What sections of the Bible do you enjoy reading most? If you are like me, it is the narrative sections. We all like a good story. Boys like hearing about David and Goliath, Moses, Daniel, Joseph, Jonah, and Joshua and the destruction of Jericho, to name a few. Girls also like to read these popular stories, along with the accounts about biblical women: Miriam with baby Moses, Adam and Eve, and, and…hmm? If you are a parent or grandparent of girls, you have discovered that there aren’t as many books written about women in the Bible.

Television and Internet news is littered with images of demonstrators holding “hater” signs and chanting a mantra of “Don’t be a hater!” Is it wrong to disagree with the beliefs and the ways some people live and act, and even to hate things that are wrong?

“One of the most important prelates in the Catholic Church in Hungary has warned that the enormous waves of migrants rolling into Europe are due in no small part to a Muslim ‘will to conquer,’ by expanding their territory into the continent. ‘Jihad is a principle for Muslims that means they must expand. The earth must become dar al-Islam, that is, Islamic territory, by introducing Shariah—Islamic law’” (Breitbart, August 3, 2016).

A German news source recently reported, “Ansbach, Munich, Würzburg, Nice, Brussels—in light of the many horrific news stories, many are asking: What’s the matter with 2016? Has the world gone mad?...

“China is challenging the balance of power in the Pacific with much greater determination… A symbolic moment was reached in 2014 when the IMF announced that, measured in terms of purchasing power, China is now the world’s largest economy… China’s rise is just part of a larger shift in economic power. According to the IMF, three of the world’s four largest economies are now in Asia” (Financial Times, August 5, 2016).