When I can, I prefer to begin the week by highlighting good news from recent days. So, we’ll start with such news from three unlikely sources:

• A spiritual revival is making headlines in Sweden, long considered one of the most secular nations on earth. Swedish youth even named Jesus “influencer of the year” for 2025.
• A three-fold surge in adult baptisms in France is sparking hope of revival in the highly secular country. Pope Leo discussed this phenomenon during his weekend visit to the country, where he received what the Wall Street Journal is calling a “rockstar welcome.”
• Philosophy students at Princeton made headlines by reasoning their way from atheism to Christian faith. We should be unsurprised: even AI agrees that Christianity is the most reasonable religion.

Any movement toward Christian faith is good news for any secular nation, including ours, for reasons that might surprise many of us.

“Out of many, one”?

Over the weekend, I read This Land is Your Land, a creative and engaging history of America by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Yale historian Beverly Gage. In it, she quotes Theodore Roosevelt’s admonition to “do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are,” a maxim that could be America’s definitional motto.

Concerning our nation’s founding creed, Dr. Gage writes, “the Declaration was not self-executing. It required generations of conflict to turn the tools and ideas it provided into new realities.” In fact, as she reports, not even half of the colonial residents actively supported the rebellion against England that birthed our nation. When George Washington took the oath of office as our first president, two states—Rhode Island and North Carolina—had not yet approved the Constitution that created his office.

From then until now, America has been on a quest to invent itself, to create one nation out of widely disparate peoples and cultures. E pluribus unum, it says on our money—“Out of many, one.”

But I’m not sure we agree with what our currency says. In truth, Americans are more “many” than we have ever been.

A melting pot, a salad bowl, or chocolate fondue?

Electoral maps we’ll see in the run-up to the midterm elections feature only two colors: red for Republicans and blue for Democrats. But these colors became identified with the two parties by the media for purely arbitrary reasons.

And they are largely a fiction: Americans are far more diverse politically than two colors can represent. As Dr. Ryan Denison reported in the Daily Article last Friday, three-fourths of Americans are neither conservative nor liberal but hold a wide variety of positions across the ideological spectrum.

Clearly, politics are not making one—or even two—out of many. Nor are languages: the Census Bureau reports that at least 350 languages are spoken in American homes, more than ever before. Nor are ethnicities: the Census Bureau estimates that there are nearly 1,500 different race and ethnicity groups in our nation, also more than ever before.

Some would say that America is or should be a “melting pot” in which our differences meld together to make a sum greater than its parts. Others believe us to be a “salad bowl” where we retain our individual differences but work together for the common good. Still others compare us to chocolate fondue, a culture in which we are individually strawberries, pineapple, and so on, all “coated” with the “chocolate” of our commonality as Americans.

I would suggest a fourth metaphor, one I believe to be critical to our cultural flourishing.

A fourth metaphor for our nation

From the beginning, the creation of our nation was not an end but a means. Thirteen very disparate colonies united to cast off the oppressive yoke of Britain, cooperating out of necessity more than out of design. As soon as independence was won, our pluribus became more important than our unum.

Voters elected leaders based on what those leaders could do for their supporters. Slave states sought to remain slave states; new states joined the nation less to benefit the nation than to benefit themselves. Even today, personal issues such as the cost of living, data centers, and gas prices are expected to dominate the midterm elections more than national or international concerns.

This is unsurprising: humans typically seek unity when we do as a means to personal ends. Here we find yet another reason the Christian worldview is so vital to our national future.

Rather than seeing America as a melting pot, a salad bowl, or chocolate fondue, I suggest a room with a throne in the middle. The closer we draw to the throne, the closer we draw to each other.

When the risen Lord Jesus is our personal King, his Spirit molds us into the character of Christ, manifesting a selfless commitment to God and neighbor that motivates true altruism and unconditional love. The closer we draw to his throne in worship and service, the closer we draw to our fellow worshipers and servants.

“From all tribes and peoples and languages”

In his vision of heaven, John saw “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9). Like them, when we center our lives on Jesus, what unites us becomes greater than what divides us. We function as a holistic “body” with Christ as our head (1 Corinthians 12:27; Colossians 1:18) and serve as the salt and light that transforms our broken culture into a family of faith (Matthew 5:13–16).

What is true of our nation is true of our souls as well. The more we center our lives on Jesus, the more holistic and unified our lives become. The more we are empowered by a single purpose that gives direction and significance to our days. And the more our culture will want the Christ they see in us.

Are you closer to Jesus’ throne today than you were yesterday?

If not, why not?

Quote for the day:

“The man who walks with God always gets to his destination.” —Henrietta Mears

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Denison Forum

Have you tried assembling a puzzle without looking at the picture on the box? An individual piece might be colorful, but it’s not meant to stand on its own. Corner and edge pieces give you clues about their location, but others require study and comparison to get them into the right spot.

