More than one hundred million people watched the Chiefs’ overtime victory over the 49ers in yesterday’s Super Bowl. More than sixteen million of them then mysteriously contracted the “Super Bowl flu” and won’t be showing up for work today. Millions more plan to show up late. So many employees skip work the day after the big game that some state lawmakers are trying to make today an official holiday.

None of this surprises you, I assume. The Super Bowl has been an unofficial national holiday in America for years. What might surprise you is the number of fans watching yesterday’s game who have never watched football before.

They are called “Chiefties.”

The NFL has Taylor Swift to thank.

The “healing synthesis” we seek

The most watched watcher of football finished a four-night concert series in Tokyo on Saturday night, then crossed nine time zones to watch her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, make nine catches for the Chiefs in yesterday’s game. Legions of her fans (known as “Swifties”), many of whom are new to football, watched the game so they could watch her watch the game.

Journalist David Samuels perceptively explains Swift’s popularity:

After spending the last fifty years tearing down the structures of families, churches, local government, ethnicity, gender, nations, and borders, a very large number of Americans now find themselves struggling to find rhythm and meaning to their lives.

The idea that Taylor Swift, of all people, can find happiness cheering for her boyfriend, a burly, bearded football star, seems well-deserved. It is also an embodiment of the kind of healing synthesis . . . a large majority of Americans want for themselves.

In a day when 76 percent of Americans believe their country is headed in the wrong direction and less than half are “very satisfied” with their own lives, Samuels’ analysis rings true.

But if we think we can find the “healing synthesis” we seek watching a pop star watch a football game, we’ll be sorely disappointed.

“We must be intent upon the eternal”

Taylor Swift traveled more than five thousand miles in her private jet to sit in a private suite at the Super Bowl. The Son of God traveled from heaven to earth to be born in a cave, executed on a cross, and buried in another cave.

Why? God “made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21, my emphasis).

Fifteen centuries ago, St. Leo the Great explained:

Our Lord Jesus Christ, born true man without ever ceasing to be true God, began in his person a new creation and by the manner of his birth gave man a spiritual origin. What mind can grasp this mystery, what tongue can fittingly recount this gift of love? Guilt becomes innocence, old becomes new, strangers are adopted, and outsiders are made heirs. Rouse yourself, man, and recognize the dignity of your nature. Remember that you were made in God’s image; though corrupted in Adam, that image has been restored in Christ.

Consequently, as Leo noted:

“We are born in the present only to be reborn in the future. Our attachment, therefore, should not be to the transitory; instead, we must be intent upon the eternal.”

How to “stand near the fire”

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis noted:

If you want to get warm, you must stand near the fire. If you want to get wet, you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if he chose, just hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very center of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you; if you are not, you will remain dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die?

How can we “stand near the fire” today?

• Make Christ the king of your life and day: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33).
• Spend this day in his presence: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (John 15:4).
• Think biblically and act redemptively: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32).
• Name your greatest challenge, then “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that [you] may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

The Anglican bishop Thomas Ken (1637–1711) penned a prayer that God will use to transform any who dare pray its words from their hearts:

Direct, control, suggest this day
All I design or do or say
That all my pow’rs with all their might
In Thy sole glory may unite.

For whose glory will your “pow’rs” unite today?

Monday news to know

• Israel rescues two hostages held by Hamas in Gaza
• The Super Bowl ads, ranked
• Lunar new year 2024 around the world—in pictures
• Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin rushed to hospital again Sunday
• On this day in 1809: Abraham Lincoln is born

Quote for the day

“This is the stunning message of Christianity: Jesus died for you so that he might live in you. Jesus doesn’t merely improve your old nature; he imparts to you an entirely new nature—one that is completely united with his.” —David Platt

Denison Forum

My favorite NFL team is the Dallas Cowboys. My second favorite team is whoever is playing the Philadelphia Eagles. After that, I tend not to care too much who wins any particular game, and that includes this Sunday’s Super Bowl between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs.

I’m still going to gather with family to watch the game—for more on how to use the Super Bowl to cultivate community, see Christian Englert’s recent article—but the outcome isn’t nearly as important to me as the competitiveness of the game, the quality of the commercials, and how much I can eat before a new champion is crowned.

Given that relative degree of apathy regarding the teams on the field, I find myself focusing more on the players, particularly those who seem to have a strong relationship with the Lord.

And, it turns out, there are quite a few players and team personnel on both sidelines who are Christians.

A great cloud of witnesses

Paul Bond has a great article up at Newsweek that profiles several of the Christians in Super Bowl LVIII as well as the efforts of groups like He Gets Us to once again use the Super Bowl as a platform for sharing the gospel.

For today, though, I’d like to focus on two in particular:

• Brock Purdy, QB for the 49ers
• Harrison Butker, K for the Chiefs

They are far from the only Christians playing on Sunday. For example, I read about:

• the faith of RB Christian McCaffrey
• the legacy of devotion in Arik Armstead
• the public witness of QB Patrick Mahomes
• the servant leadership of Chiefs owner Clark Hunt

Learning more about these men will encourage your faith as well.

But the stories of these players in particular stuck out to me this week.

The faith of Brock Purdy

In a recent interview with Hall of Fame QB Steve Young, Brock Purdy discussed the role of faith in his life and the impact it’s had on his career.

Purdy was the last pick in the 2022 NFL draft—granting him the ignominious title of “Mr. Irrelevant”—and only became the 49ers starting quarterback after a litany of injuries to the players ahead of him last season. Despite that beginning, though, he’s become one of the game’s most promising young players and would have been the starter in last week’s Pro Bowl if he hadn’t had a slightly more important game to prepare for this Sunday.

Yet, Purdy is clear on who gets the credit for his quick rise toward stardom:

“That’s all God,” adding that the Lord’s plan is “bigger and more beautiful than I could ever imagine. I’m just going to show up every day, work hard and see where he takes me. So I’m very thankful for it, man, but did I ever expect all this kind of stuff? I didn’t. I had no idea, so (I) just try to show up, do my job every day and it falls in the place it needs to.”

Elsewhere in the interview, he stated, “I know who I am, and ‘God, if you want me to do great with (football), great. If not, all right, let’s go do something else, wherever you need me.’”

And that perspective is something Harrison Butker talked about also.

The resilience of Harrison Butker

Like Purdy, Chief’s kicker Harrison Butker also experienced a great deal of success early in his career, winning his first of two Super Bowls in his third season in the league.

But, as he told Sports Spectrum, “If I didn’t have faith in God, I don’t think I’d be the father I am, the husband I am, the kicker I am. That kind of sets the tone for everything else and everything falls under that, but that gives me the strength to go do everything I need to do.”

He went on to say:

“I may have fears about it — I might have pressure — but I know I’m a child of God and He’s gonna protect me. And maybe that protection comes with some suffering, but that’s what’s best for me and I gotta accept that suffering and grow as best I can with that. . . . You miss some kicks and you realize, ‘OK, my identity can’t be all as a football player.’ So I grew a lot in my prayer life knowing that I’m nothing without Him and I gotta lean on Him, and if He wants to take anything away from me, He can. And if He wants to add anything, He can. It’s all up to Him.”

How to find peace in chaos

What stuck out to me about the testimonies of Brock Purdy and Harrison Butker was the way both talked about the importance of finding their identity in Christ rather than in football. Moreover, they point to that identity as a key part of their success. They aren’t great players in spite of their faith but because of their faith.

That’s not to say you have to be a Christian to be a great athlete or a success in any other walk of life. Examples abound of people who have achieved the highest levels of earthly success without giving a second thought to the Lord.

Yet, it’s interesting how both Purdy and Butker credit their faith with helping them stay level headed in the midst of the chaos that surrounds them each game. They find peace in the knowledge that their worth is not tied up in the outcome of any given play, regardless of the stakes.

And there’s a lot we can learn from their example.

Ground your identity in God

Jesus concluded the Sermon on the Mount by cautioning his disciples that the only way to weather the storms of life successfully is by building on the foundation of his word. Those “words” to which he refers point back to the holistic teachings he’d delivered across the previous three chapters.

The best way to approach life is by grounding our identity in who God says we are and making sure that he is Lord over every facet of our lives. It won’t keep the storms from coming, but it will ensure that we can weather them well.

Purdy said, “I know who I am.” Butker said, “I know I’m a child of God.”

Do you know who and whose you are today?

Denison Forum

The world is watching the latest negotiations in the Israel–Hamas war amid ongoing attacks by the Houthis and Hezbollah. In the meantime, we should not miss this headline from the Jerusalem Post: “Iran closer than ever to weaponizing uranium, building nuclear bomb.”

The Institute for Science and International Security is sounding the alarm and has upgraded its threat level to “Extreme Danger,” the highest of its six ratings, for the first time since the group began following the Iranian nuclear program in the 1990s. They warn that the country could make enough highly enriched uranium to fashion a nuclear explosive in a week and could build and deliver a weapon in “about six months.”

Why would Iran choose to do so?

And why is this such an “extreme danger” to the world?

If Iran acquires nuclear weapons

At first glance, today’s news seems less than alarming on the assumption that Iran knows a nuclear attack on Israel or the US would lead to a swift and devastating nuclear retaliation against their country.

