Some of the noteworthy posts found this week:

Your Fig Leaves Are Showing! Why Your Christian Home Is not as Close as it Should Be. Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together to cover the shame they felt after they sinned. “That ancient impulse hasn’t changed. Sin still causes shame. Shame still creates barriers. And we still reach for fig leaves. Today, our fig leaves are more sophisticated.”

Transhumanism, Christian Productivity, and Why I Don’t Use the Term “Second Brain.” I’ve been concerned about the transcendence of AI affecting our ability to think and process. But I didn’t realize those behind it have a larger plan. “Forte’s ultimate vision for personal knowledge management is a digital Tower of Babel. This is the philosophy of transhumanism. And it might sound a little kooky at first until you realize he is far from the only one who thinks this way about technology and personal improvement.”

Everything Matters. “Just mark it down right now: the devil is a liar. He says our sin is so small that it won’t affect us, and our good works are so insignificant that they won’t impact anyone else. But there is no such thing as an action without a reaction. In God’s kingdom, everything matters. Here’s how…”

Did Abraham Get Away with Lying? I had never realized all these ramifications of Abraham’s lies.

Ansel Adams, AI, and the Essence of Creation, HT to Challies. “It seems to me that part of the essence of true creation is labor, striving, wrestling, and overcoming. It calls forth the virtue of courage to beat back the doubts and insecurities and fears, and surge up something fresh and true. It demands a presence in the world, a willingness to interact with creation and people, to touch things and be affected viscerally. This is true whether your creation is painting or photography or film or poetry or fiction or nonfiction. The human element matters.”

Singing Anyway, HT to Challies. “I do not doubt that each of the kids singing on stage had reasons not to sing. There were likely moms who forgot to make Easter baskets, dresses that felt too tight, shirt tags that itched, parents who were fighting in the kitchen that morning, and siblings who were annoying during the ride to the service. But they showed up anyway. They sang anyway. And because they decided to show up and sing, countless people were moved toward a posture of praise.”

Christian Cultural Bias in Missions is a Real Challenge. “Missionaries are tempted to recreate the church culture they admire back home. One reason this happens is that they have not taken the time to understand the differences between their cultural Christian experiences back home and what the Bible actually teaches. They don’t realize how much their idea of what a local church should look like comes from cultural expectations or simple habits (often unconscious).”

What’s Going On In Your Pastor’s Mind? “It is one of the strengths, or perhaps one of the weaknesses, of the human mind that it can have different “tracks” playing at the same time. Even as one series of words is emerging from a person’s mouth, an entirely different series of words may be flitting through his brain. He can have an entire monologue playing internally, even as another is playing externally.”

What if God ruined your plans
so your plans wouldn’t ruin you?
J. C. Ryle