Wisdom For Your Weekend: your weekly installment of things we’ve been reading around the web.
Infographic of the Week
Timeline of the book of Acts, The Overview Bible Project. If you’re a Bible nerd, this site is like Christmas every day. And even if you’re not, infographics like this make otherwise complicated parts of the Bible just a little bit easier to conceptualize. Now all we need to do is get this stitched in next to the “Missionary Journeys of Paul” maps at the end of my Bible…
Articles of the Week
The Summer’s Most Unread Book Is…, Jordan Ellenberg, Wall Street Journal. It’s summer time, and that means beach reading! Or, to be more precise, unfinished beach reading. You know the type—that book you pick up in June, trudge through 50 pages over the course of 6 weeks, and then stash away in defeat and shame. So which books are people picking up and not finishing this year? The Wall Street Journal provides an entertaining (though admittedly nonscientific) list.
When Grief Rears Its Painfully Beautiful Head, Kylie White. Kylie attends our North Durham Campus, and offers this candid reflection on the grief and pain associated with adoption—and on the beauty that Christ can bring in the midst of that grief. Jesus doesn’t always take away our pain, or give us reasons for it. But he walks with us through it, and that is his greatest mercy to us.
Why There Should Be More Sermons on Body Image, Sharon Hodde Miller. “Countless women prepare for worship on Sunday morning, not by quieting their hearts and minds before the Lord, but by putting on makeup, curling their hair, and squeezing into a pair of Spanx. These women then walk into church, distracted and insecure, comparing themselves to the women around them, and wondering if they measure up. Focusing on God is a battle. . . . Studies show that men fight this battle too. Images of six-pack abs, athletic builds, trendy clothes, and perfectly styled hair are all over the media…and if we’re being honest, in many an evangelical pulpit.”
How the “Hook-Up” Culture Has Led to the “Rape Culture,” Adelaide Mena & Caitlin La Ruffa. Sad to say, sexual assault affects us all, usually striking quite close to home. If you are not a victim yourself, someone close to you certainly has been. This is an enormous problem on college campuses, as Time Magazine recently highlighted. But what is often overlooked in discussions of rape culture, is how our society’s desire for casual (and consequence-free) sex unwittingly creates a perfect scenario for assault. As Mena & La Ruffa point out, “Respect for ideas of sexual integrity—the concept that sex might by its nature mean something more than a game—has gone out the window. With it went respect for the very concept of boundaries.”
On The Lighter Side
“I Am a Thoughtful Guy,” Rhett & Link. The lives of these two NC State grad “internetainers” seem quite entertaining. (Random fact: I saw Rhett in an Asheville coffee shop a couple months ago. He is quite a tall man.)
