#doooongRead

A Boy Like This

Who would know The hidden places, the concealed plots hiding in his hair? Who would know This boy restores beauty, slipping into the tongue. This boy, as he said, will remain at the core of the missile. And who would know The mysterious inhale, exhale—this boy, Entering through the nose. He was born in a half-awake dream, A sensitive boy who likes to enter the carriage through the head, Meeting a pearl-like, enchanting cradle. And who would know A boy like this, Lurking at the ocean's mouth, wrapping around the stomach and ears. To a boy like this, To a boy like this, Give a thief like this, Who secretly scrapes away his germs.

Latest addition to our Alamy portfolio: Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) at Center for American Progress, 11 Dec. 2025

Our photo collection of lawmakers from both parties, with business and media leaders offered exclusively at the Alamy photo agency has a number of new and important additions since the start of Dec. 2025:

• Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), at Center for American Progress
• Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) at Punchbowl News
• Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) at Axios: Prospects for permitting reform
• Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) at Axios: Prospects for permitting reform
• Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-ND) at Axios: Prospects for permitting reform
• Brendan Bechtel, chairman and CEO of Bechtel Crop., at Axios: Prospects for permitting reform
• Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), shown here, at Center for American Progress

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The Apple Watch is an amazing device. I have been using the Ultra 2 with cellular for the past two years, and it’s incredible what it can do. With this tiny little thing, you stay fully connected, access much of your data, and tap into the world’s knowledge (as long as you can make yourself understandable to Siri). I almost never take advantage of these features because you usually have your iPhone nearby as well. So in the spirit of this, I plan to give up my Apple Watch and start using my old Citizen Eco-Drive again (if I can get the battery to work). Let’s see how it goes.

There are chapters in Scripture that feel warm, reassuring, and immediately comforting, and then there are chapters that feel like a sudden silence in the room, the kind that makes everyone shift in their seat because something hard is about to be said. First Corinthians chapter five is not gentle. It does not ease into its message. It does not soften its language for public consumption. It confronts. It exposes. It insists that love without truth is not love at all, and that holiness is not an outdated word but a living, breathing responsibility. This chapter refuses to let the church hide behind good intentions, religious activity, or spiritual language when moral decay is being tolerated in the name of compassion.

Paul is writing to a church that is vibrant, gifted, intellectually alive, and spiritually enthusiastic, yet deeply confused about what faith is supposed to look like when it collides with real life. Corinth was a city that celebrated excess. It was wealthy, influential, philosophically advanced, and morally permissive. Sexual freedom was not just common; it was culturally affirmed. Religious pluralism was normal. Self-expression was prized. In many ways, Corinth would feel very familiar to a modern reader. And that is precisely why this chapter still unsettles us. Paul is not addressing outsiders. He is not condemning the culture at large. He is speaking to believers who are proud of their spiritual maturity while ignoring a glaring moral collapse within their own community.

What makes this chapter so uncomfortable is not simply the behavior Paul addresses, but the reaction of the church to it. There is sexual immorality present that even the surrounding pagan culture finds shocking, and yet the church is not grieving, not correcting, not confronting. Instead, they are boasting. They are proud, perhaps of their tolerance, perhaps of their freedom, perhaps of their refusal to judge. Paul sees this not as spiritual progress but as spiritual blindness. He sees a community congratulating itself while quietly rotting from the inside out.

The issue Paul names is specific, but his concern is much larger. A man in the church is living in an ongoing sexual relationship with his father’s wife. This is not a rumor. It is not a hidden sin. It is openly known and apparently accepted. Under both Jewish law and Roman moral standards, this was forbidden. Yet the church has allowed it to continue without discipline or correction. Paul’s shock is not only at the sin itself but at the church’s response, or lack of one. He expected sorrow, mourning, and repentance. Instead, he finds arrogance.

This is where modern readers often begin to feel uneasy, because we have been shaped by a culture that equates confrontation with hatred and correction with judgment. We have been taught that love means affirmation, that boundaries are oppressive, and that calling anything sinful is inherently unkind. But Paul operates from a radically different understanding of love. For him, love protects the community. Love cares about the soul of the person involved. Love refuses to pretend that destructive behavior is harmless simply because confronting it is uncomfortable.

Paul does something striking in this chapter. He asserts his authority even though he is not physically present. He says that though absent in body, he is present in spirit and has already judged the situation. That word alone, judged, is one many Christians today are afraid to touch. Yet Paul does not apologize for it. He does not hedge. He does not soften the language. He makes it clear that discernment and judgment within the church are not optional; they are essential. Without them, the community loses its moral clarity and its witness.

He instructs the church to act together, not individually, and not impulsively. This is not mob justice or personal vendetta. This is a sober, communal decision made in the name of Jesus Christ. Paul’s concern is not punishment for its own sake. His goal is restoration, even if the path to restoration is painful. He uses strong imagery, speaking of handing the person over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that the spirit may be saved. This language is jarring, but its intent is redemptive. It describes removal from the protective boundaries of the Christian community so that the seriousness of the situation becomes undeniable.

What Paul understands, and what we often forget, is that the church is not simply a social club or a support group. It is meant to be a distinct people shaped by the character of Christ. When the church tolerates what contradicts that character, it does not become more loving; it becomes more confused. Paul knows that unaddressed sin does not stay contained. It spreads. It normalizes itself. It reshapes the culture of the community until holiness becomes optional and conviction disappears entirely.

This is why Paul introduces the metaphor of leaven. A little leaven, he says, leavens the whole lump. In other words, what is tolerated quietly will eventually shape everything. Sin is not static. It is dynamic. It moves, it grows, it influences. The church cannot afford to treat moral compromise as a private matter when it has communal consequences. This is not about policing behavior for control. It is about protecting the integrity of the body.

Paul reminds the Corinthians that Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. This is not a random theological aside. It is the foundation of his argument. The old leaven, representing the former way of life, has no place in a community defined by Christ’s sacrifice. The church is called to celebrate not with the leaven of malice and evil, but with sincerity and truth. That phrase alone is a mirror held up to every generation of believers. Sincerity without truth becomes sentimentality. Truth without sincerity becomes cruelty. The church is called to hold both together.

One of the most misunderstood aspects of this chapter is Paul’s clarification about judgment. He is not calling believers to withdraw from the world or to judge those outside the faith. He explicitly says that he is not referring to judging non-believers, because doing so would require leaving the world entirely. His focus is internal. The church is responsible for its own witness. It is accountable for how it lives and what it tolerates within its own community. This distinction matters deeply, especially in a time when Christians are often accused of being overly judgmental toward the world while neglecting accountability within their own ranks.

Paul’s closing instruction is blunt: remove the wicked person from among you. Again, this sounds harsh to modern ears, but it must be read through the lens of responsibility and care. This removal is not about erasing someone or condemning them permanently. It is about creating space for repentance by refusing to endorse destructive behavior. It is about saying, with clarity and love, that following Christ means something, and that the community will not redefine obedience to avoid discomfort.

What makes 1 Corinthians 5 so challenging is that it forces the church to examine its own priorities. Are we more concerned with appearing inclusive than being faithful. Are we more afraid of being labeled judgmental than of losing moral clarity. Have we confused grace with permissiveness and love with silence. Paul does not allow the Corinthians, or us, to hide behind vague spirituality. He insists that faith must shape behavior, and that the community has a role in helping one another live in alignment with the gospel.

This chapter also exposes a subtle form of pride that often goes unnoticed. The Corinthians were proud of their knowledge, their gifts, their freedom, and perhaps even their tolerance. Paul sees this pride as part of the problem. True humility does not ignore sin; it acknowledges the need for correction. True spirituality does not boast in freedom while ignoring responsibility. True maturity does not shy away from hard conversations; it embraces them for the sake of growth.

For modern readers, 1 Corinthians 5 raises uncomfortable but necessary questions. What are we tolerating in the church today that Scripture clearly addresses. What behaviors have we quietly normalized because confronting them feels unloving or divisive. Where have we replaced biblical accountability with vague affirmations that leave people stuck rather than healed. Paul’s words challenge the church not to retreat from the world, but to be honest about its own identity within it.

