truth, we read vague and passing references in the Scriptures to a created order of beings in between God and man. And though I am content that the Lord has told us enough when we read that they exist and are subordinate to him, it is fair game to speculate about them even as we reserve our obedience, fear, and worship for the Most High.

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According to Wikipedia, "reverse sexism" is defined as follows:

"Reverse sexism is sexism directed towards men and boys. This form of sexism includes any form of prejudice or discrimination against men and boys. This can include stereotyping that may negatively impact men."

Without knowing there was a term for it, the concept has been on my mind for a long time, particularly in the context of American churches.

Why does it seem like every Mother's Day sermon I have ever heard sounds so different from every Father's Day sermon I have ever heard?

Mothers and wives do it all. They are so important and we just don't value or thank them enough. Proverbs 31 is an idealized image of perfection, and we should not ask women to aspire to this unrealistic goal per se. Buy them flowers and candy and tell them how beautiful they are as daughters of the King.

That is how Mother's Day sermons and all the teaching I have ever heard about women goes.

Fathers and husbands, on the other hand, are also so important. But we are failing. Everything is our fault - on the micro and macro levels. Men need to step up and do better. We aren't loving our wives and children like Christ loved and loves the Church, laying his life down for her. Prisons are full of boys who grew up without a father in the home.

That is how all the Father's Day sermons I have heard in my life play out.

A YouTube video of Paul Washer speaking on Marriage, Family and Parenting at the 2021 Fellowship Conference was sent to me this week, and I watched it. And though there is plenty of truth to what Washer shared, and he doubtless is a God-fearing man who loves the Church and his family and means well, I think there is a lot here that confirms my concerns about reverse sexism in American churches.

The error - if indeed this is an error which has crept unnoticed into our theology, teaching, and discipleship - is not conscious, I don't think. We all are like so many fish in water who don't know we're wet.

But if there is a better understanding that can be had for the Biblical roles of men and women in the home, we ought not to content ourselves that no temptation has seized us except what is common to man. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Instead, we really need to grapple with the apparent double standard in the way these things are thought, felt, spoken, and taught about - particularly from the pulpit and in the home.

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What if China did intentionally manipulate and then release COVID-19?

Reporting from Ryan Saavedra at The Daily Wire today - Biden Admin: ‘We Haven’t Ruled Out’ Possibility That Pandemic From China Was Deliberately Unleashed.

They will surely circle back on that one.

Of course the anti-nationalist, anti-national self-interest, political and governing establishment - which resents and utterly loathes the American Republic for its inequity and claims to objective truth and goodness - is thinking long and hard about how consistent it wants to be here.

If China hoisted COVID on the world to pursue its own national self-interest, then what?

If over half a million American men, women, and children lost their lives due to the pandemic, and if China deliberately caused said pandemic to take us down a notch while they rise to their aspired heights, then a state and condition of war exists.

And if President Biden is thinking long and hard about whether we would rightly call the spade a shovel here and get to digging trenches with it already, that is not a shocker. But it is tragic.

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Here is my homework for you from this episode:

Listen to Thrive by Newsboys, and read the lyrics.
Read this satirical article, and also this serious article.

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LinkedIn told me yesterday that as much as 25% of the workforce in America has stated it intends to change jobs now that the COVID-19 pandemic is over.

That in conjunction with a conversation I had with a friend who is interviewing for jobs and hates his current one has me thinking back over my working life.

I can relate to men who wonder whether they missed the boat. Hostile work environments, being passed over for promotions, dealing with established good old boy clubs, having achievements and accomplishments go unnoticed even as the mistakes of other people are either also ignored entirely or else blamed on you.

As a husband and father, I have to find a way to insulate my family from work stress. But so also, as a man myself - there has to be a way to buffer my heart and mind from being tossed like a ship on stormy seas.

"Beware when men speak well of you," we read in God's Word.

So also, we are not to repay evil for evil when we are treated unjustly. But we are called to keep ourselves blameless in every way, and to work "as unto the Lord."

Psalm 127 is also helpful here.

"Unless Yahweh builds the house,

those who build it labor in vain.

Unless Yahweh watches over the city,

the watchman stays awake in vain.

It is in vain that you rise up early

and go late to rest,

eating the bread of anxious toil;

for he gives to his beloved sleep.

Behold, children are a heritage from Yahweh,

the fruit of the womb a reward.

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior

are the children of one’s youth.

Blessed is the man

who fills his quiver with them!

He shall not be put to shame

when he speaks with his enemies in the gate."

In other words, it's well and good to make plans and work toward a future purpose and outcome. But trust to God for the final results, and be content in his purposes for what those may be and how he will use them.

Our working life and careers are a means to an end, and should not be confused for the end unto themselves. And when we remember that, it can go a long way to curbing careerist ambitions or frustrations.

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One of the things that was prophesied concerning John the Baptist was that in calling Israel to repentance and heralding the arrival of the promised Messiah, he would turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children.

In our day, entirely too much talk of suicidal children is relevant and necessary. But the reason we have so many children thinking of taking their own lives is because we have so many children being raised to not believe their life has intrinsic value and purpose.

Where do we come from? Why are we here? And what do we do about the problem of pain, suffering, and death?

An excessive attachment to positivity and happiness excludes meaningful discussion of the problem of evil, and it undermines the sense and conviction that God's Word gives us satisfying answers to this.

What are my wife and I to tell our son about how to help his friend who just tried to commit suicide? And how can we think rightly again as a people and as a church, and as mothers and fathers?

We have to remind ourselves and one another of what is good and what is true according to God. And we can only know what that is by looking to the Word.

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Our family movie night this week featured the 1965 classic, The Greatest Story Ever Told.

Featuring Max von Sydow as Jesus and Charlton Heston as John the Baptist, this film was one of my favorites growing up.

Yes, the actor playing Jesus has funny hair. My son Eli was quick to point that out.

But I want to key in on Heston's portrayal of John the Baptist here.

John Lazarus Mullet, Lauren's and my youngest son, turned 3-years-old this week. And part of the tradition in our house for birthday dinners has been for my wife and I to take turns telling the story behind the naming of our children, and also to tell the story of our children being born.

And it just so happened that in my telling the story of how we came to name John as we did, I found myself recalling John the Baptist in The Greatest Story Ever Told.

Thus the inclination to watch the movie for the first time ever with my kids.

This brings up some interesting questions, though. How much do portrayals of Jesus and the gospels influence our impression of the Biblical text? And how much does an actor's performance color and shape the way we perceive our Savior and God's Word?

As Christians, we are supposed to be imitators of Christ especially, and God's faithful servants secondarily at least in some form or fashion. And I could insert here some cliché about the life and testimony of Christians being the only sermon some people will ever hear. But I won't.

All the same, we do well to be Bereans about how Jesus is portrayed in any and every medium. Whether we embrace or reject certain aspects of portrayals as entirely faithful, there is a value in the process of evaluating in light of the Scriptures.

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Roman Catholic bishops weigh whether to withhold communion from pro-choice government officials and politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden. But then they get pressure from higher up in the food chain to relent. Atop the pyramid sits a Progressive pope, so that stands to reason.

Gone are the days when Americans worried that electing John Fitzgerald Kennedy would mean the pope was actually running our country. But never you mind when Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey decide what former President Trump can and cannot say.

This all should give us pause, and we ought to ask some hard questions about the legacy of the Roman Catholic church and tradition. How should the church relate to political power? And how much of the old Roman empire is still with us thanks to the legacy of Constantine the Great?

The Protestant Reformation really was all about the question of authority. And still today, Christians of every stripe wrestle with how to relate to authorities - whether civil or ecclesiastical - in light of our need to recognize and submit to God's authority.

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If you want to understand the American Civil War better, read Mark A. Noll's book - The Civil War as a Theological Crisis.

In it you will find that before the question of slavery was a political or military question to be answered on the battlefield, it was a theological question.

How we read and interpret the Bible is of the utmost importance, and we have a fine example of the consequences of playing fast and loose with the text in the way the issue of slavery has been handled - both by abolitionists and by the pro-slavery camp in the lead-up to 1861.

Was slavery categorically evil? Not according to God. Or at least he never roundly condemned and prohibited the institution.

But then neither was God silent on the issue. And the pro-slavery theological arguments often ignored the restrictions and boundaries God put in place for his people in the Old Testament.

So also, the claim that black Africans were to be enslaved as a race because Noah cursed the descendants of Ham in Genesis was a particularly weak argument.

