✧ Gen Z Isn’t Asking Why Bad Things Happen to Good People
These are the questions raised in the Book of Job: How can a good God let evil happen? Why do the good suffer? Or, in maybe the most common contemporary formulation: Why do bad things happen to good people?
But as I’ve begun my career as a Gen Z Bible professor to Gen Z students, I’ve realized my undergraduates aren’t asking those questions. Time and again I instead hear some variation of another question: Where is God’s judgment against oppressors? If God is real, why hasn’t he struck down these people for their sin? Or, most bluntly: Why don’t bad things happen to bad people?
The two sets of questions are related, no doubt. But the shift from one to the other is significant. My classes understand the problem of evil much differently than did generations of Christians in the recent past.
This article is about the different questions we need to be able to answer, but it also reveals a concerning problem in the theology of the younger generations.
✧ AI Misquotes Scripture
YouVersion founder and CEO Bobby Gruenewald says artificial intelligence holds enormous promise. But when it comes to answering questions about God and Scripture, he believes the technology is not yet ready. ...
Large language models train on vast portions of the internet. That breadth makes them powerful but also unpredictable. Gruenewald said open-ended chat systems can generate responses that organizations would not “be proud of” because users may not have memorized Scripture, they might not recognize when a verse is misquoted or subtly altered.
His caution reflects a broader debate unfolding across the Christian world.
LLMs are here to stay. It's important that we know what they are and are not good at.
✧ Top Five Forgotten Biographies About Unforgettable Christians
People connect to stories. And the church has the best stories bar none. Great illustrations move the heart. Poor ones annoy like blow flies. The key distinguishing feature is they amplify the Big Idea of our Bible passage. They show us what the preacher’s message looks and feels like in the flesh. Scared about sharing the Gospel? Struggling to forgive that person who has hurt you? Try inviting the man who had set up the Gestapo to church! Testimonies of real Christians facing real opposition in the real world are everywhere.... Here are my five picks for biographies and autobiographies that may have been forgotten, but contain timeless stories.
✧ Honor in The Quiet Man
The Quiet Man is compelling because it sets up a clash between the modern and ancient senses of honor.
Sean Thornton represents the modern sense of honor. For him, honor is about being true to his values. He doesn’t care about what others think so long as he lives by his inner code. ...
But in Innisfree, Sean encounters a society still operating under the ancient code of honor, where reputation and standing within the community matter deeply.
This article provides an interesting analysis of an old movie, but the topic carries over into biblical studies because the modern western sense of honor is not the same as that used in the Bible, which can make it hard for us to understand what the writers are saying. The article and the movie can help us see the difference and get some insight.
✧ How Fathers were Destroyed by the Most Popular Family Movie of All Time (video)
This video comes from a YouTube channel called Screenwashed. They show how filmmakers manipulate viewers through the way they frame stories and the long term effects it can have. The titles are a little over the top — I doubt one movie can do that much damage — but each of the movies they discuss are part of a trend, and over time it changes how people act. We need to be aware of how our entertainment can affect us.
Image via Pixabay
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