Just a quick observation today, brought on by being back in the United States (after three years travelling the world) for almost a month:

Everyone here speeds. I mean really, constantly, without even thinking about it. It’s just a normal thing. Seth Godin mentioned speeding today, noting that “rushing,” as he calls it, rarely has any advantages and often ends in tragedy. But we all still do it in our cars, every day, all the time.

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men." (Matthew 5:13)

What does Jesus mean by that? (Or in Mark 9:49-50, Luke 14:34, or Colossians 4:6?)

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From Wikipedia:

[S]alt has been the best-known food preservative, especially for meat, for many thousands of years…

Luke 7:28 says, in part,

I say to you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John…

Pretty impressive words from the Word Himself. Among those born of women

• meaning among men, or among humans - John is the best example. But what was it that made John such a great man? What was it about him that Jesus held up so highly? I can tell you what it wasn’t - a man clothed in finery and living in luxury (Luke 7:24) or a “reed shaken by the wind” (Luke 7:25). No, John was the fulfillment of the role of the prophet. His message was simple: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near” (Matthew 3:2). Guess what Jesus’ message was? “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near” (Matthew 4:17).

So, if I really want to be a man, what’s the takeaway? Should I don a camel hair cloak and eat wild honey? (Well, I do enjoy wild honey, but that’s not the point.) I should preach the Gospel, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near!” It doesn’t matter how many pull-ups I can do, how well you’ve trained for defensive situations, or how good your hair looks on the soccer pitch (can you tell I’ve been stuck in Europe during the European Championships?). Let the rest of my life worry about itself (Matthew 6:25), and tell all those around me that the Kingdom of Heaven is near. One last thing John said that I should try to emulate (John 3:30)….

I found an article by Malcolm Gladwell this morning about Twitter, Facebook, and Social Activism. There are a lot of interesting points, but the best one is about the value of strong ties versus weak ones. Weak ties allow us to gain vast amounts of information very quickly - via Twitter, YouTube, or other means. What they do not lead to, Gladwell writes, is “high risk activism.”

Is following Christ high risk activism? I think that’s a fairly Biblical characterization. Mark 10:29-30 tells us that we will recieve many persecutions as a result of sacrificing our present lives for His glory. Sacrifice and suffering persecution sound like high-risk activities to me. And I’m not just talking about those who are practicing the Gospel in dark places; I’m talking about the difficulty of really living for Christ in the tolerance of the Western world.

Seth Godin posted an interesting thought the other day. A lot of the time, it’s impossible to persuade people of anything with just a bunch of evidence, no matter how concrete. Godin writes that in marketing, we should try a different tactic:

…Evidence isn’t the only marketing tactic that is effective. In fact, it’s often not the best tactic. What would change his mind, what would change the mind of many people resistant to evidence is a series of eager testimonials from other tribe members who have changed their minds.