Did the fact that Noah pronounced a curse on Ham and his descendants mean that we are forever beholden to abuse and mistreat a certain race of people just because they were his offspring?

One might more readily interpret Noah's curse in light of warnings and admonitions against strong drink for kings at the end of Proverbs. Yet it was entirely too convenient that those arguing for continuance of the African slave-trade and the disposal of black slaves in the South chose an interpretive framework which put stock in Noah as the authority.

At the same time, radical abolitionists sometimes concluded that if God had made allowances for slavery in the Old Testament, they would just throw out the Bible. If the Bible was not any more just and fair than that, the overriding principle of liberty more important to them would take precedence.

In our day still, despite a century and a half passing, we see echoes of this conflict in the way social justice and other such is argued for and against in the American church. And Noll's book can help us in understanding the problems of our day in light of their ideological and theological roots and historical context.

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As I look back on recent weeks of podcasting, there is a question which becomes obviously important and needful to ask. When it comes to contending for the faith - whether potential threats to faithful Christian life and thought come from inside or outside the church - how does one go about contending for the faith without being contentious?

It is too easy to confront bad attitudes with other bad attitudes. But when we counter falsehoods with other falsehoods, or respond inappropriately to inappropriateness, we are not doing well. We are not helping those we may be trying to so much as adding complexity to the situation.

For instance, if I have concerns about prominent Christian leaders who have placed themselves increasingly on the Woke side of the fault line in the modern American church, it does not necessarily follow that any and all ways of expressing those concerns are valid and helpful.

And perhaps a challenge issued by an old acquaintance of mine is good to remember here. If these men were sitting across a table from me when I said these things, would I express my concerns with more respect and gentleness?

I am a fan of calling a spade by its name, however much I may sometimes be tempted to gild the lily when I do. But that does not mean I am setting a good example if I add in some colorful adjectives to describe how I feel about the spade.

Nevertheless, what do we do about the examples set by Jesus or John the Baptist when they rebuke the scribes and teachers of the Law? White-washed tombs and sons of Satan have never been terms of endearment except perhaps to avowed Satanists. And it was not for no reason that John was beheaded or that Jesus was arrested, tried, flogged, and crucified.

So, again, how do we contend for the faith without being contentious? However thorny that question may seem or actually be, we do well to grapple with it in earnest as part of our pursuit of the charges to both "be sober-minded; be watchful" and to "in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience..."

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Having now finished 'Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church' by Philadelphia pastor Paul David Tripp, let us do some soul searching and be Bereans about some of what is in the mix here.

Much of what Tripp has to say I readily agree with - not because he said it, but because it is sound and Biblically clear-cut and incontrovertible.

Unfortunately, also in the mix is a brand of woke Christianity designed to subtly but surely strip us of what the theological and political Left calls patriarchy, toxic masculinity, sexism, racism, xenophobia, et cetera.

This brings me to a question my neighbor recently asked me.

"...Where is the line, or points where we say 'Yeah, we may agree with them on some biblical points, but they are too far in error on these other unbiblical points, to where we cannot recommend anything they have to say?'"

He asks a good and necessary question, and the answer to it may not be easy. But one thing we must know is that the Bereans in Acts are held up as an example for us.

We are also warned throughout the New Testament to teach only what accords with sound doctrine, and to keep watch over our doctrine.

Similarly, we are told to contend for the faith, and to confront those who are undermining the gospel of Jesus Christ which was delivered once for all, and to guard against deceptions and diversions which would fundamentally transform that gospel into something contrary to God's character, promises, and commands.

The Apostle Paul's confrontation of Peter over his catering to the Judaizers at Antioch is relevant here. Substitute Woke Christians for Judaizers, and you will understand my meaning.

Perhaps also the disagreement between Paul and Barnabas over what to do with John Mark should be instructive.

That said, I would only recommend reading the works and listening to the words of Christian leaders on the Woke side of the fault line to mature, discerning Christians. And even there, I would strongly advise viewer discretion.

Otherwise, impressionable brothers and sisters may be taken in by virtual signaling missives like this one from Paul Tripp published almost a year ago.

If someone handed you a pan of brownies and you knew there was a turd hidden somewhere amidst the chocolate morsels, you might study it. But you would not consume it uncritically if you valued your health.

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In juxtaposition, consider with me two stories from last week.

First, from the Epoch Times, 'Space Force Officer Relieved After Denouncing Marxism, Critical Race Theory in Military' published May 16, 2021 by Jack Phillips.

Second, from the HSLDA, 'Harvard Panel: Homeschooling is Here to Stay' published May 12, 2021 by Dave Dentel.

The long and short of it is that Leftists in academia and the military do not tolerate backtalk from the teeming unwashed masses of people they claim to be empowering yet have no respect or regard for.

Repeat after them three times that you do believe in Critical Race Theory. You do, you do, you do. Otherwise - whatever your other accomplishments - your career will be cancelled and you will be sent packing.

Meanwhile, highly educated folk are meeting together at Harvard to discuss whether parents should be allowed to infringe on the government's monopoly on education that is the public school system.

They apparently can't have parents loving and training and teaching their children as if they have a right to. Parents might raise little Johnny's and Suzie's who grow up to write books and record podcasts critical of Marxist indoctrination in the United States military.

But this all sounds very bleak, so let me tell you what you can do about it besides despairing.

Toward the end of combatting Statism in the military and the education of our children, buy my book - 'And This Is Why We Homeschool.' Then tell your friends and family to buy my book. It's available on paperback and e-book from Amazon, and now is an excellent time of the year to read it as we go into the summer and make plans for the next school year.

After you read my book, please leave a rating and review at the listing on Amazon. This will help immeasurably in getting this encouraging and challenging book into the hands of the folks out there who need to read it.

Do it for the children.

Then also tell your friends and family to listen to this podcast wherever they prefer, and leave a rating and review in that same place so others still will be reached by this endeavor.

Together, we can encourage greater intentionality and thoughtfulness in living out the Christian life on purpose and productively. And only in that way, by God's grace, will be saved from the tyranny of Leftist ideology and all other sinful systems which seek to enslave and oppress us, and be free to live in peace and harmony with God and our fellow man.

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On Saturdays in our house, my wife typically makes homemade pizza and the kids and I watch a movie. This gives me a chance to expose my children to culturally enriching experiences, and to spend time with them. And it also gives Lauren some peace and quiet to work on sewing or school planning or reading without interruption.

Last night we watched Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and I realized I had not seen that film so recently as I might have unconsciously assumed.

Jackson's Hobbit trilogy was released from 2012-2014. The Lord of the Rings trilogy came out from 2001-2003. We're talking 7-20 years ago since these films made their theatrical debut.

But it is just as well that it had been a long time since we had watched them, and I enjoyed sharing this first Hobbit movie with my youngest three children, since none of them were old enough or even necessarily born yet the first time around.

And even for my having seen the movies before, and read the book, I remembered how much and why I like Tolkien's story here. There are good, sound reasons why it has the staying power it does.

So let's talk about that, shall we? Let's delve into the resilience and durability, and eminent relatability of hobbits.

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Among the people I trust and respect most, Paul David Tripp's book Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church comes highly recommended.

So I started listening to that one on Audible yesterday, and I am about halfway through it now.

But I will confess to being wary. Please take no offense if you can only find good things to say about this book or its author, but I intend to do a full review and unpack and analyze my discomfort.

Part of that discomfort can be unpacked now and already before I have finished the book. The rest will have to wait, and it is good to reserve judgment until the full argument has been laid out.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have been hurt as a leader in church and by leaders in the church. So my guard is up. Perhaps it should be, and perhaps it should not always be. Time will tell, and let God's Word be our guide in that regard no less than in others.

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In recent days, the terrorist organization Hamas has fired hundreds of Iranian rockets at Israeli cities and Israeli men, women, and children. The IDF - Israeli Defense Force - has used its Iron Dome system to great effect intercepting more than 90% of the Hamas rockets, meaning that about one in ten rockets have gotten through.

As the nation of Israel actively asserts its right to defend its people and property from Muslim terrorists, fighting and striking back against rocket launch sites and hunting down and killing the leaders of Hamas responsible for these attacks, a significant portion of the world has chosen once again not to denounce Israel's enemies, but to condemn Israel for defending herself against her enemies.

I, for one, support Israel's right to self-defense. And more to the point, I affirm Israel's right to exist as a nation. Furthermore, I unabashedly approve of the material and moral support which the United States of America has provided over the years and decades to that end.

