{"id":7862,"date":"2025-12-12T19:13:44","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T03:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=7862"},"modified":"2025-12-12T19:13:44","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T03:13:44","slug":"tgfi-volume-534-unfulfilled-hopes-and-why-the-esv-is-overrated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2025\/12\/12\/tgfi-volume-534-unfulfilled-hopes-and-why-the-esv-is-overrated","title":{"rendered":"TGFI, volume 534: unfulfilled hopes and why the ESV is overrated"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4396\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=300%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=768%2C768&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=1024%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=1200%2C1200&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?w=2048&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?w=1680&amp;ssl=1 1680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\"><\/a>\n<\/p><p>You\u2019ve heard of TGIF? This is TGFI: Things Glen Found Interesting<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Fridays I share articles\/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues likely to be of interest to Christians in college. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions, so if you read something fascinating please pass it my&nbsp;way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This week was especially difficult to narrow down to just 7 top-level groupings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Things Glen Found Interesting<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list simple-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/newsletter.oalannoble.com\/p\/hoping-for-rightly-ordered-desires\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hoping for Rightly Ordered Desires<\/a> (O. Alan Noble, Substack): \u201cOne of the most difficult truths to internalize in this life is that you are not promised all that you desire, even when your desires are rightly ordered. For example, you may desire friendship or a spouse or children or a job, and none of them are given to you. Or at least, not on the timeline you expect. Each of these are good desires, and when you desire them rightly (not excessively, not before God, not as idols, not selfishly), they are <em>good <\/em>things to desire and work towards. But God, in his perfect will, does not promise to give us all our earthly desires.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/lawliberty.org\/bureaucratizing-faith\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bureaucratizing Faith<\/a> (Stephen Eide, Library of Law &amp; Liberty): \u201cThose concerned about anti-Christian bias often frame the FBO [faith-based organizations] question as a religious liberty matter. That framing only clarifies whether religious groups <em>can<\/em> contract with government. It\u2019s less helpful in determining whether they <em>should<\/em>. In general, an organization spiritually motivated to serve the poor may take public money to do so, as long as it doesn\u2019t discriminate based on sect and doesn\u2019t use taxpayer dollars to evangelize. But evangelism is precisely how FBOs reach some people failed by secular programs.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>I really liked this essay. Lots of great insights.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/classicallyanglican.substack.com\/p\/to-be-honest-im-struggling-with-the\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">To Be Honest.. I\u2019m Struggling with the ESV<\/a> (Lorenzo Figueroa Cusick, Substack): \u201cThe ESV has been revised the following times: <strong><em>2001, 2002, 2007, 2011, 2016, 2025.&nbsp; <\/em><\/strong>And when it is revised, it always claims to be simply modest changes to better improve \u2018accuracy and clarity\u2019 (according to Crossway). We can applaud when a Bible publisher wants to make the Bible even better for its users. Where it gets weird is the fact that they don\u2019t identify (like the NASB, for example) when they do revise it. They don\u2019t label it the <em>ESV2001, ESV2002, ESV2007<\/em>, etc. This leads to situations where the Bible in your library or church bag is different from the one used by the church.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The ESV is a perfectly adequate translation \u2014 but some of the people who love it love it way too much. I prefer the NIV and the NET (which each have their own drawbacks, because no translation is perfect).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/ifstudies.org\/blog\/sorry-liz-gilbert-married-women-are-increasingly-happiest-of-all\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Sorry, Liz Gilbert, Married Women Are (Increasingly) Happiest of All<\/a> (Sophie Anderson and Brad Wilcox, Institute for Family Studies): \u201cThere\u2019s only one problem with the progressive case against marriage and family for women: It\u2019s completely wrong. Today, married women live longer, earn more, and report more meaning in their lives, compared to single women. They are also markedly happier than their single peers, according to recent research by psychologist Jean Twenge and colleagues.\u2026 liberal married moms are dramatically more likely to say they are happy with their lives, compared to their single and childless peers.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Related (at least in my mind): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/science\/2025\/12\/10\/study-humans-mammals-monogamy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">How monogamous are humans? A study ranks us between meerkats and beavers.<\/a> (Victoria Craw, Washington Post): \u201cPrevious work on the role of monogamy in human societyhas relied on fossil records or comparison of marriage norms across cultures, Dyble said. His research studied the data from human populations and nonhuman mammal species to find rates of full siblings, meaning those born to the same mother and father.\u2026 Analysis of nearly 2 million human sibling relationships and more than 60,000 mammal relationships showed that the proportion of full siblings in the human groups \u2018clusters closely\u2019 with rates seen in socially monogamous animals and \u2018consistently exceeds rates seen in non-monogamous mammals,\u2019 Dyble wrote. He said the data showed there was a stark difference between groups that were considered socially monogamous and nonmonogamous, based on definitions from a 2013 study by Cambridge researchers.