But this goes both ways: a nuclear-armed Iran would likely feel protected from aggression by its enemies and thus emboldened to escalate its proxy war on Israel and the West. It would pose an immediate threat to countries without nuclear weapons such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia and would probably incite them to seek such weapons, further heightening tensions in the region.

Military action against Iran (likely from Israel) to prevent its acquisition of nuclear weapons would likely escalate the ongoing regional conflict. And there is always the chance of a catastrophic—if not apocalyptic—nuclear accident.

But there’s one other crucial factor we dare not overlook.

An Iranian apocalypse

As I noted in my book, The War in Israel, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) views its ultimate mission as preparing the way for the Mahdi (a Muslim messianic figure) to return and dominate the world for Islam. Preparations for this return escalated after Ayatollah Khamenei assumed the mantle of supreme leader in 1989 and especially in the aftermath of the 2009 anti-regime protests.

The IRGC views the existence of Israel as the “greatest barrier” to the reemergence of the Mahdi. Iran’s hardline clergy now claim that the “Jewish state will be destroyed before Mahdi’s arrival.”

If Iran can employ its regional proxies to force Israelis to abandon Israel, it will have achieved this necessary step in hastening the Mahdi’s return. If this strategy proves unsuccessful, will it turn to direct war with Israel?

If so, given the Israel Defense Forces’ overwhelming military superiority, would Iran utilize a strike-first nuclear weapon?

Bernard Lewis, the Princeton professor and renowned Middle East scholar, warned that the threat of many Iranians perishing in a war does not deter Iran’s leadership, which believes “it would be doing them a favor by giving them a free pass to heaven” as martyrs in a jihad. In a Wall Street Journal article, he added that to Iran’s leaders, an attack on Israel that killed Muslims would only speed them to heaven. And a response that devastated Iran “would have no meaning” since “what will matter will be the final destination of the dead—hell for the infidels, and heaven for the believers.”

For people with such a mindset, Lewis warned, mutually assured destruction “is not a constraint; it is an inducement.” And since many in Iran believe that the Mahdi will kill all the Jews when he comes, some may even believe that he would return to protect them from such retribution.

“Bad ideas have victims”

Israel and the West should obviously respond to this apocalyptic scenario by doing whatever is necessary to keep Iran from possessing nuclear weapons. Christians should also respond by praying fervently for a spiritual awakening that would transform Iran’s leaders from genocidal persecutors to Christ-following peacemakers. (If you doubt such a possibility, remember what Jesus did with Saul of Tarsus.)

But today’s discussion highlights one other point today:

Worldviews change the world.

Thousands have died and millions are being affected by Hamas’s vow to kill the Jews as demonstrated by its October 7 atrocities. From Russia to China to North Korea and Cuba, Marx’s communist ideology continues to impact and enslave millions. Moral relativism is fueling an epidemic of pornography, sexual confusion, drug overdoses, euthanasia, and suicide in the US.

I often quote this observation by my friend John Stonestreet: “Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas have victims.”

But here’s the good news: biblical ideas have victors.

Consider these facts:

The law of the Lᴏʀᴅ is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lᴏʀᴅ is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lᴏʀᴅ are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lᴏʀᴅ is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lᴏʀᴅ is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lᴏʀᴅ are true, and righteous altogether. . . .

By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward (Psalm 19:7–9, 11).

How fully will you experience the “great reward” of your Father today?

Wednesday news to know

• Hamas responds to Israel plan with three-stage proposal to end Gaza war
• US Senate unveils $118 billion bill on border security, aid for Ukraine, Israel
• Bolts appeared to be missing from Boeing 737 Max door plug that blew off midflight, NTSB says
• Alejandro Mayorkas survives House impeachment vote as GOP lawmakers defect
• On this day in history: The Beatles arrive in New York

Quote for the day

“The Bible was not given for our information but for our transformation.” —D. L. Moody

Denison Forum

San Francisco is on the front pages this week as the 49ers seek to win their sixth Super Bowl this Sunday. But the city is making news for tragic reasons as well.

• The San Francisco Chronicle headlines: “San Francisco street horror only grows as drug overdose numbers spike.”
• CNN reports: “Drugs are sold out in the open in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district.”
• The New York Post adds: “Inside San Francisco’s ‘dens of death’ as liberal city faces drug crisis.”
• And this from CNN: “A mother was raising her son in a city she loved. Then San Francisco changed and stole her boy.”

Drug addicts now outnumber high school students in San Francisco.

In an area a short walk from Union Square, the city’s central shopping district, CNN reports that “it’s commonplace to see people using and selling drugs. Human waste, used needles, and bullet casings litter the sidewalks.”

What’s going on in San Francisco?

Why does this matter to the rest of us?

“The extreme of a pro-drug culture”

In 2018, the drug overdose death rate in San Francisco roughly matched the national average. Five years later, it was more than double the national level. Why?

New York Times reporter German Lopez explains:

The [San Francisco] culture has become more tolerant of people using drugs. When I asked people living on the streets why they are in San Francisco, the most common response was that they knew they could avoid the legal and social penalties that often follow addiction. Some came from as close as Oakland, believing that San Francisco was more permissive.

Keith Humphreys, a drug policy expert at Stanford University, told Lopez that San Francisco “is on the extreme of a pro-drug culture.”

Activists in the city argue for “body autonomy,” claiming that people have the right to put whatever they choose into their veins and lungs. They say it’s no one’s business but the drug user’s. Advocacy groups want people to use drugs more safely, arguing that abstinence is not always a “realistic” goal.

“Body autonomy” advocates often cite the drug policies of British Columbia, a global leader in harm reduction. However, British Columbia set a record for overdose death rates last year.

“What we all dread most”

G. K. Chesterton observed: “What we all dread most is a maze with no center.”

But that’s where we are.

As we saw yesterday, Americans now live in a “post-Christian” nation. When your compass has no true north, it points wherever you want it to point. And you’ll be lost and on your own.

As I was praying about a biblical response for today’s article, my attention was drawn to Psalm 36. David begins:

Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes. For he flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated. The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit; he has ceased to act wisely and do good. He plots trouble while on his bed; he sets himself in a way that is not good; he does not reject evil (vv. 1–4, my emphasis).

Doesn’t it seem that he was reading today’s news?

By contrast, David prays:

Your steadfast love, O Lᴏʀᴅ, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O Lᴏʀᴅ (vv. 5–6).

“In your light do we see light”

Now Americans have a choice to make.

We can persist in our “post-truth” relativism, denying the word of God and choosing our will over his. If we do, San Francisco is a picture of our cultural future.

Or we can seek and submit to God’s word and will each day. We can ask what Scripture says about the issues we face and then “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). We can think biblically and act redemptively.

If we do, this will be our testimony:

How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights (Psalm 36:7–8).

And we will say to God:

“With you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light” (v. 9).

Will you make this prayer your commitment today?

Tuesday news to know

• Toby Keith, popular country music singer-songwriter, dies at 62
• California storm: At least three dead, long cleanup ahead
• Iran-backed groups continue to target American bases as US plans further strikes
• 2,500-year-old silver coin discovered in Israel
• On this day in history: King George VI dies; Elizabeth becomes queen

Quote for the day

“The Bible is the book of my life. It’s the book I live with, the book I live by, the book I want to die by.” —theologian N. T. Wright

Denison Forum

“How is everybody doing?”

Would you have thought such an innocuous question would generate global headlines?

At last night’s Grammy Awards, Taylor Swift became the only artist ever to win album of the year four times. The Houthis are also making headlines after they vowed yesterday to respond to US and UK joint strikes in Yemen.

Meanwhile, people are responding to a question Elmo from Sesame Street posted on X last week: “Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?” As CNN’s headline notes, “He got an earful.” Some examples:

• “Elmo I’m depressed and broke.”
• “Every morning I cannot wait to go back to sleep. Every Monday, I cannot wait for Friday to come. Every single day and every single week for life.”
• “I’m at my lowest, thanks for asking.”
• “Elmo I’ve got to level with you baby we are fighting for our lives.”

Scanning the news, it’s not hard to see why. But there’s hope beyond the headlines if we’ll look in the right direction.

What will future historians say of us?

What ties these stories together?

• Oklahoma drag queen elementary school principal resigns amid outrage, official says
• Students at California school struggling after $250k in federal funds spent on ‘Woke Kindergarten’ program
• Syphilis is soaring in the US
• Polyamory, the ruling class’s latest fad
• Today’s teenagers: Anxious about their futures and disillusioned by politicians
• Ethics ratings of nearly all professions down in the US

Harvard theologian Harvey Cox observed:

We now live in a “post-Christian” America. The Judeo-Christian ethic no longer guides our social institutions. Christian ideals and values no longer dominate social thought and action. The Bible has ceased to be a common base of moral authority for judging whether something is right or wrong, good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable.

Why is this such an urgent crisis? In Man—The Dwelling Place of God, A. W. Tozer stated:

I am among those who believe that our Western civilization is on its way to perishing. It has many commendable qualities, most of which it has borrowed from the Christian ethic, but it lacks the element of moral wisdom that would give it permanence. Future historians will record that we of the twentieth century had enough intelligence to create a great civilization but not the moral wisdom to preserve it.

