Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Jesus Creed

Home
Evangelical
Weekly Meanderings, 3 August 2019

Weekly Meanderings, 3 August 2019

Last updated on: August 3, 2019 at 6:46 am by Scot McKnight

Weekly Meanderings, 3 August 2019 2019-08-03T06:46:12-05:00 Scot McKnight

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

My first MANT cohort completed its final summer week long intensive with lots of sorrow ending the last day. What a wonderful class of students — gifted, devoted, and visionary. We wrote a “collect” together.

Excellent set of insights about Junia by my friend Claude Mariottini:

Junia was the name of a Christian in Rome, a person whose name is mentioned in the letter to the Romans in connection with Andronicus, as being Paul’s relatives, who were in prison with him; they were prominent among the apostles and they were in Christ before he was (Romans 16:7).

However, the gender of the person named Junia is uncertain. Was Junia a man or a woman? If the name Junia is feminine, then she was probably the wife of Andronicus. However, even the various English versions of the Bible do not agree on how to translate the name….

The gender Junia has been debated for centuries. One reason for this debate is ideological, that is, some people believe that a woman could not be an apostle since all the apostles were men. However, the fact that Junia was the name of a woman was a view shared by many of the early Christian writers.

In his thirty-first homily on Romans, Chrysostom declared that Junia was a woman and an apostle. When describing the work of Junia, Chrysostom wrote,

“Who are of note among the Apostles.” And indeed to be apostles at all is a great thing. But to be even amongst these of note, just consider what a great encomium this is! But they were of note owing to their works, to their achievements. Oh! how great is the devotion of this woman, that she should be even counted worthy of the appellation of apostle!

Junia was called an apostle because she was active in proclaiming the message of Christ. The reason Andronicus and Junia were in prison with Paul (Romans 16:7) was because, like Paul, Junia was openly preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Rome. Thus, being a woman, did not prevent Junia from being an apostle and from preaching the Gospel.

Chick-fil-A:

In the United States, two hyphenated fast food joints have sat high upon the thrones of their regional kingdoms. In the West, In-N-Out reigned supreme. In the South, it was Chick-fil-A. Now, a survey has determined which cult favorite takes the crown nationwide. Chick-fil-A has been officially named America’s favorite fast-food restaurant.

A recent report by Market Force, published by Food & Wine, polled 7,600 consumers about their satisfaction level with various chains, and Chick-fil-A ranked the highest, with a 79% “loyalty rating.” In last year’s Market Force report, In-N-Out was America’s favorite for the second consecutive time.

Second place on the best chicken list was Raising Cane’s, a smaller chain located primarily in the South.

Are the baseballs juiced? [Yes]

To this end, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has typically done his best Frank Drebin impression. He was “absolutely confident” the ball wasn’t juiced amid a barrage of homers in the 2017 playoffs. Likewise, he expressed confidence in February that the proliferation of power comes down to “non-ball factors.”

According to Nightengale, however, Manfred did waver a bit by acknowledging a 2018 report that modern baseballs have less “drag” (i.e., resistance) on them while in the air: “When the drag goes down, the ball goes further, and you’re going to have more home runs.”

Which brings us to Rob Arthur, who was first on the case of balls having less drag for FiveThirtyEight back in 2017. Writing for Baseball Prospectus, he’s already done a new study that found nothing has changed in 2019.

The short version is that something is up with the baseball. And anyone who wants to witness the phenomenon firsthand can just as easily go the nearest Triple-A stadium for proof.

In what sure seems like an overdue change, Triple-A clubs are finally using the same type of ball used in The Show. Well, go figure that homers in the Pacific Coast League have jumped from 0.94 per game in 2018 to 1.38 per game so far in 2019. In the International League, the leap is from 0.80 to 1.18.

This complicates things for scouts and prospect hounds. As J.J. Cooper of Baseball Americanoted, they must now contend with how “the difference between the offensive environment in Double-A and Triple-A is so significant that significant allowances will have to be made in evaluating players.”

From a broader perspective, there’s the more existential question of whether so many juiced-ball-aided homers are good for baseball as an institution.

That’s awful:

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign stepped up scrutiny of some applications last year after discovering that Chicago-area parents were relinquishing custody of their children in their junior or senior year of high school, qualifying them for more financial aid than they otherwise would have received.

The practice came to light Monday when ProPublica Illinois and the Wall Street Journal described dozens of cases in which parents in suburban Lake County have turned over guardianship of their children to a family friend or distant relative.

It is not clear how widespread the practice is, but U. of I. had spotted 14 instances over the past year, according to undergraduate admissions Director Andy Borst. That prompted admissions officials to more carefully question those students’ financial situation, requiring more information about, for instance, who pays for their health insurance and other expenses.

A student’s eligibility for school, state and federal financial aid relies on the family’s income and assets declared on a form called the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. When an applicant indicates — and proves through court documents — that he or she is under a legal guardianship, the student becomes financially independent, according to Nyle Robinson, interim executive director of the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

Her secret to living to 107 yrs of age?

(CNN) – A woman who celebrated her 107th birthday on Wednesday shared her secret to living a long life: stay single.

Louise Signore, who lives in the Bronx in New York, maintains a healthy diet and exercises regularly. But she believes the real reason why she’s enjoyed more than a century is because she never tied the knot.

“If they have exercise, I do the exercise. If they have dancing, I dance. I still do a little dancing. After my lunch, I will play bingo, so I had a full day,” Signore told CNN affiliate WCBS.

“I think the secret of 107: I never got married. I think that’s the secret. My sister says, ‘I wish I never got married.'”

The woman’s sister is 102-years-old, WCBS reported, so longevity might run in the family.