Anti-Semitism does not make sense to me. Anti-Israel sentiment does not make sense to me.

Calling Jews "Christ killers" is a lot of nonsense when you take a step back and realize that we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and when you remember John 3:16. "God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life."

That means we are all Christ killers if the Jews are.

But then the notion that the Jews and Romans who descend from the men who put Jesus to death on a cross are particularly guilty of that innocent bloodshed may make sense to people who buy into Critical Race Theory, Critical Theory, System Racism here in America.

God promised he would bless those who bless the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that he would curse those who curse them. And maybe that is part of why the United States of America still enjoys some of the blessing and protection of God despite our collective defiance of God's Law in abortion and the promotion of sexual immorality.

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David Murrow's 2005 book, Why Men Hate Going to Church, was brought up in conversation with my cousin Micah yesterday, and I want to encourage you to read it.

The updated and revised version of it from 2011 can be purchased from Amazon here.

A good YouTube video summary of it can be found from a speaking event Murrow held at a church in Australia, and you can find that video here.

The premise is simple. American churches have a major gender gap. At the time of he first published his book, less than 40% of the adults in churches were men. That means close to two-thirds of churches are made up of women - or at least were 15 years ago.

Why do so many more women than men attend most churches? Because American Christianity has made men feel unwelcome.

Too many churches cater to women and present a feminized gospel with a Christ who is portrayed as embodying feminine virtues to the exclusion of masculine characteristics.

But this, in my view, is evidence that feminism has infected our church culture. The original curse God gave to Eve said that she would have pain in childbirth and that her desire would be to rule over her husband, but he would exercise headship over her.

Proverbs tells us that it is better to dwell on the corner of a rooftop than to live with a quarrelsome woman. This being self-evident, many men unfamiliar with the proverb know it instinctively. And when they feel hen-pecked and unwelcome or excluded or marginalized for being masculine men, they opt out.

But God has a better design - for the family, the church, the city, state, and nation. And blessing will follow as we embrace that design rather than rebelling against it.

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Why Men Hate Going to Church

A major American pipeline has suffered the most significant cyberattack in our country's history, and its being taken out of commission leaves the East Coast without a reliable and efficient supply of gasoline for the foreseeable future. Experts say the pipeline should be back online by the end of the week, but in the meantime over 1,000 gas stations have already run out of fuel for Americans who rely on fossil fuels to transport themselves and their goods.

Early intel has traced the source of the hack to a group based on Russia. But we should know better than to blame a private entity for this assault on our critical infrastructure. No private group in Russia of all places is going to carry out an attack on America of this magnitude without at least nominal cover and tacit encouragement from Russia and her allies - especially China and Iran.

The timing of the attack is highly suspect. Just days prior came the release of a report outlining internal dialog within the Chinese government from five years ago which sounds eerily similar to the release of COVID on the world, and the disruption of American and European economies. And the whole affair seems to me like a spy versus spy covert conversation.

If I were to venture a translation, it would be that this is payback for Western institutions shedding light and hinting at accountability for Communist China's use of a bioweapon to upset the balance of power in the world, upending American hegemony at home and abroad. Don't you dare even think of calling China out for its use of a bioweapon, or else things like the cyberattack on the Colonial pipeline will happen to you.

We are all being let in on the open secret that China and Russia and Iran can mess with us anytime they like. And if we want to play tit for tat, real American men, women, and children will pay the price.

The Biden administration and the Democrats more broadly, meanwhile, are reluctant to call a spade a spade because the whole narrative about Republicans and former President Trump unravels in a hurry once China, Russia, and Iran turn out to be more overt threats than Biden wanted to admit. Check out Glenn Beck here for more on that subject.

Ideas, like elections, have consequences. And the foreign policy ideas of the ascendant Democrats are very bad. So also are their attitudes toward critical oil and gas infrastructure like the Colonial pipeline.

Buckle up for a wild ride, because this is no more the end of the story than it is the beginning.

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C.S. Lewis wrote a series of three science fiction novels known as The Space Trilogy.

Out of the Silent Planet (1938), Perelandria: A Novel (1943), and That Hideous Strength: A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown-ups (1945) are the three works in the series.

All three at least were free with Audible Plus when I picked them up late last year, and I just finished listening to the last of them yesterday afternoon while building a new desk for my office at work.

Fans of The Chronicles of Narnia and Clive Staple's non-fiction works on Christianity will find in these a more adult tone and tenor than the children's literature likely conditioned them to expect.

And among the features which highlights this fact most for me is the presence of casual nudity. It is apparently not fashionable to travel through space with clothes on.

But this reminds me of taking Intro to the Humanities at Cedarville University back in 2006. I will never forget Dr. Clevenger's handout on nudity in art, born of many years experience with students and their parents coming to him complaining of all the wholly and partially unclothed human forms in Classical and Renaissance art studied in the course.

This then brings the question to my mind about Lewis's Space Trilogy. If it were made into a TV series or series of movies, would conservative Christians watch?

Already I envision a campaign against public indecency which might arise if the on-screen portrayals match the books. And I am already imagining the stern calls for boycotting all of C.S. Lewis' other works besides if he was willing to put out supposed smut in his science fiction.

But of course there is a bit more to it than that, and I think we do well to try and be Bereans about the whole affair. How much of our arguments for and against such things is firmly grounded in what God does and does not say in the Bible? And how much of our arguments stem more from vague and fuzzy notions stemming from mere human tradition and popular attitudes in our respective circles?

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Namibia - an 88% Christian nation in 2013 according to Wikipedia - has struck oil with the help of a Canadian company called ReconAfrica.

The play is being called the Kovango Basin. By some reports it may be the third largest in the world. It is as-yet completely untapped.

Namibia's government and people apparently want to develop their reserves, and that is both marvelous and commendable.

Woke Western outlets like CNN have wasted no time in weaving a narrative of impending disaster in pieces like this one published earlier this month.

Watch for campaigns in the West to apply diplomatic and economic pressure on Namibia to discourage her from pursuing her national self-interest.

Rather than trying to poo-poo the effort with apocalyptic Chicken Little talk of ruined ecosystems and poisoned drinking water, however, it should be noted that American and Canadian oil and gas development is the cleanest, safest, and most efficient in the world.

With help from North American oil and gas expertise, we should expect Namibia will develop her own oil and gas industry both safely and responsibly.

As of 2019, Namibia was ranked 130th on the Human Development Index. With a current score of 0.646 as a starting point, how high might that HDI rise with domestic energy development? I hope we find out.

But the only hope of finding out is in resisting hyperbolic zeal for Climate Change dogma which is anti-human, anti-science, and purposefully counterproductive.

I for one am excited at the possibility of Namibia developing her own reserves.

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Paul Shiver wrote a piece for The Blaze yesterday reporting on Republican pollster and political strategist Frank Luntz and his remarks to a podcast at The New York Times.

You can read the article here and you can listen to that NYT podcast interview with Luntz here.

But the long and short of it is that Luntz thinks Trump has only himself to blame for social media giants having permanently banned him from their platforms - even while he was still in office.

The whole business reminds me of William Wallace being sold down the river by the Scottish nobility in his fight for Scottish independence against England's King Edward I.

Or, for a biblical example, I think of King David ordering that Uriah the Hittite be put on the frontlines where the fighting was fiercest, then having the rest of his compatriots pull back to let him get cut down.

Frank Luntz makes clear that the Republican establishment wants Caesar politically dead once and for all.

But Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honorable man.

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On April 30th, Tyler Hummel at The College Fix published an expose of a diversity and inclusion training students and faculty at The University of Florida are being required to take in which white people in particular are singled out for their insensitive and condescending remarks to minorities.

All the usual fare is there in the screenshots. Straight white men are scorned. Cultural appropriation is frowned upon. Mansplaining and whitesplaining are shamed. Intersectionality enjoys an elevated position of sacrosanctity.

Critical theory makes every interaction, no matter how mundane and innocuous, exciting and dramatic. No longer are conversations about jewelry and festive parties allowed to be just that. Now they are part of the overarching oppressor versus oppressed narrative.

At the heart of it all is not a desire to lift hurting people into the light and deliver them from their chains. Rather, in diversity trainings like the one shown in this piece from Hummel, new chains are fashioned.

As bad or worse than telling hurting people that their legitimate grievances are of no account or merit is telling manipulative and oversensitive people that their illegitimate grievances are the stuff Marxist revolutions are made of.

Eat the rich is the big idea here. And if you refuse to jump on the bandwagon, you will be singled out for special attention.

