July 18, 2026

Today the church is talking about cost — what faithfulness actually costs, and whether Christians are willing to pay it. Lysa TerKeurst in Relevant says forgiveness requires excavating what you've buried, not papering over it. The Aquila Report is running a piece on Colossians 1:24 — Paul's strange claim that Christian suffering somehow completes what is lacking in Christ's afflictions. Not comfortable theology. Not the kind that sells. Which is exactly the problem KB is naming. The rapper told Relevant that Christianity's marketing instinct has made the gospel into a product — something optimized, not something true. These three pieces are reading each other without knowing it.

Christianity Today asks what Christians should do now that trillionaires exist — a question about wealth that most evangelical readers will apply to someone else. O. Alan Noble is less polite: AI companies strip-mined the digital commons, and now we're being asked to buy it back. Both pieces are about who pays and who profits. Then there's the story everyone should read slowly — a New York Times report on Ezra Jin, a Chinese pastor freed from prison after Trump intervened directly. Worth holding next to World Magazine's piece on a Christian nurse who blew the whistle on a gender clinic and faced institutional backlash for it. One person freed by political power. One person punished despite it. On March 24 we were watching the church wrestle with whether it believes God works in suffering. That question is still open.