Thursday, May 28, 2026
Proverbs 9:10-12 Wisdom is only found in God.
Proverbs 3:1–2
My son, do not forget my law,
But let your heart keep my commands;
For length of days and long life
And peace they will add to you.
In God, not man, alone I trust. In Him and with Him are the keys to life. When the veil was torn in the temple we entered into the Father’s mercy and grace in Jesus. The world was blessed and we are restored in the unity of Holy Spirit. Peace, peace to the people on earth. (John 3:16-18) God’s love covered a multitude of the sins of mankind. To love God above all and your neighbors as much as yourselves we fulfill all of the law. Carla
Proverbs 9:10-12
10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
11 For by me your days will be multiplied,
And years of life will be added to you.
12 If you are wise, you are wise for yourself,
And if you scoff, you will bear it alone.” NKJV
Fear of the Lord is the central theme of the Book of Proverbs. The only appropriate way to approach the holy God is with fear, that is, reverence. The term Holy One is an intensive plural of the Hebrew word for holy: “the most Holy One” or “the quintessence of holiness.” You will feel the effects of your wisdom or foolishness directly; you cannot escape them. The NKJV Study Bible
In Proverbs, one reward for wisdom is long life. Elsewhere, wisdom and folly are said to affect others (10:1). This passage emphasizes the responsibility of the individual to accept or reject wisdom. The verse essentially warns that rejecting reproof occurs at one’s own peril. Faithlife Study Bible
Our Saviour came, not to call the righteous, but sinners; not the wise in their own eyes, who say they see. We must keep from the company and foolish pleasures of the ungodly, or we never can enjoy the pleasures of a holy life. It is vain to seek the company of wicked men in the hope of doing them good; we are far more likely to be corrupted by them. It is not enough to forsake the foolish, we must join those that walk in wisdom. Here is the happiness of those that embrace it. Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary
Proverbs 1:7
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,
But fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Proverbs 10:27
The fear of the LORD prolongs days,
But the years of the wicked will be shortened.
Job 28:28
And to man He said,‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom,
And to depart from evil is understanding.’ ”
Psalm 111:10
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom;
A good understanding have all those who do His commandments.
His praise endures forever
Many say that to "be blessed" is to be granted God's favor and protection. (And just for the record, this is not a game rigged in the favor of people with more faith or favor. Blessing plays no favorites.) Other definitions include the bringing of welcome pleasure or relief. Another, to be consecrated or made holy.
Regardless of the definition, there is good news in all of this. We live in a world where we are bombarded—daily—by the need to achieve, or pursue; where we are rewarded by having more, or by being "somebody."
But here's the deal: To be blessed, is to know that place of no striving.
To be blessed, is to know that place of rest.
To be blessed, is to know that I am loved by a gracious Creator, and that I can own and celebrate my identity—this identity—knowing that it, and it alone, is enough.
Extraordinarily, blessing begins quite simply... with the affirmation of my name.
When we see only the “label” we carry or “earn”, we miss the gift of Grace—and the place of rest at our core.
There is a similar story in the Gospel of John. Mary is looking for Jesus. He's not where he is supposed to be (in the grave). She is weeping. She's lost what she needed for stability.
She sees a man (she assumes is the gardener), and asks, "Please tell me where you've put him."
And Jesus (the man Mary believes to be the gardener) says only one word, "Mary."
And in that one word, her name, is the blessing.
The blessing is the permission to be.
Without the need for absolute security.
Or certainty.
Or answers.
Or striving.
So. Bless me.
Not for what I've done or failed to do.
Just Terry.
Sabbath Moments
Wednesday, May 27, 2026
All Christians Should Listen to Pope Leo on AI
Moore to the Point
Sometimes the pope knows how to nail some theses to the door, too
In his first encyclical, Pope Leo XIV articulated a message all human beings need to hear—a protest this Protestant can gladly join, against the tech-bro utopia on offer right now. On this matter, every Christian should listen to the pope—both in his warning and in his underlying hope. What’s at stake is the very meaning of the soul.
In Magnifica Humanitas, Leo contends that the accelerating speed of artificial intelligence is not just a technological development or a foreseeable economic crisis but a spiritual and civilizational test that forces us to face what it means to be human. And the danger, the pope rightly warns, is not so much that artificial intelligence will become too humanlike but that human beings will become more like machines.
The encyclical argues modern society is increasingly shaped by a "technocratic paradigm" that prizes efficiency, control, optimization, and power above human dignity, reducing people to functions and relationships to systems.
Using the biblical contrast between the Tower of Babel and the rebuilding of Jerusalem under Nehemiah, Leo moves beyond a simplistic dichotomy of "technology good" or "technology bad" and looks at the two paths technology can take—toward domination, homogenization, and dehumanization or toward communion, solidary, and rehumanization. And he sees what’s really behind the rush toward the posthuman path, in which we view weakness, dependence, mystery, and even personhood as problems to engineer away.
