Arts and Culture on Talking

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A Gripping Lecture

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Charles Babbage (1792-1871) was a British mathematician and inventor known for his enjoyment of talking. At one particular dinner, Thomas Carlyle, the Scottish polymath was going on and on about the v...

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Of Every Hour We Must Give Account

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Jeremy Taylor

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God hath given to man a short time here upon earth, and yet upon this short time eternity depends: but so, that for every hour of our life (after we are persons capable of laws, and know good from evi...

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Getting Your Money’s Worth

Author

Eugene H. Peterson

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Scripture

Ephesians 5:16, John 9:4, Isaiah 30:15, Habakkuk 2:20, Zechariah 2:13

In the last class I taught at Regent, an obviously irritated young woman came up to me and said, “Dr. Peterson, three times during your lecture you did not say anything for twenty seconds. I know beca...

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“In Silence”

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

Mark 1:35, Isaiah 32:17, Psalm 141:3, James 3:5, Ecclesiastes 5:2, Proverbs 17:28

Archelaus the 5th century (BC) king of Macedon, was once having his hair cut. His barber, quite verbose like many others in his profession, asked King Archelaus how he would like his hair cut. His res...

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All the Knowledge in the World

Author

Clifton Fadiman

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Scripture

James 1:19, Matthew 7:3-5, Romans 12:3

At a dinner party, [The Scottish playwright George Bernard] Shaw sat next to a young man who proved to be a bore of historic proportions. After suffering through a seemingly interminable monologue, Sh...

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Author

Ursula K. Le Guin

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The living human community that language creates involves living human bodies. We need to talk together, speaker and hearer here, now. We know that. We feel it. We feel the absence of it. Speech conne...

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Author

Eric Schmidt

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My guess—and I think this will be debated for a long time—is that humans are very communicative, and so the fact that you’re talking to more people with shorter bursts of communication is probably net...

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Distracted During Prayer

Author

Craig Groeschel

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In the middle of a prayer, whether praying silently or aloud, my mind would bounce from one thing to the next. Dear God in heaven, I pray that you heal my friend who has cancer. Work in her life now i...

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Even Silent Phones Disconnect Us

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Sherry Turkle

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Studies of conversation both in laboratory and in natural settings show that when two people are talking, the mere presence of a phone on the table between them or in the periphery of their vision cha...

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Blessing Instead of Accusations and Insults

Author

Alan Fadling

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Scripture

Proverbs 18:21, Colossians 4:6, James 3:9-10, Proverbs 16:24, 1 Thessalonians 5:11

Watching television news is often painful… So much conflict, so many harsh words, so many accusations and insults in the headlines. Too many people speak to others with disrespect and contempt. A grac...

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The Monk and the Cup of Tea

Author

Ruth Haley Barton

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The story is told of a learned professor who went to visit an old monk who was famous for his wisdom. The monk graciously welcomed him into his temple and offered him a seat on a cushion. No sooner ha...

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Author

Alan Fadling

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The practices of solitude, silence and listening to God started to slow me down and enabled me to focus my attention more and more on coming to Jesus and following him rather than talking about Jesus ...

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Words of a Father

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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How many of you have ever been told that women talk more than men? How many of you have heard this statistic, on average women use 20,000 words a day to men’s 7,000? I know I’ve heard this quote in se...

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Eating Your Gift

Author

Tony Evans

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Scripture

Colossians 3:17, Matthew 25:14-15, 1 Corinthians 12:4-6, Romans 12:6, 1 Peter 4:10, James 1:17

A man who was well-to-do enjoyed buying his father unusual and exotic presents for Christmas.… But one particular Christmas this man found a gift for his father that was truly unique: a talking bird t...

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Having Each Other at a Digital Distance

Author

Sherry Turkle

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In the short term, online communication makes us feel more in charge of our time and self-presentation. If we text rather than talk, we can have each other in amounts we can control. And texting and e...

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Recognizing Privilege (is Hard)

Author

D. L. Mayfield

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Privilege

Talking about affluence and privilege is hard, but it doesn’t have to be. I am continually grateful for the perspectives of people outside my own fold. Like Dr. Martin Luther King, for instance, who t...