This chapter also speaks to leaders and communities about courage. It is easier to preach inspirational messages than to address sin. It is easier to talk about grace in abstract terms than to apply it concretely. Yet Paul models a form of leadership that is willing to risk misunderstanding for the sake of truth. He does not write to shame the Corinthians but to wake them up. His tone is urgent because the stakes are high. The health of the community and the integrity of its witness are on the line.

Perhaps the most important thing to understand about 1 Corinthians 5 is that it is not about condemnation; it is about restoration. Everything Paul says is aimed at bringing the community back into alignment with who they are called to be in Christ. Discipline, in this context, is not rejection. It is an act of serious love. It says that people matter enough to be told the truth, even when the truth is painful.

As we sit with this chapter, we are invited to reflect not only on church structures and policies, but on our own hearts. Where do we resist correction. Where do we confuse kindness with avoidance. Where have we allowed fear of conflict to override faithfulness. Paul’s words cut through religious noise and force us to confront what it really means to be the people of God in a world that constantly pressures us to compromise.

First Corinthians chapter five does not offer easy answers or comforting platitudes. It offers clarity. It draws lines. It calls the church to be honest about sin, serious about holiness, and committed to restoration. It reminds us that grace is not the absence of standards, but the power to live transformed lives. And it challenges every generation of believers to decide whether they will shape their faith around the culture, or allow the gospel to shape them instead.

This chapter still speaks because the tension it addresses still exists. The struggle between truth and tolerance, between grace and accountability, between belonging and transformation, has not disappeared. Paul’s words echo across centuries, asking the same question of every church and every believer: who are you becoming, and what are you allowing to shape you from the inside out.

This is not a comfortable chapter. It was never meant to be. It is meant to wake us up, to call us back, and to remind us that the gospel is not only something we believe, but something we live together, even when that living requires courage, honesty, and difficult love.

One of the reasons First Corinthians chapter five remains so relevant is because it exposes a quiet fear that still exists inside many churches: the fear of being misunderstood. The fear of being labeled harsh, outdated, unloving, or judgmental. Paul understands this fear, but he refuses to let it guide the church’s decisions. For him, the greater danger is not public criticism but private compromise. A church that avoids clarity to preserve comfort slowly loses its soul, even if it gains approval.

There is a sobering honesty in the way Paul refuses to spiritualize the problem away. He does not blame trauma, background, or culture, even though all of those factors undoubtedly exist. He does not excuse the behavior as a misunderstanding of freedom or a misapplication of grace. He names the sin plainly, not because he lacks compassion, but because compassion without truth offers no path forward. Healing cannot begin until reality is acknowledged.

This is where modern Christianity often struggles. We have become very skilled at talking around issues rather than through them. We speak in generalities, avoid specifics, and hide behind slogans that sound kind but leave people unchanged. Paul’s approach is different. He believes that clarity is kindness, that truth spoken in love is not violence but mercy, and that pretending sin does not exist is far more damaging than confronting it.

First Corinthians five also confronts the idea that faith is purely personal and private. In Western culture especially, we have been taught that what someone does in their personal life is nobody else’s business. Paul dismantles that assumption within the context of the church. When someone publicly identifies as a follower of Christ, their life becomes part of a shared witness. The church is not a collection of isolated individuals; it is a body. What affects one part affects the whole.

This does not mean the church should become invasive or controlling. Paul is not advocating surveillance or suspicion. He is addressing a situation that is public, ongoing, and unrepentant. The distinction matters. Discipline is not about catching people in moments of weakness. It is about responding when destructive behavior becomes normalized and defended. There is a difference between struggling and refusing to turn around, and Paul is addressing the latter.

Another uncomfortable truth in this chapter is that tolerance can sometimes be a form of neglect. When a community refuses to intervene, it may feel like kindness, but it can also signal indifference. Paul’s response shows that he takes both the holiness of the church and the soul of the individual seriously. He believes the person involved deserves more than silent approval. He deserves honesty, even if that honesty disrupts the community.

Paul’s insistence on removing the person from fellowship is often misunderstood as harsh exclusion, but within the context of early Christianity, community was everything. To be removed from fellowship was not a casual inconvenience; it was a profound loss. Paul understands that sometimes the most loving thing is to allow someone to experience the consequences of their choices rather than cushioning them indefinitely. Comfort without correction can delay repentance. Pain, when rightly understood, can become a doorway back.

This chapter also forces the church to reckon with hypocrisy. Paul will not allow the Corinthians to condemn outsiders while excusing insiders. He draws a sharp boundary around the church’s responsibility, making it clear that moral accountability begins at home. This challenges a modern tendency to focus outward, critiquing culture while avoiding introspection. Paul flips the lens. The credibility of the church’s message depends on its internal integrity.

It is worth noting that Paul does not end this discussion with despair. His goal is not to shame the Corinthians into submission but to awaken them to who they are meant to be. He reminds them of Christ’s sacrifice, of their identity as a redeemed people, of their calling to live as a new creation. Discipline is not presented as an end in itself but as a means to restoration. The hope of repentance, reconciliation, and renewal remains implicit throughout the chapter.

This perspective reframes the entire conversation. Holiness is not about superiority. It is about alignment. It is about living in a way that reflects the reality of Christ’s presence. Paul does not want the church to become smaller, colder, or more rigid. He wants it to become healthier, clearer, and more honest. A church that knows who it is can engage the world without losing itself.

For individual believers, First Corinthians five invites personal reflection as much as communal evaluation. It asks us to consider how we respond to correction, how we understand freedom, and how we define love. Are we willing to be challenged, or do we equate disagreement with rejection. Do we welcome accountability, or do we avoid communities where our lives might be questioned. Paul’s vision of church life is one where growth is communal and transformation is expected.

This chapter also reminds us that grace is not fragile. It does not shatter under the weight of truth. In fact, grace becomes meaningless without truth. Forgiveness presupposes repentance. Restoration presupposes honesty. Paul’s approach does not diminish grace; it protects it from becoming cheap. He understands that a gospel without transformation is not the gospel at all.

There is a quiet courage in Paul’s writing here. He knows his words may offend. He knows they may be resisted. Yet he writes anyway because the health of the church matters more than his reputation. This kind of leadership is rare, but it is desperately needed. It requires a willingness to endure misunderstanding for the sake of faithfulness, to speak clearly in a culture that prefers ambiguity.

First Corinthians chapter five does not ask the church to withdraw from the world, nor does it ask believers to become moral enforcers. It asks for something far more demanding: integrity. It asks the church to live what it proclaims, to take its identity seriously, and to love one another enough to tell the truth. This kind of love is not flashy, and it is not always celebrated, but it is transformative.

As we read this chapter today, we are invited into a deeper understanding of what it means to belong to the body of Christ. Belonging is not just about acceptance; it is about formation. It is about becoming, together, a people shaped by the character of Jesus. That process is not always comfortable, but it is always purposeful.

Paul’s words still echo because the church still faces the same choice: to define itself by the culture around it or by the Christ it follows. First Corinthians five does not let us avoid that decision. It calls us to courage, clarity, and a form of love that is willing to risk discomfort for the sake of truth.

This chapter stands as a reminder that the gospel is not only something we receive, but something we steward. How we live it out matters. How we treat one another matters. And how willing we are to hold grace and truth together may determine whether the church becomes a place of genuine transformation or a reflection of the very confusion it was meant to heal.

Your friend,

Douglas Vandergraph

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#1Corinthians #BibleStudy #ChristianTeaching #ChurchLeadership #FaithAndTruth #GraceAndHoliness #NewTestament #SpiritualGrowth #BiblicalWisdom

Yellow never got me high. Green neither. Blue was always a let down except that one cerulean night we shared south of Salamanca. We woke up dripping in white. It was great while you were laughing. My tears fell like salt when you left. I don’t trust red.

Black in the hands of Zurbarán makes me gape so long that angels swim out of my mouth leaving me dry and desolate. Brown is plaque on my cowl, and indigo is for the birds.

Leave me in a field of orange if you want to take me back to the emergency room. Leave the straps off, please. Violet takes me back to your bed, our fingers curling together, and your breath touching my laughter just before I fled.

Indigo is in the birds, you said, and yellow never got me high.

