Longevity?
Well, you can forget that old dictum about avoiding chocolate as being bad for you. Go ahead and eat chocolate, folks, you will live longer.
Praise the Lord!
Heart (an imprint of the British Medical Journal) published a study last year that found that eating up to 100 grams (about 4 ounces, a quarter pound!) helps lower risk of heart disease and strokes. Wow! A quarter pound of chocolate. That’s 20 Hershey’s kisses!
“Habitual Chocolate Consumption and Risk of Cardiovascular
Genesis 26:1−33
God’s blessings are sure, and obviate any need to secure them by retaliating against opposition.
Isaac finds himself in a famine, God tells him to remain where he is, in Gerar (26:1–3), and Isaac and his descendants are also promised blessing and land.
What happens next is odd: In 26:7–11, Isaac passes off his wife, Rebekah, as his sister, fearing for the safety of his own life from the hoi polloi who might seek to appropriate Rebekah. Was this fear justified?
Phobia?
Apparently 30% of American adults are apprehensive, or have been or will be at some point in their lives. And the root cause seems to be the memories they carry. An event that scared you, or scarred you, is remembered vividly and fearfully. And everyone thought that these emotional kind of memories, of panic and fear and guilt, were permanently inscribed on the papyri of our brains.
Well, there is hope on the horizon. Research from the University of Amsterdam published
Attention!
We’ve always been told about the goldfish and its tiny span of attention. Well, we might be doing that gill-bearing aquatic creature an injustice. Humans, apparently, have an attention span less than that of aforementioned Carassius auratus.
Microsoft recently published a study done in Canada (they employed both surveys for 2,000 people and EEG scans for another 100) that showed that average attention span of humans has fallen precipitously in the last fifteen years.
Jerry Vines: How I Preach
Jerry Vines: And this is How I Preach …
[Jerry Vines is at the forefront of anything to do with preaching, particularly in the Baptist tradition. Author of a number of preaching books, he’s also twice been the President of the Southern Baptist Convention, steering it into a more conservative organization. Jerry has been in the pastorate for over five decades, preaching regularly (he delivered his first sermon in 1950!). Since retiring in 2005, he continues to maintain
Departure!
We’ve all heard of “destination weddings.” Now there is another eclectic ritual on the scene: “destination funerals.” Held not in churches or such places, but in gardens, sports arenas, lakes, the beach, on sea, etc. No more the traditional hearse. We now have buses, and even motorbikes. Congregants are also being encouraged to abandon the traditional attire of black or other somber color. Soccer shirts and fancy dress attire are in vogue now.
Said Sam Kershaw,
Curdled!
“Bloodcurdling Movies and Measures of Coagulation: Fear Factor Crossover Trial,” by Banne Nemeth, Luuk J. J. Scheres, Willem M. Lijfering, and Frits R. Rosendaal—from Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands.
Around Christmas every year, that gravitas-laden institution called the British Medical Journal puts out a few frivolous articles, albeit carefully researched, well written, and peer reviewed. The aforementioned note by Nemeth, Scheres, Lijfering,
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.