Reputation

Is it morally wrong to be “filthy rich”? Researchers at the University of Southern California and the University of Massachusetts Amherst examined how people across 20 countries judge excessive wealth. People in wealthier, more equal societies are actually more likely to view having too much money as morally wrong compared to those living in poorer, more unequal countries.

The research involved over 4,300 participants from nations as diverse as Belgium, Nigeria, Switzerland, and Peru. While you might expect people in struggling economies to resent the ultra-rich more, the opposite appears to be true.

The study found that people do not find excessive wealth very immoral across all countries. But more equal and wealthy societies like Belgium and Switzerland consider having too much money more wrong than less equal societies.

This suggests that when basic needs are met and inequality is lower, people become more sensitive to the potential harm caused by concentrated extreme wealth. Meanwhile, in developing nations where billionaires might represent hope for economic advancement, excessive wealth is viewed more favorably.

The researchers reference a 2023 statement by Elon Musk, currently the world’s richest person, who said it’s morally wrong to use the word “billionaire” as an insult if the individual uses their wealth to create products making millions of people happy. This perspective aligns with Western thinking that prioritizes happiness maximization as a moral good.

The luxury of moral criticism of excess may be more affordable for wealthier communities. Meanwhile, in developing nations, billionaires might represent aspiration rather than moral failure.

Possible Preaching Angle: Money; Money, love of; Wealth – The Bible does not condemn wealth, as such, since Abraham, Job, and Solomon, among others, were very wealthy individuals. The Bible does warn about the love of money (1 Tim. 6:10), the oppression of the poor, and making money ones security (Matt. 6:19)

Models who look like Jesus are in high demand in Utah. That’s because for a growing number of people in the state, a picture isn’t complete without Him. They are hiring Jesus look-alikes for family portraits and wedding announcements. Models are showing up to walk with a newly engaged couple through a field, play with young children in the Bonneville Salt Flats, and cram in with the family for the annual Christmas card.

Bob Sagers was walking around an indie music festival in Salt Lake City when a friendly stranger approached and asked for his number. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a Jesus look to you?” the man asked, according to Sagers, a 25-year-old who works as a cheesemonger at a grocery store. It wasn’t a pickup line—the man’s wife was an artist looking for religious models. “I didn’t really get that a lot,” says Sagers, who is 6-foot-5 with dirty-blonde, shoulder-length hair and a beard he says gives Irish and Scandinavian vibes. “I make for a pretty tall Jesus.”

And so it was that Sagers began a side hustle as a savior. Since being recruited about four years ago, Sagers has posed as Jesus nearly a dozen times. Others have done so far more often, charging about $100 to $200 an hour to pose with children, families, and couples at various locations in the Beehive state.

For the newly sought-after models, the job can be freighted with meaning and responsibility. Look-alikes find that people expect them to embody Jesus in more ways than the hair and beard. Some models said they feel like a celebrity when they don the robe—and get treated like one too. (One felt compelled to remind an onlooker he wasn’t the real Jesus.) Others said they’ve had their own semireligious experiences on the job.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Every follower of Jesus may not look like Jesus, but we are called to act like Jesus!

One of the most potentially lucrative new technologies is the advent of generative artificial intelligence programs. The race to perfect AI has prompted companies large and small to invest huge sums of time and money to corner the market on this emerging technology.

One important issue is the lack of a regulatory framework to enforce the intellectual property rights of companies and creative people. Their work is used to train the AIs, which need millions of examples of creative work to properly learn how to replicate similar works.

Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI are investigating whether data output from OpenAI’s technology was obtained in an unauthorized manner by a group linked to Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek. They believe that this is a sign that DeepSeek operatives might be stealing a large amount of proprietary data and using it for their own purposes

Ironically, OpenAI itself has been sued by individuals and entities, including The New York Times, alleging "massive copyright infringement" for using copyrighted materials to train its AI models without permission or compensation. So, it looks supremely hypocritical to complain about DeepSeek stealing their proprietary data, when most of OpenAI’s proprietary data was made by stealing the data of others. In the race to perfect AI, it seems there is no honor among thieves.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This is a classic case of “the pot calling the kettle black,” and a blatant display of “he who lives in a glass house shouldn't throw stones.” It is the very nature of a Pharisee to condemn the very flaws they themselves embody, oblivious to the transparent vulnerability of their own character.