If you listen long enough to the conversations surrounding Christianity, you might assume the faith is primarily about rules, boundaries, moral lines, political alignments, or cultural battles. Many people encounter Christianity first as a list of what not to do, who is wrong, and why they fall short. And yet, when you step back from the noise and listen to Jesus Himself, something startlingly simple emerges. Strip away the centuries of arguments, the layers of tradition, the weight of expectation, and the defensiveness that often surrounds faith, and you are left with one word that explains everything He said, everything He did, and everything He asked of those who follow Him. That word is love.

This is not a shallow or sentimental claim. It is not an attempt to soften Jesus or reduce Him into something harmless. In fact, understanding love as the core of Jesus’s teaching makes His message more demanding, not less. Love, as Jesus lived and defined it, requires more courage than rule-following, more humility than moral posturing, and more sacrifice than performance-based religion. Love does not allow us to hide behind correctness or distance ourselves from human suffering. Love places us directly in the path of inconvenience, discomfort, and costly obedience.

Jesus never began His ministry by handing out a code of conduct. He began by stepping into broken places and calling people to follow Him there. He walked into grief, poverty, sickness, rejection, and shame, not as an observer but as a participant. The earliest witnesses to His life did not describe Him as a man obsessed with compliance. They described Him as someone who was deeply moved by compassion, someone whose presence changed rooms, someone who saw people others had learned not to see.

When religious leaders attempted to trap Him with questions about priority and hierarchy, about which commandments mattered most, Jesus did something radical. He refused to rank behaviors. He refused to create a spiritual ladder. Instead, He said that everything hinges on loving God fully and loving others honestly. He made it clear that love is not one virtue among many; it is the framework that gives meaning to all others. Without it, obedience becomes empty, faith becomes rigid, and spirituality becomes performative.

This is why love unsettled people during Jesus’s lifetime. Love threatened systems built on exclusion. Love disrupted power structures that depended on shame. Love exposed the hollowness of outward righteousness without inward transformation. Jesus’s love was not passive acceptance; it was active engagement. It moved toward people who carried labels, reputations, and histories that polite society preferred to ignore. He did not love people from a distance. He loved them close enough to be misunderstood.

Consider the pattern of His interactions. He consistently chose people who could not improve His image. He allowed His reputation to be shaped by those He welcomed rather than those who approved of Him. He did not seek validation from institutions that measured holiness by separation. Instead, He measured holiness by proximity to pain and willingness to restore dignity.

This is where many modern expressions of faith struggle. It is easier to defend ideas than to love people. It is easier to argue theology than to sit with suffering. It is easier to draw lines than to cross them. But Jesus did not model a faith that stays clean by staying distant. He modeled a faith that heals by entering what is broken.

Love, as Jesus lived it, does not wait for permission. It does not require certainty. It does not demand that people become acceptable before they are embraced. This is deeply uncomfortable for anyone who prefers order over compassion. Yet Jesus repeatedly demonstrated that transformation follows love, not the other way around. He spoke hope into lives before behavior changed. He offered belonging before belief was perfected. He restored identity before morality was repaired.

This is why encounters with Jesus so often led to genuine change. People did not leave Him feeling managed; they left feeling seen. They did not walk away shamed; they walked away awakened. Love did not excuse brokenness, but it addressed it at its root. Jesus did not aim to control people; He aimed to heal them.

At the center of this message is the cross, which remains the clearest and most uncomfortable definition of love ever offered. The cross is not simply a theological symbol or a historical event. It is a declaration of how far love is willing to go when faced with rejection, violence, and misunderstanding. Jesus did not suffer because humanity suddenly became worthy. He suffered because love does not calculate worthiness before acting. Love moves first. Love absorbs cost. Love stays when escape is available.

This reality challenges the way many people understand devotion. If love is the foundation, then faith is not proven by how much we know, how loudly we speak, or how flawlessly we perform. Faith is proven by how we love when it costs us something. Love reveals what we truly believe about God and about people. It exposes whether we trust grace or prefer control.

The apostle Paul understood this when he wrote that spiritual gifts, knowledge, and faith itself are hollow without love. He was not diminishing doctrine or truth; he was grounding them. Truth without love becomes a weapon. Faith without love becomes arrogance. Knowledge without love becomes distance. Love is what keeps belief human.

This perspective also reframes spiritual exhaustion. Many believers are tired not because they are following Jesus too closely, but because they are following Him without love at the center. They are carrying expectations Jesus never placed on them. They are striving to be impressive instead of faithful. They are defending positions instead of embodying presence. When love is removed from the center, faith becomes heavy and joy disappears.

Jesus never intended His followers to be defined by anxiety, hostility, or constant outrage. He intended them to be known for love that feels tangible, restorative, and real. He said the world would recognize His disciples not by influence or agreement, but by how they love one another. That statement alone should cause deep self-examination. Love is not a private virtue. It is the public evidence of an inward transformation.

This kind of love cannot be outsourced. It cannot be replaced by statements or platforms. It cannot be substituted with activity. Love shows up in ordinary moments, in unnoticed decisions, in quiet obedience. It is expressed in patience when anger feels justified, in forgiveness when resentment feels safer, and in kindness when indifference would be easier.

Love also requires courage. It is not weak or permissive. Jesus’s love confronted injustice, hypocrisy, and abuse of power. He overturned tables when people were exploited. He spoke directly when truth was being distorted. But even His confrontations were rooted in restoration, not humiliation. Love does not avoid truth; it carries it responsibly.

Understanding love as the heart of Jesus’s message changes how we view discipleship. Following Jesus is not about becoming morally superior. It is about becoming more compassionate. It is not about distancing ourselves from the world’s mess. It is about stepping into it with humility and hope. It is not about winning cultural battles. It is about winning hearts through presence, patience, and grace.

This also means love begins close to home. It begins in how we speak to family, how we treat strangers, how we respond to those who disagree with us. Love is tested not in moments of worship but in moments of frustration. It reveals itself in traffic, in conflict, in misunderstanding, and in disappointment. These are the places where Jesus’s teachings become real or remain theoretical.

Every act of love is an act of faith. Every choice to remain gentle in a harsh moment reflects trust in God’s character. Every decision to forgive is a declaration that grace is stronger than control. This is how Jesus continues His work in the world. He does not need more representatives of outrage. He needs more carriers of love.

When love is restored to the center, faith becomes lighter, not because it is less serious, but because it is finally aligned with its purpose. Love does not simplify discipleship; it clarifies it. It reminds us why Jesus came, why He stayed, and why He still calls people to follow Him today.

And this is only the beginning.

When love is restored to the center of faith, it changes not only how we see Jesus, but how we see ourselves and others. It dismantles the illusion that Christianity is about earning approval and replaces it with the reality that it is about becoming transformed. Jesus did not come to create better rule-followers; He came to create people who reflect the heart of God in a wounded world. Love is the visible shape that transformation takes.

This is why Jesus repeatedly challenged religious performance. He was not anti-discipline or anti-obedience; He was anti-hypocrisy. He knew how easy it is to look faithful while remaining untouched by compassion. He knew how quickly devotion can become a mask rather than a mirror. Love strips away pretense. It reveals what lives beneath our words and our rituals. It asks uncomfortable questions. Do we actually care, or do we just want to be right? Do we desire restoration, or do we prefer judgment because it feels safer?

Love requires vulnerability. To love the way Jesus loved is to risk misunderstanding. It is to accept that some people will question motives, misread intentions, or reject kindness altogether. Jesus experienced all of this, and yet He never withdrew His love. He did not harden His heart in response to rejection. He did not retreat into detachment when misunderstood. Instead, He remained present, faithful, and open, even when it cost Him deeply.

This is one of the hardest aspects of following Jesus. Love makes us accessible. It opens us to pain. It removes the protective armor of indifference. But it also opens the door to healing, connection, and genuine change. Love creates space for God to work in ways that control never can.

Jesus’s love also reframes strength. In a world that equates strength with dominance, Jesus demonstrated that strength is found in self-giving. He showed that true authority flows from service, not status. When He knelt to wash His disciples’ feet, He redefined leadership. When He forgave those who hurt Him, He redefined power. Love does not mean weakness; it means choosing restraint when force is available.

