Daily Broadside | Start the New Year with a New Habit

Daily Verse | Revelation 15:1
I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues—last, because with them God’s wrath is completed.

Friday’s Reading: Revelation 17-19
Saturday’s Reading: Revelation 20-22

Friday and my last day of blogging in 2022.

As a follower of Christ, I try to read through the Bible each year. It’s my guide to who God is and what He intends for me in Christ.

Question: Is a daily verse and daily reading at the top of the blog helpful to you? Should I keep doing it or nah? Let me know in the comments.

I’m in the process of putting together a short course called “Bible Basics: For the Curious, the Serious and Friends of Tiberius.” During my research I came across these stats in the 2022 State of the Bible report from the American Bible Society:

Nearly four in 10 Americans say they never read the Bible outside of church services or Mass. Another two in 10 say they read it on their own no more than twice a year. That leaves another four in 10 reading on their own at least three times a year (Bible Users). Those who read daily amount to 10 percent of all Americans.

This year’s numbers show a major shift away from personal Bible reading. In the 2021 State of the Bible, there were 29 percent in the “Never” group (now 40%) and 50 percent in the Bible Users collection (now 40%).

[…]

The State of the Bible report also demonstrates what the American Bible Society describes as a “major decrease in Scripture Engagement,” which is defined as “consistent interaction with the Bible that shapes people’s choices and transforms their relationships with God, self, and others.” The estimated number of Scripture-engaged Americans dropped from 64 million in 2021 to 49 million in 2022. At the same time, the estimated number of Bible disengaged Americans rose from 100 million last year to 145 million this year.

In other words, roughly 26 million people had mostly or completely stopped reading the Bible in the last year.

A lack of Bible reading isn’t anything new to American Christians. Six years ago Lifeway Research found, “A third of Americans who attend a Protestant church regularly (32%) say they read the Bible personally every day. Around a quarter (27%) say they read it a few times a week. Fewer say they only read it once a week (12%), a few times a month (11%) or once a month (5%). Close to 1 in 8 (12%) admit they rarely or never read the Bible.”

My question is, why aren’t 100 percent of American Christians reading the Bible daily? Do they not believe it is the guide for all of life and faith? Do they not think they need to read it daily in order to benefit from it? Do they even believe they benefit from reading it? Do they think they know it all? Do they sincerely think they don’t have enough time to read it? Are there more important things to do?

My internal urgency about reading the Bible is that I don’t want to stand before the Unspeakably Holy God some day and admit that I never read the scriptures He provided to shape my thinking and obedience to Him. (I also don’t want to admit to Him that I never tried to practice what I read (I do), but that’s another topic for another day.)

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. — 2 Timothy 3:14-17

There’s your motivation, right there — to “be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Which good works, by the way, “God prepared in advance” for you to do (Ephesians 2:10).

For the last couple of years, I’ve offered my personal One-Year Bible Reading Plan (Cover-to-Cover) to readers of this blog. I’ve done it for several years myself and have tried to tweak it each year to better accommodate the days of reading with the number of chapters required to get through it in one year. 2023 is no exception.

If you haven’t read through the Bible in a year, I encourage you to make 2023 the year you do it. Download, print, and check your progress.

Thanks for reading in 2022. See you in 2023!

Have a good weekend.

Daily Broadside | Leftists Are Going Full Nazi and You Should Pay Attention

Daily Verse | Genesis 50:19
“Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

Thursday’s Reading: Exodus 1-6

Just before publishing I learned that Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), joined all 50 Republicans in voting down the federal voting rights legislation in the Senate. So not everything is awful. But most of it is.

Thursday and if you’ve been keeping up with the Bible reading plan, we’re done with Genesis—and it’s not even the end of January! Hopefully you’re finding new things you hadn’t known before as you read through the scripture. If you’d like to join us on the journey this year, you can download the plan here:

I hope you’re reading it because you need to be sure of Who is unchanging and True in an age of deceit, betrayal and threats to the safety and freedom we’ve taken for granted in the greatest country ever founded. If you’re not sure in whom your ultimate confidence rests, let me jolt you into thinking it through.

Almost half of Democratic voters—48 percent—think the government should be able to fine or imprison individuals “who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines on social media, television, radio, or in online or digital publications.”

This is not the most astonishing finding of a poll just released by Rasmussen. Let’s go through the relevant points: Nearly the same percentage of Democratic voters—47 percent—think the government should be able to put a tracking system, like an ankle monitor or a locked collar, on people who refuse the vaccine. And 45 percent favor putting the unvaccinated in camps. Camps.

More than half of Democratic voters—55 percent—think people who refuse the vaccine should be fined. Fifty-nine percent favor confining all unvaccinated people to their homes. More than a quarter of Democratic voters—29 percent—think that the government should be able to confiscate the children of unvaccinated parents . . .

Is any of this Nazi enough for you yet? You are living next door to the people who would have turned you over to the Comité de salut public for opposing the “Law of Suspects”—the law that authorized the arrest of all suspected enemies of the Revolution and ushered in the Reign of Terror. You are living next door to the people who would have turned you over to the NKVD for “moral sabotage of the Soviet Union.” You are living next door to the people who would have called up the Gestapo and said, “My neighbor is hiding a Jew.”

Examine these historical personages from Revolutionary France or Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany (or Nazi France): It’s not just that they were following orders. On the contrary, they thought they were doing a positive good for society. They were eager to help rid their community of dangerous elements. They were proud of what they did.

