Happy Friday,
Count it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
The Apostle James
Why do so many Christians remain spiritually immature? Bad preaching? Shallow books? Too little prayer? Dallas Willard suggests it’s our avoidance of suffering. “It’s essential… that we accept the trials of ordinary existence as the place where we experience and find the reign of God-with-us as actual reality. We’re not to try to get in a position to avoid trials. And we’re not to catastrophize and declare the end of the world when things happen.” I agree. The trials we face are not evils to avoid, challenges to overcome, or evidence of God’s disfavor. They are the place where God and growth are to be found.
Quiz: 1) What is the leading cause of death of Americans between the ages of 18 and 45? 2) What product does the Surgeon General want to attach warning labels to? 3) What is the average age of the population of Brazil? India? China? Japan? The US? 4) What percent of Americans have tried an injectable weight loss drug? 5) What is the average US household credit card debt? and 6) How old is George Jetson?
The Ethics of Rabbi Jesus: Theologians divide the study of Christ into his life, his work, and his teaching. What did he teach on? The central focus of Christ’s teaching was Christ himself. Both what he did and what he said reinforced his claim to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Jesus was his own most frequent subject. In terms of his ethics: 1) God Comes First, 2) Others Are Second, 3) The Way Up Is Down, 4) We Are Going To Live Forever, and 5) We Are Stewards.
Quotes Worth Requoting: 1) “Liberty is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization.” Lord Acton; 2) “I’ve been putting out fires with gasoline.” David Bowie
Worth Noting: 1) The stock market has reached an all-time high on the backs of three $3T—Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia—all fueled by AI. Nvidia is now the most valuable company in the world, suggesting that investors are all in on AI; 2) One of the chief problems with Utopians is that they malign and destroy the progress others have made in search of something better. But they do not deliver what they envision—mostly because they have a profoundly flawed view of reality, starting with their flawed understanding of the human heart; 3) As Twain noted, sometimes the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and lightning bug. To that end, think charity, not unselfishness. We do not surrender benefits just to work on not being selfish. We look for ways to bring joy and aid to others.
WOTW: Honorable mention goes to: snaccident (as in, “Sorry, I ate all the chips. I didn’t intend to. It was a snaccident.”), the Goldilocks Zone (the 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. ideal time in which to take a nap), and heat dome (which joins atmospheric river, bomb cyclone, derecho, and thundersnow on the list of new weather words). Full honors go to Boommates, which refers to baby boomers who are sharing accommodations and rent because of high inflation and rising housing costs. (Note: I believe anytime between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. is an ideal time for a nap.)
Huper: The late Karl Barth—one of the last theologians to grace the cover of Time—declared the minuscule Greek term, huper, the most important word in the Bible. What is huper? It translates “in behalf of.” Barth was drawing attention to the vicarious work of Jesus. At the center of his teaching was not his ethics but his death, which was done huper us. Christianity is not this I do, but this He did.
Surprise: Some find Christianity unreasonable. Some find it undesirable. Until recently, Richard Dawkins—the author of The God Delusion and the one who argued that children should be “protected” from their religious parents—thought it was both. But as I have noted, after he was canceled by New Atheism, he joined others in identifying as a cultural Christian. “I’m not a believer…. But I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos. Christianity seems to me to be a fundamentally decent religion.” This piece reports on the recent meeting Dawkins had with his friend, former atheist turned Christian, Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Answers: 1) One American dies of fentanyl poisoning every 8 minutes, making it the leading cause of death among Americans between the ages of 18 and 45; 2) Dr. Vivek Murthy has called on Congress to require warning labels on social media; 3) The average age of the population—from youngest to oldest—is: India 28.4, Brazil, 33.5, China, 38.4, the US, 38.5, Russia is 40.3 and Japan, 48.4; 4) 6% of Americans (15.5M people) have tried one of the new injectable weight loss drugs; 5) The average U.S. household has $6.2K in credit card debt and $102K in total debt; and 6) Per a 1965 episode of the Jetson’s, George was born in 2022, making him 2. (BTW, I continue to think Barney Rubble was a better actor than either Fred Flintstone or George Jetson.)
Closing Prayer: May the Father of the true light—who has adorned day with heavenly light, who has made the fire shine which illuminates us during the night, who reserves for us in the peace of a future age a spiritual and everlasting light—enlighten our hearts in the knowledge of truth, keep us from stumbling, and grant that we may walk honestly as in the day. Thus we will shine as the sun in the midst of the glory of the saints. Amen. (Basil of Caesarea, 330-379)