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Magazine, Past Issue
Mar/April 2025 issue
WHAT'S INSIDE: Christians don't retire / Free video series to protect families from porn / Tariffs are terrible economics: why Canada shouldn't hit back / Aged saints can tell you what your peers don't know or won't say / Planning for retirement / More time to pray: Martin & Christina Veenstra on retirement in your nineties / Necessary Endings: finding the courage to let go in business, church, and family / "Can You Build it?" contest winners / Life in bloom: the gift of flowers / A century of cinema for your family: 20+ films to take you and your kids through the 100 years of feature films / Euthanasia changed the abortion battle / Why write? / How to write... for Reformed Perspective / Fiction for tween and teen boys / Chang Shen: grace to persevere / Are there little green men? / Come + Explore God's majestic microverse / and more!
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News
Saturday Selections – Mar. 15, 2025
House of David show is making things up
Wretched TV's Todd Friel doesn't hold back on Amazon's new biblically-based series about King David. His arguments are both theological and practical. Even the best-intentioned scriptwriters, in writing a series about the family life of David, will need to make all sorts of stuff up.
Even for events that the Bible lays out in more detail, as happens with The Chosen, which has four Bible books to work with, they still have to make all sorts of things up.
The indiscipline of overwork
I read this at first thinking it was by a Christian (it probably isn't) because it just made so much sense: don't abuse the gifts God has given you.
What Spiderman got right and Wicked got wrong
Today's stories – the movies (and books too) that Christians will feed their children – are more and more often blurring good and evil. As John Stonestreet writes:
"In Maleficent, the bad queen is working through her trauma of not being invited to Sleeping Beauty’s christening. In Wicked, the wicked witch is a victim of discrimination and corruption. Likewise, Mufasa explores the sympathetic backstory of Scar and offers good reasons why he became evil. In this brave new world, the heroes and villains aren’t all that different after all."
As dissenters exit, the CRC resists same-sex affirmation
We can praise the Lord that the CRC seems to be taking steps back from liberalism, which has been made easier by the exit of some of the most liberal congregations. But while these congregations' exit is something to rejoice over, they need our prayers that God may yet turn them back from their sinful arrogance. And we should pray, too, that the Lord will keep us from succumbing to arrogant pitfalls of our own devising (1 Cor. 10:12.).
Besides being our new prime minister, who is Mark Carney?
ARPA Canada on Carney's view of government, and what values he thinks should guide it.
Trump's tariffs didn't help the US last time he was in power
The last time Trump was in office, he implemented tariffs then too. And while it helped the American steel industry, it hurt the other parts of the American economy that use steel: car manufacturers, construction companies, washing machine makers, and more. All of them had to raise their prices and, consequently, saw fewer sales than they might have otherwise. So, as this video explains, America's tariffs hurt their country much more than they helped it. That means our former prime minister Justin Trudeau got one thing right when he said tariffs are "dumb."
But if tariffs are dumb, why would Canada try to counter them with our own dumb tariffs? And export tariffs on our energy? That's akin to punching yourself in the face to save the bully the trouble. Free, unfettered trade – on our part, even if others don't reciprocate – recognizes that what Canadian citizens produce and what they buy is their business. A government that thinks it should limit what cheese you can buy is a government that recognizes no limitations to its reach.
Today's Devotional
March 21 - Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth
“Like a flower of the grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.” - James 1:10b-11
Scripture reading: Matthew 6:19-34
Wealth can be very deceptive. Because in this world, money is the measure of >
Today's Manna Podcast
Where is your Security?
Serving #788 of Manna, prepared by Greg Bylsma, is called "Where is your Security?" and is based on Luke 12:16-34.