He wrote these words in 1966. What would he say of our culture today?

“He is love and he must bless”

If you could travel through space at the speed of light, it would take you forty-seven billion years to reach the most distant objects in the observable universe. No one knows what lies beyond that—except God, who measures all of this with the palm of his hand (Isaiah 40:12).

Here’s the good news: we can place ourselves in those hands if we “wait for the Lᴏʀᴅ” (v. 31a), choosing to depend entirely on his strength and grace. When we do, the rest of the verse tells us how he responds:

• We “shall renew [our] strength”—the Hebrew means that we exchange our weakness for his omnipotence, our helplessness for his hope.
• We “shall mount up with wings like eagles” in his supernatural power.
• We “shall run and not be weary” as we run “the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).
• We “shall walk and not faint,” no matter how hard the path becomes.

All of this our Father wants to do for us. As C. S. Lewis noted, “He is love and he must bless.” Because “God is love” (1 John 4:8), his nature requires him to seek always and only our best.

“More than conquerors through him who loved us”

Consequently, if we are not experiencing our Father’s best, the fault is not his.

If, as people told Elmo, we are “depressed,” at our “lowest,” and “fighting for our lives,” Cox must be right about our “post-Christian” status. If so, as Tozer warned, our civilization is “on its way to perishing.”

But what is true of America doesn’t have to be true of you.

You can “wait for the Lᴏʀᴅ” right now. You can name your greatest struggles and turn them over to his omnipotent grace. You can claim the fact that “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). You can then say with Paul, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). And you can ask:

“If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).

Who, indeed?

Are you waiting on God, or is he waiting on you?

Monday news to know

• 37 million at risk for flooding from blockbuster California rainstorm
• Super Bowl ads: It’s getting harder for commercials to score with consumers
• 2026 World Cup final set for MetLife Stadium
• Boeing finds new problem with 737 MAX fuselages
• This day in 1631: Roger Williams arrives in America

Quote for the day

“We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that he should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at his love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground.” —Brennan Manning

Denison Forum

“China’s hackers are positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real-world harm to American citizens and communities, if or when China decides the time has come to strike.” That is how FBI director Christopher Wray described our cybersecurity status with China before a House subcommittee this week.

And while it does not appear such large-scale cybersecurity attacks are imminent, China has already been caught attempting to access critical infrastructure sectors like our power grid, water systems, and oil pipelines as recently as last year.

Jen Easterly, the director of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, likened it to the Russian ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline in 2021, but on a far more massive scale. For context, that previous attack—which closed a single pipeline for six days—resulted in more than 10 percent of the nation’s gas stations going dry until service was restored.

However, Americans are not the only ones facing the daunting prospect of such interference. It turns out, China is increasing its attempts to meddle with its own populace as well.

Powered by RedCircle

Why lies are hard to believe

As Daisuke Wakabayashi and Claire Fu write, “China’s top intelligence agency issued an ominous warning last month about an emerging threat to the country’s national security: Chinese people who criticize the economy.”

They go on to describe how “the Ministry of State Security implored citizens to grasp President Xi Jinping’s economic vision and not be swayed by those who sought to ‘denigrate China’s economy’ through ‘false narratives.’”

Among those “false narratives” are:

• News articles conveying people’s experiences of financial struggles and poor living standards
• Large amounts of local government debt
• A tumbling stock market
• And a crashing property sector, as exemplified by one of the nation’s largest developers going bankrupt after accumulating more than $300 billion in debt

The government has been utilizing Weibo—China’s version of Twitter/X—to spread misinformation on the state of the economy and restrict anyone who posts updates that run counter to their official narrative. Banks and brokerages have also been warned against putting out “carelessly produced” reports that portray the economy in a negative light.

Yet, at least so far, their threats do not appear to be having the desired effect.

As Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkley, points out, “the more the government suppresses negative information about the economy, the less confidence people have in the actual economic situation.”

And that basic truth applies to more than just economics.

Are you settling for milk?

Aristotle once quipped that “it is the mark of an educated man to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

And that is especially true when it comes to issues of faith.

However, getting to the point where we can engage with thoughts that run counter to our faith requires that we actually understand our beliefs rather than simply parroting the opinions of others.

The author of Hebrews spoke to this reality when he wrote, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:12–14).

The basic idea in this passage is that milk is food that someone else digested for you while solid food is something you have to digest for yourself. The latter takes more work, but it is a sign of spiritual maturity to which we are all called to strive.

Yet, as a teacher in my local church recently pointed out, it can be easy to get into the habit of settling for milk. Consider:

• If the extent of your time in God’s word is a sermon every Sunday, then you will spend roughly twenty-six hours a year engaging with the Lord.
• If you add a couple of Bible studies or weekday services to the mix as well, you can probably get up to about seventy-eight hours, or just over three

If you spent three days a year with your spouse, how well would you know them? Would it be fair to question how much you were really committed to them? What about your friends or your children?

The hard truth is this:

We cannot develop a meaningful relationship with someone without putting in the work, and that’s just as true for our walk with the Lord as it is for anyone else in our lives.

Fortunately, God is always there, ready to engage with us as soon as we’re ready to engage with him.

So let’s try to add more solid food to our spiritual diet.

That’s the best way to make sure that the next time we’re given the opportunity to share or discuss our faith with someone, we’re not afraid to entertain thoughts that run counter to the truth of God’s word. Rather, we’re prepared to engage with the confidence that can only come from a close and intentional walk with Christ.

How solid is your walk with him today?

Denison Forum

Imagine reading or listening to this article by controlling your technology with just your thoughts. No more keyboards or touchscreens. You could even control a video game with your mind.

The stuff of science fiction?

Actually, it’s now science fact.

Is this a good thing?

Elon Musk announced that his brain chip start-up Neuralink has implanted a device in its first live human subject. The quarter-sized chip is designed to interpret a person’s neural activity so they can control external devices with their thoughts. Is this a good thing? Let’s look at how medical ethicists consider the topic and then take four biblical steps.

Mind-reading technology is here

Elon Musk announced this week that his brain chip start-up Neuralink has implanted a device in its first live human subject. The quarter-sized chip is designed to interpret a person’s neural activity so they can control external devices with their thoughts. The chip is currently in clinical trials open to patients who have quadriplegia due to ALS or a spinal cord injury.

I serve as resident scholar for ethics with a Christian healthcare system. In this context, I can tell you that medical ethicists consider topics like today’s conversation in light of four factors:

• Benevolence: the obligation to act for the benefit of the patient
• Nonmaleficence: the obligation not to harm the patient
• Autonomy: respect for individual rights and dignity
• Justice: the responsibility to treat all persons and patients fairly and equitably.

Benevolence: Experts report that brain-computer interface (BCI) technology such as the Neuralink brain chip has a wide range of potential applications, especially for those with disabilities. BCIs have already helped paralyzed patients control a robotic arm or move a cursor with their thoughts. A recent trial even allowed a person to control a video game in this way.

Nonmaleficence: BCIs come with typical surgical risks and can also trigger epileptic attacks. There is the problem of ensuring the implant continues to function over time. And there is significant risk to patients if their BCI-enabled technology fails (as with a BCI wheelchair failing its user in crossing a street).

Scientists at the University of Texas at Austin recently utilized fMRI scans with AI tools to create a non-invasive BCI that was able to decode participants’ thoughts. Will such mind-reading technology one day enable advertisers to manipulate our minds? Will governments be able to use BCIs for surveillance or interrogations?

Autonomy: BCI devices could significantly enhance a disabled patient’s ability to function with dignity, but they might also affect a patient’s decision-making processes and result in inappropriate actions.

Justice: BCI devices need to be accessible without financial barriers and utilized in ways that do not provide their users with unfair advantages over others. Otherwise, they could become a type of “cyborg” used to enhance normal abilities—akin to earbuds with real-time translation capacities and bionic lenses that record video and exceed normal ocular abilities.

“The truest friend of the liberty of his country”

BCIs are in the early stages of development. This means it’s too soon to be alarmed, but it’s not too soon to take steps to ensure that such development proceeds in ethically appropriate ways.

Here’s the problem: we live in a “post-truth” culture that rejects objective morality, coupled with a capitalistic economy that privileges technological advancement for profit.

How confident are you that our secularized society will be able to harness the potential of BCIs while preventing the devastation they could one day wreak?

American founding father Samuel Adams warned:

Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend of the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue.

“Nobody makes a greater mistake”

To promote our country’s “virtue,” let’s take four biblical steps today.

One: “Destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Think biblically so you can act redemptively.

Two: “Contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). Use your influence to declare and defend biblical truth and morality.

Three: “Speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15 NLT) with humble compassion as you help others experience God’s best.

Four: “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9). Your kingdom assignment is not completed until you are in heaven.

The British statesman Edmund Burke noted:

“Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he could only do a little.”

What will you do today to embrace and advance biblical morality to the glory of God?