Signore celebrated her milestone with a birthday party at the JASA Bartow Community Center in Co-op City, according to WCBS. More than 100 people attended.

Alelia Murphy, 114, currently holds the record for being the oldest living woman in the United States. Murphy lives in Harlem in New York, which is also where Signore was born.

Sedona AZ’s rental crisis grows deeper:

SEDONA, Ariz. (AP) — Sedona, the tourist destination in Arizona’s red rock country, has plenty of homes, including many offered as short-term vacation rentals for visitors.

But the city until recently has discouraged the building of apartments, leaving affordable housing in short supply for municipal employees and workers at hotels and other businesses serving vacationers.

Local officials told the Arizona Republic the shortage has been aggravated by a 2016 state law that forced the city to drop its prohibition on short-term rentals.

The law prohibits municipalities from regulating those home rentals, and that means people can rent their homes to tourists and others via websites such as Airbnb or VRBO.

Sedona had a few hundred vacation rentals before the law took effect, but that number has grown to more than 1,000, or 20 percent of Sedona’s total housing inventory, City Manager Justin Clifton said.

Meanwhile, apartments constitute only 4 percent of its housing. Last year, Sedona changed the rules that had made it difficult to build apartments.

“It’s only been just recently that we figured out that one of the ways to address the affordability issue is to allow for higher density,” Clifton said.

The housing issue makes it difficult for people to keep living in the tourist town.

Where residents used to pay $800 to $900 a month in rent, they’re now paying $1,800 to $1,900 a month, according to City Councilman Scott Jablow.

“How are people supposed to afford that?” he said. “They can’t, so they’re leaving the region.”

From Arizona to Nevada, and it’s hordes of grasshoppers — prophetic stuff:

(Reuters) – Swarms of grasshoppers have descended upon America’s Sin City in unusual abundance this week, disrupting weather radars, deterring tourists and invoking hysteria on social media.

The clouds of buzzing insects, whose migration through the Las Vegas Valley scientists say is the result of a wetter-than- normal winter, were big enough that the National Weather Service detected them on its radar.

“Radar analysis suggests most of these echoes are biological targets. This typically includes birds, bats, and bugs, and most likely in our case…grasshoppers,” the National Weather Service in Las Vegas said on Friday on Twitter.

Such migrations occur every few years and should not cause alarm since the insects are not dangerous, Jeff Knight, state entomologist for the Nevada Department of Agriculture, said on Thursday at a news conference.

Some locals were not placated.

“This is the wildest thing in nature I’ve ever seen,” one resident, Caitlin Sparks, wrote on Twitter on Sunday, posting a photograph of a street lamp illuminating a night sky filled with grasshoppers.

Attracted to ultra-violet light, the insects have been clustering around the city’s brightly lit tourist district, a concentration of resort hotels and casinos along The Strip. The Luxor Sky Beam, a pillar of light that rises from the Luxor Hotel, has attracted huge swarms at night, according to videos posted to Twitter.

Drug companies…

(CNN)Pharmaceutical companies are set to pay nearly $70 million to California over “collusive” deals that kept generic drugs off the market and raised prices, state Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced Monday.

Under such “pay-for-delay” agreements, drugmakers could maintain a monopoly on branded medications after their patents expired, Becerra said. The practices caused consumers “to pay as much as 90% more for drugs shielded from competition,” his office added.

Four settlements were reached with drug companies Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Endo Pharmaceuticals and Teikoku Pharma over the practices, Becerra said. The agreements will allow some consumers to recover costs related to their drugs.

Teva kept a generic of Provigil, a drug used to treat narcolepsy, from entering the market for almost six years, according to Becerra. Part of the $69 million settlement paid by Teva will be used to create a $25 million consumer fund for California residents who purchased Provigil between 2006 and 2012.

Other settlements reached with Teva, Endo and Teikoku were related to a generic version of Lidoderm that was kept off the market for nearly two years. Lidoderm is a patch used to treat shingles-related pain.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

August 1, 2019

The Challenge of John's Vision (RJS)

Next Post

August 4, 2019 Let Your Continual Mercy

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Acts of the Apostles Adam Advent Anabaptism Angels Anglican Apologetics Atonement Baptism BCP Prayers Bible Biblical Studies Birds Blogging Bloglossary Bonhoeffer Books Calvinism Christianity Church Church History Coffee Colossians Commentary Recs Conversion Creation Creeds Culture Death Ecclesiastes Economics Education Embracing Grace Emergent Emerging Movement Eschatology Essays Ethics Eucharist Evangelicalism Family Fasting Fathers Fellowship of Differents Footsteps Tour Fun and Whimsical Gospel Grace Happiness Heaven Hell Holy Spirit Irenaeus James Jesus Jesus Creed Job Justification Kingdom of God Law Lectures Lent Liberalism Love and Marriage Mabanteneni Manhood Mary Miracles Missio Alliance MissioLife Missional Missional Jesus Movies and Film New Perspective Northern Seminary OneLife Origins Project Orthodox Parables Pastor's Spouse Pastoring and Leading Pastoring and Preaching Patristics Paul Paul-John Tour Pharisees Pietism Political Theology Prayer and Formation Preaching Problems for Faith Psalm 119 Psalms Public Issues Purgatory Religions Resurrection Revelation Romans Rule of JCreed Science and Faith Sermon on the Mount Sports Ten Commandments Theology Third Way Top Ten Lists Translations Uncategorized Universalism University Ministry Way Out Weekly Meanderings Wisdom Women and Ministry Work Worship Writing & Blogging Youth Ministry

Select a Month July 2021 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 0000

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which king was famous for his wisdom and built the first temple in Jerusalem?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Rehoboam Solomon Saul David