This kind of love reshapes communities. When love becomes central, churches become places of refuge rather than judgment. Conversations become marked by listening rather than shouting. Differences are handled with humility rather than hostility. Love does not erase disagreement, but it changes how disagreement is held. It allows truth and grace to coexist without destroying one another.

Love also invites accountability, but never humiliation. Jesus corrected His disciples often, but He never discarded them. He addressed their pride, fear, and confusion without questioning their worth. He understood that growth happens best in the presence of safety. Love creates that safety. It tells people they are not disposable. It assures them that failure is not final.

This has profound implications for how believers engage the world. Christianity was never meant to be a fortress to hide inside. It was meant to be a light carried outward. Love compels engagement, not isolation. It draws believers into the struggles of others, not away from them. It encourages generosity over hoarding, hospitality over suspicion, and empathy over fear.

Love also restores perspective. It reminds us that people are never problems to be solved, but lives to be honored. Jesus never reduced individuals to their worst moments or their loudest labels. He saw the image of God beneath the brokenness. Love trains our eyes to see the same way.

For many, returning to love requires unlearning. It requires releasing the idea that faith must always feel combative. It requires letting go of the belief that control produces righteousness. It requires trusting that God is more patient, more gracious, and more present than fear would suggest. Love invites rest. It invites trust. It invites surrender.

This does not mean love avoids boundaries. Jesus set boundaries clearly. He withdrew to pray. He said no when necessary. He confronted manipulation and exploitation. Love does not mean self-erasure. It means healthy self-giving rooted in wisdom and discernment. Jesus’s love was intentional, not impulsive. It flowed from communion with the Father, not from pressure or expectation.

At its core, love is relational. It draws us back into connection with God and with one another. Jesus did not come to deliver information; He came to restore relationship. Every parable, every miracle, every encounter points toward reconciliation. Love is the thread that holds it all together.

This is why love is not optional. It is not an advanced spiritual concept reserved for maturity. It is the entry point. It is the evidence. It is the fruit. Without love, faith loses credibility. With love, even imperfect faith becomes powerful.

When Jesus summarized His mission, He did not say the world would be saved by flawless theology. He said it would be changed by love that reflects the Father’s heart. That invitation still stands. Every believer is called to carry that love into ordinary spaces and difficult conversations. Love is how faith leaves the sanctuary and enters real life.

Choosing love daily is not dramatic. It is quiet and persistent. It shows up in how we speak, how we listen, how we forgive, and how we remain present when leaving would be easier. It shapes character over time. It forms habits of grace. It teaches us to trust God’s work in others even when progress is slow.

Ultimately, love is the legacy Jesus left behind. It is what He entrusted to His followers. It is how His presence continues to move through the world. Love is not a footnote in the Gospel story. It is the point of it.

All the teachings. All the miracles. All the sacrifice.

One word.

Love.

And when love leads, everything else finds its proper place.

---

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

Watch Douglas Vandergraph’s inspiring faith-based videos on YouTube

Support the ministry by buying Douglas a coffee

Pluribus Episode 7: The Gap

See 100 Word reviews of previous episodes here

Following Carol and Manousos on their journeys is both meditative and harrowing. Carol is drowning in abundance and loneliness; Manousos is on a glass-huffing vision quest. Carol’s resolve cracks, Manousos’ resolve almost kills him.

The episode reminded me of a prestige version of The Last Man on Earth (Will Forte), like when Carol copped a Georgia O'Keeffe painting from a museum to replace her poster at home. Both shows asked, “What would you do if?”

This was one of the most soulful and quixotic episodes of television I have seen. Director Adam Bernstein and writer Jenn Flower, wow. Watch it.

#tv #Pluribus #SciFi #VinceGilligan #AppleTV #Television #100WordReview #Larrys100 #100DaysToOffload

I’m honestly pretty shittily depressed right now. I don’t want to sleep but I’m so exhausted and my brain is miserable.

pensaba / lo que dura la calma y los sueños / fragmentos de lo vivido

momentos / olas que reventaron contra el muro

y dejándolos ir / deshechos en la raíz del espacio base fogón plato y fruto

WordPress is a lot more complicated than it was when I last used it roughly ten years ago. That's not a compliment. There are tons and tons of preferences, which is a pet peeve of mine, especially when sensible defaults would suffice. It really seems like it's trying to be everything for everyone. Still, some features are nice, like search, the “Related posts” that appear below blog posts, and the ability to rename tags globally. Search is a big one, mainly because it helps me find my own posts. The latter two are nice, but not crucial. I would probably use them if they were available, but it's not a deal-breaker.

Playing around with WordPress just now has made me even more appreciative of WriteFreely, the platform that powers this blog, and its elegance. WriteFreely might be missing a couple of features I would find useful, like the things mentioned above. The internal menu navigation often confuses me. I wish development were more active. Still, compared to the behemoth of WordPress, with its endless preferences, overwhelming editing UI, and slow page load times, WriteFreely really is a breath of fresh air. I always admire when a product focuses on the few things that matter most, and WriteFreely does: a simple editing experience, sensible defaults, and a beautiful design. I hope it continues to be successful.

#AI #Technology #Usability #UserExperience

The temple floor gave way beneath me—another damned pressure plate. I caught the crumbling ledge, my satchel of Ptolemaic artifacts swinging wildly. “Jones! The ankh!” shouted Elsa from above, her torchlight dancing over hieroglyphs that shouldn't be moving. The sandstone serpent uncoiled with a grinding shriek. “Yeah, noticed that!” I jammed my boot into its stone gullet, feeling ancient gears snap. The artifact burned through my shirt like dry ice. Somewhere behind us, Schmidt's goons started shouting in guttural German. Elsa tossed the rope. “Stop showing off and climb!” The walls began bleeding mercury. Archaeology was cleaner in textbooks.

#Scratch

In Summary: * This morning I put 3 loads of laundry through the little machine, and I'm all set to comfortably make it through the weekend. Next scheduled laundry will be Monday morning when I'll plan on putting 2 or 3 loads through.

Prayers, etc.: * My daily prayers

Health Metrics: * bw= 221.01 lbs. * bp= 142/88 (59)

Exercise: * kegel pelvic floor exercise, half squats, calf raises, wall push-ups

Diet: * 06:20 – toast and butter * 07:55 – boiled eggs * 12:00 – home made meat & vegetable soup, fried egg plant & white rice * 15:50 – fried egg plant & white bread

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 05:00 – listen to local news talk radio * 06:00 – bank accounts activity monitored * 06:45 – read, pray, follow news reports from various sources * 08:45 – wash 3 small loads of laundry * 12:00 – watch old game shows & eat lunch at home with Sylvia * 15:00 – listening to The Jack Riccardi Show * 17:00 – listening to The Joe Pags Show * 18:00 – listening to the Xavier Sports Network for the radio call of an NCAA men's basketball game, the Missouri St. Bears vs. the Xavier Musketeers * 19:50 – the Xavier Muskies beat the Bears 75 to 57. Time now to switch off the radio, listen to relaxing music, and quietly read my way to an early bedtime.

Chess: * 14:30 – moved in all pending CC games

It started not with lawyers or legislators, but with a simple question: has my work been trained? In late 2022, when artists began discovering their distinctive styles could be replicated with a few text prompts, the realisation hit like a freight train. Years of painstaking craft, condensed into algorithmic shortcuts. Livelihoods threatened by systems trained on their own creative output, without permission, without compensation, without even a courtesy notification.

What followed wasn't resignation. It was mobilisation.

Today, visual artists are mounting one of the most significant challenges to the AI industry's data practices, deploying an arsenal of technical tools, legal strategies, and market mechanisms that are reshaping how we think about creative ownership in the age of generative models. From data poisoning techniques that corrupt training datasets to blockchain provenance registries that track artwork usage, from class-action lawsuits against billion-dollar AI companies to voluntary licensing marketplaces, the fight is being waged on multiple fronts simultaneously.

The stakes couldn't be higher. AI image generators trained on datasets containing billions of scraped images have fundamentally disrupted visual art markets. Systems like Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, and DALL-E can produce convincing artwork in seconds, often explicitly mimicking the styles of living artists. Christie's controversial “Augmented Intelligence” auction in February 2025, the first major AI art sale at a prestigious auction house, drew over 6,500 signatures on a petition demanding its cancellation. Meanwhile, more than 400 Hollywood insiders published an open letter pushing back against Google and OpenAI's recommendations for copyright exceptions that would facilitate AI training on creative works.

