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 occasional 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.”
Articles of the Week
Ten Lessons from the Reformation in the SBC, Albert Mohler. And you thought that with October 31 in the rear-view mirror that we’d just let the Reformation go! Okay, okay, this piece isn’t about the Reformation of Martin Luther fame, but about the more modest, though very significant, reformation within the Southern Baptist Convention that began to take place in the 1960s. Mohler offers a helpful history of the SBC from the 1960s through today, including critical lessons we should learn from the mistakes of that era.
The Fragile Generation: Why Today’s Kids Are Too Safe to Succeed, Lenore Skenazy and Jonathan Haidt. Sad to say, there are far too many parents that don’t value their children’s safety at all. But for those of us who sincerely desire to be good parents, our temptation is to over-protect. Ironically, as Skenazy and Haidt argue, the more we treat our children as excessively fragile, the more we actually make them so. Parents: Protect your kids, but give them some space to tinker and explore, too.
Leaders Pick up the Trash, Danny Franks. It’s been a personal proverb of mine (Chris) for a few years now, though I’m not entirely sure where I first heard it: Every piece of trash is your piece of trash. Seeing that Danny has a similar mantra, and knowing of his rabid love affair for Walt Disney, I’ll bet we both got it from Papa Walt. In any case, it’s true. (Note: This is not a good motto for dating.) In leadership, title-holders graduate from menial tasks. But true leaders never stop picking up the trash.
Six Reasons Men Should Read More Stories Than Men’s Books, Barnabas Piper. Of course, women should also be reading more stories than “women’s books,” whatever those are. But Piper argues that men tend to want “just the facts,” which makes us less likely to pick up a piece of fiction, biography, or history. If that’s true of you, you’re the poorer for it. Pick up F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Eric Metaxas’s new biography of Martin Luther (Martin Luther), or David McCullough’s The Wright Brothers and thank us later.
Five Steps for Getting Unstuck with Difficult Bible Passages, Dan DeWitt. As Jen Wilkin reminded our church during her visit several weeks ago, most Christians today don’t want to wrestle with the Bible. When they encounter a difficulty, they want someone to give them the answer. This infects our personal Bible reading, our small groups, our weekend worship services, and our overall biblical literacy. When (not if) you get to a difficult Bible passage, don’t panic. Lean into the difficulty, keep pressing the Bible for answers, and be patient.
On the Lighter Side
Father Comforts His Son During Newborn Vaccine. If you haven’t seen it already, this is most likely the cutest thing you’ll view on the internet this week. You know you need that.