The pope’s words have already been met with disdain by those in whose interest it is to put such questions in abeyance until the economy, global security, and personal routine are inextricably set in the sort of laissez faire AI arms race that will far exceed that of nuclear proliferation. Nuclear weapons, after all, cannot design other nuclear weapons. US interior secretary Douglas Burgum remarked in a television interview that it is not "part of the role of being pope" for Leo to say what he did.
As a Protestant, I of course have vigorous disagreements with my Catholic brothers and sisters about whether Jesus’ promise to build his church "on this rock" (Matt. 16:18) applies to an unbroken chain of succession from Peter. But surely we can all agree that a higher authority on matters of what it means to be God, or to be human, is not the office of the secretary of the interior.
But Burgum represents Washington’s deference to Silicon Valley. Part of that compliance is prudent. After all, these are not simply resolved questions. If the United States Congress were (to imagine the most extreme possibility) to outlaw AI, that would be the equivalent of "banning the bomb." The latter would not denuclearize the world but would put the United States and its allies at the mercy of hostile countries with nukes—most notably, China and Russia. Moreover, Washington officials know the precarious state of the world economy is quite possibly teetering atop the AI industry.
Silicon Valley points out things of which we should rightly be afraid but then argues the only alternative is to hand limitless power to the smart people who can innovate their way to the future. Vast economic inequality, potential mass unemployment, and psychological degeneration are part of the price of progress if they happen, they say, and we can think of something to do about them then. Or we can ask our machines to think of something.
What’s even more unsettling is that the "smart people," the tech bros we are told to trust, have in many instances shown themselves to be creepily cold to any aspect of humanity that is not quantifiable and consumable. Some of them have shown themselves to be, in their own personal lives, eerily utopian—seeking to find ways to immortalityby uploading their brains to the cloud or rejuvenating themselveswith blood transfusions from younger men. And some have them have shown themselves to be just as eerily dystopian—building elaborate bunkers for themselves for if and when their "move fast and break things" mantra moves fast enough to break everything.
Leo’s Tower of Babel imagery gets at this very dynamic. After all, Genesis tells us the Babel project was grounded in two psychological impulses. One of them was utopian: "Let us make a name for ourselves" (Gen 11:4, ESV throughout). The human desire was for glory and self-exaltation—escape the limits of creatureliness and become like gods. The second impulse was dystopian: "lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth." What was present was the odd mixture of pride and fear.
Ironically, the biblical account does not discount the possibilities of technology. In Genesis, the wisdom of God actually concurs with the prehistoric tech bros about their own power: "And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them" (v. 6). The confusion of their language (hacking the algorithm?) was, like the exile from the Garden, not a pique of revenge but an act of mercy.
Our technologies have advanced, but human nature has not evolved out of these same dreads: fear of mortality, of weakness, of dependence, of limits, of being forgotten. Babel is not ultimately an Icarus story of humanity getting too big. It is not so much about arrogance as about panic. It is about getting comprehensive control: creating power and community in a world that feels dangerous and lonely.
We are in a Babel moment now. The problem is not that human beings are capable of creating artificial intelligence; the problem is that we are capable of creating artificial intelligence without first asking what it means to be human beings. We are not even psychologically prepared for the smartphone and social media age, which is now almost 20 years old. Indeed, that technological "revolution" is closer to the metaphor of the wheel than to the Space Station, when compared to where AI is going—but we are still confused about how to live in this era.
In fact, we are even struggling to know how to sin as human beings rather than as machines. As Axiosnoted a few weeks ago, teenage sexual activity and alcohol usage are now dramatically down. Casinos are not nearly as full as they once were. This is good, and we would think there is reason to celebrate—until we look into why all these things have dropped. It’s not because of a resurgence of chastity, fidelity, and prudence.
Instead, vices of connection (bad enough) have been replaced with vices of isolation (even worse). Sex has been replaced with pornography. Happy hour at the corner bar has been replaced with solitary weed smoking. The poker table has been replaced with online betting. Heated, animalistic vices replaced by cold, machinelike vices does not a revival make. The solution, Silicon Valley tells us, is to head even more quickly in the direction we are headed, with even less thought to where we are going and who is taking us there.
But the Christian vision of reality is strikingly different. The image of God is not reducible to one replicable thing—intelligence or decision-making or even language, though all these are necessary aspects of it. There is something integral about what it means to be human that cannot be chopped up into analyzable bits, much less replicated by disembodied elemental powers.
