Here’s a collection of links, stories, and news items that have caught our attention lately:
- Women pray more than men do, according to a 2008 survey that’s being widely discussed this month. Is this a trend you see in your own life and community? Why do you think that is?
- The prophet Hosea’s children had the most unfortunate names ever, if you translate their meaning from the Hebrew: “Not-Loved” and “Not-My-People.” Would your understanding of this and other Bible stories change if more English Bibles translated name meanings instead of just transliterating the Hebrew name?
- Why Bible geography matters. My childhood Sunday school teachers always insisted that memorizing the names, spellings, and locations of hard-to-pronounce cities in ancient Israel and Mesopotamia would pay lasting dividends for my faith. Maybe they were right! (But I’m still bitter anyway.)
- How Jesus handled tough questions. People in Jesus’ time faced the same difficult questions about God, evil, and suffering that we do today. Here’s a look at how Jesus used the power of stories to respond to questions with no easy answers.
- What does your church do for single people? Scot McKnight shares insight on the “goodness of singleness” from Tim and Kathy Keller’s The Meaning of Marriage.