Bonnie Crawford was in danger of missing a connecting flight for a board meeting last week when a United Airlines customer-service rep saved the day. She got rebooked on a pricey nonstop flight in business class. For free.

You’re probably thinking, “No airline ever does that for me.” Crawford isn’t just any frequent flier. She has United’s invitation-only Global Services status.

It’s a semi-secret, status-on-steroids level that big spenders strive for every year. American and Delta have souped-up statuses, too, with similarly haughty names: ConciergeKey and Delta 360°. The airlines don’t like to talk about what it takes to snag an invite, how many people have such status, or even the perks. Even the high rollers themselves don’t know for sure.

Get into these exclusive clubs and you get customer service on speed dial, flight rebooking before you even know there’s trouble, lounge access, and priority for upgrades. Not to mention bragging rights and swag. People even post unboxing videos of their invites on YouTube.

Anyone with this super status needn’t fret about the value of airline loyalty or the devaluation of frequent-flier points.

Crawford was invited to Global Services for 2017 and was hooked. “It was the first taste of this magic, elusive, absolutely incredible status,’’ she says. She wasn’t invited again until this year and fears she won’t be invited back next year due to fewer costly international flights in her new job.

Possible Preaching Angles:

You can approach this illustration from two angles: 1) Boasting; Pride – This shows the negative side of human nature that loves to boast about their favored position and humble-brag about their status. This status is gained by merit. 2) Advocate; Grace; Invitation; Rights - The positive angle is that we have an Advocate who gifted us a special relationship with the Father (Eph. 3:12; Heb. 4:14-16). This status is all due to God’s grace.

David Crosby, the lead singer for Crosby, Stills and Nash., became one of the most successful rock musicians of all time. But even at nearly 80 years old, Crosby could not stop hitting the road and promoting his music. He was worth over $40 million. And his wife did not want him to travel, but his entire sense of significance was wrapped in his music.

In a film about his life, Crosby expressed a lot of regrets. “People ask me if I got regrets,” he said. “Yeah, I got a huge regret about the time I wasted being smashed. I'm afraid. I'm afraid of dying. And I'm close. And I don't like it. I'd like to have more time—a lot more time.”

Crosby tells his interviewer that music “is the only thing I can contribute, the only thing I got to offer.” Then toward the end of the film, he raises the volume of his voice and the intensity of his delivery with these summarizing words: “The one thing I can do is make music. Myself. So, I'm trying really hard to do that.” His interviewer asks, “To prove yourself?” Crosby responds, “That I'm worth a [expletive].”

On Sept. 29, 1916, newspapers across the country announced a wealth milestone once thought to be unreachable: the world’s first billionaire. “Standard (Oil) at $2,014 makes its head a billionaire,” blared The New York Times headline, adding that Standard Oil’s soaring share price “makes John D. Rockefeller, founder and largest shareholder, almost certainly a billionaire.”

Now more than a century after the first U.S. billionaire, the question of who will be first to reach the trillionaire mark continues to fascinate. According to a new report from Informa Connect Academy, Tesla CEO Elon Musk will likely be the first trillionaire sometime in 2027, assuming that his wealth continues to grow at an annual average rate of 110%.

The second person projected to reach trillionaire status will be India’s Gautam Adani, founder of the Adani Group conglomerate, in 2028. Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, who has seen his wealth skyrocket from $3 billion to more than $90 billion in five years, would become a trillionaire by 2028. Fourth on the list is Indonesia’s Prajogo Pangestu, founder of the Indonesian energy and mining conglomerate Barito Pacific, who could reach trillionaire status by 2028.

