Mean?
A recent study in Scientific Reports, “Evolution of Moral Expression in Song Lyrics,” from researchers at Queen Mary University, London, and Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, claimed pop songs were getting meaner!
They analyzed the lyrics of several hundred thousand English-language songs, comparing two separate datasets, one from 1960 to 2010, and the other from 2011 to 2023. Expressions of immorality—things like harm, cheating, and rule-breaking—have, apparently,
Revenge?
National Public Radio (NPR) revently conducted an interview with attorney, James Kimmel, Jr., lecturer in psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, and author of The Science of Revenge.
Maybe a car cuts you off in traffic. Hey, let’s do the same thing to him at the next light. Apparently, we are rewarded by our brains for such revenge!
Kimmel:
Neuroscience has shown that revenge activates the same area of the brain that activates for substance use disorders, for, you know,
Internalization!
One might think, or have heard others exhort, that keeping a stiff upper lip and not bothering others with one’s troubles is a sign of strength and resilience. One would be wrong, according to “Stress Internalization Is a Top Risk for Age-Associated Cognitive Decline among Older Chinese in the U.S.,” published in The Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease, by scientists from Rutgers and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
The study followed 1,528 Chinese
Lying!
Study Finds, an independent agency consolidating interesting scientific studies and results, recently reported on an interesting piece of research recently, that sought to compare states in the USA and rank them based on fraud reports and on how many people confessed to lying.
Coming in at #1 was Nevada, America’s most deceitful state, with almost 60,000 fraud reports filed in 2024. Nearly one in five residents admitting they lie often in ye olde state.
But the big surprise
Psalm 6:1–10
Stricken with frailty and debility, terrified by impending mortality, dissolved by grief, and assailed by opportunists and opponents, the child of God makes bold to beseech God in persistent prayer for the gracious intervention of his lovingkindness, with the confidence that God will hear and take action.
In Psalm 6, there is evidence of divine wrath (“anger,” “rebuke, “fury,” and “chasten” in 6:1), of physical infirmity (“frail,” “heal me,” and “bones”
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.