One of my pet goals is to encourage people to read more. Trevin Wax, who makes it a goal to read 100 books each year, offers seven tips for setting reading goals. All are helpful and worthwhile but I especially like his second point: Read everywhere. Wax writes:

 

Waiting for a haircut? Read. Waiting at the doctor’s office? Read. Going on a trip? Read. Watching TV? Read. Taking a bath? Read. Getting dressed in the morning? Listen to an Audio Book while you’re combing your hair, brushing your teeth, taking a shower. Boring sermon? Read. (Just kidding on that last one… although I will admit that as a kid I used to read Scripture if the preacher was making me sleepy.) Get in the habit of reading anywhere and everywhere.

 

It seems with the great leaps made in mobile technology the last few years, people now play video games/text/tweet/etc. in situations where they used to read. Technology is great but we could probably all stand to gain a little if we put our iPhones away and pack a book the next time we run errands.

 

From alert reader Michelle: Pro-choice columnist Sally Jenkins on the Tim Tebow Superbowl ad controversy:

 

Tebow's 30-second ad hasn't even run yet, but it already has provoked "The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us" to reveal something important about themselves: They aren't actually "pro-choice" so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.

 

Pam Tebow and her son feel good enough about that choice to want to tell people about it. Only, NOW says they shouldn't be allowed to. Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikinis selling beer is the right one.

 

My life long dream of being like Spiderman is closer than ever.

 

President Obama’s consistently inconsistent rhetoric.

 

Unknown and incredible natural phenomena.

 

The saddest Haitian earthquake story yet.

 

Albert Mohler reviews a fascinating new book on how pornography “hijacks” the male brain. He writes:

 

But, even as technology has brought new avenues for the transmission of pornography, modern knowledge also brings a new understanding of how pornography works in the male brain. While this research does nothing to reduce the moral culpability of males who consume pornography, it does help to explain how the habit becomes so addictive.

 

As William M. Struthers of Wheaton College explains, "Men seem to be wired in such a way that pornography hijacks the proper functioning of their brains and has a long-lasting effect on their thoughts and lives."

 

It took how many scientists to figure this out? The best way to get a good night’s sleep – duh!

 

It took how many scientists to figure this out? Exercise is good. More is better.

 

Jesse Wisnewski of Reformed and Reforming does a good job of defending paedobaptism using the argument from silence.

 

Bill Watterson, the reclusive but genius creator of Calvin and Hobbes, grants his first interview in over twenty years. 

 

Tim Challies reviews Evidence of the Afterlife, the latest NYT bestseller dealing with near death experiences (NDE’s). Challies writes:

 

Looking at all of this evidence, and having determined that there is, indeed, an afterlife, Long says “Because NDEs happen to people all over the world, they are a spiritual thread that binds us together, a common experience that reminds us of our mutual spiritual nature.” Later he writes, “This book has important implications for religion. The great religions have always spoken of the belief in God and an afterlife. The evidence of near-death experiences points to an afterlife and a universe guided by a vastly loving intelligence. Near-death experiences consistently reveal that death is not an end but rather a transition to an afterlife. This is a profoundly inspiring thought for us all and for our loved ones. I hope that this book helps to promote such an encouraging message.” He even feels that an understand of our common end in the afterlife ought to be able to bridge us to worldwide peace.

 

Stuff and nonsense. Let me know how that works out for you, Dr. Long. World peace through NDEs may be one of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard in a long time. Of course as a Christian I have to grapple with asking exactly what a NDE is. It seems irrefutable that many people, when gravely injured and often when clinically dead, do experience something. The accounts are too common and too consistent to ignore entirely. So we see that such experiences do appear to exist and that they seem to lead directly away from what the Bible teaches us. What recourse do we have, then, but to state with some confidence that these experiences are somehow a trick of Satan? And would it not be just like the Enemy to use such an experience to convince people of their own divinity–to lead people as far from what is true as is possible? I am persuaded that NDEs do exist but that they exist to deceive, to provide false comfort, to provide false hope, to enslave, to trap, to destroy.