Tied for fifth would be LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg who are forecast to become trillionaires sometime in 2030. Some top billionaires who seem like strong candidates to quickly reach the four-comma club don’t make the top 10. Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the Google founders, are all slated to wait 12 years to become trillionaires.

So, more than 100 years after the first billionaire, the first trillionaire could well be crowned in the next decade.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The Bible does not condemn wealth, as such, since Abraham, Job, and Solomon, among others, were very wealthy individuals. What the Bible does warn about is the love of money being the root of all kinds of evil (1 Tim. 6:10), the oppression of the poor by the rich (Jam. 5:1-6), and placing faith in the earthly “security” of wealth, rather than in God (Prov. 18:10-11, Matt. 6:19-21). The warnings are intended to encourage a balanced approach to wealth and possessions, recognizing that true fulfillment comes from a relationship with God and serving others.

Sportswriter Jason Gay wrote an article about a rare baseball card of the famous Babe Ruth.

At first glance, it looked like an ordinary, unexceptional, very old baseball card. It was not. It was a missing link. This was him, alright. The Babe. The most famous player baseball has ever produced … Even I knew this Ruth card was valuable, extraordinary, worth a visit. If I wanted confirmation, I needed only to look at the armed guard sitting on a stool next to its display case. This card was precious cargo, protected like a Picasso, making a brief pit stop at its former home, the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum, before being auctioned off and sold to the highest bidder.

[Here’s why it] is such a big deal: One, it’s the first known card depicting the towering lefty slugger. The card … is extremely scarce: There are only 10 of them known, and one hasn’t hit the market in more than a decade. But also: It’s the Babe! This is a charismatic cultural figure with a reach far beyond sports; who once justified making a salary higher than President Hoover by saying, “Why not? I had a better year.”

The auction began November 16, 2023. Within hours, bidding had hit $5.25 million. It eventually sold for $7.2 million.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Jesus Christ - The card was so valuable because of the name on the card—Babe Ruth. The name means everything. But the name of Jesus is worth infinitely more than any name in heaven or on earth. 2) Christian - Christians are also valuable because we bear the name of Christ on us.

Researcher and author Rodney Reeves has been studying trends in how men are faring in America. Here’s how he summarizes one of his troubling statistics:

One [statistic] stopped me in my tracks was from a 2018 survey conducted by Pew. The sample size was small, and made use of a word-association methodology, so I haven’t cited it in most of my work. But I still wonder about it. Every single respondent thought that “masculine” was a negative term when applied to women. That’s not surprising.

What was shocking was that most people—four out of five—thought the term “masculine” was negative when applied to men. (The term “feminine” was not mentioned often enough to make it into the analysis.) This finding is consistent with another survey finding that half of men, of all races, think that society “punishes men just for acting like men.”

Some years ago, a frozen pizza company was trying to figure out an advertising campaign to bring attention to their product. They designed a series of humorous commercials where an individual was about to lose his life in some melodramatic fashion—in front of a firing squad, about to walk the plank, or a teenager who’d had a party while his parents were away for the weekend. In each case, they were asked, “What do you want on your tombstone?” to which the answer was “pepperoni and cheese” or some other pizza topping.

It was a risky ad since Americans don't want to hear about death. The company was trying to be funny with their name: Tombstone Pizza Company which originated in the Tombstone Tavern in Medford, Wisconsin. The tavern was across the street from a cemetery.

But seriously, if you requested a stone to be placed over your grave, what would you want on your tombstone?

For example, Ruth Bell Graham, the wife of evangelist Billy Graham, died in 2007 and had this chiseled into her tombstone, "End of Construction -- Thank you for your patience." She didn't pick a favorite Bible verse or a lofty quote from a famous leader. She humbled herself and admitted that her life had been "a work in progress" until she died.

