Wisdom for Your Weekend is your regular installment of what we’ve been reading (and watching) around the web. Presented to you by Chris Pappalardo, with occasional guidance from Pastor J.D., this is our attempt to reflect Proverbs 9:9: “Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.”
Articles of the Week
Jeff Bezos Banned PowerPoint Presentations at Amazon. Here’s What They Do Instead, Carmine Gallo. Score one for reading! Bezos begins his meetings by having everyone—gasp—spend 30 minutes reading a memo. Only after spending time reading a “narratively structured” summary will they begin their discussion. Bezos isn’t alone in this, either. Google’s CEO never uses bullet points, opting instead for stories. So if you have a message you care about, don’t torpedo it by putting it on a slide. Tell a story instead.
How Birth Moms Display the Father’s Love, Brittany Salmon. This is beautiful. As much as adoptive parents are praised for mirroring the love of Christ (and they should be), we hardly ever praise birth mothers who choose to put their children up for adoption. That difficult decision is not giving up; it is giving life.
Look Up from Your Lists: Letter to My 30-Year-Old Self, Rick Segal. We love lists. What’s more, we love to-do lists. But when we forget that our to-do lists ought to serve our ministry (rather than the other way around), we can quickly trample the very people we are called to love. As Segal says, “Assigned by God to tend sheep, I mowed right over them in zeal to trim the pasture—and I left bloody wool all over the place.” Ouch! Here is a warning, not just for the young, but for every one of us who gets a thrill out of checking one more item off the proverbial—or literal—list.
Racism and the Pro-Life Movement, Hunter Baker. We live in a peculiar time, one in which our society tells us that we need to pick between protecting the lives of the unborn and protecting the lives of other vulnerable groups. Political gamesmanship, of course, exacerbates this false dilemma. The challenge before Christians today isn’t to pick which group of people needs more protection, but to present a robust pro-life position for all people. After all, the struggle against abortion and the struggle against racism are directed toward the same enemy—dehumanization.
What the Word of God Says About the Word of God, Book by Book, Jared C. Wilson. Amazing! If you’re a Christian, you believe that the Word of God has tremendous value. You probably believe that the Bible itself attests to this. But have you ever seen the Bible’s testimony about itself broken down into a book-by-book treatment? Spend some time with this article, and let it propel you to spend more time with the Book of books.
On the Lighter Side
The Five Types of Nicolas Cage Movies, Walt Hickey. Did you know that Nicolas Cage has starred in 72 different movies, only two of which were sequels? We didn’t. As much as we joke about Nic Cage, a candid look at his acting career reveals, alarmingly, that he might actually be really good at what he does. If you love Nic Cage, you’ll love this article. And if you can’t stand him, see if Hickey can’t win you over. (Warning: There is some Cage-level language in here.)
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