Honestly! (May 3, 2021)
How important is our integrity in daily life to God? Is it really necessary? That’s my questions to consider for this week’s message.
Introducing Zippy the Wonder Snail
Yes, it was inevitable: my partner-in-OFB-and-Bible-study-crime Jason and I are now podcasters. 🥳 Check out Episode 1 of Zippy the Wonder Snail at ZippytheWonderSnail.com. We talk on the Gospel of John, Taylor Swift’s Folklore, blogging and even NFT’s. It’s already available on Spotify, TuneIn and Amazon Music podcast directories; Apple’s Podcast Connect has been down for the week, so it isn’t there yet, but will be when it can be.
The End of the (Real) Cold War (April 26, 2021)
As we wrap up “alive,” we find that the resurrection speaks to more than just us having a body again: it speaks to restoration for the world.
52 Verses, 52 Books, 52 Weeks (Week 17: Colossians)
We turn this week to Colossians, where we consider worldly philosophies and how they are different from wisdom we learn in the world.
Apple's M1 and the Spring Forward Apple Event
Joel Hruska over at ExtremeTech:
Apple couldn’t position the M1 this way if it wasn’t an excellent CPU in its own right. The M1’s dramatically higher efficiency and improved performance relative to x86 allowed Apple to standardize on a single CPU core across a wide range of products and price points. This is in complete opposition to the way PCs are traditionally positioned.
If you haven’t tried an M1-based Mac, it is hard to imagine precisely how good it is. But, put it this way: it can run many native “Apple Silicon” programs as well as many non-native, still targeted for Intel processor programs at least as fast as current high end MacBook Pros that are still running Intel’s processors. For example, Final Cut Pro and OBS Studio can both run at least as well on a much cheaper M1 system as they do on a $3,000 MacBook Pro; highly targeted apps that use machine learning, like Pixelmator Pro, run better on the M1.
Essentially, Apple is saying, “what you spend on a system should primarily be about what type of computer you want (laptop, desktop, all-in-one), how big of display you want, what extra features you want, not if you want a fantastically fast processor or not.” This is very similar to the approach Apple has taken on the iPhone for a number of years; the base iPhone 12 offers the same years-ahead-of-the-competition processing performance as the highest end, most souped up and most eye-wateringly expensive iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Leaving the Social Media Stockyard
The Promise of the Internet was Decentralized Content. Let's Return to It.
Over on Open for Business I argue that it is time for us to return to taking the blogosphere seriously and start to see it as the first place we post, instead of being “social media first” like so many of us are. In doing so, we address some of the biggest concerns both the Right and Left express about social media and we return to the heart of the Internet’s decentralized promise:
It is time we took back control. A healthier Internet need not be free of social media, but it must have far more decentralized interaction from us, so social providers have to actually compete for our attention. The blogosphere offers the path to that better Internet.
My current and former blogosphere compatriots… let’s do this.
What is a Resurrection Body? (April 19, 2021)
What does it mean to be resurrected? We have lots of ideas, but are they what God is actually promising? As we continue through 1 Corinthians 15 this week, we get to that central point — and struggle — with the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. It’s so important to understand so that we can approach life and death with the hope God gives us.
52 Verses, 52 Books, 52 Weeks (Week 16: Joel)
Do the Bible’s prophecies of the end times tell us anything in our present situations? Yes, yes, indeed they do and I think about that as I turn to Joel this week. One of the things I really like about doing this 52 week journey wherein each week we look at a different book of the Bible is that it is making me share from books of the Bible I don’t turn to very often, such as Joel. But all of God’s Word is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16 ESV) and the book of Joel has reassuring things for us to hear!
Spare Parts of Belief? (April 12, 2021)
This week on Steadfast, I looked at the promise of resurrection for each of us. Many in our society would accept a lot of Jesus’ teachings and yet discount the resurrection as just a comforting myth to help us cope with death. Paul has speaks very clearly in the next part of 1 Cor. 15 on why that cannot be.
52 Verses, 52 Books, 52 Weeks (Week 15: Exodus)
Melanie takes on the next part of our this Week at Little Hills devotional series, this time turning us to Exodus for encouragement about the God who is there with us throughout life. Take a listen — you’ll be encouraged!