Thursday news to know

• FBI director warns Chinese hackers aim to “wreak havoc” on US critical infrastructure
• Israel and Lebanon are prepping for a war neither wants, but many fear it’s becoming inevitable
• State Department reviewing options for possible recognition of Palestinian state
• Powell: Federal Reserve is on track to cut rates, though not likely for months
• EU to launch a Red Sea naval mission within 3 weeks to protect ships from continued Houthi attacks
• This day in history: Columbia Space Shuttle mission ends in disaster

Quote for the day

“The flame of Christian ethics is still our highest guide.” —Winston Churchill

Denison Forum

Why did Hitler hate the Jews?

Why do so many people share his antisemitic animosity?

Tomorrow is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, designated by the United Nations General Assembly to coincide with the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazis’ largest extermination and concentration camp, by Soviet soldiers on January 27, 1945.

This annual remembrance focuses on the six million Jews murdered by the German Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945. One-fourth of them, 1.5 million, were children.

We remember the horror of antisemitic hatred so it will not rise again in our day.

But it is.

Antisemitism is surging on college campuses, part of a growing tide of animosity against Jews in America, Europe, and around the world. The Anti-Defamation League is reporting an unprecedented 337 percent increase in antisemitic incidents after Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, massacring more than 1,200 Jews.

What can we learn from the past to keep it from happening again in the present?

“The arsenal of antisemitism”

The roots of antisemitism go back centuries before Hitler:

• There was a widespread belief in Christian Europe that the Jews were responsible for the death of Christ.
• Because they rejected the Christian faith, they were considered agents of the devil.
• During the Middle Ages, laws restricted and prevented Jews from owning land or holding public office.
• They were excluded from most occupations, forcing them to make a living through money-lending, trade, and commerce. When they became successful at these professions, they were accused of using them to oppress their non-Jewish clients and community.
• They were also accused of causing plagues, murdering children for religious rituals, and secretly conspiring to dominate the world.

After World War I, the new Nazi Party and its leader, Adolf Hitler, blamed the Jews for Germany’s defeat, falsely claiming that German Jews had “stabbed Germany in the back.” When his party took power in 1933, their antisemitic racism became official government policy and led ultimately to the “Final Solution,” the Nazis’ genocidal attempt to eradicate all Jews.

Three steps to a better world

From the Garden of Eden to today, one dimension of our sinful nature is our desire to blame others for our sins. When God called Adam to account for his sin, Adam blamed Eve (Genesis 3:12), then Eve blamed the serpent (v. 13).

Like our first parents, we are all tempted to blame others for our failures.

When Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany’s defeat in World War I, his rhetoric found national support and led to the most horrific genocide in human history. Hamas does the same today, blaming the Jews for the plight of the Palestinian people and other suffering around the world.

How does God want us to respond to this perennial temptation?

One: Take personal responsibility for our sins.

Satan loves to tempt us to sin, then tempt us to blame others when we sin. The second sin only compounds the first and distracts from the forgiveness we need. Instead, we should immediately admit our sin, confess it to our Father, and claim his mercy and grace (1 John 1:9).

Two: Oppose racial prejudice in every way we can.

Such prejudice is one way inferior people can make themselves feel superior to others. If we decide that Jews—or Blacks, or Asians, or any other minority—are innately “inferior” to us, we therefore think we are superior people. This, too, comes from the “father of lies” (John 8:44) who comes to “steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10).

Instead, pray for God’s heart to love all people as unconditionally as he loves them (Galatians 3:28). Then help answer your prayer with redemptive acts of ministry and grace.

Three: “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6).

Intercede daily for Israel and the Palestinians as they seek security and justice. Pray for global leaders to act with wisdom and courageous resolve. Pray for war in the Middle East to end and for righteousness to prevail.

If every follower of Christ took these steps every day, imagine the impact on our broken world. Imagine the consequences for Jews and all other persecuted peoples. Imagine the lost people who would be drawn to our Father as their Savior.

Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) observed:

“Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not at hand.”

Let’s choose faith and hope today, to the glory of God.

Friday news to know

• CIA Director Burns helping broker another deal to release hostages from Hamas
• A new tallest building in America has been proposed—and it isn’t in New York or Chicago
• 13 ways the world got better in 2023
• Alabama gasses prisoner with nitrogen in first new execution method in decades
• US economy grew at a surprisingly strong 3.3% pace last quarter

Quote for the day

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: You don’t give up.” —Anne Lamott

Note: For more on today’s discussion, please see my latest website paper: “Why the ‘Holocaust’ was not a holocaust: A reflection on the gravest crime in human history.” I also invite you to listen to our new podcast on today’s subject, “Confronting the past: Why International Holocaust Remembrance Day matters.”

Denison Forum

The Doomsday Clock was created in 1947 by a group of scientists who were concerned about the impact of nuclear weapons on the world. Considering that many of them, such as Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer, had been the ones to help develop those weapons, their fears were understandable. 

Every year since, their organization shifts the time in accordance with how close they think humanity is to global catastrophe. This week, it was set at ninety seconds to midnight, matching last year as the closest the clock has ever come to its final mark. 

Back then, the group’s decision was driven primarily by the fear that Russian President Vladimir Putin would make good on his thinly veiled threats of using nuclear weapons in his war against Ukraine. 

And while those fears haven’t gone away, this year the group seemed more focused on fears that the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel would escalate beyond those borders, as well as increased concerns over climate change and the advancements in artificial intelligence. 

As such, the official statement from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists warns that “leaders and citizens around the world should take this statement as a stark warning and respond urgently, as if today were the most dangerous moment in modern history. Because it may well be.”

Why the Doomsday Clock matters—and doesn’t

While the Bulletin’s sentiment seems a bit hyperbolic, the Doomsday Clock has been used as a basic barometer for global angst since its inception. As such, it can be a helpful way of understanding how some of society’s most influential minds see the state of the world. 

We don’t have to agree with them, but given how many global leaders do, their opinions are worth noting. 

They’re just not necessarily worth getting too worked up about. 

You see, the basic premise behind the Doomsday Clock is that, if we’re not careful, our world will end, and it’ll be humanity’s fault. As such, it’s meant to spark change—often much-needed change—by using fear as the primary motivator.

But, as Christians, that’s not how God wants us to approach things. 

Four signs of the end

Ultimately, no one but God knows when our world will actually end, but Scripture is clear that that moment will be preceded by Christ’s return. 

Still, Jesus did speak of signs that would come before that day, and Christians have been weighing events in their time against those signs ever since.

In one of his final lessons to his disciples prior to the crucifixion, Jesus told them to look for four signs in particular: 

• The warning that “many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray” (Matthew 24:5). 
• That we “will hear of wars and rumors of wars. . . . For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom” (v. 6–7)
• “There will be famines and earthquakes in various places” (v. 7). Moreover, the account in Luke’s gospel speaks of “pestilences. . . . terrors and great signs from heaven” as well (Luke 21:11).
• And finally, that “they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake” (Matthew 24:9). 

But if we can’t know when that end will come, what good are the signs? 

After all, evidence of these precursors to the end times has existed in most every generation for the last two thousand years and Jesus still hasn’t come back. 

Why did Jesus give us signs of the end times?

The reason, as with most prophecy, is to give us hope and encouragement in the midst of such troubles. 

We err when we look at all the factors mentioned by the Bulletin group with any sense of assurance that these signs are the signs. Yet, knowing that our Lord promised such events would take place and that, ultimately, they will either pass or result in his return should give us the courage and perspective needed to walk through dangerous times without losing hope or being overwhelmed.

God’s goal is that when the world seems like it’s falling apart, his people won’t.

So as society looks at the Doomsday Clock and fears that our end is near, let’s use it instead as motivation to continue sharing the gospel and proclaiming that Jesus is Lord as we prepare for the day when Christ will return and remove all doubt as to the truth of that statement.

Denison Forum

Whom should we blame for the confusing state of American politics?

Christians.

But not for the reasons you might think.

Good news and bad news for the winners

Donald Trump won last night’s New Hampshire Republican primary. This is good news for his campaign in a variety of ways:

• In twelve of the last fourteen elections, the Republican who won the New Hampshire primary went on to become the party’s nominee.
• No Republican candidate has ever won the first two states and then lost the nomination.
• Though Nikki Haley vowed to stay in the race, Mr. Trump leads her nationally, 67 percent to 12 percent.

Does this mean his path to the nomination is secure?

Not exactly:

• He is facing legal battles that threaten his eligibility to run.
• In one poll, 45 percent of Republican respondents said they would not support him if he were convicted of a felony.
• He is one of only a handful of ex-presidents to run for the office again; only Grover Cleveland did so successfully.

On the other side, President Biden wasn’t on the printed ballot, but he still won the Democratic primary. He wanted South Carolina to hold the first primary, but New Hampshire refused to move its election, so Mr. Biden’s campaign chose not to participate. However, his supporters staged a write-in effort that secured his victory.

Does this mean Mr. Biden’s path to the nomination is secure?

Not exactly:

• Two-thirds of Democrat-leaning voters do not want him to be the party’s nominee.
• At eighty-one, he is the oldest person ever to hold the presidency, though Mr. Trump was the second-oldest. (On average, US presidents are fifty-five years old when sworn in.)
• He trails Mr. Trump in the latest polls, 47 percent to 42 percent.

And there’s this: at 43 percent, independents outnumber Republicans and Democrats (at 27 percent each) by a wider collective margin than ever before.