The Logos is not algorithmic. The Word that created all things and in which all things hold together is about communion ("the Word was with God," John 1:1), personality ("the Word was God"), and incarnation ("the Word became flesh and dwelt among us," v. 14).
We cannot face an AI era if we do not apprehend at least something of that, even though we cannot comprehend it in anything approaching its full weight of glory.
Let us remember, though, that the Babel story is not Frankenstein. The account does not end in horror. The breaking apart of the people is not the endgame but the beginning. What came after all that was one human told to "go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you" (Gen. 12:1). "And he went out, not knowing where he was going" (Heb. 11:8). But that solitary person heard his own name called—repeatedly. He heard himself personally addressed. And his response was not with technique or mastery or control. His response was simply "Here I am" (Gen. 22:11).
Babel led to that call. And that call was grounded in a promise. And that promise was born in the human technology of a feeding trough, died on the technology of an execution stake, and walked out of the technology of a burial cave. That promise has a human name, body, and voice. "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone" (1 Pet. 2:7), and what he’s building is not made with human hands (vv. 4–5).
We will not know exactly what we ought to do at every step in the new age of machines. But we know how to start. We know how to remember that the voice that said Adam, where are you? is the same voice that speaks for us: Here I am.
Christians have many differences; our communion is splintered all over the place. But every once in a while, someone comes along to remind us of the God-ness of God and the humanity of humankind—and how both are held together in the person of Jesus. That has always sounded strange. It will sound even stranger in the era in front of us. But when it comes to the most important questions of the AI age, Pope Leo is right and the tech bros are wrong.
2 Corinthians 9:7-9 Where we sow love God is there.
Psalm 112:9
He has dispersed abroad,
He has given to the poor;
His righteousness endures forever;
His horn will be exalted with honor.
We were created for good works. We are to reflect the light that shines in the darkness that others may see and have hope that our God lives and loves all of His creation. We are caretakers of the world that we live in to honor God. We may be the only hands of His mercy and grace that they see. We are the feet of our holy God and where we go in His love He is there. Carla
2 Corinthians 9:7-9
So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work. 9 As it is written:
“He has dispersed abroad,
He has given to the poor;
His righteousness endures forever.”NKJV
Knowing the law of the harvest (verse 6), each believer should give as he purposes in his heart. The believer is to give freely and cheerfully, not out of compulsion, and without regret. If we give, God is able to give us more so that we can perform other good works. In other words, God sees to it that the generous giver will not suffer want. Instead, God generously provides for those who give so that they can continue to do so. The NKJV Study Bible
Paul echoes Proverbs 22:9 and other Old Testament passages to emphasize God’s delight in those who give with the right attitude.
Proverbs encourages generous giving several times (Proverbs 11:24; 22:9; 28:27) and equates generosity to the poor with generosity to God (Proverbs 19:17). It does this because the impoverished—like the rich—are likewise created by God (Proverbs 22:2).
God is able to cause all grace. The Corinthians may have felt concerned about giving money because of the uncertainty of life in the ancient world. Paul does not want this to be reason for them to withhold their generosity. Paul affirms that God can provide everything they need, just as He is doing for the church in Jerusalem.
Paul quotes Psalm 112:9, His righteousness remains forever, to suggest that giving alms and being generous are expressions of God’s righteousness. Faithlife Study Bible
Romans 12:8
he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness
Deuteronomy 15:10
You shall surely give to him, and your heart should not be grieved when you give to him, because for this thing the LORD your God will bless you in all your works and in all to which you put your hand.
2 Corinthians 8:12
For if there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what one has, and not according to what he does not have.
Exodus 25:2
“Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring Me an offering. From everyone who gives it willingly with his heart you shall take My offering.
In Mark 4, Jesus also pointed to this truth through the parable of the sower. At this time in His ministry, many had heard about Jesus. He was One who boldly healed the hurting (Mark 1:34; Mark 3:10) and was unafraid to stand up to the religious leaders of the day (Mark 2:16-17). We can imagine that, especially in a world without television or social media, being around Jesus was extraordinarily entertaining. Yet when "a very large crowd gathered about him" in Mark 4:1, Jesus took the opportunity not to entertain but to share an unfortunate truth: Though many may hear the gospel, few will allow it to transform their lives.
Jesus then spoke of a farmer planting seeds in four different places: a common footpath, shallow or rocky soil, thorns, and good soil (Mark 4:3-9). The farmer represents Jesus Himself, and the seed represents the Word of God. The only difference is the ground where the seed is sown, or the various conditions of human hearts. Each soil yields a different outcome for the gospel seed:
Some reject the Word, whether intentionally or unintentionally, so God's Truth never penetrates their hearts (Mark 4:15).
Others believe temporarily but then fall away because of suffering (Mark 4:16-17).