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Race Issues Over Coffee

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Melinda Joy Mingo

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One day while drinking coffee, laughing, and sharing stories with one of my best friends, who is white, an unexpected question about race came up. It just popped up out of nowhere as we were talking a...

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The Gospel and the Other: Preaching in an Age of "Us vs. Them"

Author

Andrew DeCort

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Scripture

Luke 10:25-37

When conflict and division are driving both politics and media (including social media), the contrast between the way of the world and the way of Jesus stands out more than ever. How can pastors, task...

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A Christmas with Home Alone

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

Luke 15:20-21, 1 John 1:9, Ephesians 2:13-14, Matthew 5:23-24, Psalm 51:10, 2 Corinthians 5:18, Luke 19:1-10

Richness in the Slapstick I don’t know about you, but when I think of insightful, theologically rich content on Christmas , I don’t naturally start with blockbuster films. And no, I’m not referring ...

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Author

Jay Y. Kim

Keywords

Smart Phones

According to professor and author Adam Alter, the average phone usage among adults rose from eighteen minutes per day in 2008 to two hours and forty-eight minutes per day in 2015. This isn’t because w...

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Pursuing the Common Good Throughout History

Author

Don Everts

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Scripture

Matthew 22:39, Philippians 2:3-4, 1 Corinthians 10:24, Romans 15:1-2, Galatians 6:10, Romans 12:10, Acts 20:35, Matthew 25:35-40, Isaiah 58:6-7, Proverbs 19:17, Luke 10:30-37, James 2:15-16, 1 John 3:17, Proverbs 31:8-9, Matthew 25:40, Acts 11:29-30, 2 Corinthians 8:13-15, Acts 2:44-45, Acts 4:32-35, 1 Corinthians 12:25-26

Pursuing the common good has been a strong marker of the Christian church from the very beginning. The early church had many habits that they became known for, of course—including meeting frequently, ...

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On the Outside Trying to Get Into Christmas

Author

Bill Gaultiere

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Scripture

Matthew 1:18-25, Matthew 1:23-24

Isolated at Christmas It’s an isolating feeling to be on the outside looking in. We’ve all felt it. Some of us especially feel this way at Christmastime. We might relate to Frank Abagnale in the mov...

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The World Is Getting Crowded

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No one likes to talk about human population. Christians in particular are rightly wary of the ways in which population discussions have sometimes served to denigrate the value of human life and the bl...

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The Limiting of God’s Work in the West

Author

Charles Kraft

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In comparison to other societies, Americans and other North Atlantic peoples are naturalistic. Non-Western peoples are frequently concerned about the activities of supernatural beings . . . The wide-r...

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A Post-Christian America?

Author

Phillip Yancey

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The United States is undergoing a marked change in its attitude toward religion, and Christians here face new challenges. When a blogger named Marc Yoder wrote about “10 Surprising Reasons Our Kids Le...

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The Hurry Sickness Disease

Author

John Mark Comer

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Psychologists and mental health professionals are now talking about an epidemic of the modern world: “hurry sickness.” As in, they label it a disease. Here’s one definition: A behavior pattern chara...

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One Potential Pitfall in Reconciliation Movements

Author

Brenda Salter McNeil

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Reconciliation. Let’s be honest. Reconciliation has become a trendy topic of conversation . . . which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. People are talking about it and that’s good. There are gatherings, ...

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Always Make Sure You Are Aiming at the Right Target

Author

Vance Pitman

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If you were lucky enough to watch the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, you probably remember swimmer Michael Phelps bursting onto the international scene. Phelps won six medals in those ga...

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Climbing a Difficult Mountain

Author

Andrew Purves

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Recently I heard a lecture by an English Methodist who is both a scientist and a Christian theologian. He was talking about the scientific debate over the Big Bang, and he used an image that I found q...

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Strange Advice from a Counselor

Author

Annie F. Downs

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My counselor gave me the strangest advice a few months ago. Almost out of the blue, she said, “You should start waiting in the longest lines you can find.” She meant everywhere—at the grocery store, g...

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