Raise that black power fist high and repeat after the woke mob: "Black lives matter."

But of course evangelical Christian leaders should believe that black lives matter. But that wasn't actually the question. The question was whether we are prepared to forgo capitalism and the free market, or else redistribute wealth.

Yes, material wealth is in play here. But before we get to divvying out everyone else's fair share of your bank account, the social, political, and spiritual capital needs to be redistributed.

"Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad."

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Laura Ingraham recently hosted a town hall event on Fox News in which she asked Florida Governor Ron DeSantis whether he would sign legislation recently passed in Florida to ban biological males from competing in girls' sports. Other Republican governors also signaled their enthusiasm for such legislation in their states, NCAA be damned.

Perhaps they learned a lesson from South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem's mistake in vetoing the same sort of legislation when her state wanted it. At least we should hope.

But consider the tagline on the featured image for the story about this over at The Daily Wire. Taken from a screenshot of Fox News at 10:53PM ET, underneath Ron DeSantis (R) | Florida Governor we read "How do we reinvigorate the belief in America?"

Might I be so impertinent as to suggest that America was only ever great because America believed in the goodness of God?

Only believing in the goodness of God can restore our confidence in a bright future for our country. And when I say we need to believe in the goodness of God, I do not mean we affirm just how nice he is for giving us so much nice stuff. No, I am talking about our regard for how holy and righteous he is.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party is revealed by The Epoch Times to be trying to take over the internet. If the CCP gets its way, you will not be able to speak a single solitary untoward thing which criticizes or runs counter their ambitions for world domination.

As Pinky might have asked the Brain on the cartoon series I watched growing up, after having dominated the domestic internet scene in China, "What are we going to do tomorrow night?" And just so, the Brain of the CCP might have replied - and still is replying - "Try to take over the world."

In America, conservative leaders are trying to figure out how to juggle their fiscal and political conservatives who are increasingly godless and secular while at the same time not alienating their theological conservatives who believe God created us male and female in the beginning.

In China, millions and tens of millions of mercenary trolls and strategically placed board members, executives, and investors are going to decide whether you can advertise, buy, sell, trade, or keep in touch with your family if you vote and believe in opposition to their Maoist principles.

And therein lies the rub.

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A stomach bug has been making the rounds in our house this week, working its way through first the children and then Lauren and I from youngest to oldest. Only two of our sons were spared the first-hand experience.

Being sick always puts me in a different mindset. My wife tells me I have a tendency to be a tad melodramatic when I am laid up.

But all told, and even in light of that, I tried to have a better attitude this time around. Sickness can help us appreciate all the more the blessing of good health, for instance. When we are only ever healthy an surrounded by other healthy people, it is too easy to take for granted. After a bout with a stomach bug, on the other hand, we perhaps are more thankful to God for the blessing of life and being able to mill about as we please.

Thankfully also, our intrinsic value and worth is not dependent on good health, strength, and what we can produce - which it turns out for me at least is very little when I am sick. No, as Christians, our worth in God's eyes stems from the fact that he created us in his image - Imago Dei, if you want the fancy term; and also the fact that through Christ, we are justified and made right with our Creator to the point that when God looks at us, he sees the Son.

Wretched though we may sometimes be, God so loved us that he sent his only begotten into the world that whoever believes on him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

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I only made it through the first 46:39 of President Joe Biden's first State of the Union address on MSN before I needed to leave out for work this morning, but here is what I have to say to as much as I heard.

As Doug Wilson over at Blog and Mablog has said recently, I agree - we are now living under both a bad and illegitimate government. The White House was taken by fraud. And this fraud, though perpetrated primarily by Democrats, was aided and abetted by far too many Republicans.

And as Andrew Klavan at The Daily Wire has quipped, a lot of sane people in this country cannot believe we are being lied to all the time - by politicians, corporations, and our mainstream media. Only an insane person believes they are being lied to all the time. And this fact means that all of the sane people now cannot bring themselves to believe the truth that we are in fact being lied to all the time.

Attendance of President Biden's SOTU address "was severely limited due to Covid restrictions," MSN tells us. But of course we all know the real reason attendance was limited, and it has nothing so much to do with Covid as it does with political theater.

They have to keep them Reichstag embers a-smoldering.

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In Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the supercomputer Deep Thought operates for 7.5 million years to spit out the answer “42.” But by that time, nobody remembers what the question was. So then another supercomputer – this one none other than our very own planet Earth – is designed by a race of hyper-intelligent, ultra-capable galactic house mice to figure out what the original question was.

In Fools, Frauds, and Firebrands by Roger Scruton talks quite a lot about the thinkers of the New Left who obfuscate the nonsense of their philosophies by burying the lack of meaning in a lot of complicated speech that’s difficult to get through.

Yesterday also, I finished up Children of Ash and Elm by Neil Price – the first and only definitive and dedicated history of the Vikings as a people I have ever come across. And I find it remarkable how the author takes little detours throughout the work to toss in woke-sounding modern conceptions of the patriarchy, gender theory, and the like. He apparently is looking to the Vikings for some kind of primeval precedent for the present-day revelry, chaos, and confusion regarding gender and sexuality.

Yet the contradiction that makes so little sense to me is that for all the efforts Price makes at portraying Viking society as open, inclusive, and tolerant, we must remember that the Vikings are so well-known to us because of their savagery, brutality, and penchant for murderous raids. They callously took slaves and sacrificed men, women, and children to their pagan gods. They bludgeoned, threatened, and generally terrorized all within their grasp for hundreds of years – and yet we are to extoll their virtues as some kind of throw-back precursor of a modern secular fantasy of living in a society where gender and sexuality are merely a social construct.

In other words, the madness of this present age – and moreover, of all ages in which sinful men hold sway and revel in their own and one another’s wickedness – is in loving and embracing death romantically so long as we can find refuge in it from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Christ Jesus the only begotten Son of the Father.

One final thought – and this is in response to some feedback I got from my neighbor after he listened to Episode # 104, “Choosing the Seventh Audiobook.” I may be speaking as much from my own human frailty and ignorance to dismiss Study Bibles.

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Let's talk about the classic film Ben-Hur - the 1959 version with Charlton Heston, of course.

This is one of my favorite movies, and has been since childhood.

If you've never seen it, do yourself and everyone around you a favor. Watch it.

If it's been a while since you watched it last, watch it again.

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"Anyways" - you would not believe how difficult it has been for me to try to eliminate just that one little word from my vocabulary.

But this just serves to underscore the larger point of Biblical passages like James 3:1-12.

Listen to this episode of the podcast to hear about my personal endeavor to get better, by God's grace and with his help, at taming my tongue.

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I try to maintain seven audiobooks in my queue at all times. With having recently finished Fault Lines by Voddie Baucham, however, there is now an open slot.

Let's talk through why I chose to listen to the books I currently am, as well as which books those are and what I think of them so far.

In the end, that will help me in figuring out what to replace Baucham's book with, and you will get to see under the hood what goes into these decisions for me.

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Voddie T. Baucham's Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe is an excellent book. Voddie reminds me here why I have admired and appreciated him so much over the years. My wife Lauren and I had the pleasure of hearing him speak at Cedarville University's chapel twice in 2006 when we were attending there, and he still communicates with the same grace, truth, and love he did back then.

In short, this is a book about arguably the most pressing issue facing the church in our lifetimes. Will social justice and critical theory be allowed to fundamentally transform our understanding of God's Word, ourselves, salvation, grace, sin, and the gospel? Or will the church standing in humble confidence and faith on the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture continue to be salt and light as Christ our Savior calls us to?

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Before I head off to Wyoming for Gas Chromatograph training this week, I have the New Testament book of Jude on my mind, since we've been going through it as a church the past couple of Sundays.

Call me crazy, but part of how I learn things - and how I know whether I have learned things - is by talking about them. So rather than having the book of Jude rattling around in my head like a pinball in a machine, I decided it would be good to record a podcast to sort some of the thoughts, observations, and questions out.

At one chapter long, it does not take long to read this letter from one of the half-brothers of Jesus. But there's a lot of ground covered, and a lot of interesting nuggets to unpack, so let's dive right in.

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At time of publishing, Steam tells me I have logged 2,816.4 hours on Civilization VI.

Bear in mind that with this being a turn-based strategy game I have been playing regularly since it was released in late 2016, a lot of those hours have not been active playing.

Being turn-based, a lot of those hours were the game just being up while I was waiting for friends and family to take their turns, or talking with my wife and kids between turns, or getting up and folding laundry or paying bills or answering emails or doing research.

