Your weekly installment of things we’ve been reading (and watching) around the web.
Book Review of the Week
Spiritual Friendship, by Wesley Hill. Reviewed by Tim Challies. Friendships are incredibly vital relationships (as we’ve recently noted), but it’s hard to know just how they should look. Are friends co-laborers toward a certain goal? People who share a similar passion? Or is it more like family? And if family…are we talking sibling (stuck with them, like it or not) or marriage (we choose them but then stick with them). Hill approaches the subject as a “celibate gay Christian,” and has a lot to teach us about same-sex attraction, love, and true intimacy.
Articles of the Week
Why Tucking Your Kids In Matters, Becky Wilson. You don’t have to be a self-proclaimed oddball like Wilson to resonate with her experience. It’s important to “tuck your kids in” at night, even if you aren’t literally creating a baby blanket burrito. As she says, “Tucking them in has much more to do with securing the edges of life than the edges of blankets.”
Colbert Says, “Decide for Yourself What’s Right & Wrong.” And We Reply, “No, Thanks.” Trevin Wax. It’s that time of year again—when famous and successful people give young college graduates horrendous life advice packages as “sage wisdom.” Thankfully, most graduates won’t be listening. But as Trevin points out, commencement addresses act as a quick barometer for what our society assumes to be true. We’re looking forward to the whole series, but his kick-off with Colbert is spot on.
Why Sexual “Freedom” Is Actually a Type of Ponzi Scheme, Carl Trueman. Richard Mouw has recently (and wisely) noted that the “sexual revolution” of the 1960s and 70s promised risk-free promiscuity. “It should seem obvious by now,” he says, “that the revolution is over.” Sexual “freedom,” in other words, has not made us more fulfilled, but much more broken. Sadly, however, many of our culture’s prophets still maintain that the life of random sexual encounters is actually a moral good. “It feels good and it distracts me from the tedium of my purposeless existence. Therefore it must be good for society!” Trueman is rightfully scathing in his critique of this lunacy.
For God So Loved Caitlyn Jenner, Marty Duren. “If the love of God is not for Caitlyn Jenner, and Kim Kardashian, and Hillary Clinton, and Jeb Bush, and Darren Wilson, and Mike Brown, and the Apostle Paul, and pagan philosophers, it is for no one. The very essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ is no one is good enough to secure God’s love. And ‘no one’ includes me and all those people I think I am better than, so let us stop pretending. Let us remember grace is not primarily a series of salvific propositions, but is the hand that finds us in the miry pit.”
On The Lighter Side
25 of the Best Idioms from around the World, Jake Flanagin. Here’s a bit of fun for the linguistic nerds among us. I think my favorite is the Uruguayan, “When dogs were tied with sausages…” (that is, “a long time ago”). Makes sense to me. I think we should all long for a time when sausage was so abundant that it was used as rope.
Wisdom For Your Weekend is presented to you by Chris Pappalardo, with occasional guidance from J.D. Greear. 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.”