Still others hear the Word but allow the worries of life to "choke" it, preventing growth (Mark 4:18-19). Merely hearing about Jesus is not enough for transformation.
Only the final group in Jesus' parable experience the fullness of accepting His Word, producing a harvest "thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold" (Mark 4:20). To Jesus' ancient listeners, this was a big deal! At the time, it was unusual for a farmer to produce more than 10 times what he planted. But Jesus suggested up to a 10 x 10 harvest ... a supernatural miracle of abundance.
As Matthew Henry's Bible commentary states, "If the seed be sown on good ground, if the heart be humble, and holy, and heavenly, there will be good fruit, and it will abound." Jesus' parable shows us there are visible, outward results when we truly commit to be changed by Him. If we are bearing much fruit of godly character, it's a good indication that we are like the "good soil" in Mark 4:20.
Today, let's read this parable as a reminder to eagerly pursue and trust the Word of God. Instead of just being spectators to the gospel, we can actively seek the transformational power of Christ with willing and receptive hearts. First5
Tuesday, May 26, 2026
Philippians 2:14-16 Hold fast to the truth of the Gospel which was born out of the love of God for the world.
Deuteronomy 32:5
“They have corrupted themselves;
They are not His children,
Because of their blemish:
A perverse and crooked generation.
The way of Jesus, the Son of God, is the way of peace. We do not fight against mankind but against the powers of spiritual darkness. We do not overcome evil with evil but with good. Beware of those who falsely claim otherwise. Let our light so shine that others are drawn to the love of God. The agape love of the Father was manifested in the sacrifice of Jesus and is protected by Holy Spirit. The wisdom of Holy Spirit resides in us as believers to guide us as we live our lives. We are not left alone to fend for ourselves. Carla
Philippians 2:14-16
14 Do all things without complaining and disputing, 15 that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain. NKJV
The Philippians have been secretly discontented and have been complaining (2:1–4). But the word used suggests that loud dissension had not yet broken out. This verse focuses on the testimony of the church. The purpose of the command in verse 14 is that the Philippians might be blameless light bearers in their world. They should deserve no censure because they are free from fault or defect in relation to the outside world (3:6). If the Philippian believers were going to have a testimony in their community, they had to be blameless in their actions and attitudes, both inside and outside the church (1 Timothy 3:2). Without fault is a technical word used to denote anything that is fit to be offered as a sacrifice to God, without blot or blemish, untainted by sin.
Paul describes the world as being the opposite of Christian. On the one hand the world is turned away from the truth, while on the other hand it exerts a corrupting influence that is opposed to the truth.
Paul depicts believers as stars whose light penetrates the spiritual darkness of a perverted world. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” He also said, “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). We are the light of the world as long as we reflect Christ.
The Greek verb translated holding fast contains two thoughts: holding fast and holding forth. The former concept suggests a steadfastness in which our lights (verse 15) blaze continually for God. The latter concept implies projecting our lights into the darkness of this world. Run suggests energetic activity, while labored indicates the toil of Paul’s ministry. The NKJV Study Bible
Expressions of discontentment and arguing lead to a spirit of division within a community of believers. Paul commands the Philippians to abandon such things so as to promote unity.
Paul creates a contrast in this verse between the humility, kindness, and purity of God’s children and the sinful ways of the world. Paul echoes Deuteronomy 32:5. You shine as stars alludes to Daniel 12:2–3, in which the wise shine like stars. By reflecting God’s character through their conduct, believers stand out against the darkness of the world and reveal the transformative power of the gospel (Philippians 1:27). The word of life refers to the message that brings life—the gospel.
The Philippian believers—mostly non-Jews—represent the fulfillment of Paul’s calling as apostle to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15; Galatians 2:9; Romans 11:13). Their faithful response to the gospel proves that his ministry has not been futile. Faithlife Study Bible
1 Peter 4:9
Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.
Matthew 5:45
that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
Acts 2:40
And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation.”
To see life and relationships as investments, however, allows us to see a distinction between perfection, and completeness. The goal is not to eliminate failure. If life is the journey, then failure is a part of the process.
Contrary to the advertisement of a popular light beer, we can’t have it all. Nor is our lot in life determined simply by the luck of the draw. We were not meant to approach life like “ill-taught piano students” (a la Robert Capon), so intent on not making mistakes that we never really hear the music. We live afraid to risk; frozen by failure; afraid of what “they” think; afraid to commit; afraid to invest; holding out for something or someone better; afraid to feel fully.
From Antonine de Saint-Exupery we read that, “To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible.” It is to be involved in the act of investing, or of entering into: the permission to invest with meaning. The freedom to be fully alive.
Life is not what we have accumulated, but where—and with whom, and in whom—we have invested ourselves. And it begins with today. Sabbath Moments