From 2015 through mid-2022, Jeffrey Kriv received 51 tickets, but paid only two. Kriv had become adept at beating his tickets in court by telling a particular story explaining his behavior. An investigation by Pro Publica found three specific recent examples:

• “Well, that morning, I broke up with my girlfriend and she stole my car,” said Kriv in January 2021, after being spotted running a red light.
• “Yeah, I broke up with my girlfriend earlier that morning, had a knock-down, drag-out fight, verbally, of course. She took my car without my knowledge,” he told a different judge when fighting a speeding ticket in August 2021.
• “I broke up with my girlfriend that day and she took my car without my knowledge,” said Kriv again in May 2022 while contesting another speeding ticket. “I didn’t get my car back for like three days. But it was her driving the car.”

Pro Publica found that he told a version of this story on at least 44 different occasions, without letting on that he himself worked as an officer for the Chicago Police Department. Kriv was repeatedly reprimanded for misconduct while on the job, including complaints filed by fellow officers. Prosecutors have charged Kriv with four counts of perjury and five counts of forgery. All counts are felonies and are for allegedly lying to judges under oath and providing fictitious police reports.

Possible Preaching Angle:

When we deceive others over a long period, we also deceive ourselves into thinking there will be no consequences for our behavior. But that too is a lie. Deeds done in darkness will eventually be exposed to light.

In his book Of Boys and Men, researcher Richard Reeves notes that until around 2015, the phrase “toxic masculinity” was just mentioned a few times in academic articles. But by 2017, there were thousands of mentions, mostly in the mainstream media.

The term is almost never defined, and is instead used to simply signal disapproval. Lacking a consistent definition, the phrase now refers to any male behavior that the user disapproves of, from the tragic to the trivial. It has been blamed, among other things, for mass shootings, gang violence, online trolling, climate change, the financial crisis, and an unwillingness to wear a mask during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lumping together terrorists and delinquents, the phrase ultimately poisons the very idea of masculinity itself. The book contains interviews from dozens of adolescent boys about what they like about being a boy. Most boys couldn’t even answer the question. One college sophomore told the author, “That’s interesting. I never thought about that. You hear a lot more about what is wrong with guys.”

Pastor Bryan Chapell writes in his recent book Grace at Work:

I have a friend who's a marathon runner. He was in a race a few years ago that he knew would be tough, particularly at the end. And knowing what happens at the ends of races, how people call out encouragement, he didn't put his own name on his racing bib but actually wrote the word “Christian.” He knew that when he got to that final mile, and all the people were cheering, they wouldn't call out his name but would say, "Go get `em, Christian!" "You can do it, Christian!" "Hang in there, Christian!" He ran to represent the name of Christ that he bore.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Colossians 3:17 tells us: "Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus." Everything you do should be in the name of Christ. When we are in the workplace, we bear the name of our Savior. Because we represent Christ, we don't cheat the boss on our timecards or on expense reports, even if others do. We don't lie to the IRS. Why? Because our Lord has written his name on us so that others can see him.

“It’s time for Dodger baseball … Hi everybody and a very pleasant good evening to you, wherever you may be.”

That was the opening Los Angeles Dodgers fans heard so many times over the course of Vin Scully’s 67-year career as broadcaster for the team. When Scully died in August 2022 at the age of 94, he received tributes from columnists, analysts, athletes, broadcasters, and friends from around the U.S., replete with examples of his greatest calls. For some of the most memorable moments in the history of sports, Scully was there. Everywhere you look there are stories of his impact on players, broadcasters, and fans—all because of his grace and compassion. Stories of Scully taking time for others and teaching others how to act abound.

But while others have heaped praise on Scully for decades, he said,

God has been incredibly kind to allow me to be in the position to watch and to broadcast all these somewhat monumental events. I’m really filled with thanksgiving and the fact that I’ve been given such a chance to view. But none of those are my achievements; I just happened to be there. ... I know some people won’t understand it, but I think it has been God’s generosity to put me in these places and let me enjoy it.