“The rex is always subject to the lex”

Our elections have always been highly contested and correspondingly chaotic, in large part because every eligible American is able to participate. If we don’t like our leaders, we can replace them. We believe, in Abraham Lincoln’s immortal words, that ours is a “government of the people, by the people, for the people” (my emphasis).

This belief that we are more valuable than the institutions that exist to serve us is a product of the Christian worldview.

I am reading Andrew Wilson’s fascinating Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West. In it, he offers these observations regarding his readers:

You believe in limitations on the power of the state and that the rule of law is essential to a healthy society, whereby the rex (king) is always subject to the lex (law). . . . You think the central truth in human relations is the self, the sovereign individual, rather than the group to which the self belongs. . . .

You see your identity as something you choose and construct for yourself rather than something you are given. The true “you” is not imposed on you from the outside, by your ancestors or your community; it is something internal, and only you get to say exactly what it is.

These beliefs, according to Wilson, are “Christian assumptions about the world” that Americans embrace whether we believe in God or not. The biblical worldview motivated our nation’s founders and undergirds our democratic commitment to the “unalienable rights” of every person still today.

Why our government should serve us

Here’s the problem: Americans have forgotten why we are so valuable.

Our government should serve us not because we are worthy of being served but because we—not our institutions—are the objects of our Creator’s passionate love. And we are the objects of his love not because we deserve his love but because he is love (1 John 4:8).

How are we to respond?

Jesus answered our question: “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34). In this divisive political season, remember that he added: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (v. 35).

Mother Teresa observed:

“When you know how much God is in love with you, then you can only live your life radiating that love.”

Do you know how much God is in love with you today?

Wednesday news to know

• “Oppenheimer” dominates Oscar nominations, Gerwig passed over for best director
• Beltré, Helton, Mauer a trio of legends headed to Hall of Fame
• Turkey approves Sweden’s NATO bid, leaving Orbán as final holdout
• Offer of two-month ceasefire for release of all hostages rejected by Hamas, source says
• The 50 best cities in the world for 2024

Quote for the day

“Here’s the paradox. We can fully embrace God’s love only when we recognize how completely unworthy of it we are.” —Ann Tatlock

Denison Forum

Only seven countries in the world—Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Brunei, Afghanistan, and the Vatican—do not claim to be democratic.

However, as Winston Churchill famously noted, democracy is “the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

Just ask the folks shivering in the cold to vote in New Hampshire’s presidential primaries tonight.

Every state in the Union will hold a primary election or caucus to help nominate candidates for president of the United States. Then comes the political conventions, followed by more campaigning, followed by the elections. More than $10 billion will be spent on political ads this year.

And that’s just for the White House. In 2020, 2,371 people ran for the US Congress. Not to mention the multiplied thousands who ran for state and local offices and all the money they raised and spent.

Why do we do our governance this way?

There’s a right answer and a wrong answer. Choosing correctly is critical to our future as a nation.

The wrong answer to our question

Many who run for office believe they are the best candidate for the position, that in a sense they “deserve” to win. Many who vote in elections believe that their views should prevail and their wishes should be championed by their government, that in a sense they “deserve” for their candidates to win.

In other words, many of us are political consumers who “purchase” what we want by running for office or voting in elections. Our nation’s governance is a means to our personal ends.

This is the wrong answer to our question.

In his essay “Equality,” C. S. Lewis wrote that he believed in democracy “because I believe in the Fall of Man.” He continued:

I think most people [believe in democracy] for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on these grounds is that they’re not true.

Why not?

Lewis explained: “I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation.”

The right answer to our question

Consequently, Lewis noted, “Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows.”

Here we find the right answer to our question.

• We should run for office as fallen people who recognize that we desperately need the leadership, wisdom, and strength only God can provide.
• We should run because God has called us into public service by his grace and because we wish to serve him gratefully by serving our nation and our constituents.
• We should serve in dependence on his Spirit because only then can we partner with God in fulfilling his plans for our people (Jeremiah 29:11).

The more leaders think they deserve their office, the less they do.

The same is true for the rest of us.

• We should pray before we vote and then vote as God directs us.
• We should discuss political candidates in ways that do not demean them (Proverbs 10:18) or dishonor our Lord (1 Corinthians 10:31).
• When our leaders fall short of God’s intention, we should remember Oswald Chambers’ maxim: “God never gives us discernment so that we may criticize, but that we may intercede.”

Here’s a fact we must never forget:

“Kingship belongs to the Lᴏʀᴅ, and he rules over the nations” (Psalm 22:28).

To whom does the “kingship” of your life belong today?

Tuesday news to know

• 21 Israeli troops are killed in the deadliest attack on the military since the Gaza offensive began
• Israel proposes 2-month fighting pause in Gaza for release of all hostages
• Dexter Scott King, younger son of Martin Luther King Jr., dies at 62
• Supreme Court rules border agents can remove razor wire erected by Texas
• Hologram lecturers thrill students at trailblazing UK university

Quote for the day

“A vote is like a rifle—its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.” —Theodore Roosevelt

Denison Forum

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended his Republican presidential campaign yesterday and endorsed former President Donald Trump. His decision leaves Mr. Trump and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley as the last major candidates remaining in the race ahead of tomorrow’s New Hampshire Republican primary.

His announcement is making headlines not just because it could change the race for the White House but because that race will change our lives. Whatever your partisan position, I’m certain you’ll agree that America will be a profoundly different nation if President Biden is reelected than if Mr. Trump or Mrs. Haley win the election.

And yet, in a very real and foundational sense, the ultimate destiny of our nation is less in their hands than in yours and mine.

A government “unbridled by morality and religion”

Today is the fifty-first anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the tragic Supreme Court ruling that permitted babies to be aborted legally in this country. Though it was finally overturned due to its flawed legal reasoning, many states continue to permit this gruesome practice. And chemical abortions, which are difficult to regulate, are now used more than half of the time.

Human laws reflect the preferences of fallen citizens as enacted by fallen legislators and adjudicated by fallen judges. Accordingly, they cannot produce a just and moral society. At best, they restrain our worst impulses (though twenty-two mass shootings in the first twenty-one days of the new year belie this hope).

From abortion to adultery, pornography, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, and a host of other legal sins, America’s secular governance gives us the right to do things that are profoundly wrong.

What, then, is the path to our best future?

President John Adams observed: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.” President Calvin Coolidge similarly warned:

The government of a country never gets ahead of the religion of a country. There is no way by which we can substitute the authority of law for the virtue of man. . . . Peace, justice, humanity, charity; these cannot be legislated into being. They are the result of a Divine Grace.

Consequently:

We need a Power beyond ourselves to enable us to be who we should be.

“The first duty of every soul”

In his daily devotional last Friday, Dr. Duane Brooks quoted P. T. Forsythe: “Unless there is within us that which is above us, we shall soon yield to that which is about us. The first duty of every soul is to find not its freedom but its Master.”

C. S. Lewis agreed. In The Problem of Pain, he wrote:

We are only creatures; our role must always be that of patient to agent . . . mirror to light, echo to voice. Our highest activity must be response, not initiative. To experience the love of God in a true, but not an illusory form, is therefore to experience it as our surrender to his demand, our conformity to his desire.

Both were reflecting Paul’s observation: “The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh” (Galatians 5:17). The apostle elaborated with a description that could be taken from today’s news:

The works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these (vv. 19–21).

To avoid them, we must “keep in step with the Spirit” (v. 25), submitting every day to his cleansing, leading, and empowering (Ephesians 5:18). When we do, we manifest the “fruit of the Spirit,” his “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23).

God’s word promises: “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13).

The choice is ours.

“There are five Gospels”

Rodney Smith was born in a tent and raised in a Gypsy camp. He never attended school, not even for a single day. He became a Christian in 1876 and the next year was invited by General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, to join him in his evangelistic work.

Known as “Gypsy” Smith, he became one of the most effective evangelists in history. He was based in Great Britain but made more than forty trips to the US, Australia, South Africa, and other countries. His powerful preaching influenced the lives of millions.

Smith claimed, “There are five Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Christian—but most people never read the first four.”

When people read your “Gospel” today, what—and whom—will they find?

NOTE: Did you know that Easter Sunday falls on March 31 this year? That also means Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day. Since the Lent season begins so soon, I encourage you to request Awaken My Heart, our new Lenten devotional, today.

Monday news you need to know

• Here’s how the NFL playoff bracket looks after divisional round games
• US sees over 90 weather-related deaths as dangerous cold continues
• Tara VanDerveer is now the winningest coach in college basketball history
• Is Kim Jong-un really planning an attack this time?
• The world hasn’t seen cicadas like this since 1803

Quote for the day

“What we need is not more learning, not more eloquence, not more persuasion, not more organization, but more power from the Holy Spirit.” —John Stott

Denison Forum

Since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in America, more than sixty-three million babies have been aborted in our country.

This is a population four times the size of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston—combined.

And yet, more Americans than ever before think abortion should be legal under any circumstances. More than two-thirds also believe it should be legal in the first three months of pregnancy.

If you believe as I do that life begins at conception, you might be asking yourself: How can so many people be so wrong on this crucial issue?

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“The real question today”

It’s not because pro-life supporters are not vocal and visible.

