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Joel Arnold

Every Tribe & Tongue

Blog

Don’t Lie.

Don’t Lie.

Sometimes you run across philosophy and theology in unexpected places because both are everywhere. In the middle of Friday’s subscriber event with the Economist, Edward Carr answered a question with penetrating insight: Question: Do you think Putin, who compares himself to Peter the Great, believes his own lies? Edward Carr: “At some point, with these leaders, it doesn’t matter—the truth or not...

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Be a Truth-Lover.

Be a Truth-Lover.

I understand that passions are at an extreme high right now. I also understand that the political conversation space is over-saturated and at this point, simply exhausting. I also understand that my voice has little to offer the conversation and even if it did, very few people are still forming opinions. So I’m going to address just one concern and direct it specifically to Christians: However...

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Bible study resources for kids

Bible study resources for kids

Given our stage of life (four children under 10), we are regularly asked what children’s Bibles or resources are most useful. Sarah Arnold wrote the criteria we use to decide what stays on our bookshelves and regularly in use: I stick to books that follow the essential line of Scripture. Wording differently from Scripture is not the same as saying more than Scripture says. Stories that sound...

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Is there a Pattern to the Bible’s Miracles?

Is there a Pattern to the Bible’s Miracles?

Even a brief read through the Bible reveals many miracles. It’s easy to walk away with the impression that the storyline of Scripture is just one miracle after another. And to be sure, miracles happen a lot—around 265 specific passages (though a number of these record the same miracles several times such as in the gospels or in the OT historical books). But it’s not as much as you think—not in...

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Set a Streak; Change your Habits; Change your Life

Set a Streak; Change your Habits; Change your Life

Normal humans have things they don’t like about themselves. They also have the ability to project into the future and imagine a different self that they want to be. The problem of the ages, of course, is how to bridge the gaping chasm between the two. But there’s a behavioral hack. An intriguing human phenomenon is that we save emotional, motivational, and decision-making energy by defaulting to...

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Daily love notes, Drafts and iOS Widgets

Daily love notes, Drafts and iOS Widgets

Don’t think that I can combine saccharine, cringy romance with nerdy tech? Watch me. So I’m a fan of accumulating small steps in a big way by doing it EVERY… SINGLE… DAY. And I had this ambition to write my wife a 1–2 sentence love note every day as part of my morning routine. But if it isn’t frictionless I’ll fall out of the habit. How to make that maintainable? What about when traveling? What...

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2020—What a Beautiful Time to Be Alive

2020—What a Beautiful Time to Be Alive

For the sake of those living on the North Pole or the International Space Station and who had their internet disconnected for the last 9 months, let me catch you up some current events: 2020 has been a bit of a rough patch. For the rest of us, I suspect, we need no such updates. We’re living it. Most life-shaping crises unfold on the personal and local levels; occasional developments afflict...

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Review of Logos 9

Review of Logos 9

Summary It’s not typical to start with a summary. But most likely you are here because you own Logos 7 or 8 and you want to gauge whether Logos 9 is worth the investment. So I’ll start with a survey of the main things you’ll get in order of my personal excitement. If you care to get more details, these are also the main headings below. Much-improved integration and deep linking between...

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Dump the Powerpoint—Why I Use Non-Linear Presentations

Dump the Powerpoint—Why I Use Non-Linear Presentations

While I was teaching a decade ago at a large university, one year’s annual faculty in-service focused on using technology in the classroom. This essentially boiled down to getting all the teachers to use Powerpoint. “Students these days are visual,” the argument went, “and they struggle to learn unless you also have a presentation.” Predictably, the following semester saw a burgeoning of...

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What will be left when the dust settles?

What will be left when the dust settles?

At the outset of the present quarantine, everything was bizarre, electric, and controversial. People filled their time arguing over lethality, R₀ rates, and balancing lives with dollars. But the shock, the novelty and the drama are wearing off now. What about when quarantine just turns into a long, dull, wait? Managing terror is one thing. What about managing boredom? More significantly, how...

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