How Shohei Ohtani Made Baseball Fun Again: This whets my appetite for baseball again. Ohtani is so much fun: a starting pitcher and a designated hitter, he is a unique talent who is a joy to watch. Daniel Riley begins his story this way, “Not since the days of Babe Ruth has one of baseball's greatest hitters also been one of its finest pitchers. Now, the reigning MVP is opening up for the first time about his singular place in modern baseball.”

Rejoice in Suffering: Guy Richard with a powerful observation, “[Jesus] could not be there [in Colossae] physically, and, as a result, the Colossian church could not witness the sufferings of Christ for themselves in person. Paul’s sufferings, therefore, made up for this “lack” by showing the Colossian Christians the afflictions of Christ in his own suffering.

Toward a Better Discussion About Abuse: Kevin DeYoung brings some much-needed clarity to a thorny topic. He says, “[T]he current discussion about abuse—as it is being played out online, in articles, in books, and in churches—gets quickly twisted and tied up in knots.”

Three Obstacles that Hold Leaders Back (and How to Overcome): Steve Brown has several strong points in this article. In telling us to choose what we are listening to he says, “You have both the choice and ability to shut down unhealthy mindsets. As Dallas Willard writes in Renovation of the Heart, “The ultimate freedom we have as human beings is the power to select what we will allow our minds to dwell upon.”

After Disruption: Andrew Roycroft reflects on what Covid means for the church in the West, “This means that regathering is not a sifting through the shrapnel of hard experience to reconstruct what we once had, but fashioning new materials which speak our past in plaintive and appreciative tones. That reconstructive work can prepare the church for the new adventure of being a people regrouped, reorganised, and reorientated towards what God would do in our present, building on our broken past, and holding fast to our certain future.”