Some of your Democratic neighbors will likewise be proud to lock you up, put a tracking collar on your neck, take away your children—all for the public good. These are people who would murder you for the public good. 

This is the poisonous rot that has leeched into our culture over the last few decades. And, lest you think that the government is just rattling their sabers without intent to use them, The US Army is set to conduct a “guerrilla warfare exercise” later this month in North Carolina where troops will battle against “freedom fighters.”

The two week “unconventional warfare exercise” will take from Jan. 22-Feb. 4 on privately owned land in a remote location which remains unknown.

“Called Robin Sage, the exercise serves as a final test for Special Forces Qualification Course training and it places candidates in a politically unstable country known as Pineland,” reports the Charlotte Observer.

“These military members act as realistic opposing forces and guerrilla freedom fighters, also known as Pineland resistance movement,” said the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center.

Maybe they’re just practicing for when they help Ukraine defend itself against Russia?

As Chris Menahan notes, a similar Robin Sage exercise in 2019 showed resistance fighters displaying a flag that says “liberty.”

“They could tell these soldiers they’re battling the Chinese, Russians, Iranians, North Koreans or other foreign enemies but instead they have them training to kill “freedom fighters” with “Liberty” flags,” writes Menahan.

The exercise will do little to dampen concerns that the Biden administration is launching a de facto ‘domestic war on terror’ targeting patriots and Trump supporters.

Oh.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of any good reason for our troops to be war-gaming a battle against us. I mean, besides BLM and Antifa, but they don’t wave the “Liberty” flag. On the other hand, Paul Eaton, a retired U.S. general and a senior advisor to the far-Left VoteVets, has reasons:

Eaton told NPR that military leaders needed to “war-game the possibility of a problem and what we are going to do” while warning that the United States is “compromised… as far as 39% of the Republican Party refusing to accept President Biden as president.” He suggested that a scenario in which the military is “compromised” needs to be “addressed in a future war game held well in advance of 2024.”

Remember when we held war games to fight our enemies rather than to purge our own people?

Eaton, a Hillary Clinton adviser, isn’t however worried about the 33% of Clinton supporters who claimed that Trump was not the legitimate winner right after the election, or the 56% of Democrats who viewed him as illegitimate a year later. Polls actually show that much higher numbers thought that Bush and Trump were illegitimately elected than the number that thought Obama and Biden were illegitimately elected. Should the military be purging Dems or holding “war games” to determine what will happen if Democrats try to live out their coup fantasies?

Hey, how come it’s only conservatives and Republicans that need to be purged?

Notice, too, that Eaton isn’t addressing an uprising with rioting and burning and looting and murder. He’s talking about 39% of Republicans who merely don’t believe Biden was legitimately elected. But that kind of thinking is now a threat that apparently needs to be addressed.

Are you awake? Don’t make the mistake of smugly dismissing all of this because “it can’t happen here.” It is happening here, right before our eyes.

Listen to Brandon and our current or “retired” military leaders when they talk about “domestic terrorists.” Pay attention when your military prepares to battle “freedom fighters.” We need to take them seriously because they’re telegraphing their intent. And you and I are the targets.

Daily Broadside | It’s The End of The Year But Not The End of The Lunacy

Daily Verse | Revelation 16:18-19
Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed.

Friday’s Reading: Revelation 17-19
Saturday’s Reading: Revelation 20-22

It’s Friday and the last day of 2021. I don’t know what 2022 holds, but I expect more of the same as 2021. We still have an illegitimate junta occupying the White House, our country is in economic shambles, the Chinese Lung Pox continues to thrive, China, Russia and Iran are threatening our safety, and creeping Marxism continues to solidify its grasp on the once-great institutions that held our nation together.

It’s not looking good.

That’s why starting each year with a focus on God and his revealed Word is essential to maintaining my sanity and reminding me of what truly matters. When the world burns—and it will—the only thing that remains stable and sure is the eternal God and his Son, Jesus Christ, who “is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

One of the things I started doing this year was adding a “Daily Verse” to the top of every post, and then I started adding the day’s full reading, too. I plan to keep up that practice in 2022, and I invite you to join me in reading through the Bible next year.

Below is the updated Bible reading plan, which runs six days a week, taking you cover-to-cover over the course of the year. If you’ve never done it, I strongly encourage you to do so. Even if you’re not a Christ-following believer, but are curious about the Bible, you’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain by reading through it.

Part of what motivates me to read through the Bible (again and again) is that it is the source of what I say I believe. To say I believe what it tells me but not to know what it says is irrational. Plus, I don’t want to stand before the Lord someday and try to explain why I wasn’t regularly familiarizing myself with his written Word and letting it guide my thoughts and actions.

So, without further fanfare, here’s 2022’s One-Year Bible Reading Plan, developed by yours truly. It starts on Monday, January 3, and finishes on Saturday, December 31. Print it out (you don’t have to print the calendar on the second page to use the plan, but I included it since having a calendar handy is sometimes helpful) and have it ready to start on Monday.

As we pull the curtain on 2021, thank you for reading the blog this year. I sincerely appreciate the kind words, the questions and the comments you sometimes leave for me. My goal is to bring you the latest developments of any consequence in faith, culture and politics, and offer my (admittedly partisan) view on them.

I wish you all a very Happy New Year and look forward to continuing the conversation.

Blessings. Have a good weekend.