Individual stories from Scripture are like these single puzzle pieces. They look interesting, but their purpose may not be immediately clear. Only when we see them in their rightful place can we better see and understand God’s big picture.

The Bible tells a unified story

While working as the kids’ curriculum coordinator at a church in Dallas, I led the team in creating a Bible timeline to help kids see how the smaller stories fit into God’s one big, true story. It also helped us, as teachers, to remember how the whole story fits together and point those we taught to the main character of even the smallest stories: God.

Scripture is not an anthology of disjointed myths. Rather, as the Bible Project says, the Bible is “a unified story that leads to Jesus.”

God set each story in its place for a particular reason: the fun, exciting ones, like the parting of the Red Sea in Exodus 14, as well as the tragic ones, like David’s sin involving Bathsheba and Uriah in 2 Samuel 11. Skipping over stories just because they might be difficult for us to teach leaves kids with an incomplete picture of the Bible, like a puzzle with a missing piece.

God’s Word is not PG-rated, but that does not mean we must give kids every gory detail in adult-rated stories. When teaching complicated passages, the level of detail given to different age groups will vary. You can share Scripture with kids in a way that is simple but not watered down. Core truths can still be taught to any audience.

Teaching kids an idealized version of David’s life, that he killed Goliath as a boy who went on to rule as Israel’s favorite king, makes him sound like a superhero. However, he was a sinner like the rest of us and needed God just as much. God is the hero of David’s story, not David.

Seeing God’s heart through flawed people

As we teach the full story of Scripture to kids, they get to know the God of the Bible, his character, and his unconditional love. Imperfect people fill the pages of the biblical narrative, like Abraham, Judah, Rahab, Jeremiah, and Esther, but God chose to include them in his unfolding story. Jesus’ own disciples repeatedly misunderstood him, but he still used them to start his church and spread the gospel.

God’s interactions with these men and women reveal his heart for us, too. Grounding kids in this truth at a young age gives them a foundation to stand on when their lives hit storms and their own flesh fights against them. No one is too far gone for God to use.

Moses killed a man and struggled with anger, but God used him to shepherd Israel. Despite Samson’s womanizing and irreverence, God gave him the strength to destroy his enemies and preserved his name in the “Hall of Faith” of Hebrews 11. Mary Magdalene was possessed by demons, but she became the first witness to Jesus’ resurrection and was given the task of telling the others.

If we shy away from the dark parts of these people’s stories, we risk giving kids the impression that people who follow God never make mistakes. It might cause them to question if God loves them or if he will reject them because of something they did.

However, the big, true story we see in Scripture highlights God’s mercy and grace while not shying away from the severity of sin. Learning how God moves through flawed humans offers kids the freedom to rest in his works rather than their own. Obedience becomes a response to his love, not a way to try and earn it.

Equipping kids for future trials

The God revealed in the Bible is the very same God active in world events today. Teaching kids the full story of Scripture shows how he works in and through the events that seem chaotic to us but are really part of his plan. He is bigger than anything that happens and remains securely in charge of it all.

Ecclesiastes 1:9 states that there is nothing new under the sun… and that was written over 2,500 years ago! Injustice, ungodly leaders, wars, natural disasters, cultural conflicts, and interpersonal strife run throughout human history.

The story of Scripture shows how God remains sovereign over poor leadership, like Saul and Caesar. He used international conflicts, such as the Babylonian conquest, for his purposes.

We may not understand his reasons for current events, but we can trust the God of the Bible who remains forever faithful to his people.

The biblical narrative also reveals God’s longing for his people to stand out and be a light to the world that opposes them. Jesus promised his followers they would experience suffering in this world, but reminded them that he had overcome it (John 16:33). The leaders, parents, and culture creators of tomorrow are looking up to you today, and Scripture offers stories that speak to what they might encounter in the future.

The Lord comforted Elijah when he thought he was the only faithful follower of God left in Israel. The Holy Spirit empowered Peter and John to speak truth to an antagonistic audience and strengthened Paul in prison. That very same Spirit remains alive and active in believers today!

When God says “Remember”

Throughout his story, God repeatedly tells his people to remember:

• “Remember how God redeemed you from slavery” (Deut 24:18).
• “Remember the wonders he has done” (1 Chron 16:12).
• “Remember what I told you” (John 15:20).
• “Remember who you were before Christ” (Eph 2:11-13).

Teaching the full story of Scripture reminds us who God is, what he has done, what he is doing, and what he will do, while passing those truths on to the next generation. Ask the Lord for discernment to know how you might help put the puzzle pieces together for the kids under your care so they can better see God and his one big, true story.

Denison Forum