At the heart of the conflict lies a simple injustice: AI models are typically trained on vast datasets scraped from the internet, pulling in copyrighted material without the consent of original creators. The LAION-5B dataset, which contains 5.85 billion image-text pairs and served as the foundation for Stable Diffusion, became a flashpoint. Artists discovered their life's work embedded in these training sets, essentially teaching machines to replicate their distinctive styles and compete with them in the marketplace.

But unlike previous technological disruptions, this time artists aren't simply protesting. They're building defences.

The Technical Arsenal

When Ben Zhao, a professor of computer science at the University of Chicago, watched artists struggling against AI companies using their work without permission, he decided to fight fire with fire. His team's response was Glaze, a defensive tool that adds imperceptible perturbations to images, essentially cloaking them from AI training algorithms.

The concept is deceptively simple yet technically sophisticated. Glaze makes subtle pixel-level changes barely noticeable to human eyes but dramatically confuses machine learning models. Where a human viewer sees an artwork essentially unchanged, an AI model might perceive something entirely different. The example Zhao's team uses is striking: whilst human eyes see a shaded image of a cow in a green field largely unchanged, an AI model trained on that image might instead perceive a large leather purse lying in the grass.

Since launching in March 2023, Glaze has been downloaded more than 7.5 million times, according to 2025 reports. The tool earned recognition as a TIME Best Invention of 2023, won the Chicago Innovation Award, and received the 2023 USENIX Internet Defence Prize. For artists, it represented something rare in the AI age: agency.

But Zhao's team didn't stop at defence. They also built Nightshade, an offensive weapon in the data wars. Whilst Glaze protects individual artists from style mimicry, Nightshade allows artists to collectively disrupt models that scrape their work without consent. By adding specially crafted “poisoned” data to training sets, artists can corrupt AI models, causing them to produce incorrect or nonsensical outputs. Since its release, Nightshade has been downloaded more than 1.6 million times. Shawn Shan, a computer science PhD student who worked on both tools, was named MIT Technology Review Innovator of the Year for 2024.

Yet the arms race continues. By 2025, researchers from the University of Texas at San Antonio, University of Cambridge, and Technical University of Darmstadt had developed LightShed, a method capable of bypassing these protections. In experimental evaluations, LightShed detected Nightshade-protected images with 99.98 per cent accuracy and effectively removed the embedded protections.

The developers of Glaze and Nightshade acknowledged this reality from the beginning. As they stated, “it is always possible for techniques we use today to be overcome by a future algorithm, possibly rendering previously protected art vulnerable.” Like any security measure, these tools engage in an ongoing evolutionary battle rather than offering permanent solutions. Still, Glaze 2.1, released in 2025, includes bugfixes and changes to resist newer attacks.

The broader watermarking landscape has similarly exploded with activity. The first Watermarking Workshop at the International Conference on Learning Representations in 2025 received 61 submissions and 51 accepted papers, a dramatic increase from fewer than 10 watermarking papers submitted just two years earlier.

Major technology companies have also entered the fray. Google developed SynthID through DeepMind, embedding watermarks directly during image generation. OpenAI supports the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity standard, better known as C2PA, which proposes adding encrypted metadata to generated images to enable interoperable provenance verification across platforms.

However, watermarking faces significant limitations. Competition results demonstrated that top teams could remove up to 96 per cent of watermarks, highlighting serious vulnerabilities. Moreover, as researchers noted, “watermarking could eventually be used by artists to opt out of having their work train AI models, but the technique is currently limited by the amount of data required to work properly. An individual artist's work generally lacks the necessary number of data points.”

The European Parliament's analysis concluded that “watermarking implemented in isolation will not be sufficient. It will have to be accompanied by other measures, such as mandatory processes of documentation and transparency for foundation models, pre-release testing, third-party auditing, and human rights impact assessments.”

The Legal Battleground

Whilst technologists built digital defences, lawyers prepared for battle. On 12 January 2023, visual artists Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz filed a landmark class-action lawsuit against Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt in federal court. The plaintiffs alleged that these companies scraped billions of images from the internet, including their copyrighted works, to train AI platforms without permission or compensation.

Additional artists soon joined, including Hawke Southworth, Grzegorz Rutkowski, Gregory Manchess, Gerald Brom, Jingna Zhang, Julia Kaye, and Adam Ellis. The plaintiffs later amended their complaint to add Runway AI as a defendant.

Then came August 2024, and a watershed moment for artist rights.

US District Judge William Orrick of California ruled that the visual artists could pursue claims that the defendants' image generation systems infringed upon their copyrights. Crucially, Judge Orrick denied Stability AI and Midjourney's motions to dismiss, allowing the case to advance towards discovery, where the inner workings of these AI systems would face unprecedented scrutiny.

In his decision, Judge Orrick found both direct and induced copyright infringement claims plausible. The induced infringement claim against Stability AI proved particularly significant. The plaintiffs argued that by distributing their Stable Diffusion model to other AI providers, Stability AI facilitated the copying of copyrighted material. Judge Orrick noted a damning statement by Stability's CEO, who claimed the company had compressed 100,000 gigabytes of images into a two-gigabyte file that could “recreate” any of those images.

The court also allowed a Lanham Act claim for false endorsement against Midjourney to proceed. Plaintiffs alleged that Midjourney had published their names on a list of artists whose styles its AI product could reproduce and included user-created images incorporating plaintiffs' names on Midjourney's showcase site.

By 2024, the proliferation of generative AI models had spawned well over thirty copyright infringement lawsuits by copyright owners against AI developers. In June 2025, Disney and NBCUniversal escalated the legal warfare, filing a copyright infringement lawsuit against Midjourney, alleging the company used trademarked characters including Elsa, Minions, Darth Vader, and Homer Simpson to train its image model. The involvement of such powerful corporate plaintiffs signalled that artist concerns had gained heavyweight institutional allies.

The legal landscape extended beyond courtroom battles. The Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act of 2024, introduced in the US Congress on 9 April 2024, proposed requiring companies developing generative AI models to disclose the datasets used to train their systems.

Across the Atlantic, the European Union took a different regulatory approach. The AI Act, which entered into force on 1 August 2024, included specific provisions addressing general purpose AI models. These mandated transparency obligations, particularly regarding technical documentation and content used for training, along with policies to respect EU copyright laws.

Under the AI Act, providers of AI models must comply with the European Union's Copyright Directive No. 790/2019. The Act requires AI service providers to publish summaries of material used for model training. Critically, the AI Act's obligation to respect EU copyright law extends to any operator introducing an AI system into the EU, regardless of which jurisdiction the system was trained in.

However, creative industry groups have expressed concerns that the AI Act doesn't go far enough. In August 2025, fifteen cultural organisations wrote to the European Commission stating: “We firmly believe that authors, performers, and creative workers must have the right to decide whether their works can be used by generative AI, and if they consent, they must be fairly remunerated.” European artists launched a campaign called “Stay True To The Act,” calling on the Commission to ensure AI companies are held accountable.

Market Mechanisms

Whilst lawsuits proceeded through courts and protective tools spread through artist communities, a third front opened: the marketplace itself. If AI companies insisted on training models with creative works, perhaps artists could at least be compensated.

The global dataset licensing for AI training market reached USD 2.1 billion in 2024, with a robust compound annual growth rate of 22.4 per cent projected through the forecast period. The AI datasets and licensing for academic research and publishing market specifically was estimated at USD 381.8 million in 2024, projected to reach USD 1.59 billion by 2030, growing at 26.8 per cent annually.

North America leads this market, accounting for approximately USD 900 million in 2024, driven by the region's concentration of leading technology companies. Europe represents the second-largest regional market at USD 650 million in 2024.

New platforms have risen to facilitate these transactions. Companies like Pip Labs and Vermillio founded AI content-licensing marketplaces that enable content creators to monetise their work via paid AI training access. Some major publishers have struck individual deals. HarperCollins forged an agreement with Microsoft to license non-fiction backlist titles for training AI models, offering authors USD 2,500 per book in exchange for a three-year licensing agreement, though many authors criticised the relatively modest compensation.

