Wisdom for Your Weekend is your regular installment of what we’ve been reading (and watching) around the web. Presented to you by Chris Pappalardo, with guidance from Pastor J.D., this is our attempt to reflect Proverbs 9:9: “Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.”
While we do not always agree with everything these authors post, we share these resources because we find them challenging and enriching. As we often say around the Summit, “Eat the fish and spit out the bones.”
Infographic of the Week
You Have More Time for Bible Reading Than You Think, Crossway. One of my (Chris’) favorite features on my iPhone is the “Screen Time” function. It tracks precisely how much time every app is open, offering up a convenient summary of a user’s phone use. This is fruitful in many ways, not least of which is proving that we really do waste too much time on things we don’t think matter. What would it look like to take even the small chunks of your day and devote them to Bible reading? Crossway has the answer—in graphs and charts, no less!
Articles of the Week
I Was Once a Socialist. Then I Saw How it Worked, David Brooks. Whether or not you agree with Brooks and his conclusions (and on many points, we differ), he offers a necessary perspective about socialism’s dark side. Is capitalism always just? Certainly not. But as Brooks writes, the answer to the problems of capitalism may not be socialism, but a more just capitalism.
Lottie’s Impact a Century Later, Jack Swift. “Why is the Southern Baptist annual international missions offering named in Lottie Moon’s honor? Well, simply put, she started it. Charlotte ‘Lottie’ Diggs Moon … spent a total of 39 years laboring for the cause of Christ in China. … ‘Lottie Moon’ isn’t the name of a clever marketing campaign; it marks the legacy of a woman who followed Christ with full surrender and championed others to do the same.”
An Honest Abortion Debate, Alexandra Desanctis. Many public debates are won or lost not at an intellectual level, but at a deeper, more visceral level. Pro-life advocates have made the case for the unborn for decades, but the advent of ultrasound technology is now giving much more emotional power to those arguments. Actually seeing a fetus in the womb, one reality becomes more and more obvious: “This is a human life.”
The Dark Psychology of Social Media, Jonathan Haidt and Tobias Rose-Stockwell. Authors Haidt and Rose-Stockwell argue that while social media began as a way of staying connected with friends, it has evolved to become a medium in which outrage and gossip are more contagious than ever. For them, this reality isn’t just unsettling. It’s actually destabilizing the nature of democracy itself.
On the Lighter Side
Myth-testing Christmas Movies with Science Experiments, Mark Rober. If you’ve been getting in the Christmas spirit by watching “Elf,” “Home Alone,” and “A Christmas Story,” you may have wondered, “What would actually happen if …?” Mark Rober is here to test out some of the scenes from these delightful classics.
