Kerby Anderson
Now that we are in the last month of the year, let me recommend what you may want to plan to do in 2025. I would recommend you read through the Bible in one year. Here are two resources from Pastor Jack Graham that will help you do that.
First, he is the author of the new book, The Jesus Book. He provides ten chapters that will help you read through the Bible. He begins by helping us understand that we can trust the Bible, and then provides a big picture of the Bible. He provides chapters on how reading the Bible can provide hope and reassurance. It can also help you discern God’s will for you.
Pastor Graham gives you guidance for how to read the Bible daily with a practical approach to Bible study. He quotes from an applications pyramid found in the Life Application Study Bible. As you study God’s Word, you will need to focus on the: people, place, plot, point, principles, present, parallels, person, and plan. He also reminds us of the Bereans, who are described in Acts 17 as people who searched the Scriptures daily. We need consistency in reading God’s Word.
A second resource comes from the podcast, The Bible in a Year with Jack Graham. It can be found at the official BibleinaYear.com podcast, which you can find with the Apple or Spotify podcast apps. In each episode, you will learn how to apply these biblical principles to your life. The audio provides you with a reading of the key passage, along with some dramatic material and orchestral music. That is followed by a profound commentary from Pastor Graham.
Reading the Bible through the year will be a rewarding experience for you. Of course, you don’t have to wait until January 1 to get started. You can start right now. Let’s get started.

Penna Dexter
Many times, over the past decade or so, I have muttered under my breath: “The Emperor Has No Clothes.”  The phrase of course is from Hans Christian Anderson’s tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” in which dishonest “tailors” provide a vain king with garments, clothes that don’t actually exist. The swindlers explain that they are weavers of fabric that would be “invisible to anyone who was unfit for his office, or who was unusually stupid.” Naturally, the king buys in. The townspeople timidly go along with the charade, praising the nude emperor’s outfits. One day, as the emperor’s entourage carries his fake train, a little boy calls out the truth that no one else dared admit, “…he hasn’t got anything on.”
In a recent column, The Wall Street Journal’s Gerard Baker pointed to this year’s election as an “’Emperor’s New Clothes’ event” where voters repudiated a “regime of oppressive insanities.” He listed five of the most destructive and unpopular strictures:
First, that we are somehow obligated to grant “people who have stolen into this country” many privileges of citizenship and — contrary to our laws —  to give them “sanctuary.”
Second, “to ‘save the planet’,” we must severely limit our use of “one of the greatest reservoirs of natural energy resources on Earth.”
Third, we must believe we are a racist nation. So, Mr. Baker writes, “to right the past wrong of treating people based on the color of their skin,” we must “treat people based on the color of their skin.”
Fourth, we’re to reject the scientific concept of biological sex. Gender is a social construct, and people should be allowed to choose theirs. If deemed necessary, the state may circumvent parents to provide troubled youngsters with medical, and even surgical transitions.
And finally, certain views are “misinformation” and those who hold them are deserving of punishment.
Voters repudiated these bad ideas. Now, perhaps, we can re-clothe the emperor.

Kerby Anderson
A book I have been reading by Mitchell Askew has a chapter with the arresting title, “Fiat Money Destroyed the Nuclear Family.” It is a reminder of the devastating social effects from the economy due to the decreasing value of the dollar.
A nuclear family consists of a father, mother, and children. The family is the foundation of society. He argues that the rise of fiat currency has weakened the nuclear family. And he also acknowledges there are other factors, such as shifting cultural attitudes toward marriage and family.
The decreasing value of the dollar, he argues, has turned America into a nation of dual-income households. It is becoming less and less possible for someone earning an average income to support their family.
We have seen this generational shift over the last century. Askew observed that his grandparents (born in the 1930s) raised four children on a single income from his grandfather’s job. Grandmother stayed home and was able to raise the children.
They were also able to own a home. As I have mentioned in previous commentaries, home ownership is out of reach for a majority of Americans. The median family income today is not enough to provide a 10 percent down payment and mortgage payments not greater than 30 percent of their income.
The price of a home in the 1950s and 1960s was equal to about three years’ worth of income. Today, the price of a home is equal to at least ten years’ worth of income. House prices went up, but wages stayed flat.
Finally, the lack of financial stability dissuades would-be parents from having children. The latest surveys found that “finances” were the major reason married couples decided not to have children or at least postponed having them.
America’s families are in decline because the America dollar is in decline.