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ASK AUGUSTINE

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What is the least read book in the Bible? If you think you have a high threshold of boredom begin reading I Chronicles and see how far you get. If you can make it through all the genealogies of “begots” in the first nine chapters, congratulations are in order. Starting with chapter 10, Chronicles becomes a historical account of King David and the royal dynasty he established. The narrator starts with the death of Saul, Israel’s first king, followed by all Israel’s appeal to David to become its monarch. The material covered in Chronicles is much the same as that recorded in ...

Futures Files

Columnists

Soy’s Been Up The Pro Farmer Crop Tour for August has soybean pod counts averaging 1,362.93 in a 3’x3’ square. The number is down 1.6% from 2025 but 5.25% above the three-year average. November soybeans, also helped by Chinese flash sales, are around $12.40 per bushel, near a three-week high. Rains Slow Farmers Recent severe storms across the Midwest have left some fields with standing water and farmers with concerns about yield losses. Farmers in four of the top corn-growing states had less than a half week of suitable fieldwork for the week ending on Aug. 16. Indiana came in ...

Bible Truth or Tradition: Does Jesus have a God according to the Bible?

Columnists

50 years ago, I was heading into my senior year at Oral Roberts University. Growing up we attended Redeemer Lutheran Church. After three years at ORU taking Bible classes, going to chapel twice a week and attending many different churches in Tulsa on Sunday mornings, I had quite a few questions about God and the Bible. Some of those questions were about things I never heard talked about in the LutheranChurch. So, where are the answers? Who has the Truth? Do pastors always speak the truth? They do when they are reading scripture. What about when they use words that are never found ...

ICE wants our emails

Columnists

When a government agency comes to an internet service provider demanding information about Americans because of what they have said on social media, the provider should discard the demand, close the door or hang up the phone. The government is not entitled to rummage through the political ...

Judy and Bob White's Backyard Garden of Eden

Columnists

Judy and Bob White's friends and neighbors call White's backyard King's Palace. But to Judy and Bob it's a normal way of life. You might say they both have green thumbs, or green arms. They plant it, it grows. Stepping into their backyard on a hot, humid Iowa day is like stepping into a rain forest. You expect to see Toucan Sam or a spider monkey hanging by its tail. The Whites both work second-shift jobs, so it gives them time in the morning when it's cool to putter around in their garden. The first thing that caught my attention when Ginnie and I visited was not the flora, but a ...

The opposition is bipartisan

Columnists

Two things can be true at once. Foreign entities have seeded the opposition to data center growth in the United States. China, in particular, through its control of TikTok and other influence outlets, has relentlessly worked to stop the American AI advantage against China. Also, at this point, ...