A New Bible Interaction Approach

Yesterday not only marked our marriage anniversary, it also marked the completion of a year’s worth of very valuable interaction with Tim Tebow’s Mission Possible One-Year Devotional. It has been a very helpful resource. Claire and I are regular donors to the Tim Tebow Foundation; we pray for them at least once a week; and we were blessed to participate in the “Night To Shine” ministry last year with plans to do so again this year and beyond. So, yes; we think a great deal of this young man, his family, and the multifaceted ministries he and his team lead. But spending time each morning with this devotional this last year has increased even more our admiration and gratitude for what the Lord is doing in Tim Tebow’s life and ministries. Thus, we recommend both the devotional and the Foundation’s work very highly.

However, beginning today we are trying a new method for our daily devotionals. It is one that involves 5 days a week of Scripture readings (the specific schedule of which I will organize as we go along) and a simple five step interaction with the text. 

1) Read. Take your time and read carefully and prayerfully the scheduled text. 

2) Reflect. Think about what you are reading with a specific attention to relevant applications. 3) Consider. Consider things from the day’s text that might prompt more study, what stimulates a specific action response, what things you might want to talk about with your spouse and others, etc. 4) Write. Write down items from Steps 2 and 3 plus perhaps other items to thank God for, to confess, to apply more wisely and diligently, to pray about, and so on. 5) Pray. Take a few minutes to talk to God about these matters.

By the way, why is it only a 5-day schedule? Well, it makes for a more do-able plan in that gives you a couple days grace to deal with other texts (like the Sunday sermon or a podcast that you’ve heard), to catch up in case you missed a day during the week, to use the time to pursue some of the questions arising from the week’s previous readings, and so on. 

Anyhow, we’re going to give it a go. Lord Jesus, please bless this effort with success.

Our first schedule is listed below. Feel free to use it or to share here in the comments section a devotional approach that you have found successful. And, by all means, if you are looking for a devotional book, you would do very well indeed to select Tim Tebow’s Mission Possible Daily Devotional.

1) Ephesians 1: 1-10 (Take 2 days with this text.)
2) Stay with Ephesians 1: 1-10
3) Ephesians 1: 11-14
4) Ephesians 1: 15-23 (2 days)
5) Stay with Ephesians 1: 15-23

6) Ephesians 2: 1-7 (2 days)
7) Stay with Ephesians 2: 1-7 
8) Ephesians 2: 8-10
9) Ephesians 2: 11-18
10) Ephesians 2: 19-22

11) Ephesians 3: 1-7
12) Ephesians 3: 8-13
13) Ephesians 3: 14-21 (2 days)
14) Stay with Ephesians 3:14-21
15) Ephesians 4: 1-6

16) Ephesians 4: 7-16
17) Ephesians 4: 17-24
18) Ephesians 4: 25-31 (2 days)
19) Stay with Ephesians 4: 25-31
20) Ephesians 5: 1-7

21) Ephesians 5: 8-14
22) Ephesians 5: 15-21
23) Ephesians 5: 22-33
24) Ephesians 6: 1-9
25) Ephesians 6: 10-20 (3 days)

26) Stay with Ephesians 6: 10-20 
27) Stay with Ephesians 6: 10-20 
28) Ephesians 6: 21-24

It's An Anniversary Day!

Claire and I are celebrating our 53rd wedding anniversary today. Well, true enough, ours wasn’t the traditional wedding service. For instead of a church and a minister, we had the Council Bluffs courthouse and a judge. And instead of a service featuring candles, flowers, and lovely music, ours featured something quite unusual; namely, an interruption and delay of the proceedings in order that the judge could sentence a handcuffed and shackled prisoner! 

But though, the regular wedding it was not, we were legally, lovingly, and in the sight of the gracious God who brought us together, wedded indeed. We have very much enjoyed the adventure we started on that day, especially the wonderful opportunity God gave us to minister together for His Kingdom. As a matter of fact, that’s how today's anniversary began -- joining a few beloved colleagues for prayers and public pro-life witness in front of the wickedly misnamed abortion business, Planned Parenthood.

By the way, the photo collage here shows that kind-hearted judge smiling upon our first married kiss whereas the photo in the lower right corner shows the same couple 53 years later to the day, now old warhorses from the pro-life battles of the last several decades. (In between are a couple of photos of those love-struck kids as they grew up.)

The Top 5 (November 2)

* "This Race Is Close Only Because the Public Education Indoctrination Mill Has Succeeded" (Stephen Kruiser, PJ Media)

From the article -- The United States of America should not be on the precipice that it is now, with freedom-loving citizens terrified of being tossed into the abyss by this election. In a sane world, Kamala Harris wouldn't have made it out of San Francisco, let alone this close to the presidency. Now we're hoping for the best amid all this craziness....If we get lucky and Trump returns to the Oval Office, Republicans really need to move the school choice issue up higher on the priorities list, or they'll find themselves in this precarious existential threat position in every presidential election. It does get moved to the front burner once in a while — Trump has often spoken strongly in favor of it — but it too often gets moved to a back burner when there are so many problems with national security and the economy. 

