Podcast: How Do We REALLY Prevent Mass Shootings?

The tragic event in Uvalde, Texas—and the political back-and-forth about it—had us thinking this week, and it seemed an appropriate topic for the podcast. In this episode, we try to think about the issue biblically, focusing on the solutions Christ surely longs to implement. We hope you find it helpful.

(In other news, many of you have requested that the podcast be made available in other formats, and we think the time has come to do just that! We hope to have more news on that front next week. Thanks for your patience with us as we’ve learned and the podcast has grown! Your feedback has been very helpful.)

P.S. After we posted this, we forgot that we had mentioned Mr. Weston’s telecast “Will God Forget Your Children?” We’ve added a link to it below. Also, we mentioned Mr. Mark Sandor’s upcoming article on false freedom & liberty, but it has not yet been published, so we can’t link to it. But look for it in the next Living Church News, due out in July!

Podcast: What can Living Education do for you?

Today (Friday), the Class of 2022 graduated from the on-campus Living Education–Charlotte program, and yesterday, we had the opportunity to sit down with Mr. Jonathan McNair and pick his brain about both the program and his own long history of working with youth in the Church. Whether you are a teen or young adult with questions about Living Ed, a parent trying to decide how to guide your kiddos into their futures, or just someone wanting to know more about the program, this podcast answers all the questions. it was a real pleasure to sit down with Mr. McNair—who informed us, by the way, that there are still openings for the 2022–2023 year here in Charlotte! If you are interested in checking it out, listen to the podcast, and click on this link to apply.

Thinking Biblically: Definitions

When I think about what it means to “think biblically,” I usually think, “How do I look at situations with the Bible as my guide?” And that’s fine! Most of the content on this website takes that approach: “How do we think biblically about entertainment? About dating? About current events?” 

But sometimes we also have to think biblically about something much more basic, like the definition of words. This might seem too simple, but you would be surprised by how many contentions spring from people not even agreeing on how words are defined. 

“Come on, Mr. Sandor,” you might think, “we know what dictionaries are. They give the same words and definitions to all of us.” Well, you have a point—to a degree. While dictionaries give us the opportunity to uniformly define words, it’s still not uncommon for people to just ignore dictionaries and use whatever definitions they have in their heads. 

But there’s a bigger problem: Dictionaries don’t use the Bible to define words. The Bible provides definitions for sin (1 John 3:4), righteousness, (Psalm 119:172), faith (Hebrews 11:1, 6), and a host of other words—and these definitions are different from what you’ll find when you google a word (or dig out a hardcopy dictionary). 

For this post, let’s briefly consider the word love. How should we define that? Well, if you’re still reading, you’re about to get some answers. 

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