This week’s edition is smaller than normal; but only in numbers, not in content. The reason it has fewer items is because each of these issues is producing so much heat and light on the Internet at the moment that whatever else has been said has been left standing just outside the limelight.
Jesus is Greater than your Depression
Here’s a wonderful story of hope on the blog of my friend Kyllum Lewis. I’ve never met Bethany, but her story is all too familiar for many. Her resilience in the face of depression is compassionately informative for those on the outside providing support, and comforting for those in the storm.
Depression tells me that there is no hope. Jesus tells me that I am safe in Him. God may choose to heal me completely, or He may not. His timing is always perfect and His ways are good.
The #BenOp Discussion Continues
Still being dubbed “the most discussed and most important religious book of the decade”, My news feed continues to be full of people polarised over Rod Dreher’s book. Every week there are another half dozen bloggers whose copy of the book has arrived, and some are even live-blogging as they read, or producing multi-part responses over several articles. #BenOp is still a big discussion point, and something to be considered by every Christian. My copy is yet to arrive, but when it does I’ll contribute my 2 cents. In the mean time, Goodreads provides a number of quotes from the book, Scot McKnight provides links to a few thought-provoking responses (as well as providing his own), and D. A. Carson weighs in as well.
Hermeneutics or Sexism?
Taking Second Place is the storm that is the hashtag #ThingsOnlyChristianWomenHear. Again, there’s no need to list the plentiful supply of articles and opinions on this one. While I feel this is painting with a very broad brush (I certainly don’t see this attitude or behaviour in my local Baptist, complementarian church), I also recognise that this experience is very real; and I try hard to feel the real pain these women feel, praying that people would continue to be committed to equipping themselves to formal study of scripture in order to bring about biblically better conduct and stop the oppression wherever it is found.