Again, Republicans won't be in much of a position to address issues like national security and the economy if we keep spending egregious amounts of taxpayer money to crank out good little Dem automatons.  Obviously, the well-indoctrinated K-12 kids who go on to college have the ripest minds for the final corruption by tenured professors who are ideologically about 10 miles to the left of Karl Marx.

* "What’s behind the Explosion of Churches Starting Christian Schools?" (Sarah Holliday, Washington Stand)

From the article -- Part of this wake-up call, Backholm went on to say, is also because the church is starting to see “the consequences of what happens [when] we allow pagans to be the leaders and the disciples of all of those hours.” Perkins added, “When pagans are teaching and training” children in the education system, “you get pagans” as a result. “That’s what happens,” he contended. “We send our kids off to Babylon, and we wonder why they come back as Babylonians.” But churches are waking up to this reality and “increasingly … stepping up to take charge,” Backholm said, which is largely fueling the growth in Christian schools.

Perkins pointed out that the efforts across the country to promote school choice are also playing a role. Backholm agreed, noting how Americans have noticed “there are partisan differences in the way states are being led,” especially regarding the education system. There are now “dozens of states [that] have recognized that we want parents to be the guardians and the leaders and the shapers of their children’s education,” which in many cases has led to the “decision that we should not force children to be placed in a school that teaches only secularism.”

Ultimately, Backholm emphasized, “All schools teach morals. All schools teach a worldview. All schools teach some form of functional religion.” In recent history, he noted, there’s been “this idea … that the government schools, the secularism of the government school, is the only religion that should be taught.”

* "Subcontracting Our Minds" (Timothy Burns, Public Discourse)

From the article -- As Rousseau put it, for the inhabitant of bourgeois society, it is necessary “to be or to seem.” AI will hand you the means to seem—at least so long as you are delivering the speech. It will deprive you of the ability to be...

AI will surely also further the path toward soulless homogeneity that characterizes so much of the modern world, the drift toward what James Kunstler has called “the geography of nowhere.” We will experience the rapid loss of the charming particulars that have hitherto been found in speeches drawn from the speakers’ own individual experiences and the admiration of how those experiences have been artfully crafted into a speech. AI will offer collections of cylinders for a music-box mind.

* "What’s Behind Kamala Harris’ Connection To A Mass Murdering Cult Leader?" (Paul Siewers, Federalist)

From the article -- In the 1970s, support from Democrat leaders enabled Jones to operate his abusive cult. Harris’ ex-boyfriend Brown, a former California Assembly speaker and San Francisco mayor, reportedly attended Jones’ Peoples Temple several dozen times and praised Jones liberally. San Francisco Mayor George Moscone appointed Jones chair of the city Housing Authority Commission.

LGBTQ icon Harvey Milk spoke often at Jones’ congregation, saying he found there “a sense of being … I can never leave.” Brown introduced Jones at a testimonial dinner positively as “a combination of Martin King, Angela Davis, Albert Einstein … Chairman Mao.” Brown’s flippancy about Mao, likely the greatest mass-killing leader of history, was more chilling given Jones’ finale, the greatest cluster of forced civilian deaths of Americans prior to 9/11.

Until then, with Jones as an ally Brown spearheaded legalizing homosexuality in California, building his political clout in what became ground zero of the new American civil religion, now also known as “wokeness.” The new quasi-religious awokening from the start sought to override the “laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” cited in the Declaration of Independence.

Brown disavowed Jones, but only after the tragedy at Jonestown. Harris never disavowed Brown...

* "Preventable Tragedies: Why De-transitioners Are Suing Doctors: As many doctors are dangerously pushing gender-transition drugs and surgeries, de-transitioners are speaking out about the harms." (Grant Atkinson, ADF)

From the article -- Broadly speaking, de-transitioners are individuals who have chosen to stop receiving dangerous transition drugs or pursuing other body-altering procedures that doctors said would resolve their mental health struggles or discomfort with their sex. De-transitioners have typically come to embrace their biological sex and no longer wish to identify inconsistently with it.

Tragically, some transition efforts are irreversible. When a doctor removes a young woman’s healthy breasts, for example, she will never be able to nurse her children. And prescribing dangerous puberty-blocking drugs can cause irreversible damage on a child’s brain development and even affect a young woman’s ability to later conceive. Health-care professionals who tell parents and young people that these drugs and procedures are “safe and reversible” are lying.