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/12\/07\/opinion\/meta-facebook-ruling-algorithms.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Pay Attention to How You Pay Attention<\/a> (Ezra Klein, New York Times): \u201cWhat Meta shows me is what <em>Meta<\/em> most want me to see, which is whatever their prediction models believe will get me to spend as much time on their apps as possible. The algorithms serve the company\u2019s ends, not my ends. If Meta wanted to know what I want to see, it could ask me. The technology has long existed for users to shape their own recommendations. These companies do not offer us control over what we see because they do not want us to have it. They do not want to be bound by who we seek to be tomorrow.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>A good essay with a poor title. Recommended.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.noahpinion.blog\/p\/no-you-are-not-on-indigenous-land\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">No, You Are Not on Indigenous Land<\/a> (Noah Smith, Substack): \u201cOnce the logic of land acknowledgments and \u2018decolonization\u2019 is followed, it leads very quickly to some very dark futures.\u2026 The general principle here is that instead of a dark world of ethnic cleansing in the name of \u2018decolonization,\u2019 we should try to build a bright future where Native Americans and the United States of America exist in harmony and cooperation rather than in conflict.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Recommended even if you think you know what it will say based on the title and the excerpt. The article has some surprises.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/americanaffairsjournal.org\/2025\/11\/the-making-of-a-techno-nationalist-elite\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Making of a Techno-Nationalist Elite<\/a> (Tanner Greer, American Affairs): \u201cThe economic, social, and political activities of the Eastern Establishment were mutually reinforcing pillars of a larger program. Members of the Establishment used the wealth generated by new technologies to secure political influence, used that influence to sustain a national market and legal framework geared for yet more technological expansion, and then presided over a conscious effort to preserve and transmit the values of their class to future generations, ensuring that the unity and discipline they gained in shared struggle would not dissipate amid power and prosperity. Through these means, a techno-nationalist elite guided America\u2019s development for more than seventy years. Under its stewardship, the United States became the world\u2019s wealthiest, most industrially advanced, and most powerful nation: a true technological republic.\u2026 Behind the Eastern Establishment stood a dense web of personal ties that bound its families together. Many of these ties were consummated, quite literally, on the marriage bed. Karp and Zamiska are loathe to think in these terms. They write a great deal about the engineering elite\u2019s waning commitment to Western civilization, but they have little to say about its waning commitment to raising the next generation of that civilization. The Eastern Establishment was self-consciously reproductive: it built schools, endowed universities, and founded literal dynasties. Part of building \u2018a shared culture \u2026 that will make possible our continued survival\u2019 is creating the children who will survive us.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Excellent. Long but recommended. Also, OUCH. The closing four paragraphs of this book review are absolutely brutal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><b>Why Do You Send This&nbsp;Email?<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors \u201cwho understood the times and knew what Israel should do\u201d (1 Chron 12:32). In a similar way, we need to become wise people whose faith interacts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may continue the tradition of Issachar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><b>Disclaimer<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey\u2019s agenda and we are not about the elephant\u2019s agenda \u2014 we are about the Lamb\u2019s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass <a href=\"http:\/\/econlog.econlib.org\/archives\/2011\/06\/the_ideological.html\">the ideological Turing test<\/a> and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say \u201cI agree\u201d or \u201cI disagree\u201d until I can say \u201cI understand\u201d) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I\u2019ll usually mention it). And to the extent you can discern my opinions, please understand that they are my own and not necessarily those of Chi Alpha or any other organization I may be perceived to represent.\n\nAlso, remember that I\u2019m not reporting news \u2014 I\u2019m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There\u2019s a lot happening in the world that\u2019s not making an appearance here because I haven\u2019t found stimulating articles written about it.\n\nIf this was forwarded to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up <a href=\"https:\/\/theglendavis.substack.com\/\">here<\/a>. You can also <a href=\"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/category\/links\">view the archives<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You\u2019ve heard of TGIF? This is TGFI: Things Glen Found Interesting On Fridays I share articles\/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues likely to be of interest to Christians in college. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions, so if you read something fascinating please pass \u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2025\/12\/12\/tgfi-volume-534-unfulfilled-hopes-and-why-the-esv-is-overrated\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> \u201cTGFI, volume 534: unfulfilled hopes and why the ESV is overrated\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,220,170,112,320,260],"class_list":["post-7862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links","tag-america","tag-bible","tag-devotional","tag-marriage","tag-native-americans","tag-social-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-22O","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7862"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7869,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7862\/revisions\/7869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}