I haven’t been online much this week, but here are a few good reads I’ve found:

The News Media Is Broken. What Now? HT to Challies. “I explained to my friend that I’d spent the last few years consuming news from both sides of the aisle, hoping to figure out what was going on. I complained that it hadn’t worked. ‘Instead of just being confused,’ I said, ‘I’m also exhausted and angry. Who can I trust to report the truth?’ I didn’t expect his response. ‘Mike, it’s worse than you think, and I’m more frustrated than you are.'”

Ashamed of the Gospel, HT to Challies. “I trusted in Jesus and his payment for my sins, but the thought of approaching a stranger (or anyone really) to evangelize left my stomach queasy. I read stories of people who unnerved passersby and their loved ones with constant questions like, ‘Where will you spend eternity?’ I could not relate. Besides writing about my Christian faith on social media, my evangelism was non-existent.”

5 Ways to Be Sincerely Kind to Someone You Disagree With, HT to Challies. “Kindness in dialogue is powerful, especially when we are speaking with someone we disagree with. Kindness opens up not only relational doors but intellectual doors. In other words, it helps us not only to like each other more but to understand each other better.”

What Does the Bible Say About Manifestation and the Law of Attraction? “Many Christians don’t recognize that these seemingly harmless exercises usually rest upon a philosophy that has permeated the world of self-development. It is a philosophy that runs contrary to what God’s Word says and contains spiritually dangerous teachings. Still, many believers seeking to pursue self-development have adopted its practices without realizing what they are getting into. I’m talking about the philosophy manifestation”

What To Do Before You Read the Bible, HT to Knowable Word. “There is one aspect that I find myself attending to with more focus than I have before: the pre-workout warmup. . . . As I have grown in Christ and sought to challenge myself to embody Paul’s charge not just to train my body, but, more importantly, to “train yourself for godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7), I have learned that in my spiritual training, I need a warmup routine as well.”

Praying for Daniels, HT to Challies. “Since the election, I’ve been convicted to pray for God to raise up “Daniels”- men who understand the times and know what our country should do- on both sides of the aisle. We need to pray for gifted men and women with character who are capable, competent, and able to solve difficult problems.”

Unless humility precede, accompany, and follow every good action which we perform, being at once the object which we keep before our eyes, the support to which we cling, and the monitor by which we are restrained, pride wrests wholly from our hand any good work on which we are congratulating ourselves. All other vices are to be apprehended when we are doing wrong; but pride is to be feared even when we do right actions, lest those things which are done in a praiseworthy manner be spoiled by the desire for praise itself.–Augustine