The National March for Life is tomorrow in Washington, DC. It will be followed by Sanctity of Life Sunday, both of which are timed to coincide with January 22, 1973, when the Supreme Court issued its ruling that discovered a “right” to abortion in the US Constitution.

It’s no longer because of Roe v. Wade. After the Supreme Court overturned this horrendous ruling in 2022, returning the issue to the states, abortions increased nationwide.

It’s not because the science is unclear. The Supreme Court claimed in its 1973 ruling:

We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.

But resolving “the difficult question of when life begins” is precisely the issue. If life begins at conception, our founding declaration that “all men are created equal” and endowed with the “unalienable” right to “life” should clearly apply to preborn babies. As should every legal protection that currently applies to babies from the moment they are born.

The science is clearer than ever. As Jan Langman writes in Medical Embryology, “The development of a human being begins with fertilization.” (For Princeton University’s large collection of scientific statements concurring with this assessment, click here.)

On the tenth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Ronald Reagan wrote the only book ever published by a sitting US president. In Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation, he states:

The real question today is not when human life begins, but, What is the value of human life? The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether the tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law—the same right we have (his emphasis).

The foundational issue

Why, then, do so many Americans support the abortion of preborn children?

Some claim that abortion must be legal as an alternative for women who are victims of rape or incest. However, while such crimes are unspeakably horrific, only 1 percent of women who choose abortion do so for this reason.

Others cite the need to protect the health of the mother. However, only 3 percent of abortions are chosen for this reason.

In fact, the most popular motives for abortion are:

• Unready for responsibility (21 percent)
• Can’t afford baby now (21 percent)
• Concerned about how having baby would change her life (16 percent)
• Is too immature or young to have child (11 percent)
• Has all the children she wanted or all children are grown (8 percent).

Here’s the foundational issue: most Americans want the right to determine what is right for themselves.

This is a major reason the majority of men in America want abortion to be legal under any circumstances: they want the state to have no authority over their personal decisions as well. And they want a woman who becomes pregnant with their unwanted child to be able to abort it.

This quest for personal autonomy extends to other moral issues. It helps explain LGBTQ advocacy by those who are not LGBTQ, for example. They not only see this as a civil right for others—they also want the right to live their lives however they wish.

How does God see America?

My purpose today is not to inflict guilt on those who have chosen abortion in the past. Nor is it to offer simple answers to such a divisive and complex issue.

Rather, it is to make this point:

Our democracy can function effectively only if it is practiced within the consensual morality its founders embraced.

As Benjamin Franklin noted, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.”

When American culture decided that all truth is personal and all morality is subjective, our collective future became imperiled.

If we will not extend justice to the most innocent and vulnerable among us—our preborn babies—how can we claim to be a just society?

How does the God who cherishes children (Matthew 19:14), who fashioned us in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13–16; Jeremiah 1:5) and forbids the taking of innocent life (Proverbs 6:17), see our nation?

How is he calling you to love life as he does?

More resources on this topic from Denison Forum

• What does the Bible say about abortion?
• Abortion and the mercy of God
• Six vital questions about abortion
• Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade: My immediate response
• Voters supported abortion in yesterday’s elections: What is the path forward for life?
• Why the pro-life movement seems to be losing
• Living pro-life: Serving the voiceless and their parents in a partisan world: A conversation with Holly and Aaron Snell and Lisa Freeman

Thursday news you need to know

• US redesignates Houthis as a terrorist organization
• Pakistan launches retaliatory airstrikes in Iran after an earlier attack by Tehran, killing 9 people
• King Charles III will have a prostate operation next week while Kate recovers from abdominal surgery
• Electric car owners confront a harsh foe: cold weather
• Around 4 in 10 Americans have become more spiritual over time; fewer have become more religious

Quotes for the day

• “You shall not murder a child by abortion, nor again shalt thou kill it when it is born.” — Epistle of Barnabas 19:5, written between AD 70 and AD 132
• “I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly, I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.” — the original Hippocratic Oath

Denison Forum

What do Elton John, Jonathan Tunick, Mike Nichols, Scott Rudin, Robert Lopez, and Alan Menken have in common? They’re all EGOTs—winners of an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award.

Elton John joined their club Monday night when he received an Emmy for his Disney+ live performance from Dodger Stadium. Some of its members are icons: Audrey Hepburn, Mel Brooks, Jennifer Hudson, and Viola Davis. Others among the nineteen EGOTs are much less known to the public, however.

As a result, a Telegraph headline announced that the singer “has joined the elite club of EGOTs—but that’s no sign of greatness.”

“Preparing for Disease X”

Here’s another story that could warrant a similar headline: world leaders gathering in Davos this week for the World Economic Forum will discuss the potential for a future pandemic that could cause twenty times more casualties than COVID-19. The session, titled “Preparing for Disease X,” will focus on efforts needed to “prepare healthcare systems for the multiple challenges ahead.”

Davos attendees this year include French President Emmanuel Macron, China’s second-in-command Li Qiang, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, along with other global leaders and some of the world’s wealthiest people.

But none of them knows if—or when—Disease X will strike and how many it will kill. When it comes to forecasting the future, “greatness” is available to no one.

How to defeat the devil

This week, we’ve been exploring reasons God allows our world to be so chaotic. Today we’ll add another fact:

Admitting we cannot predict the challenges we face is the best way to prepare for them.

Why is this?

James, the half-brother of Jesus, asked: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?” (James 4:1).

I think we would all agree. What is the answer?

[God] gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you (vv. 6–8, my emphases).

Note the three imperatives in our text. In the original Greek they mean:

• Submit: voluntarily subordinate ourselves to our superior.
• Resist: stand up against our enemy.
• Draw near: continually strive to be close to God.

Now note their order: when we submit to God, we are then empowered to defeat our Enemy so that we can experience transformational intimacy with Jesus.

The next time you face temptations or challenges, take these steps in this order. Don’t try to defeat your Enemy before you first submit to your Lord. Then resist temptation as a means to experiencing intimacy with Christ. Only when you draw close to Jesus are you safe from the snares of the Evil One.

“Have you had your ‘white funeral’”?

This is one reason God allows our world to be so chaotic and unpredictable: so we will learn to depend on his Spirit to prepare, lead, and empower us. He knows that the “will to power” is within us all, that we struggle constantly against the temptation to “be like God” (Genesis 3:5) as the king of our own kingdom.

As a result, Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). Such a death to self is the indispensable first step into the abundant life of Christ. Our hands must be empty before he can fill them with his best for us.

In describing a daughter’s decision to leave her mother for her spouse, Tennyson wrote of “that white funeral of the single life.” This is to choose the death of what was so we can step into the life of what is.

Oswald Chambers used this image in spiritual context: “No one enters into the experience of entire sanctification without going through a ‘white funeral’—the burial of the old life.” Then he asked:

Do you agree with God that you stop being the striving, earnest kind of Christian you have been? We skirt the cemetery and all the time refuse to go to death. It is not striving to go to death, it is dying—”baptized into his death.”

He added: “Have you had your ‘white funeral,’ or are you sacredly playing the fool with your soul?”

If not, why not today?

“Christ Jesus, bend me to thy will”

The poet Donogh Mór O’Daly died in 1244 and was buried in the abbey at Boyle, Ireland. The Gaelic scholar Eleanor H. Hull translated this poem from his inspired pen, giving us a prayer I encourage you to offer to your Father today:

How great the tale, that there should be,
In God’s Son’s heart, a place for me!
That on a sinner’s lips like mine
The cross of Jesus Christ should shine!

Christ Jesus, bend me to thy will,
My feet to urge, my griefs to still;
That e’en my flesh and blood may be
A temple sanctified to thee. 

No rest, no calm my soul may win,
Because my body craves to sin;
Till thou, dear Lord, thyself impart
Peace on my head, light in my heart. 

May consecration come from far,
Soft shining like the evening star;
My toilsome path make plain to me,
Until I come to rest in thee.

Can Jesus “bend” you to his will today?

Wednesday news you need to know

• US says it seized Iran missile parts bound for the Houthis after SEALs went overboard
• Israel unearths more of a subterranean fortress under Gaza
• The second trial between Donald Trump and E. Jean Carroll began Tuesday
• Tax breaks for parents, businesses possible in last-minute deal
• Photographer captures moon, mountain, and basilica in one incredible photo

Quote for the day

“Jesus is not our life coach. He is our Lord.” —Michael Koulianos

Denison Forum

Donald Trump won the Iowa caucuses last night, with Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley coming in second and third. Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out of the race and endorsed Mr. Trump.

However, it’s too soon to know what this means for the larger presidential campaign.

Iowa Republicans selected Mike Huckabee in 2008, Rick Santorum in 2012, and Ted Cruz in 2016—none of whom went on to win the presidential nomination. By contrast, Ronald Reagan lost Iowa in 1980 but won the election; George H. W. Bush did the same in 1988 and Donald Trump in 2016.

The larger state of US politics is in question as well. According to Pew Research Center:

• Just 4 percent of Americans say the political system is working extremely or very well.
• Just 16 percent say they trust the federal government always or most of the time.
• Sixty-five percent say they always or often feel “exhausted” when thinking about politics; just 10 percent say they always or often feel “hopeful.”