Perplexity AI's Publishing Programme, launched in July 2024, takes a different approach, offering revenue share based on the number of a publisher's web pages cited in AI-generated responses to user queries.

Yet fundamental questions persist about whether licensing actually serves artists' interests. The power imbalance between individual artists and trillion-dollar technology companies raises doubts about whether genuinely fair negotiations can occur in these marketplaces.

One organisation attempting to shift these dynamics is Fairly Trained, a non-profit that certifies generative AI companies for training data practices that respect creators' rights. Launched on 17 January 2024 by Ed Newton-Rex, a former vice president of audio at Stability AI who resigned over content scraping concerns, Fairly Trained awards its Licensed Model certification to AI operations that have secured licenses for third-party data used to train their models.

The certification is awarded to any generative AI model that doesn't use any copyrighted work without a license. Certification will not be awarded to models that rely on a “fair use” copyright exception, which indicates that rights-holders haven't given consent.

Fairly Trained launched with nine generative AI companies already certified: Beatoven.AI, Boomy, BRIA AI, Endel, LifeScore, Rightsify, Somms.ai, Soundful, and Tuney. By 2025, Fairly Trained had expanded its certification to include large language models and voice AI. Industry support came from the Association of American Publishers, Association of Independent Music Publishers, Concord, Pro Sound Effects, Universal Music Group, and the Authors Guild.

Newton-Rex explained the philosophy: “Fairly Trained AI certification is focused on consent from training data providers because we believe related improvements for rights-holders flow from consent: fair compensation, credit for inclusion in datasets, and more.”

The Artists Rights Society proposed a complementary approach: voluntary collective licensing wherein copyright owners affirmatively consent to the use of their copyrighted work. This model, similar to how performing rights organisations like ASCAP and BMI handle music licensing, could provide a streamlined mechanism for AI companies to obtain necessary permissions whilst ensuring artists receive compensation.

Provenance Registries and Blockchain

Beyond immediate protections and licensing, artists have embraced technologies that establish permanent, verifiable records of ownership and creation history. Blockchain-based provenance registries represent an attempt to create immutable documentation that survives across platforms.

Since the first NFT was minted in 2014, digital artists and collectors have praised blockchain technology for its usefulness in tracking provenance. The blockchain serves as an immutable digital ledger that records transactions without the aid of galleries or other centralised institutions.

“Minting” a piece of digital art on blockchain documents the date an artwork is made, stores on-chain metadata descriptions, and links to the crypto wallets of both artist and buyer, thus tracking sales history across future transactions. Christie's partnered with Artory, a blockchain-powered fine art registry, which managed registration processes for artworks. Platforms like The Fine Art Ledger use blockchain and NFTs to securely store ownership and authenticity records whilst producing digital certificates of authenticity.

For artists concerned about AI training, blockchain registries offer several advantages. First, they establish definitive proof of creation date and original authorship, critical evidence in potential copyright disputes. Second, they create verifiable records of usage permissions. Third, smart contracts can encode automatic royalty payments, ensuring artists receive compensation whenever their work changes hands or is licensed.

Artists can secure a resale right of 10 per cent that will be paid automatically every time the work changes hands, since this rule can be written into the code of the smart contract. This programmable aspect gives artists ongoing economic interests in their work's circulation, a dramatic shift from traditional art markets where artists typically profit only from initial sales.

However, blockchain provenance systems face significant challenges. The ownership of an NFT as defined by the blockchain has no inherent legal meaning and does not necessarily grant copyright, intellectual property rights, or other legal rights over its associated digital file.

Legal frameworks are slowly catching up. The March 2024 joint report by the US Copyright Office and Patent and Trademark Office on NFTs and intellectual property took a comprehensive look at how copyright, trademark, and patent laws intersect with NFTs. The report did not recommend new legislation, finding that existing IP law is generally capable of handling NFT disputes.

Illegal minting has become a major issue, with people tokenising works against their will. The piracy losses in the NFT industry amount to between USD 1 to 2 billion per year. As of 2025, no NFT-specific legislation exists federally in the US, though general laws can be invoked.

Beyond blockchain, more centralised provenance systems have emerged. Adobe's Content Credentials, based on the C2PA standard, provides cryptographically signed metadata that travels with images across platforms. The system allows creators to attach information about authorship, creation tools, editing history, and critically, their preferences regarding AI training.

Adobe Content Authenticity, released as a public beta in Q1 2025, enables creators to include generative AI training and usage preferences in their Content Credentials. This preference lets creators request that supporting generative AI models not train on or use their work. Content Credentials are available in Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, Stock, and Premiere Pro.

The “Do Not Train” preference is currently supported by Adobe Firefly and Spawning, though whether other developers will respect these credentials remains uncertain. However, the preference setting makes it explicit that the creator did not want their work used to train AI models, information that could prove valuable in future lawsuits or regulatory enforcement actions.

What's Actually Working

With technical tools, legal strategies, licensing marketplaces, and provenance systems all in play, a critical question emerges: what's actually effective?

The answer is frustratingly complex. No single mechanism has proven sufficient, but combinations show promise, and the mere existence of multiple defensive options has shifted AI companies' behaviour.

On the technical front, Glaze and Nightshade have achieved the most widespread adoption among protection tools, with combined downloads exceeding nine million. Whilst researchers demonstrated vulnerabilities, the tools have forced AI companies to acknowledge artist concerns and, in some cases, adjust practices. The computational cost of bypassing these protections at scale creates friction that matters.

Watermarking faces steeper challenges. The ability of adversarial attacks to remove 96 per cent of watermarks in competition settings demonstrates fundamental weaknesses. Industry observers increasingly view watermarking as one component of multi-layered approaches rather than a standalone solution.

Legally, the August 2024 Andersen ruling represents the most significant victory to date. Allowing copyright infringement claims to proceed towards discovery forces AI companies to disclose training practices, creating transparency that didn't previously exist. The involvement of major corporate plaintiffs like Disney and NBCUniversal in subsequent cases amplifies pressure on AI companies.

Regulatory developments, particularly the EU AI Act, create baseline transparency requirements that didn't exist before. The obligation to disclose training data summaries and respect copyright reservations establishes minimum standards, though enforcement mechanisms remain to be tested.

Licensing marketplaces present mixed results. Established publishers have extracted meaningful payments from AI companies, but individual artists often receive modest compensation. The HarperCollins deal's USD 2,500-per-book payment exemplifies this imbalance.

Fairly Trained certification offers a market-based alternative that shows early promise. By creating reputational incentives for ethical data practices, the certification enables consumers and businesses to support AI systems that respect creator rights. The expanding roster of certified companies demonstrates market demand for ethically trained models.

Provenance systems like blockchain registries and Content Credentials establish valuable documentation but depend on voluntary respect by AI developers. Their greatest value may prove evidentiary, providing clear records of ownership and permissions that strengthen legal cases rather than preventing unauthorised use directly.

The most effective approach emerging from early battles combines multiple mechanisms simultaneously: technical protections like Glaze to raise the cost of unauthorised use, legal pressure through class actions to force transparency, market alternatives through licensing platforms to enable consent-based uses, and provenance systems to document ownership and preferences. This defence-in-depth strategy mirrors cybersecurity principles, where layered defences significantly raise attacker costs and reduce success rates.

Why Independent Artists Struggle to Adopt Protections

Despite the availability of protection mechanisms, independent artists face substantial barriers to adoption.

The most obvious barrier is cost. Whilst some tools like Glaze and Nightshade are free, they require significant computational resources to process images. Artists with large portfolios face substantial electricity costs and processing time. More sophisticated protection services, licensing platforms, and legal consultations carry fees that many independent artists cannot afford.

Technical complexity presents another hurdle. Tools like Glaze require some understanding of how machine learning works. Blockchain platforms demand familiarity with cryptocurrency wallets, gas fees, and smart contracts. Content Credentials require knowledge of metadata standards and platform support. Many artists simply want to create and share their work, not become technologists.

Time investment compounds these challenges. An artist with thousands of existing images across multiple platforms faces an overwhelming task to retroactively protect their catalogue. Processing times for tools like Glaze can be substantial, turning protection into a full-time job when applied to extensive portfolios.

