Wisdom For Your Weekend: your weekly installment of things we’ve been reading around the web.
Video of the Week
I may be a couple months late on this, but I just stumbled across this little gem, and found it cute, funny, and touching. The New Zealand accents probably helped:
An Unexpected Christmas
Articles of the Week
If Daniel 3 Were Written Today, Trevin Wax. This is a clever and pointed piece exposing the underlying ideological issue in all of the various debates about sexuality. As Trevin shows here, at bottom this is all about our society’s idolatry toward a false god labeled “love” (or “Aphrodite,” as Trevin puts it). Sadly, far too many Christians either fail to see or fail to oppose our society’s blind devotion to “Aphrodite.” We can only have one ultimate authority: will it be the Lord, or will it be a false ideal?
When a Child Leaves the Faith, John & Abraham Piper. Your rebellious child’s real problem is not drugs or sex or cigarettes or porn or laziness or crime or cussing or slovenliness or homosexuality or being in a punk band. The real problem is that your child doesn’t see Jesus clearly. The best thing you can do for rebellious children—and the only reason to follow any of these suggestions—is to show them Christ.
The Death of Expertise, Tom Nichols. This is an excellent article pointing out a massive blunder of our modern society—the step from “I have a right to my opinion” (legitimate) to “My opinion is sacred and cannot be challenged” (illegitimate and dangerous). As Nichols says, “To disagree is to insult. To correct another is to be a hater. And to refuse to acknowledge alternative views, no matter how fantastic or inane, is to be closed-minded.” This is already a challenge for the church in the U.S., and will only continue to heighten in years to come.
The Enduring Legacy of the Prodigal Son, David Brooks, New York Times. What is shocking about this article is not so much what Brooks says, but that it is coming from the pen of a New York Times opinion writer. “The father teaches that rebinding and reordering society requires an aggressive assertion: You are accepted; you are accepted. It requires mutual confession and then a mutual turning toward some common project.” Unfortunately, Brooks’ proposal for that “common project” is admittedly bland. But his analysis of the power of grace is impressive nonetheless.
On The Lighter Side
In Defense of Clichés, Linton Weeks, NPR. Alert: you will probably only find this funny if you are a gigantic nerd (like myself).