Doctors who push their patients to undergo these dangerous “gender transition” efforts fail to follow the basic medical dictate to “do no harm.”

A Quick Branson Recap

Well, we say goodbye to our annual 2-week working vacation this morning as we leave Branson, Missouri for the drive back home. Along the way will be conversation, prayers, a few old Jack Benny radio programs, and listening to the final chapters of Anna Sewell's classic, Black Beauty. It has been a very good getaway for us -- eventful, fun, refreshing, productive, and motivational.

Among our favorite moments on this excursion were wonderful times of fellowship with some of my cousins on the Ellsworth side of my family who live down this way, In fact, you see us with David Ellsworth in the top left, Ervin & Alice Ellsworth in the top right, and Gary & Martha Ellsworth in the bottom left.

Other highlights? Feeding the ducks down by Branson Landing on several occasions; the better part of a day spent at Silver Dollar City (thanks to tickets provided by David who is a Project Coordinator there); a few meals at our favorite Branson eateries (especially Farmhouse downtown and The Hungry Hunter out by the Lake); a bit of cheating on our Paleo diets at Sweet Susie’s; reading pleasure novels by Dorothy Sayers and Ngaio Marsh; and a lot of walking, including 90 minutes along Lake Taneycomo, the day's trek up and down the hills of SDC, and six times out doing a full 5.4 “lap” on the Table Rock Lakeside Trail.

Of course, there has been some work also. For instance, I wrote the November LifeSharer down here. We completed a special correspondence project that ended up with postcards sent out to 55 of our Vital Signs friends. We kept up on our social media duties, including the Saturday Top 5 and many responses to questions about the abortion-related amendments on the Nebraska ballot. We have been engaged in a very encouraging study of Psalm 37. And I made solid progress in a new Christmas-related short story.

Now, there have been a few challenges along the way -- dealing with Claire’s ongoing heel pain, my perennial blisters as well as another minor wound, and some car trouble that, at this writing, remains unresolved. But, praise the Lord, we are on our way home and very much looking forward to getting back into our regular routines. Thanks to all of you who lifted up a prayer to the father in our behalf.

The Top 5 (October 26)

* "The Progressive Moment Is Over: Four reasons their era has come to an end." (Ruy Teixeira, The Liberal Patriot)

* "I Was Giddy When The FBI Raided Mar-A-Lago, But Now I’m Voting For Trump" (Johnathon McCartney, Federalist)

* "Is Every Sin the Same in God’s Eyes?" (Kevin DeYoung, Crossway)

* "Is a YES Vote for 434 Pro-Abortion? Certainly Not!" (Denny Hartford, Vital Signs Blog)

* "UN report finally shows what is glaringly obvious: Trans athletes in women’s sports is a major problem" (Kirsten Fleming, New York Post)

Is a YES Vote for 434 Pro-Abortion? Certainly Not!

 Denny,

On the ballot are initiatives 434 and 439. Both are pro-abortion. From “prolife” groups, all I hear is to vote Yes to 434 and NO to 439. Why should I not vote NO to both?

My reply?

Thanks for your concerns. I'm sending along links that express my opinions about the amendments and why I'm siding with NRL, NFA, the NCC, and the other longstanding pro-life organizations who urge a vote YES on 434 and NO on 439. And though a NO vote on both amendments seems to take the high ground, the sad fact is that whichever of the amendments receive the most votes (given that they make the 50% mark) will become law. Therefore, if all of the pro-abortion voters AND all of the voters who are misled by the high-powered ads and deceptive language vote YES on 439 without a higher number voting for 434, Nebraska will see every pro-life measure we have ever passed through the Unicameral thrown out.

It's a matter of numbers. And voting YES on 434 doesn't at all mean, as its critics are saying, that it will mean no further progress can be made via the Unicameral. It simply protects what we've achieved thus far while allowing further pro-life measures be enacted in the future AND while defeating the heinous 439.

I suggest two other points be considered. 1) 434 was carefully written after national pro-life researchers did extensive surveys with Nebraska voters to see what pro-life measures could be (at this moment in history) be realistically protected. With a pro-abortion mania already having overtaken 7 states since the Dobbs ruling, pro-life advocates decided language like 434's would be the very best defense against the extremism of such horrid actions as 439. 

And 2) The argument that Nebraska's constitutional language currently protects preborn boys and girls -- and therefore, that 434 would actually make of that constitution a more pro-abortion document -- is inexplicably naive. After all, the existing language has never been practically used to defend prenatal lives, has it? Alas, you might say, it should be. I wholeheartedly agree and yet it hasn't and it won't. Thus, sincere and dedicated pro-life heroes like those of Nebraska Right to Life and the Nebraska Catholic Conference have fought (most circumspectly and prayerfully) over these last several decades to implement practical, meaningful laws that give further protection to unborn children, their moms, and the moral fabric of the culture itself...with a view to always try for more. They deserve gratitude and trust, not vilification.