Platform fragmentation creates additional friction. An artist might post work to Instagram, DeviantArt, ArtStation, personal websites, and client platforms. Each has different capabilities for preserving protective measures. Metadata might be stripped during upload. Blockchain certificates might not display properly. Technical protections might degrade through platform compression.

The effectiveness uncertainty further dampens adoption. Artists read about researchers bypassing Glaze, competitions removing watermarks, and AI companies scraping despite “Do Not Train” flags. When protections can be circumvented, the effort to apply them seems questionable.

Legal uncertainty compounds technical doubts. Even with protections applied, artists lack clarity about their legal rights. Will courts uphold copyright claims against AI training? Does fair use protect AI companies? These unanswered questions make it difficult to assess whether protective measures truly reduce risk.

The collective action problem presents perhaps the most fundamental barrier. Individual artists protecting their work provides minimal benefit if millions of other works remain available for scraping. Like herd immunity in epidemiology, effective resistance to unauthorised AI training requires widespread adoption. But individual artists lack incentives to be first movers, especially given the costs and uncertainties involved.

Social and economic precarity intensifies these challenges. Many visual artists work in financially unstable conditions, juggling multiple income streams whilst trying to maintain creative practices. Adding complex technological and legal tasks to already overwhelming workloads proves impractical for many. The artists most vulnerable to AI displacement often have the least capacity to deploy sophisticated protections.

Information asymmetry creates an additional obstacle. AI companies possess vast technical expertise, legal teams, and resources to navigate complex technological and regulatory landscapes. Individual artists typically lack this knowledge base, creating substantial disadvantages.

These barriers fundamentally determine which artists can effectively resist unauthorised AI training and which remain vulnerable. The protection mechanisms available today primarily serve artists with sufficient technical knowledge, financial resources, time availability, and social capital to navigate complex systems.

Incentivising Provenance-Aware Practices

If the barriers to adoption are substantial, how might platforms and collectors incentivise provenance-aware practices that benefit artists?

Platforms hold enormous power to shift norms and practices. They could implement default protections, applying tools like Glaze automatically to uploaded artwork unless artists opt out, inverting the current burden. They could preserve metadata and Content Credentials rather than stripping them during upload processing. They could create prominent badging systems that highlight provenance-verified works, giving them greater visibility in recommendation algorithms.

Economic incentives could flow through platform choices. Verified provenance could unlock premium features, higher placement in search results, or access to exclusive opportunities. Platforms could create marketplace advantages for artists who adopt protective measures, making verification economically rational.

Legal commitments by platforms would strengthen protections substantially. Platforms could contractually commit not to license user-uploaded content for AI training without explicit opt-in consent. They could implement robust takedown procedures for AI-generated works that infringe verified provenance records.

Technical infrastructure investments by platforms could dramatically reduce artist burdens. Computing costs for applying protections could be subsidised or absorbed entirely. Bulk processing tools could protect entire portfolios with single clicks. Cross-platform synchronisation could ensure protections apply consistently.

Educational initiatives could address knowledge gaps. Platforms could provide clear, accessible tutorials on using protective tools, understanding legal rights, and navigating licensing options.

Collectors and galleries likewise can incentivise provenance practices. Premium pricing for provenance-verified works signals market value for documented authenticity and ethical practices. Collectors building reputations around ethically sourced collections create demand-side pull for proper documentation. Galleries could require provenance verification as a condition of representation.

Resale royalty enforcement through smart contracts gives artists ongoing economic interests in their work's circulation. Collectors who voluntarily honour these arrangements, even when not legally required, demonstrate commitment to sustainable creative economies.

Provenance-focused exhibitions and collections create cultural cachet around verified works. When major museums and galleries highlight blockchain-verified provenance or Content Credentials in their materials, they signal that professional legitimacy increasingly requires robust documentation.

Philanthropic and institutional support could subsidise protection costs for artists who cannot afford them. Foundations could fund free access to premium protective services. Arts organisations could provide technical assistance. Grant programmes could explicitly reward provenance-aware practices.

Industry standards and collective action amplify individual efforts. Professional associations could establish best practices that members commit to upholding. Cross-platform alliances could create unified approaches to metadata preservation and “Do Not Train” flags, reducing fragmentation. Collective licensing organisations could streamline permissions whilst ensuring compensation.

Government regulation could mandate certain practices. Requirements that platforms preserve metadata and Content Credentials would eliminate current stripping practices. Opt-in requirements for AI training, as emerging in EU regulation, shift default assumptions about consent. Disclosure requirements for training datasets enable artists to discover unauthorised use.

The most promising approaches combine multiple incentive types simultaneously. A platform that implements default protections, preserves metadata, provides economic advantages for verified works, subsidises computational costs, offers accessible education, and commits contractually to respecting artist preferences creates a comprehensively supportive environment.

Similarly, an art market ecosystem where collectors pay premiums for verified provenance, galleries require documentation for representation, museums highlight ethical sourcing, foundations subsidise protection costs, professional associations establish standards, and regulations mandate baseline practices would make provenance-aware approaches the norm rather than the exception.

An Unsettled Future

The battle over AI training on visual art remains fundamentally unresolved. Legal cases continue through courts without final judgments. Technical tools evolve in ongoing arms races with circumvention methods. Regulatory frameworks take shape but face implementation challenges. Market mechanisms develop but struggle with power imbalances.

What has changed is the end of the initial free-for-all period when AI companies could scrape with impunity, face no organised resistance, and operate without transparency requirements. Artists mobilised, built tools, filed lawsuits, demanded regulations, and created alternative economic models. The costs of unauthorised use, both legal and reputational, increased substantially.

The effectiveness of current mechanisms remains limited when deployed individually, but combinations show promise. The mere existence of resistance shifted some AI company behaviour, with certain developers now seeking licenses, supporting provenance standards, or training only on permissioned datasets. Fairly Trained's growing roster demonstrates market demand for ethically sourced AI.

Yet fundamental challenges persist. Power asymmetries between artists and technology companies remain vast. Technical protections face circumvention. Legal frameworks develop slowly whilst technology advances rapidly. Economic models struggle to provide fair compensation at scale. Independent artists face barriers that exclude many from available protections.

The path forward likely involves continued evolution across all fronts. Technical tools will improve whilst facing new attacks. Legal precedents will gradually clarify applicable standards. Regulations will impose transparency and consent requirements. Markets will develop more sophisticated licensing and compensation mechanisms. Provenance systems will become more widely adopted as cultural norms shift.

But none of this is inevitable. It requires sustained pressure from artists, support from platforms and collectors, sympathetic legal interpretations, effective regulation, and continued technical innovation. The mobilisation that began in 2022 must persist and adapt.

What's certain is that visual artists are no longer passive victims of technological change. They're fighting back with ingenuity, determination, and an expanding toolkit. Whether that proves sufficient to protect creative livelihoods and ensure fair compensation remains to be seen. But the battle lines are drawn, the mechanisms are deployed, and the outcome will shape not just visual art, but how we conceive of creative ownership in the algorithmic age.

The question posed at the beginning was simple: has my work been trained? The response from artists is now equally clear: not without a fight.

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University of Chicago Maroon. (2024). Guardians of Creativity: Glaze and Nightshade Forge New Frontiers in AI Defence for Artists. https://chicagomaroon.com/42054/news/guardians-of-creativity-glaze-and-nightshade-forge-new-frontiers-in-ai-defense-for-artists/

University of Southern California IP & Technology Law Society. (2025). AI, Copyright, and the Law: The Ongoing Battle Over Intellectual Property Rights. https://sites.usc.edu/iptls/2025/02/04/ai-copyright-and-the-law-the-ongoing-battle-over-intellectual-property-rights/

UTSA Today. (2025). Researchers show AI art protection tools still leave creators at risk. https://www.utsa.edu/today/2025/06/story/AI-art-protection-tools-still-leave-creators-at-risk.html

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Tim Green UK-based Systems Theorist & Independent Technology Writer

Tim explores the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, and posthuman ethics. His work, published at smarterarticles.co.uk, challenges dominant narratives of technological progress while proposing interdisciplinary frameworks for collective intelligence and digital stewardship.

