Is the ESV Literal and the NIV Gender Neutral?

The point of this blog is to encourage all of us to use exact language. The ESV is not “literal.” (Note that the ESV does not claim to be “literal” but rather “essentially literal.”) The NIV is not “gender neutral.” (The NIV claims to be gender accurate.) But people commenting on these translations are often not as nuanced.

Southern Baptists and the Alt-Right: On Being in the Room Where it Happened (by Nathan Finn)

At no point and in no way was the resolutions committee being “soft” on the Alt-Right or other forms of white supremacy. At no point were Southern Baptists debating whether or not we ought to denounce these demonic impulses. At no point did Steve Gaines or anyone else force Southern Baptists to do something they didn’t want to do. At no point were Southern Baptists wringing their hands over how we would look in the media if we didn’t do something. At no point were we trying not to offend Trump voters—or any other voters, for that matter. None of that happened, and folks who suggest it did are either speaking out of ignorance or out of malicious intent, period.

Your Short-Term Trips Have Not Prepared You For Long-Term Missions

One of the keys to adjusting to a new culture is holding loosely to your expectations. Unfortunately, STM trips can actually make that worse by creating a false picture of what your new life will look like. I still love short-term missions trips when they are done well, but it’s important to understand their limits in preparing you for long-term service. Don’t be surprised if you need to un-learn some of what they taught you.

The Number One Reason Missionaries Go Home

Toward the end of the 20th century the World Evangelical Alliance released a significant study that found “conflict with peers” the top reason North American missionaries leave the mission field.

The Uniqueness of Early Christian Baptism

What many Christians are unaware of is the fact that baptism, or a variation thereof, was a practice of most religions in antiquity. When in Hebrews 6:2 the author mentioned “baptisms,” notice that he used the plural form of the term. Later on in the writing, he also mentioned “washings” (Hebrews 9:10), again a plural usage. Jews participated in baptisms—often named as “washings,” “purifications,” “lustrations,” or “ablutions”—frequently and for a variety of reasons (e.g. Leviticus 15:5–6; Numbers 19:7–8).

The Simple Menu Innovations That Science Says Can Get People To Order Vegetarian Options He sees language and marketing as a way to help change how Americans think about healthy food. “We may not only choose vegetables more when we think of them this way, but we might actually enjoy the experience when we eat them, too,” he says. “There’s some evidence that shows that being in an indulgent mind-set while you’re eating is actually better physiologically than when you’re in a mind-set of restriction. And then there’s other research that shows that if you make a healthy decision but you feel deprived you may eat more later on anyway. So here we really want to start changing this restrictive messaging around healthy food.”

Chocolate milk is too confusing for nearly half of American adults, survey finds

A full 7 percent of American adults think chocolate milk comes from brown cows, Food & Wine reports. That figure comes from an Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy survey of more than 1,000 people conducted in April.
When extrapolated, it means approximately 16.4 million Americans — or roughly the population of Pennsylvania — are hopelessly misinformed about chocolate milk, according to the The Washington Post.
Overall, the survey found 48 percent of US adults aren’t sure where chocolate milk comes from (though 29 percent use their kids as cover to buy it for themselves).