While Iowans were braving the cold, the 75^th annual Emmy Awards aired last night as Succession and The Bear each took home six awards. At least, we think they did. Since we now know that ESPN employed a fraudulent scheme in recent years to acquire more than thirty Emmys for sportscasters who were ineligible to receive them, we’re left to wonder.

How fully do you trust our political system, institutions, and leaders?

How much do you trust what you see reported by the media?

I often say that God redeems all he allows. How could he redeem our crisis in cultural confidence?

The Taj Mahal and a balsa wood outhouse

Commentator Jonah Goldberg described our “post-truth” society:

Certainty is impossible folly. Knowledge isn’t about facts, but perspective. What we think are truths—or Truths with a capital T—are really plot points in stories we tell to ourselves. Ideals are really just instruments for attaining or maintaining power. Morality is made, not discovered. . . .

All truth is contextual, all ideals are instruments. The only thing that is real—i.e. real enough—is what you accomplish with will.

(Goldberg disagrees with what he describes, but I consider his cultural depiction to be tragically accurate.)

It is an absolute (and ironically contradictory) truth claim of our postmodern society that all truth claims are subjective. Goldberg refutes this “claim” well:

Slavery is bad. Rape is bad. Cruelty for its own sake is evil. Liberty and the rule of law are good. Now, I believe these and similar things as matters of both capital T and lowercase t truth. But even if these are only lowercase truths, or even “personal truths,” they can be defended with reason, facts, data, and appeals to rightly formed consciences.

In other words, even if all standards and ideals are in some sense “socially constructed,” that doesn’t mean that all social constructions are morally or empirically equal. The Taj Mahal is constructed and so is a balsa wood outhouse. We can value one more than the other. The right to a fair trial is a social construct and so is child sacrifice. I’m happy to privilege the former over the latter.

Here’s the problem: however persuasive you and I find his reasoning, many for whom it is intended will not. Many secular people want truth to be personal so they can have their personal truth. They want morality to be subjective so they can do what they want to do.

How, then, can we help people experience the One who is the Truth?

State trooper saves girl in frigid pond

Dan Marburger, the high school principal in Perry, Iowa, died Sunday. He was critically injured earlier this month when he put himself in harm’s way to protect his students from a shooter.

In much better news, a Vermont state trooper named Michelle Archer recently plunged into a frigid pond, swam to an eight-year-old girl who had fallen through the ice, then swam back to shore with her. The girl has since made a complete recovery.

No student whose life was saved by their principal will ever doubt his love for them. Nor will the girl saved by Michelle Archer wonder if the state trooper is committed to her calling.

Similarly, a powerful way we can persuade skeptics to turn to Christ as their truth is when they see the difference he makes when we make him our truth. When we experience his incarnational love, the fact that he came to us when we could not come to him, the grace with which he pursues us and the mercy with which he forgives and cares for us, we become the change we want our world to encounter.

Experiencing God’s grace should change our lives in ways that demonstrate the transformation of our hearts. We do not earn grace, but we do exhibit its results.

God’s word assures us:

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” (Ephesians 2:8–9).

At the same time, we are told:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (v. 10).

Tim Keller expressed it this way: “Religion says, ‘I obey—therefore I’m accepted.’ The gospel says, ‘I’m accepted—therefore I obey.’”

“God has been trying to find me”

How can we persuade a “post-truth” culture that Jesus is the Truth we all need most?

By experiencing his grace and then responding with grateful service to our Lord and our neighbor.

God’s word teaches: “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Because translates a Greek word meaning “since” or “as a result.” Here we discover a simple fact that changes our lives and our culture:

Stay faithful to the last word you heard from God and open to the next. The more we experience the love of Jesus, the more our love for others will lead them to our Lord.

So, here’s the question: When last did the love of Christ change your life? When last did you encounter the living Lord Jesus in a transforming way? If it’s been a while, know that the fault is not his.

Henri Nouwen observed:

For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life—pray always, work for others, read the Scriptures—and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair.

Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by him?” The question is not “How am I to know God?” but “How am I to let myself be known by God?”

And, finally, the question is not “How am I to love God?” but “How am I to let myself be loved by  God?” God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home.

Will you let him find you today?

Denison Forum

The Book of Clarence, a new film from writer/director Jeymes Samuel, takes place in Jerusalem across the weeks leading up to Christ’s crucifixion.

However, it’s not really a story about Jesus.

As Samuel described, “If they tell you a Bible story, you wouldn’t get the story of the guy around the corner. Or the person who sold Jesus his sandals.” And that’s where the movie’s main character—Clarence (LaKeith Stanfield)—steps in.

What is The Book of Clarence about?

You see, Clarence is the fictionalized twin brother of the apostle Thomas, a detail based in Scripture—Thomas was called “the Twin” three times in John’s gospel—but the film takes a great deal of license from there.

Consequently, Clarence is well acquainted with the work of Jesus.

Yet Clarence is also, as Alissa Wilkinson described, “an atheist stoner who sells first-century weed.” As such, when he looks at Christ’s ministry, he sees a false messiah getting paid by a duped populace and thinks he can do the same. After all, in his view Jesus is a con man as well.

Clarence’s ruse works, for a time.

However, he eventually learns the hard way that the Romans don’t take kindly to would-be messiahs and his story turns from there.

Ultimately, The Book of Clarence is a solid film that tells an interesting story while pulling from the biblical account without feeling beholden to it. There are certainly times when those creative liberties stand out more than others. But, when it comes to his portrayal of the true messiah, Samuel does not cross the line into blasphemy, staying pretty faithful to the Jesus of Scripture.

If you can get past those differences and accept the film for the story it’s trying to tell, Clarence has a lot to offer.

Multiple messiahs?

Take one of the film’s central premises, for example.

While Samuel certainly took liberties with some aspects of the gospel story, the proliferation of false messiahs was not one of them.

Jesus was not the only person who claimed to be God’s anointed one in the first century. He was just the only one for whom that claim was true.

The Jews in ancient Rome were desperate for someone to save them and restore the nation of Israel to prominence. And like those who trusted the false prophets in the time leading up to the exile, when those false messiahs filled the heads and hearts of first-century Jews with promises that satisfied their most sincere longings, they were prone to believe the lies.

That this was the case is demonstrated best by how quickly they turned on Jesus once it became clear that he would not be that kind of messiah. And even after he spent more than a month with his disciples following his death and resurrection, they still struggled to see the truth, asking if he would now restore the kingdom of Israel (Acts 1:6).

Who is your messiah?

The very human impulse to create a God in our own image rather than to serve the God who made us in his has been around since the Garden of Eden, and it would be naïve to think it’s going to go away anytime soon. We are just as likely to turn on our heavenly Father today when it doesn’t seem like he meets our expectations as messiah-seekers were two thousand years ago.

I don’t know if that’s the message Jeymes Samuel intended to convey, but it’s a truth God reminded me of through his film. And it’s a message I needed to hear.

• So who or what are the false messiahs in your life today?
• Is there a person or cause that you’ve turned to as a greater source of hope and security than the Lord?

Few things will hinder your relationship with God as quickly as attempting to place someone else on his throne. So take some time right now to pray and ask the Lord to reveal the false messiahs limiting your walk with him.

They may not look like a con man seeking to get rich or powerful off of false faith—though those certainly still exist. But chances are good that something or someone is vying for Christ’s role in your life, and it’s ultimately up to you to decide whether or not they will have it.

Who will be your messiah today?

Denison Forum

Israel announced recently that it intends to kill every Hamas leader behind the October 7 massacre, wherever they are in the world. The IDF knows precisely where Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 terror attacks, is hiding in Gaza.

Why haven’t they taken him out?

Because he is hiding behind a large number of Israeli hostages.

What should we think of a God who allows people to suffer for sins they didn’t commit?

When a nonsmoker gets lung cancer

We understand when choices affect those who commit them. When a smoker develops lung cancer, we grieve for them but we don’t wonder why they are sick.

The Roman Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus’s observation is true to life:

If you accomplish something good with hard work, the labor passes quickly, but the good endures; if you do something shameful in pursuit of pleasure, the pleasure passes quickly, but the shame endures.

However, it is unfair for choices to harm those who don’t make them. When a nonsmoker gets lung cancer from secondhand smoke, we ask how God can be holy when the world he created is so unjust.

David asked our question: “Why, O Lᴏʀᴅ, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1). He then listed the many ways “the wicked hotly pursue the poor” (v. 2) while saying to themselves, “God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it” (v. 11).

But the “wicked” are wrong.

David prayed: “You do see, for you note mischief and vexation, that you may take it into your hands; to you the helpless commits himself; you have been the helper of the fatherless” (v. 14).

He doesn’t tell us how or when God will “do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed” (v. 18), but he assures us that he will.

This is because “the Lᴏʀᴅ is king forever and ever” (v. 16). Our doubts do not threaten his sovereignty.

Why “God wants my whole life”

Yesterday I wrote: When you don’t understand God, you should still trust him. Today, let’s take a step further:

The less you understand God, the more you should trust him.

None of us fully understands why God allows innocent suffering. The greater the pain, the less we understand.

However, the worse the pain, the more we need the Great Physician.