Yet all the same, Civilization VI is without a doubt my favorite game ever, and I'd like to tell you why. So here we go.

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This is the 100th episode of The Garrett Ashley Mullet Show podcast. To mark this momentous occasion, it seems good to me to take a look back at how this all started and how far the process has come.

The Garrett Ashley Mullet Show is not an end unto itself, but is rather a means to the end of encouraging greater intentionality and faithfulness in every facet of life, since Christ is Lord and God is Sovereign over the universe and everything in it.

To put it another way, how can you and I be better stewards of what the Lord our God has entrusted to us in this moment?

This podcast is an experiment in not burying our talents in a field. Perhaps some have or will question the utility and wisdom of investing time, energy, and attention in this way. But I say we are better off to try and that we get closer in trying than we do when we leave well enough alone and hazard hiding our lamp under a bushel in the process.

Whether you've just started listening or have been listening since the beginning - either way, thank you for listening.

Here's to one hundred more episodes of trying to puzzle out how we can better love God and one another with the time, resources, opportunities, and gifts which are at our disposal, because he first loved us.

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Let's talk about J. Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism. I just finished listening to it on Audible yesterday, and I am struck by the clarity and directness of Machen's arguments.

In sum, Liberal Christianity is a different religion. It is a counterfeit Christianity. It is a false gospel.

And just like the Apostle Paul and the early church had to confront the Judaizers and the Gnostics for presenting a distorted and untrue message about God, Jesus, and our condition in relation to them and our sins, we in our day must oppose clearly and consistently the false gospel of Liberal Christianity - which is no Christianity at all.

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I have endured some hostile work environments in my time. Let me tell you how I keep my head on straight, even nominally, after several bad experiences.

In short, despite people predictably being unfair, selfish, dishonest, and even sometimes abusive, we cannot give up. We cannot throw in the towel. We cannot repay evil for evil.

When we suffer unjustly, the New Testament letter of 1 Peter admonishes us to remain blameless and trust to God's goodness and faithfulness.

And in the words of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego - "O King, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us. But even if he doesn't, we still won't bow down."

So don't fear man who can only kill the body (or career) and then has nothing more he can do to you. Fear God, since in that fear is safety and a strong tower.

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They say that patience is a virtue, but why is that? And why is it so hard to be patient?

Patience for me is a challenge not least because I have a bias for action, and things do not always go according to plan.

Try and strive and plan and maneuver and position elements and my internal world as I may, the Lord is God. And I am not God.

Typically - in my case, at least - impatience on my part is remedied by remembering who God is and who I and other people are in relation.

What has God called us to, and what are we supposed to be about? We will have a far easier time remaining blameless in the midst of setbacks, disappointments, and surprises if we embrace rather than resisting calls to be patient.

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Moving to Colorado has been great for my family in many respects, but there is at least one in which we have had ongoing struggles since shortly after we arrived in late 2019.

Ours is a quiet street, and our kids have enjoyed riding their bikes up and down it, and around the neighborhood. Yet we have found some not so great influences from some of the other kids in the neighborhood.

This past weekend, I had to talk with the parents of two boys in particular who were knocking over my kids' bikes, then cursing at and threating my sons when an objection was raised.

Let me tell you how we deal with neighborhood bullies and their parents.

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Republican governors are going on record as saying they will oppose President Joe Biden's executive actions on gun control. Here's hoping they mean it and don't just get tired of fighting in a short span or if some professional or college sports organization threatens repercussions for non-compliance.

Zooming out on the timeline here, however, I find remarkable similarities to how Republicans and Democrats act today and how they acted a century-and-a-half ago during the Reconstruction Era.

In reading Ron Chernow's biography of Ulysses S. Grant, we can see just how little has changed in 150 years. Tyrannical Democrats are still willing to lie, steal, cheat, and murder their way into power and to use all the same to hold onto whatever power they get. And squishy moderate Republicans are as willing and ready as ever to abandon their principles as soon as it becomes clear the fighting is going to take longer than 15-minutes.

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George M. Marsden's The Twilight of the American Enlightenment: The 1950s and the Crisis of Liberal Belief (2014) is worth your time, and you should check it out.

After finishing it yesterday, I have some thoughts to share with you regarding the oft-repeated phrases of late "trust the experts" and "follow the science."

These sentiments didn't come from nowhere, or arrive on our cultural scene without context or precedent with the rise of COVID. No, they've been a long time coming, and we're just reaping now the seeds of thought and sentiment which were planted decades ago.

The past is prologue, and we do well to understand our current condition as Americans in light of what Marsden lays out here.

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My wife posed a great question to our family at the dinner table on Saturday.

Is it better to be kind or to be right?

After collecting our kids' insightful answers, I weighed in on this poignant dilemma.

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Ian Haworth writes for The Daily Wire, "Clarence Thomas Appears To Endorse Outlawing Social Media’s Censorship Of Conservatives: Everything You Need To Know."

Should Big Tech platforms like Facebook and Twitter be regulated as common carriers like Verizon and Comcast and your power company are?

It behooves us to consider the need for humility in how we relate to the liberties of those around us.

God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.

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Today I finished the late Roger Scruton's How to Be a Conservative, but Audible apparently doesn't want me to talk about that.

I've also almost concluded The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyrannny by Ian Davidson.

Speaking of the French Revolution, former Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp was recently on Bill Maher's show where she falsely accused Gina Cerano of being a Nazi on nation TV.

Surprise, surprise. Cancel culture looks an awful lot like the French Revolution. And unless we're ready for the Robespierre's in our midst to start rolling out the guillotines, we'd best figure out how to stand up to it.

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My brother Bryce came over yesterday afternoon and traded me two 140mm computer fans for an RTX 2070 that had some child's water inadvertently spilt on it. While he was here, he also set me up to mine Bitcoin on my RTX 3070 GPU.

So now I have run NiceHash all the past night, on both my computer and my wife's. And my graphics cards are making us several dollars a day worth of Bitcoin.

If we had gotten on this years ago, we'd likely be quite wealthy by now. So why do we wait for bandwagons and trailblazers on things like this?

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My family and I rearranged furniture in several rooms yesterday afternoon, and now I have an office again after several years without. And sometimes that's what you have to do when you assess your priorities.

As with our literal furniture, so also with the abstract furniture in our hearts and minds.

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On the heels of a shooting in Boulder, Colorado yesterday which left 10 people dead - including one law enforcement officer - Democrats across America are pushing yet again for gun control.

Let's talk about that, shall we?

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Let's talk about The Miseducation of America's Elites by Bari Weiss, published March 9th at City-Journal.org.

And while we're at it, I will encourage you once again to order and read a copy of my book, 'And This Is Why We Homeschool.'

AndThisIsWhyWeHomeschool

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After a month of playing Valheim with my sons and friends and my friend's sons, we finally acquired scrap iron. My son Eli built a Viking longship, my son Solomon built a grinding wheel, and I built a stonecutter and our first stone building. We also got thoroughly demolished by man-sized mosquitos and some gremlin-like creatures when we visited the plains, and continued refining our teamwork.

In other news, my wife and I were discussing an article at The Imaginative Conservative titled In The Beginning Are the Words: Language & Liberty written by Joseph Pearce. So let's talk about how important building an ample vocabulary is or may be.

All that and more in this episode of The Garrett Ashley Mullet Show.

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Recently working a lot on trying to build websites for this podcast and my books, concerns about self-promotion have been on my mind. There seems a kind of tight-rope to walk in promoting my work vigorously without becoming (or even seeming) conceited. How does one go about walking that fight line, though? Listen to this episode of the podcast as I think through that thorny problem.

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Democrats have decided to lower the voting age in America to 16. What are their reasons, and what should we make of that?

Also, let's talk about the increasing prevalence of irritable and distracted people.

Finally, I want to briefly analyze the sentiment "We should all just mind our own business."

All of that and more in this episode.

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Marriage can be hard. Nevertheless, we do well to remember where marriage comes from and what God has called those of us to who have the blessing and privilege of being married.

Even the hard times have a purpose, and we need to rely on the Lord's grace to make the most of them in a way that honors our spouse and the Lord.

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Let's talk about Valheim - the Viking survival game I have been playing with my sons and an assortment of friends and family.

Important life lessons thus far: team work, strategic thinking skills, and how to fell trees without them dropping on your head.

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What made Ulysses S. Grant so remarkable? I may be finding out as I listen to Ron Chernow's biography of the man.