His legacy can be summed up by how he said he saw himself, “a very normal guy … I just want to be remembered as a good man, an honest man, and one who lived up to his own beliefs.”

Police officer Chris Ford tries to be courteous in all of the interactions he has with citizens during his shifts on traffic patrol. All of Ford’s interactions are captured by the mandatory body cams on his person. But there is also an additional measure that helps motivate him to be pleasant and professional, even when members of the public are standoffish, irritated, or just flat-out rude.

Ford is required to hand out his business card to everyone he interacts with, and on the back is a QR-code that encourages citizens to rate their interactions with him. Using a star-based system called Guardian Score, officers are rated on criteria such as communication, listening skills, and fairness. According to founder Burke Brownfeld, the program is designed to correct the traditional power imbalance between law enforcement officers and the citizens to whom they are supposed to be accountable.

Ellsworth Weave, president of the local NAACP branch said, “It’s a way of letting the community know that the police are not here to attack you. They are there to help you and protect you.”

Chuck Wexler of the Police Executive Research Forum says programs like Guardian Score are a great way to measure the quality of officer engagement. “At a time when many people are questioning police accountability and how police deal with citizens, police departments are looking for ways to measure how they are doing. And this is one of them.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Christlike leadership demands that reputations be backed up by truthful accounts of actions. If/when leaders make mistakes, they should own up to them and do their best to do better.

As the Russian invasion into Ukraine drags onward, international approval ratings of Russian president Vladimir Putin have been, pardon the term, tanking. But for a certain subset of Canadians, the anti-Putin sentiment adds unacceptable insult to Ukrainian injury. And like other more serious international incidents, people are somehow blaming the French.

That’s because the French spelling of the Russian president’s name is “Poutine,” which is also the name of a French-Canadian diner staple: fried potatoes topped with gravy and cheese curds. This is why French restaurant Maison de la Poutine was subject to rude, harassing, and insulting phone calls throughout February and March. This is because people read the name of its signature dish – often called the national dish of Canada – and misinterpreted it as support for the Russian leader.

On its Twitter account, the restaurant was forced to issue a clarification, which included the following affirmation:

Poutine was created by passionate cooks who wanted to bring joy and comfort to their customers. La Maison de la Poutine has worked since its first day to carry on these values. Today it brings its most sincere support to the Ukrainian people who are courageously fighting for their freedom against the tyrannical Russian regime.

Another popular French-Canadian restaurant Le Roy Jucep, went even further, renaming the popular dish as “la frite fromage” (literally “the cheese potato”), so as to dissuade any presumed affiliation with Putin.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Names are important because they bestow honor. When someone behaves dishonorably, we besmirch the names we are given and others see those names as disgraceful.

In an issue of CT magazine blogger and church planter Chris Ridgeway writes:

The digital voice assistant from Amazon hears me shoulder my way into the kitchen back door, arms loaded with bags. “Alexa, turn on the lights!” I command with a little desperation. “Thanks, Alexa,” I think as the lights blink on and I avoid a stumble with my gallon of milk. I don’t say it aloud—it’s a little crazy to thank your digital assistant, right? Plus, there’s that little question of who might be listening.

I don’t actually picture a headphoned FBI operative in a van outside. Yet once the lights are on, I sometimes wonder. As of 2020, there were 4.2 billion digital voice assistants being used in devices around the world. Forecasts suggest that by 2024, the number of digital voice assistants will reach 8.4 billion. These nearly universal microphones have started a new wave of discomfort about what or who might hear what we say in our living room or kitchen. What more private moments are these microphones capturing?

Perhaps the best starting place for a Christian view of privacy is to ask: Does anyone have privacy in the presence of an all-knowing God? In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve run among the trees of the garden in shame when they hear their Creator walking through the Garden. God asks, “Who told you that you were naked?” Before their transgression, before the curse, Adam and Eve were “naked and felt no shame.” Now they wear clothes and hide

It starts with: “Almighty God, to you all hearts are open.” If digital adopters worry that someone might be watching, believers know for certain Someone is and they know that Someone can be trusted even when authorities cannot be. Life as a believer starts with the truth that God does hear all and see all. The glowing Alexa in our kitchen becomes a digital icon of a greater spiritual reality.