Satan wants to use this issue to drive us from God when we need him the most. But when you are sick is when you especially need a physician. You may have lung cancer from secondhand smoke, but you still need an oncologist to treat the malignancy.

Let’s add this fact: the more you trust your life to God, the more he can give you his best. Henri Nouwen was right:

I am growing in the awareness that God wants my whole life, not just part of it. It is not enough to give just so much time and attention to God and keep the rest for myself. It is not enough to pray often and deeply and then move from there to my own projects. . . .

To return to God means to return to God with all that I am and all that I have. I cannot return to God with just half of my being. As I reflected this morning again on the story of the prodigal son and tried to experience myself in the embrace of the father, I suddenly felt a certain resistance to being embraced so fully and totally. I experienced not only a desire to be embraced, but also a fear of losing my independence. I realized that God’s love is a jealous love.

God wants not just part of me, but all of me. Only when I surrender myself completely to God’s love can I expect to be free from endless distractions, ready to hear the voice of love, and able to recognize my own unique call.

Have you surrendered yourself “completely to God’s love” yet today?

Going deeper

“Joy in a Jail Cell” is my exposition of 2 Timothy 3–4, one of the most encouraging sections in Scripture. Here Paul looks back at God’s providential grace and trusts him for a brighter future. I pray it will help you find hope where you need it most today.

Morning news you should know

• Alabama football coach Nick Saban announces retirement
• Chris Christie ends his Republican presidential bid, criticizing his rivals on his way out
• Iowa GOP debate takeaways: Haley, DeSantis pummel each other
• Yemen’s Houthis launch their largest Red Sea drone and missile attack, though no damage is reported
• More teens who use marijuana are suffering from psychosis
• He sings a cappella. Then he destroys quarterbacks.

Quote for the day

The Scottish pastor and theologian Samuel Rutherford (1600–61) observed: “If your Lord calls you to suffering, do not be dismayed, for he will provide a deeper portion of Christ in your suffering. The softest pillow will be placed under your head though you must set your bare feet among thorns.”

Denison Forum

When part of an Alaska Airlines fuselage blew out last Friday, no one was sitting next to it.

Was this a miracle?

If so, why did God allow the near-disaster?

More to the point: Will he protect you the next time you travel?

Why Flight 1282’s accident could have been worse

An NTSB official says the accident could have been “much more tragic.” Here’s why:

• The flight was nearly full, but the seats next to the faulty door plug were unoccupied.
• The aircraft was still climbing, so passengers were seated with seat belts.
• If it had been at cruising altitude, people could have been walking around and injured or even sucked out of the hole.
• A blowout at altitude could have led to oxygen starvation, causing loss of consciousness and even permanent brain damage.

Then there’s the door plug, which could have struck someone on the ground but landed in a Portland science teacher’s backyard instead.

My first thought is to thank God that no one was killed. But my next thought is: If God did in fact save lives on that plane, couldn’t he have prevented the accident?

Because he is omniscient and omnipotent, the answer is clearly yes.

This leads to my big question: Why does God sometimes do what seems best, but not always?

I’ve been praying for a dear friend undergoing cancer surgery. I know God can bring him through and spare his life, but will he? I pray daily for God to protect my family members. I know he can, but will he?

I could go on. So could you.

What you can do now

This is the most difficult issue Christianity faces, so I’ll not attempt a simple “solution” here. Rather, I want to highlight this biblical fact:

When you don’t understand God, you should still trust him.

I know this runs counter to most of life. Would you eat a meal if you don’t trust the chef? Or get in a car if you don’t trust the driver? But God is different:

• He is omniscient, so we shouldn’t always expect to understand his thoughts (Isaiah 55:8–9).
• He sees the end from the beginning, so we shouldn’t always expect to understand his plans (Isaiah 46:10).
• Fallen people misuse our free will, so the consequences of our sins are not God’s fault but ours (James 1:13–15).
• But “God is love” (1 John 4:8), so we can always know that everything he does is for our ultimate best.

Here’s the bottom line: “Ask, and it will be given to you” (Matthew 7:7). The Greek means, “Ask and keep on asking.”

Your prayers don’t inform an omniscient God—they position you to receive what you ask or whatever is best.

What do you need God to do today?

 Going deeper

For more, read “An honest approach to the mystery of suffering” and my book, Making Sense of Suffering, which explores seven biblical and practical responses.

 More news you should know

• MIT Technology Review reveals 10 breakthrough technologies for 2024
• Gaza hostage talks inch closer to a restart as Blinken meets with Israeli leaders
• Sprawling storms wallop US with tornado reports, damage and heavy snow, closing roads and schools
• Austin kept prostate cancer, surgery complications a secret from everyone, even Biden
• Today in history: Gusher signals new era of US oil industry

 Quote for the day

“Suffering is at the very heart of the Christian faith. It is not the only way Christ became like us and redeemed us, but it is one of the main ways we become like him and experience his redemption. And that means that our suffering, despite its painfulness, is also filled with purpose and usefulness.” —Timothy Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

Denison Forum

The Michigan Wolverines defeated the Washington Huskies decisively last night to win this year’s NCAA football national championship. The annual title game has become the biggest sporting event outside the National Football League; since ninety-three of the top one hundred television broadcasts in 2023 were NFL games, we don’t have to wonder how popular football has become in American culture. Now that the NFL playoffs are ramping up, even more attention will be drawn to the game.

I was discussing the popularity of spectator sports with my son, Dr. Ryan Denison, and he noted, “The best part of sports is the chance to be irrationally hopeful with little consequence for doing so.” He’s right: not much that can happen to an athlete during a game is likely to happen to a fan watching the game. We get to “play” the game with little risk to ourselves.

If only life worked that way.

“We literally thought we were going to die”

Imagine you’re in an airplane that has just departed from Portland, Oregon. It is dark in the cabin as the plane’s lights have been dimmed for takeoff. Ten to fifteen minutes into your ascent, traveling roughly 440 miles an hour at sixteen thousand feet, a chunk of your plane blows out.

Gasps of shock fill the plane as a cellphone, a teddy bear, and a passenger’s shirt are sucked out of the hole. Oxygen masks drop from overhead compartments. “We literally thought we were going to die,” one of the passengers says later. The Alaska Airlines flight carrying 171 passengers and six crew members circles back to Portland where it lands safely.

The Boeing 737 Max 9 involved in Friday’s accident was essentially brand new. After the FAA grounded all such aircraft for inspections, hundreds of flights were canceled. United Airlines announced yesterday that it found loose bolts and other parts on the plug doors of at least five other 737 Max 9 aircraft. Alaska Airlines technicians also reported that “loose hardware was visible on some aircraft.”

If you have ever flown on an airplane, you might respond to this story with the realization, “That could have been me.” If you don’t, you should.

Hurtling through space at 67,000 mph

Life is not a spectator sport. Even those attending sporting events are not entirely safe: hundreds of people have been injured by foul balls at baseball games; NBA players have collided with spectators; fans have fought with fans at football and soccer games; hockey pucks have turned into sometimes-deadly projectiles.

We are all passengers on a tiny planet spinning at about a thousand miles per hour while hurtling at 67,000 miles per hour through space. We don’t feel this motion because it’s a constant, like traveling in a car at the same speed.

But when things slow down or speed up, we take notice.

Now is the time to prepare for then. To this end, I want to invite you to reflect on a text that has meant much to me this week. It begins: “Trust in the Lᴏʀᴅ, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness” (Psalm 37:3).

• Trust in the Hebrew means to “rely on.”
• Do good means to “produce that which is desirable.”
• As you do your best while trusting God for his best, wherever you dwell in the land, you will befriend faithfulness—the Hebrew is translated literally, “nourish honesty and trustworthiness.”

Once you have made these commitments in your lifestyle, you can claim God’s promise: “Delight yourself in the Lᴏʀᴅ, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (v. 4).

• Delight yourself means to “find pleasure and joy.”
• When you do this in the Lᴏʀᴅ, in his presence while seeking and serving him, he will give you the desires of your heart.

This can mean that he will give you what your heart should desire, or that he will give you the desires you now feel in your heart.

Either way, you will experience God’s best by giving him your best. As a mantra classically attributed to St. Augustine advises, “Love God and do what you will.”

“Don’t cheat yourself out of spiritual victory”

The greatest need in America today is for America’s Christians to follow Jesus fully. If we do, our lives will be the change the culture needs to see, the light in the dark that leads to the Light of the world (Matthew 5:14; John 1:9; 8:12).

Billy Graham wrote: “If Christianity is important at all, then it is all-important. If it is anything at all, then it is everything. It is either the most vital thing in your life, or it isn’t worth bothering with.”

Consequently, he urged us: “Don’t give the lie to the Christian faith by professing Christ without possessing him. . . . Don’t hinder revival by your unbelief and prayerlessness. Don’t cheat yourself out of spiritual victory by allowing sin to imprison you. Seek God’s face and turn from your wicked ways. Then you will hear from heaven and true revival will begin—starting with you.”

He added: “The Church holds the key to revival. It is within our grasp. Will we rise to the challenge? Will we dare pay the price? The supply of heaven is adequate for the demands of our spiritually starved world. Will we offer that supply to the hungry masses? May the revival that the world needs begin in you—starting today.”

Why not you?

Why not now?

Denison Forum