History teaches us lessons that we should learn both individually and as a nation. Whether we study the decline of the Athenian democracy in the 5th century BC, the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, or the tragic demise the British Empire, wise American leaders can learn from the decline of these giants of human history. Furthermore, the Bible is filled with narrative history (e.g., 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles), which wise leaders should observe and apply. For most of our national leaders right now, history is irrelevant.

Because of their faith, Jesus transforms a demon-possessed man, a synagogue leader (and his daughter) and a woman with a disease that made her unclean.

One of the surprising consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic with its heightened awareness of human mortality has been an interest in cryopreservation. Two major international corporations—KryoRus, which has operated in Moscow since 2006, and an American corporation, Alcor Life Extension Foundation centered in Scottsdale, Arizona—have received record numbers of inquiries in 2021. In addition, the American Society of Cryonics has been offering support services since 1969 to people interested in preserving their bodies or their brains.

Jesus teaches in parables to reveal truth and to hide truth.

Genuine biblical Christianity is called by its founder, Jesus Christ, to be His salt and light (see Matthew 5:13-16) and to be “in the world but not of the world” (John 17:13-18). We do so by putting on the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-20) with the deep conviction that “He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4). We represent His values, His virtues and His standards. We are to be peacemakers, seeking not vengeance, but justice, mercy and forgiveness (Matthew 5:9; 5:38-48). We are not the agents of chaos, dysfunction or disorder. We love our enemies and forgive them because we have been forgiven (Ephesians 4:32).

As Jesus calls His 12 apostles, the scribes and Pharisees claim that His miracles are done by the power of Satan, not the Spirit, thereby slandering the Holy Spirit of God.

I receive a daily devotional from Chuck Swindoll in my Inbox. Recently his devotional entitled, “Greatness,” focused on “we become what we think.” Indeed, Proverbs 23:7 declares, “For as he thinks within himself, so he is.” He writes: “The secret of living a life of excellence is merely a matter of thinking thoughts of excellence. Really, it’s a matter of programming our minds with the kind of information that will set us free . . . Our minds were originally enemy-held territories. We were blinded by the power of the enemy. The mind was his ‘base of operations’ until the light shone within . . . And what is God’s ultimate goal? To take ‘every thought captive’ . . . His plan is to transform the old thoughts that defeat us into new thoughts that encourage us.”

Jesus’ ministry causes conflict and rejection within the Jewish leadership resulting in the plot to kill Him.

The Tulsa race massacre (aka the Black Wall Street Massacre, the Greenwood Massacre) took place 31 May and 1 June 1921, when mobs of white residents, many of them deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked Black residents and businesses in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma. It marks one of “the single worst incident(s) of racial violence in American history.”

Jesus’ Galilean ministry causes conflict with the leadership of Israel.