And now the links I mentioned above:

https://vitalsignsblog.blogspot.com/2024/10/vote-for-434-vote-against-439.html

https://vitalsignsblog.blogspot.com/2024/08/save-one-or-save-none-some-thoughts-on.html

The Top 5 (October 19)

 * "Will the Pro-Life Movement Survive a Kamala Harris Presidency?" (Chris Manion, Population Research Institute)

From the article -- Planned Parenthood’s reasoning is simple.  They know that, as president, Harris will use her executive authority to “legalize” abortion up to birth across the country.  Even more than that, they also know that she will use all of the federal agencies at her disposal to make sure that no one tries to stop her.

Harris has done this before.  As Attorney General of California, she relentlessly hounded pro-life organizations, even sending goons to raid their homes.

As president, her efforts to intimidate pro-life supporters will play out on a national stage, and her goal will be to shut down the pro-life movement in America.  I predict that she will order raids on pro-life groups across the country.

* "Staying Out Of Politics Is Not The Moral High Ground Some Christians Think It Is" (John Laychak, Federalist)

From the article -- Seventy percent of people surveyed agree that “churches and other houses of worship should stay out of politics.”

The rise of the “seeker-friendly” church model has also led an increasing number of churches across America to avoid politically controversial teachings in order to appeal to as many people as possible. 

A study by the Barna Group revealed that while 90 percent of pastors believe that the Bible speaks to issues like sexuality, marriage, and abortion, 50 percent of them are hesitant to speak out on these issues for fear of creating division along political lines.

The scope of the political conversation is shifting to include theological questions, but now that these theological questions also have political implications, the church is going silent. The political umbrella is expanding into theological territory, and we are being manipulated into giving to Caesar what belongs to God.

* "Pay No Attention to the Gender Activist Behind the Public School Curtain" (Thomas Jipping & Sarah Parshall Perry, Daily Signal)

From the article -- As if Nevada parents didn’t already have their hands full, including helping their children navigate the waters of adolescent sexuality. Now gender activists increasingly are using the public schools to lead students down a path their parents may know nothing about.

And the Biden-Harris administration is making it worse.

Nevada is hardly alone. Nearly 20,000 public schools across the country, attended by 11.5 million students, now have policies that cater to kids’ current sense of “gender identity” but that deliberately keep parents in the dark about that same thing.

* "FBI Revises 2022 Data Revealing Major Uptick in Crime" (Sarah Holliday, Washington Stand)

From the article -- as expressed by John Lott, founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, for the last year, “[W]e were having headlines, news articles after news articles saying, ‘Violent crime is falling, people mistakenly or erroneously believe that it’s increasing.’” Even during the presidential debate between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, debate moderator David Muir fact-checked Trump after he acknowledged an increase in crime by saying, “The FBI says overall, violent crime is actually coming down in this country.”

However, after months of Americans being told they’re wrong to believe crime has increased, the FBI “quietly” revised the 2022 data last month only to uncover the fact that rather than crime decreasing by 2.1% under the Biden-Harris administration, it’s increased by 4.5% in 2022 alone. “That’s a 6.6 percentage point change there,” Lott emphasized. People have been “relying on this data,” he continued. “But you don’t see any corrections in the news.” No one is “saying, ‘Oops, the FBI data that we relied on was wrong — that rather than a drop, there was actually an increase that had occurred.”

To further detail the changes made by the FBI, Fox News noted that “the data reflects a net increase of 80,029 violent crimes in 2022 over 2021 … [with] an additional 1,699 murders, 7,780 rapes, 33,459 robberies and 37,091 aggravated assaults that year” than what was originally documented.

* "Google Still Stacking Deck, Buries Right-Leaning News on Presidential Coverage 3 Weeks from Election" (Tom Olohan, National Right to Life)

From the article -- The results prominently featured CNN and The New York Times, and publications owned by leftist billionaires, such as Jeff Bezos’s The Washington Post and Marc Benioff’s Time. Not a single right-leaning outlet appeared in Google search results until Fox News was displayed on page eight for the Harris prompt and on page seven for the Trump prompt.

Tellingly, when searching for the aforementioned Harris prompt, Google did not display a single media outlet that AllSides rated as “lean-right” or “right” until a Fox News video appeared as the fourth result on page eight of the search results. For an actual “lean right” or “right” article, users had to go all the way to the fifth result of page 14 to find a New York Post piece.

Google buried the first “lean right” or “right” outlet as the third result on the seventh page when MRC researchers analyzed results for the Trump prompt, as Google finally displayed a Fox Business article in this spot. Google did not display another right-leaning outlet until The Telegraph appeared as the fourth result on page 11.