Spied!
Spies are having a difficult time these days.
Those cloak-and-dagger days of yesteryear are gone, when one could produce a false passport, slap on a wig, wiggle a false mustache, and slip into a country with panache. No longer.
Said retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, ex-director of the Defense Intelligence Agency:
In the 21st century, you can’t do any of that because of biometrics.”
What with iris scans and facial recognition software, life is tough now for the old school
Vision!
There’s a new Bond movie on the horizon: Spectre. Maybe that’s why “Science for the Masses” announced a recent finding that sounded like it came right out of Q’s lab.
I know nothing about Q’s lab, Fleming’s fictional R&D division of the British Secret Service. Nor do I know anything about “Science for the Masses” that describes itself thus:
Science for the Masses is a research group [operating out of Tehachapi, California] composed of professionals
Genesis 13:1−14:24
Correction of faithless behavior and return to faithful obedience to God’s demand, trusting in God’s sovereign timing to keep his word, results in divine blessing.
There is a clear sense in which Abram’s departure from Egypt in Gen 13 is a positive event—a return to the sphere of divine blessing, for there are allusions to the exodus of the Israelites from that land: Abram “goes up from Egypt” (13:1; and Exod 17:3; Num 20:5; 32:11; etc.); he is enriched in Egypt
Beard!
It’s puzzling (to some) that more men are sporting beards these days—“one of the great mysteries of the age,” said one.
Prof. Cyril Grueter and his colleagues at The University of Western Australia in Perth may have found the answer, which they published recently in Evolution and Human Behaviour (“Are Badges of Status Adaptive in Large Complex Primate Groups?”).
Here it is: Men are under pressure from other men and are trying to look aggressive by growing flamboyant
Life!
She celebrated her 104th birthday this week. Elizabeth Sullivan of Fort Worth.
Well at 103 I didn’t think I’d make it, but I’m still perking along.”
And yes, she needs a doctor. Three of them, in fact. But not the kind with MD next to their names. She needs Dr. Pepper!
People try to give me coffee for breakfast. Well, I’d rather have a Dr. Pepper.”
The good lady began imbibing said soft drink about forty years ago. Three a day. Yup, THREE! Three Dr. Peppers every
Steve Mathewson: How I Preach
Steve Mathewson: And this is How I Preach …
[Steve’s been a fixture in the camp of serious thinkers of preaching. Particularly on preaching Old Testament narrative, this man’s wisdom is worth tapping. And his three decades of preaching experience have given him an abundance of that rare commodity. We shared a conference session last year at the Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. The gracious and kindly soul he is, he consented to participate
Stars!
They found dust. Yup, dust! Two billion-plus light years away.
Dust is actually quite important in the formation of the universe—planets and stars. But apparently there wasn’t any in the beginning, at the time of the Big Bang (about 14 billion years ago, they say). The early galaxies had only gas, mostly hydrogen and helium (plus dark matter).
Dust—carbon (fine soot) or silicates (fine sand). When stars get old and die as supernovas, the explosions release cosmic dust.
Abe Kuruvilla is the Carl E. Bates Professor of Christian Preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY), and a dermatologist in private practice. His passion is to explore, explain, and exemplify preaching.