And let me tell you a story about a recent instrumentation issue I had to troubleshoot at work, and how I think it relates to the fair-weather philosophy which so dominates our post-modern age.

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Molly Ball at TIME magazine published an article last week titled 'The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election.'

In it, she outlined and outright bragged about the - as she puts it - "conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes" to save Democracy from people like you and me who voted for the candidate disfavored by the powers that be.

By way of reminder, when you or I describe this exact same process, we are dismissed as conspiracy theorists and sore losers. When the likes of TIME publishes glowing reports about how great and helpful the conspiracy was to accomplishing their stated goals, we are all expected to forget that not five minutes ago this kind of talk was dismissed as craziness and sedition.

Dennis Prager has it exactly right when he says that the truth is not a value to the Left.

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Curious what all the fuss is about with GameStop, Reddit, and Robinhood? Here is my quasi-insider small trader perspective.

Spoiler alert: there are two sets of rules. One for the big players, and one for the little guys.

Yet as Proverbs 20:10 tells us, "Unequal weights and unequal measures are both alike an abomination to Yahweh."

I may not be an expert on how our stock market works, but I sure have learned a lot in the past few weeks and months.

The takeaway is that we need to be wise in how we invest, and we need to diligently guard our reputation for honesty and fair-dealing by being above reproach.

If you give unscrupulous persons an inch, they will go a mile with it.

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A listener recently asked the following question: If I'm encouraging people to find other marketplaces besides Amazon.com, why am I publishing and selling my recent book on Amazon?

That is an entirely fair question. Here is my answer.

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I was recently asked to sing in church. And by God's grace, I did just that.

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Someone I am close to recently deleted their Facebook; and despite having recently started an account on MeWe, it would appear they deleted that account also.

This is not an isolated incident, though.

Conservative Americans now feel entirely alien and unwelcome online. Years of being maligned, manipulated, and censored on the biggest platforms have suddenly kicked into overdrive. And a lot of us are left trying to recalculate the cost-benefit on what if any time, energy, and attention we invest online.

This may well be the death of our social media lives. And yet, if we turn from those places and begin investing socially IRL with renewed vigor, that may be all for the best in the short, medium, and long run.

"Even the wise cannot see all ends," but God knows. And for our part, we must figure out how best to spend what has been entrusted to us.

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Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were sworn into office today. I confess, it was a glum day for me personally as I considered the implications of that in the short and mid-term.

Yet even so, it is critically important that we not become discouraged or despairing.

The question we need to be asking ourselves, one another, and the Lord Almighty is this: how can we be good stewards now?

What good deeds are there to do? What good things are there to say? What does God have for us in the way of a purpose at this time, whatever our concerns about the direction of the country?

We cannot mourn as those who have no hope, but must press on and take the long view and remember in whom we trust.

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These days, it feels like the United States of America is on its way to becoming the Divided States of America in the near-term.

Each half of the country possesses a collective distrust and even contempt for the other, and diplomatic negotiations seem to have broken down.

I want to lay out a couple of scenarios for what may happen in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead.

Regardless what actually happens, however, we need to make up our minds about what if anything is worth fighting for.

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The United States House of Representatives voted 232-197 yesterday to impeach President Trump.

The reason why has more to do with deflection and spite than the actions of the president.

For one thing, no American president has ever been impeached twice. And the ambition is now for that to be Trump's legacy.

For another thing, impeaching and potentially convicting President Trump conveniently changes the subject away from election fraud, as well as the corruption and contempt for half of America which has come to define Washington, DC.

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What is freedom of speech, and is there a biblical principle supporting what we commonly refer to as our right to free speech?

Unless we are dumb in the literal sense, we have the ability. We also have the responsibility. Yet freedom is not without reasonable constraint or consequence. And all things being permissible does not mean all things are beneficial.

You cannot shout a knowingly false claim of “fire!” in a crowded theater free of consequences. There are also laws – both from God and man – against libel, slander, and false advertising.

The Scriptures give both commands and examples which indicate we should say things which are true, helpful, and necessary. They also instruct us that we are not supposed to speak in a way that is unwholesome, perverse, or blasphemous; but define unwholesome, perverse, and blasphemous.

Instead, for instance, we are supposed to give a reason for the hope that is within us “with gentleness and respect;” but define gentleness and respect.

And if we believe the Great Commission applies to us, we have to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey all that Christ commanded us. This requires exercising our ability to speak in a disciplined way. And, fortunately or unfortunately, the Scriptures are replete with examples of this being punished by mobs and authorities.

“All Scripture is God-breathed and suitable…” means that we have the right and responsibility to talk about all the things which God’s Word talks about to the end of taking every thought captive to Christ.

The fact of prohibitions on speech that dishonors God and does ungodly violence against our fellow man implies inverse rights to engage in speech that honors God and edifies our fellow man.

Therefore, in summary, we have a right to do what God has commanded and enabled us to do.

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Buckle up, friends. It's about to get bumpy.

Twitter and Facebook last week permanently banned President Trump from their platforms on the claim he incited protesters to violently assault the Capitol building last week during a joint-session of Congress.

Google and Apple have both made moves to remove the free speech social media network Parler from their app stores for iPhone and Android smart phones on claims that protesters turned rioters used the platform to incite violence related to election fraud.

Now Amazon has threatened to remove Parler from their web hosting service.

Also, the CEO of Mozilla claims her web browser needs to do more to deprogram Trump supporters by tracking their online activity and targeting them with advertisements designed to change their political positions and convictions.

It's going to be a challenge, but it's time to go to ground online and start looking for alternative platforms where our inalienable rights are respected and protected.

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President Trump today all but conceded the 2020 election, saying that the objective now is a peaceful transition to a new administration at the end of the month.

American conservatives spent the day denouncing and condemning the storming of the Capitol building in Washington DC by protesters.

Where do we go from here?

The simple answer is that we put our faith in God, and we pray for wisdom, strength, and grace to be found faithful, good stewards of what God has entrusted to us.

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What should we make of the images and scenes which came out of our nation's capital today as protesters stormed the halls of power in Washington DC?

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Looking back on 2020, I realize just how much stress there was. So it seemed good to me to add an audiobook to my queue: The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It, by Kelly McGonigal, PhD.

I also recently watched The Sound of Music with my kids, and I have a new appreciation for some of the main characters and themes of the story now compared with when I watched the movie growing up.

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Chris Enloe at The Blaze reports 'House Democrat ends prayer with 'amen and a-woman,' gets destroyed when Ben Shapiro explains the meaning of 'amen'.

Spoiler alert: the root word of 'amen' is not 'men.'

Also, what is behind Hollywood releasing a spate of awfully feminist movies?

Wonder Woman 1984, The Croods: A New Age, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker? Filmmakers just can't seem to get enough of injecting raw, undiluted women's empowerment into stories, even at the expense of displacing necessary and indispensable elements.

As Isaiah 3:12 says,

"My people—infants are their oppressors,

and women rule over them.

O my people, your guides mislead you

and they have swallowed up the course of your paths."

We're there, folks.

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The Epoch Times reported today 11 More GOP Senators to Object to Electoral College Votes.

I am reminded of Numbers 13-14 in the Old Testament, and that one time 12 spies were sent by Moses to scout out the Promised Land.

Israel would have been far better off listening to Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephuneh. But, alas, the whole lot had fear of man issues and fell for argumentum ad populum.

We would do well to learn from their mistake.

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On the last day of arguably the hardest year for this country in my lifetime, I hit publish on my first book.

And This Is Why We Homeschool is up on Kindle, and will soon be available in paperback from Amazon.

Here is where things stand so far, and what my hopes are for the book now that it is launched.

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The United States Congress finally passed another COVID stimulus package. Its stated goal is to help the American people negatively impacted by the effects of the novel coronavirus. Yet when a financial aid package totals nearly $1 trillion, we whose families and friends have been hurting financially this year because of the government-mandated throttling of our livelihoods can be forgiven for balking at each man, woman, and child getting only $600 while the lion's share of the monies go to special interests and foreign countries.

On a more personal note, I worked about 24-hours total in my first two days of Christmas vacation. It is well with my soul, and all that working gave me an opportunity to finish two books in my audiobook queue.

Caesar's Legion: The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar's Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome, by Stephen Dando-Collins

The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation, by Rod Dreher

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I have written a book, and the manuscript is complete. Now begins the editing process.

By God's grace, I will finish editing the book and preparing it for publication in the last two weeks of the year.

