Five Bible Verses You Need to Stop Misusing

The other day, someone gave me a note with Nahum 1:7 printed at the top: “The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him.”For some reason, they neglected to include the next line, which continues the thought from verse 7: “But with an overflowing flood he will make a complete end of Nineveh.”
Okay, so maybe the fuller version doesn’t deliver quite the same Hallmark moment. And maybe that’s the problem with how many Christians use the Bible.

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An Open Letter To the Left and Right of the United Methodist Church

So this is my plea: don’t take the easy way out. Don’t pack up your toys and go home. Don’t give up on the chasm. Build a bigger bridge.
The headlines keep saying you are “Church Leaders”- so be that. Step up and invite leaders from the opposite side to the table.
Find a way. Don’t break up my family. Because it is not okay with me and I can’t do anything about it.

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Into the Great Unknown

Some things that God reveals to us are as clear as day, but others are mysterious and not easily understood. God is full of infinite wisdom and we barely scratch the surface of this wisdom with our finite minds. The ways of God are far above us. It is an honorable pursuit to seek to know all there is to know about God, but knowing everything is impossible. All we can know is what has been revealed to us through Scripture and creation and some of that is mysterious. It is important for Christians to embrace this mystery, but we are often afraid because mystery is the great unknown.

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Philip Jenkins– The Way to Translate– Part One

And here’s Jesus sending out the disciples on their mission: “And commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse.” That’s the KJV. Here’s the NIV: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts.” Unless you refer to the Greek, both versions miss the central point that Jesus actually tells his followers to take nothing for their Hodos. They aren’t on a journey, they’re on the Way.

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Don’t Blame Evangelicals for the Cult of the Virgin

Christians, of course, are commanded to live chaste lives before and during marriage. But when we decontextualize the purpose and meaning of virginity or attempt to promote it through guilt or gimmicks, the church reflects ancient myths and modern fetishes more than biblical principles.

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The American Girl: Princess to Promiscuous… Why Our Daughters Are Having Sex

Friends, we are the ones who have set this ball in motion. We have sent the message that boyfriends are cute. We have delighted in their first kiss. We have trained our daughters that their sexual purity is for sale to the first boy who says “I love you.” Our daughters have traded their priceless virginity for nothing more than a cheap compliment from a horny teenage boy.

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The Ideal Length of Everything Online, Backed by Research

Curious, I dug around and found some answers for the ideal lengths of tweets and titles and everything in between. Many of these could have been answered with “it depends,” but where’s the fun in that? Solid research exists to show the value of writing, tweeting, and posting at certain lengths. We can learn a lot from scientific social media guidelines like these. Here’s the best of what I found.

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Serious reading takes a hit from online scanning and skimming, researchers say

Before the Internet, the brain read mostly in linear ways — one page led to the next page, and so on. Sure, there might be pictures mixed in with the text, but there didn’t tend to be many distractions. Reading in print even gave us a remarkable ability to remember where key information was in a book simply by the layout, researchers said. We’d know a protagonist died on the page with the two long paragraphs after the page with all that dialogue.
The Internet is different. With so much information, hyperlinked text, videos alongside words and interactivity everywhere, our brains form shortcuts to deal with it all — scanning, searching for key words, scrolling up and down quickly. This is nonlinear reading, and it has been documented in academic studies. Some researchers believe that for many people, this style of reading is beginning to invade when dealing with other mediums as well.

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Theater Cancels ‘Noah’ Showing Because of a Flood

Moviegoers in Exeter, England had their best-laid plans foiled after an ice machine broke down at the Vue Cinema, flooding the theater—which happened to be showing Noah.

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Habanero peppers cause school evacuation

The K-12 Colorado school remained closed on Tuesday as investigators tried to figure out what “toxic irritant” had been released on the playground.
They quickly figured out that it wasn’t fertilizer or pepper spray, KUSA reports.
Six habanero chili peppers caused this hot mess.

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Evelyn Hamilton Allegedly Calls Cops To Complain About Weed Quality

Lufkin police Sgt. David Casper said Monday that an officer went to the home of 37-year-old Evelyn Hamilton to hear her complaint that the dealer refused to return her money after she objected that the drug was substandard.
Casper says she pulled the small amount of marijuana from her bra when the officer asked if she still had it.

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