The Truth About Cancer (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, Inc., 2016)

Cancer is everywhere it seems. A hundred years ago, the odds of experiencing cancer were somewhere around 1 in 80. Today, it’s more like 1 out of 3 will experience it. Why has it increased so drastically? And why aren’t the treatments that are being given to people working as much as we might expect them to?

Ty Bollinger thinks that we are approaching the matter in the wrong way. Big Pharma, using petroleum/chemical based pharmaceuticals, may not be the best way to treat cancer, and may be, in fact, harming us more than we realize.

For centuries, more natural remedies have been utilized to treat illness and disease. But over the last century, we’ve largely abandoned those methods. Is that abandonment justified? And if not, then what can we do to “relearn” some of those helpful approaches to treatment?

Those are some of the questions that Bollinger explores in The Truth About Cancer. And with so many people in my life who have experienced this disease, and died from it, I’m interested in what he has to say about it.

If you are interested in reading The Truth About Cancer, by Ty Bollinger, you can pick up a copy on Amazon.

How To Think: A Survival Guide For A World At Odds (New York: Currency, 2017)

Someone once told me that we live in an age of “dumbing down.” I think he specifically called it the “dumbing down of America.” I suspect there is some truth to that statement, at least to a degree. It’s not that people are dumb; but it’s more of a situation where we have forgotten how to think for ourselves.

This happens at all levels, form the most common of conversations on social media to the halls of academia. I vividly remember a conversation with one of my professors in college. He told me that he wasn’t concerned with originality in our work for his classes as much as he was with the ability to repeat what he had taught us. What I took from that conversation was that if I could regurgitate his notes in my work, I’d get a good grade. And I did. Along with so many others, I was obediently interested in what he told me we wanted me to learn, and not much else.

I get it. He was teaching a specific topic, and we needed to learn that subject matter. But I think I could have learned it better if thinking and exploring were more encouraged than just repeating what he said in class.

A further problem is that when we don’t think and reason about things, we substitute emotion and feelings. This is why so much is said on social media that we might never say in a physical, vocal conversation. Instead of objective conversation, we turn to subjective feelings, and we let them drive our speech.

So what do we do about it? Maybe, just maybe, we need to relearn how to think. We need to learn how to use our cognitive reasoning abilities to assess our lives and circumstances. It will be hard, because these thinking muscles haven’t been used in a while for most of us. And it will take time. But I think it might help us avoid so many of the problems that we face as a culture, and lead us out of the chaos.

If you are interested in reading How To Think, by Alan Jacobs, you can pick up a copy on Amazon.

Have you ever had an epiphany? One of those moments when a light bulb goes on in your mind, in a major way? I had one of those a few days ago when I made some changes to the way I read and study the biblical text in my Logos software.

I was reading through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, and I turned off all the extraneous stuff that you find in most printed Bibles: the verse and chapter markers, the subheadings, the cross references. I was reading the letter in much the same way that the Ephesian people would have experienced it. And I noticed something significant in the context and flow of the letter in what we view as chapters 5 and 6.

There are two famous passages in those chapters, one on marriage, and the other on spiritual warfare. With the headings removed, the context of the letter allowed those two passages to be seen in a completely different relationship. All of a sudden, I saw that marriage might be one of the most intense areas of spiritual warfare that we experience.

About Random Ramblings:

Random Ramblings are just that: they are random, and I’ll probably ramble. It’s an opportunity to share a little about what’s going on in my mind. From resources, to things I’m thinking about or studying from Scripture, to fun stuff, I hope these ramblings can be a fun part of your day. These brief videos will be shared here and on my YouTube channel. You can jump over there to subscribe for only video updates, or subscribe here to be notified of posts of all kinds.

Links:

Logos Bible Software
The Meaning of Marriage by Tim Keller
Defending Your Marriage by Tim Muehlhoff

This quarantine and social isolation has really been a difficult time for many. As a minister, I have found it to be both a very difficult experience, and a very enlightening one. In this episode, I share a few of the things I’ve realized during this time.

I have leaned a few lessons in at least three areas. The first area is my family. This isolation has given us the opportunity to prioritize family time in greater ways than we have been able to recently, in various ways, like family movie nights, and more meals together. The second area affects my role as a minister and the church I serve. How we approach the process of canceling service, and now reopening them, has been an eye-opening experience. The third area… Well, you’ll need to watch the video to find out what it might be.

The crazy thing is that God can use even times like these to make himself known to us in ways that we might not have ever noticed. I have seen God do some pretty amazing things in my life an din the lives of those around me during this time. What has he been doing in your life through this quarantine? Have you been watching?

About Random Ramblings:

Random Ramblings are just that: they are random, and I’ll probably ramble. It’s an opportunity to share a little about what’s going on in my mind. From resources, to things I’m thinking about or studying from Scripture, to fun stuff, I hope these ramblings can be a fun part of your day. These brief videos will be shared here and on my YouTube channel. You can jump over there to subscribe for only video updates, or subscribe here to be notified of posts of all kinds.

Links:

Ozark Christian College (Mug I’m using)