Special thanks to the dozen and a half people who are reading the first draft and giving me feedback on how to polish the final product.

Here is my plan for successfully executing on this last stage of completing a life-long dream of mine to write and publish my first book.

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It is Christmas 2020, and we do well not to forget to celebrate the birth of the Messiah.

In the spirit of celebration, then, let's sing some Christmas carols and meditate on what their lyrics mean.

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Our social and political systems in the United States of America are faulting and need troubleshooting and repair.

From the standpoint of an operator and technician working in the oil and gas industry since 2012, this is how I see it.

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Mitch McConnell congratulates Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for having stolen the 2020 election, urging his fellow Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House and Senate to not fight for election integrity in the face of massive evidence of rampant, coordinated, and sufficient voter fraud.

What should that mean to us? And how do we make sense of this move by the Senate Majority Leader?

To answer that question, we ought to look at human nature honestly in light of God's Word.

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Amidst all the talk of judges, legislators, government officials, and media personalities failing to do justice or investigate fraud and illegality when it comes from certain sectors, I am reminded of a famous quote from Edmund Burke.

"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

Was Edmund Burke correct, or is a friend of mine more right when he asks the rhetorical question of whether there are actually any good men?

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I had the very great honor of sitting down with Dr. Evelyn G. Mullet, Unicornologist for an exclusive interview. Listen to her answer the tough questions about unicorns like no one else can.

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Today, the electoral college meets across the United States of America. What will come of their voting? Time will tell. In the meantime, we have an interesting headline to contemplate since yesterday, when the names and personal information of 1.95 million Chinese Communist Party members embedded around the world - including in the U.S., U.K., and Australia - was released to the public. Could the release of this information in addition to other recent revelations regarding the activities of China help to sway the decision of American electors, judges, and legislators? Should it? Perhaps it should, but it is anyone's guess whether it will. We have to remember the worldviews in play here as we consider the stakes and odds.

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My family celebrated my son Enoch’s 5th birthday last night. To that end, we enjoyed having some guests over.

While our guests were over, we got into talking about genealogy, and that reminds me that I want to share with you some of the interesting things I have learned about my MacFarlane ancestors on my mother's mother's side of the family.

Also, last week, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down the election lawsuit by Texas and many other states. Why did they do it, and should they have done that? My perspective on this issue is partly informed by the things I have learned about the founding of this country by researching my family history.

In other news, I have some exciting updates to share regarding the plan for On The Rocks Blog Podcast moving forward. And similarly, I am considering going to a more modular design for this podcast in 2021.

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A listener - Ben from Ohio - writes in with the following question:

“So, we as Christians are supposed to be kind and helpful and uplifting. How do you go about doing that to a liberal, for example, while also not giving the impression you support their stance or point of views?”

To help us answer this question, let's read what Christ teaches in Matthew 5:38-48 for starters.

Verse 39 - "Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."
Verse 44 - "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven."

Let's also consider what Jesus says in Matthew 10:16-23.

Verse 16-17 - “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men…
Verse 22 - "...You will be hated by all for my name’s sake."

In the interest of defining our terms, we should also do a compare and contrast between what is meant by the term “Liberal” and what is meant by the term “Leftist.” What is the difference?

For starters, the term “Liberal” carries with it the connotation of someone being for freedom and liberty, but what are we being freed and liberated from, and what are we being liberated to?
“Freedom is slavery” is a famous Orwellian line from the dystopian novel 1984.

Lastly, consider 1 Peter 2:13-25.

Verse 16-17 - Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

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Thought exercise
You decide you are not going to offend anyone about the masks issue, and then immediately walk into a room with 10 people – 5 wearing masks and 5 not wearing masks.
The 5 wearing masks will be offended if you do not wear a mask; and the 5 not wearing masks will be offended if you do wear a mask.
So what do you do?
The sermon at church this past Sunday dealt with Romans 14 in particular. And with regards to the wearing or not wearing of masks, taking or not taking the forthcoming vaccine for COVID, we were encouraged to consider this passage in light of the subject of eating or not eating meat that has been offered to idols.
There have to be limitations to how far and wide we apply the principle of keeping our personal opinion to ourselves and not causing our brother to stumble. So what and where are they?
As much as depends on you, strive to live peaceably with all men. But how much does it depend on you and me?
How does open, honest, and substantive public discourse work if seemingly everything is offensive?
Love is not rude, but love is also not easily offended.
Exhibit A: Cancel Culture
Should we tell people they are being unloving when they are rude and/or easily offended?
What do love, wisdom, and unity in the church look like in a post-truth culture?

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In Jeremiah 29, we see a mandate to God's people in Babylonian captivity. They are to:

Build houses and plant gardens Take wives and have children Marry off their children to get grandchildren Seek the welfare of the city to which God has brought them as exiles

In all these things, God is saying he will be honored. Practically applied in our circumstance, we should not apologize for seeking our own welfare and that of our family and friends, even when the seeking the welfare of the city, state, and nation we belong to increasingly means we are operating in a space which does not know God or honor him. In this vein, I have written my forthcoming book, and my hopes are that it helps to further both the welfare of the United States of America more broadly and also the welfare of my family and me. Intro/Outro Music: Dreaming of Babylon by Animals & Men

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Everyone is talking about the several COVID vaccines being developed, but I want to talk especially about the idea that this vaccination might become a mandatory condition of travel and employment.

As Christians, we are directed in the New Testament by the Apostle Paul to "study to show yourselves approved workmen that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."

What bearing does the principle inherent to that call have on how we are to relate to scientific matters and trusting experts? The answer has much to do with the very foundations of modern science.

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I finally did it. My first book manuscript is finished.

So let me tell you about my forthcoming book, And This Is Why We Homeschool.

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The day before yesterday was my wife Lauren’s and my 14-year anniversary, and we chose strategically to get married the week of Thanksgiving because we want to remember to have an attitude of gratitude about our marriage.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving 2020, and we had our neighbors over to share a meal and thank God for all we have been provided with.

Some Christians struggle with whether we should be flouting laws prohibiting get-togethers for Thanksgiving. Personally, I think of it like Daniel being entrapped by the edict which said for 30 days, no one could pray to anyone but the king.

Shout out to JP Chavez who has been listening to my podcast and giving me feedback and ideas, both general and specific.

Taking one of JP’s ideas and running with it, we are going to look at five logical fallacies – what they are called, their definitions, and some examples of what they might look like if they crop up in a conversation or debate near you.

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I deleted my Facebook account this morning.

They asked me “Are you sure?” “Are you really, really sure?” When I answered in the affirmative each time, finally I got the response: “It’s scheduled for deletion in 30-days.”

I have been a very active Facebook user since 2006 – in other words, for all my adult life to this point.

It really did become unhealthy, unbalanced, out of proportion in its influence on my life.

So why did I stick around for so long?

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We may not – now or ever – know the truth of these allegation of widespread, coordinated, conspiracy to commit voter fraud in the 2020 Election. But we know the mainstream media is lying to us. Lies, deceit, manipulation – these are not new things. People just have more advanced means of perpetrating them. Moral equivalence is a kind of dishonesty and refusal to observe distinctions between wisdom and folly, virtue and vice, truth and falsehood, or righteousness and wickedness. Do we give some types of bad behavior, or bad behavior from certain people and groups a pass for the purpose of either advancing or protecting our interests?

Intro and Outro Music: Exotica by Juanitos

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Both practical and principle, here are the concerns which compel me to oppose mandated mask-wearing.