Terrifying? Reassuring? It’s relational! If God is on our fringes, we feel violated. If he’s at the center, his presence feels like salvation itself. Salvation is a God who hears—who hears the weeping of lost Hagar, the celebration of humble Mary, the secret denial of scared Peter. Salvation is a God who knows our intimacy paradox—the simultaneous longing and fear of being known.

Back in 2007, computer science professor Randy Pausch delivered a lecture at Carnegie Mellon University. He called the lecture “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” But what made this lecture so significant was not so much the topic, but the stage of life Randy was in when he gave it. He had been diagnosed with cancer, and only had a few months left, so this speech became known as “The Last Lecture.” What he said and how he said it has really inspired a lot of people.

When he talked, he was funny, smart, he talked about his field, science and engineering. He gave advice, life lessons, and even did some push-ups on stage. The room was packed and he received a standing ovation. His lecture has been viewed more than 20 million times on YouTube. He went on Oprah, Diane Sawyer, and there’s a memorial scholarship in his name. Something about what he said, and when he said it, struck a chord with lots of people. He has left a lasting legacy.

You can watch it here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This illustration could be used to introduce closing words and themes in the Bible: Jesus’ last words to his disciples, Jacob’s last words to his sons, Moses’ last words to Israel, David’s last words, or Paul’s last words to one of his churches.

Are you a good person? There’s an easy way to tell, according to the Internet at least. It’s based on what you do with a shopping cart when you are done with it. If you put it in the designated shopping cart collection area in the parking lot, you’re good. If you leave it to drift off into parking spots, you’re bad.

The test has been discussed on Reddit and Twitter. On Reddit, a user laid out a very detailed description of the theory that essentially claims:

The shopping cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society. Objectively, the correct action to take is to put the shopping cart where it’s supposed to go. It’s not illegal to abandon the cart, so you can do that without consequence. … Therefore the shopping cart presents itself as the apex example of whether a person will do what is right without being forced to do it. No one will punish you … or fine you … you gain nothing by returning the shopping cart. You must return the shopping cart because it is the right thing to do.

Another said:

For a date you need to take them to a restaurant and do the waiter test & then later go to the store with them & do the shopping cart test.

Finally,

The only way to truly know a person’s character, is to secretly follow them to the grocery store and watch what they do with the cart when they’re done.

You can view the Reddit thread here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

God also tests our character, but instead of the shopping cart test, God uses other measures to examine us: The test of love (1 Cor. 13), the test of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), the test of Christlikeness (Rom. 8:29), the stress test (1 Pet. 1:7), and others.

Filmmaker Ken Burns won an Emmy for his nine-part PBS documentary Baseball. In the second episode set in the year 1900, the New York Giants traded for a 19-year-old rookie named Christy Mathewson. He became a two-time World Series champion and still ranks top ten all-time in wins, shutouts, and earned run average. He was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936.

The narrator refers to the Giants manager:

John McGraw may have championed the old brawling brand of baseball, but his greatest star was Christy Mathewson, a pitcher with a record for clean play so spotless that his wife once felt that she had to defend him, by saying that while he was a good man, he was no goodie goodie.

A writer then speaks to the camera: “He was so virtuous he would not give interviews to sportswriters who he heard cheated on their wives.

At a time when many professional players were gamblers and brawlers, Mathewson stood in contrast. The narrator says: “He was the perfect hero for his age. Sportswriters and fans across the country called him ‘The Christian Gentleman.’ No one did more to improve the reputation of the baseball player.”

Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack said, “He set a high moral code. He was (praised) by churches, ministers used his career as sermon topics, and he gave dignity and character to baseball.”