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On The Rocks podcast with Micah Hershberger is a thing now! I am really excited about this new collaborative work. With weekly episodes discussing current events in light of the Christian worldview and history, I believe listeners will really enjoy and benefit from our analysis and commentary. The Garrett Ashley Mullet Show as a solo project will also doubtless benefit as well as I continue refining my process and improving both audience engagement and making this into a value-added proposition for listeners looking for something different from the mainstream offerings currently dominating the marketplace of ideas. Also, I just finished three audiobooks this week - Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Thomas Sowell's Marxism, and Steve Ziehan's The Accidental Superpower. So let's talk about what I learned, as well as what I didn't learn. Intro/Outro Music: Black Maria by Pistol Jazz

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A listener writes asking how to respond when friends and family dismiss the links to stories he shares as "fake news." Also, how can a factually accurate story be part of a misinformation campaign as Ben Roose at The New York Times recently alleged? Perhaps it is time for conservatives, Christians, and especially conservative Christians to more intentionally develop and pursue new media outlets - specifically where social media is concerned. Intro/Outro Music: Black Maria by Pistol Jazz

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Current events keep reminding me of Proverbs 24. Let's talk about that passage of the Old Testament wisdom literature, shall we? Intro/Outro Music: Black Maria by Pistol Jazz

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The mainstream media has decided to conspire together in telling us the election is over and that Biden has won the presidency, despite the following legitimate concerns and irregularities, just to name a few: 1. prematurely calling Arizona for Biden despite ample reason to believe sufficient Trump votes would come in from Maricopa county to give that state to the incumbent 2. freezing the vote counts in all the states Trump would have needed to win 270 electoral college votes on Tuesday night, then suddenly finding huge dumps of only Biden votes in Michigan and Wisconsin and adding those on Wednesday morning 3. barring GOP observers in Michigan and elsewhere from witnessing the counting of ballots 4. passing out sharpies to voters at polling places in Republican heavy counties 5. voting software used in 30 states mysteriously flipping 6,000 Trump votes to Biden votes in just one Michigan county, with similar complaints in 47 other Michigan counties 6. dead persons, fake addresses, and backdated mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania and elsewhere Should we all just meekly accept a quite possibly stolen election before necessary litigation and recounts are complete, or should we fight? If there is even a remote chance this election is being stolen by the Democrats, I say we should fight, and here's why. Intro/Outro Music: Reveille Variation/Drum Call/Slow Scotch/Quick Scotch/Yankee Doodle/Montage by The United States Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps

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It's my birthday and I'll talk about life if I want to. Intro/Outro Music: Black Maria by Pistol Jazz

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Why do I want to talk about everything? Some have advised me to pick a topic, subject, or issue and make my podcast more focused. Myopic single-factor analysis gets us into trouble, though. And someone needs to talk about everything so we connect the dots rightly. This is the information age, and information is great. But in order to make productive use of information, we have to get wisdom and understanding. And in order to get wisdom and understanding, we must grasp the big picture. Intro/Outro Music: Black Maria by Pistol Jazz

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You may have never heard of Edward Bernays, but he had your number. The father of public relations gave us the modern mass marketing campaign as well as making Sigmund Freud - his double uncle - a household name. Maybe, just maybe, the trick to not falling for propaganda, fake news, and deceptive marketing practices that prey on our emotions has something to do with picking up Neil Postman's premise in Amusing Ourselves to Death. Intro/Outro Music: Black Maria by Pistol Jazz

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I listen to a lot of audiobooks, on-purpose and for a reason. At the time of this recording, I am up to 44 titles finished since the beginning of the year. Tune in to find out what I am listening to and why. Intro/Outro Music: Black Maria by Pistol Jazz

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To frack or not to frack? That is the question. Rather, that is one of the questions at stake in the 2020 election here in the United States of America. But what are the implications of our options? On a personal level, as someone who has worked in the Oil & Gas industry in America since 2012, I see this question as directly impacting my ability to provide for my family. There is more on the line for all of us, and not just those like myself who work in this industry. An end to Oil & Gas development in America would also mean an end to energy independence for our country, and would undermine our national security as well as our economic recovery. Deeper than the question of whether to frack or not is a question of how we see man's role. Who are we? Where did we come from? Why are we here? And what, therefore, is the nature of man's efforts to "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the Earth and subdue it?" Tune in to find out. Intro/Outro Music: Black Maria by Pistol Jazz

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Even before all the craziness surrounding COVID-19, the past couple of years have proven a challenge for me and my family. But why did I get into political commentary to begin with, and why will I not leave these things well enough alone, particularly in light of hardships? This is my story. Intro/Outro Music: Black Maria by Pistol Jazz

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The final presidential debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden is behind us. But do we really understand the nature of the larger debate, or are we too caught up in the individual personalities of the two men running? Intro/Outro Music: Black Maria by Pistol Jazz

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The year is 2020, and a pandemic rages on around the world. Only not all of us are quite sure it still is a pandemic, if ever it was.

Originally written and published at On The Rocks Blog (onthe.rocks).

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In this episode, I will read the front page headlines from this morning's Drudge Report, and provide a running commentary.

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In this episode, I want to discuss the need for rebuke and repentance in the life of the church and Christians today.

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Happy New Year! Let's talk about the wall President Trump wants to build, people who hate America, the gospel, and how to actually make America great again.

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Let's talk about the book I'm reading right now, Mao: The Untold Story.

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Let's talk about new beginnings, hunting, conservatism, and developing stronger stomachs.

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Today is Election Day in the U.S., and there's a great deal of hype and anxiety over whether Donald Trump or the Democrats will destroy America. Today we go out and vote - and the future of our nation and people depends on that - but that future depends as much or more on us de-secularizing our approach to life, and integrating the Christian faith into every aspect of our being.

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What do we mean when we say that someone lacks the temperament for this or that position or appointment?

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In this episode, I discuss the famous Byzantine general, Belisarius, as well as King David of Israel, Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavenaugh, slander, and insecurity.

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Russell Moore wrote an article about evangelical Christianity in America and how it relates to theological and political issues. I discuss that article along with news that the Trump administration is going to officially look into whether Google and Facebook have violated anti-trust laws.

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When is criticism helpful, and when is it not?

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Let's talk about Tesla, job offers, priorities, goals, focus, and the ability to say 'No' to some things so you can pursue others.

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I got up and looked to Facebook, but there was no solace there, only a lot of people posting the highlights of their personal lives. I checked my LinkedIn, but that was another disappointment; all I found there was people posting the highlights of their professional lives.

Then I remembered my wife asking me yesterday if I wanted to read through Hebrews for a Bible study she's doing. So I surfed my way over to www.bible.com and found the book of Hebrews, and I read the first two chapters. And there, in God's Word, showing mankind warts and all, I found solace.

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In this episode, I discuss plans, things not going according to plan, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson's famous poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade."

"Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die. Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred."

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"Go West, young man."

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How are Christians supposed to handle stress? And what responsibility do we have to manage the factors that contribute to being stressed? A healthy view of God, ourselves, and other people makes a world of difference in answering these and related questions.

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You may not listen to Alex Jones of InfoWars, and you may not like him if you do. Regardless, it is deeply concerning to see him being "deplatformed" by several social media outlets all in the same week. Who's next?

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Paul writes to the church at Ephesus: "Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love."

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What comes to mind when you hear the word "church"? And how do you define that word? If you're thinking of a building, think again. "Church" in the Bible always refers to the actual believers in Jesus.

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Latest episode of The Garrett Ashley Mullet Show

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Rule #6 in Jordan Peterson's book, '12 Rules For Life: An Antidote to Chaos' is "set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world." This sounds an awful lot like when Jesus talks about specks and planks. These two together beg the question: how should we balance attending to our own affairs with looking after the interests of others?

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What does Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announcing retirement, abortion, and Aztec human sacrifice have in common? I will tell you.

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What does the future hold, and what should our attitude be concerning what may come? Never forget that the future will eventually be the present, and it behooves us to pay attention to the past and present accordingly.

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What are demons, and where do they come from? It's vital that we understand the reality of spiritual warfare. As Christians, we overlook or misapprehend the supernatural reality of the Biblical narrative at our peril.

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Women being sexually assaulted and raped is intolerable, but so is the prospect of false accusations destroying reputations, careers, and lives.

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As wise King Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes, there is "a time to keep silence, and a time to speak." But which is which, and how can you tell?

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Ignorance may be bliss, but it's also irresponsible. And does Philippians 4:8 really mean we should only think about positive things all the time? Let's talk about it.

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Is Donald Trump breaking up Latino families? Are immigration laws racist? What does the Bible say? Let's talk about it.

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What does the gospel have to do with racism and white South Africans being murdered? I'll tell you in this episode.

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Live life on purpose by keeping in mind that God made you special, creating you "for such a time as this," and often calls us to do hard, even impossible things.

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I want to talk about everything. But what does that mean, and why do I say that?

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Several months ago, a Mormon I was working with asked me: "So what's your opinion on polygamy?" I laughed, but then I answered him. Here's what I told him.

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My wife and I let our kids climb on the rocks at Makoshika State Park yesterday while another set of parents wouldn't let theirs. Let me explain why.

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What gives one Christian or another the right to talk about the problems in his neighborhood from the perspective of his faith?

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"Do not judge" may be among the most oft-quoted statements of Jesus in our day and age, but what did Jesus mean by telling us not to judge?

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Birth rates in America and Europe are at historic lows, but my wife and I just had our seventh child. Listen to find out why.

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