His writing has been featured on Ground News and shared by independent researchers across both academic and technological communities.

ORCID: 0009-0002-0156-9795 Email: tim@smarterarticles.co.uk

There are moments in Scripture when Paul stops sounding like a teacher or even a theologian and begins sounding like a father whose heart is tired, bruised, and still burning with love for his children. First Corinthians 4 is one of those moments. You can feel the ache in his voice, the tug in his spirit, the exhaustion of someone who has poured out everything he has, only to watch the people he loves drift toward pride, comparison, division, and spiritual arrogance. It is the chapter where Paul steps out from behind the structure of doctrine and speaks plainly, honestly, and vulnerably about what it means to follow Jesus when the world misunderstands you, when people misjudge you, and when credibility is questioned by those who weren’t there to see the cost of your obedience.

This chapter meets every believer in the secret place where motives are tested, where obedience is weighed, where humility is either chosen or rejected, and where the applause of heaven must drown out the noise of earth. It is a chapter that confronts the deepest parts of our identity—our need to be seen, our yearning to be respected, our craving for approval, and our tendency to inflate ourselves when we fear we are being diminished. Paul steps into all of that and strips it down to one timeless truth: a servant of Christ cannot live for appearances. A steward of the mysteries of God cannot live for validation. A follower of Jesus must be prepared to look foolish to the world if it means being faithful to the One who called them.

Paul opens the chapter by defining the identity of every believer who chooses to serve Christ with sincerity: a servant and a steward. And not a steward of earthly possessions or accomplishments but of mysteries. That means your life is not meant to impress people; it is meant to reveal something of God that the world cannot grasp on its own. Being a steward of divine mysteries means living in ways that don’t always make sense to people who measure value by success, status, and visibility. It means your obedience sometimes looks like sacrifice that no one applauds. It means your service sometimes looks like insignificance to those who measure greatness by worldly metrics. It means your faithfulness sometimes looks like failure to people who do not understand that heaven operates on a different scoreboard.

Paul says that what is required of a steward is simply that they be found faithful. Not brilliant. Not popular. Not admired. Faithful. One of the hardest spiritual lessons is accepting that faithfulness rarely feels glamorous. It rarely feels rewarded in real time. It rarely looks impressive. Faithfulness is often lonely, quiet, misunderstood, and carried out in spaces where no one is clapping. Faithfulness is the work you do when nobody notices. Faithfulness is the obedience you give when nobody affirms it. Faithfulness is the decision to honor God even when it costs you comfort, reputation, or opportunities you really wanted.

And then Paul says something that cuts through the human obsession with perception: “I care very little if I am judged by you or any human court.” Not because he is arrogant, but because he knows that no human being—no matter how close, no matter how spiritual, no matter how well-intentioned—can truly see into the depths of another person’s motives. He says he cannot even fully judge himself because only God sees with perfect clarity. God alone knows the intent, the motive, the truth behind the action. And this becomes a liberating truth once you embrace it. You stop trying to correct every misunderstanding. You stop trying to perform for people who will never fully understand your heart. You stop trying to win approval from people who aren’t even qualified to evaluate your calling.

Paul is inviting the believer to step out of the exhausting cycle of proving themselves. He is showing us that spiritual freedom does not come when others applaud you but when their applause no longer determines your direction. It comes when your soul rests in the reality that God sees, God knows, God measures, and God rewards in ways people never could. It comes when you let go of the pressure to justify yourself, defend yourself, or explain yourself to those who do not carry your assignment.

But then Paul shifts the conversation. He begins confronting the Corinthians for acting like they’ve already arrived spiritually, as if they were already kings, already exalted, already living in a finished glory that belongs only to the future kingdom. He points out the painful contrast: “We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are honored, but we are dishonored.” These are not compliments; they are confrontations. Paul is exposing the dangerous illusion that spiritual pride creates—the illusion that you are further along than you truly are, that you have matured beyond the need for correction, that you have reached a level of spirituality where you no longer need humility.

When you believe you are spiritually superior, you stop learning. When you believe you have outgrown accountability, you stop being teachable. When you believe you are further along than everyone else, you stop hearing the voice of God clearly. Pride is more deadly than ignorance because ignorance can be corrected, but pride refuses correction. Pride builds walls around the mind, making the heart unreachable. Pride convinces a person that they are spiritually advanced while slowly disconnecting them from the very source of spiritual life.

Paul answers their pride not by attacking them but by offering the raw truth of what the apostles were actually enduring. He draws a picture that is so vivid, so uncomfortable, you can almost feel the weight of it. He says the apostles have been made a spectacle to the world—like prisoners of war paraded before crowds. He describes hunger, thirst, poor clothing, homelessness, exhaustion, persecution, and opposition. He paints the image of faithful servants being treated like the world’s garbage, the residue scraped off the bottom of society’s shoe. And yet—this is the miracle—they respond not with bitterness, not with retaliation, not with cynicism, but with blessing, endurance, and gentleness.

This is not weakness. This is spiritual strength at its highest form. Anyone can retaliate. Anyone can fight back. Anyone can respond to insult with insult. But it takes Holy Spirit–empowered strength to bless those who curse, endure when mistreated, and respond with kindness when slandered. The strongest believers are not the ones who win arguments; they are the ones who refuse to let mistreatment corrupt their spirit. The strongest believers are not the ones who appear unshaken; they are the ones who choose humility instead of pride, patience instead of anger, and obedience instead of self-protection.

Paul is showing the Corinthians—and us—that following Christ looks less like sitting on a throne and more like carrying a towel. It looks less like being admired and more like serving when no one is watching. It looks less like being honored by people and more like being faithful to God when people misunderstand your devotion.

Then Paul takes a deeply personal turn. He tells them he is not writing all of this to shame them but to admonish them as his beloved children. This is not the voice of a frustrated teacher. This is the voice of a spiritual father who loves his people too much to let them drift into spiritual self-deception. He reminds them that they may have countless instructors but not many fathers—and there is a difference. Instructors can give information, but fathers give themselves. Instructors can teach principles, but fathers produce identity. Instructors can fill minds with knowledge, but fathers help shape character, humility, and direction.

Paul is pointing them back to the truth that Christian maturity is not measured by enthusiasm, gifting, or knowledge but by imitation—“imitate me,” he says—not because he considers himself perfect, but because he knows he is following Christ with sincerity, humility, and sacrifice. He knows the path he is walking is the path they must learn to walk. And this becomes the unspoken heartbeat of this chapter: spiritual growth does not happen by learning everything at once but by imitating the posture of someone who is already surrendered to Christ.

He sends Timothy as a living example because he knows the Corinthians need more than information; they need a model. They need someone whose life demonstrates humility, endurance, and faithfulness. They need someone who lives out the gospel in the quiet spaces where character is formed. Timothy becomes a mirror—not for them to admire themselves, but for them to see the difference between worldly applause and godly obedience.

And then Paul closes with a sobering truth: the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. Anyone can talk spiritually, and anyone can sound impressive when speaking with confidence. But the kingdom is revealed not by how much someone says but by the spiritual power that flows through a surrendered life—power to love, power to endure, power to forgive, power to remain humble, power to stay faithful in obscurity, power to resist pride, power to walk with the heart of Christ no matter how the world responds.

Paul is asking them, and asking every one of us: Are you living in talk, or are you living in power? Are you leaning into appearance, or are you leaning into surrender? Are you building your identity on how spiritual you look, or on how quietly faithful you are when nobody is looking? Are you pursuing the applause of people, or the approval of God? Are you living as one who believes they have already arrived, or as one who knows that humility is the gateway to greatness in God’s kingdom?

The danger Paul confronts in this chapter is not rebellion. It is not unbelief. It is not immorality. It is something far more subtle, far more common, and far more deadly to a believer’s spiritual trajectory: the illusion that you are already everything God wants you to be. The illusion that spiritual growth is behind you. The illusion that your spiritual depth is self-evident. The illusion that maturity can be measured by how gifted, emotional, or confident you appear. Paul strips away that illusion and shows that true maturity is never loud, never proud, never self-promoting, and never defensive. True maturity lets God judge motives. True maturity refuses to boast about what it does not yet understand. True maturity embraces the hiddenness that comes with obedience and the humility that comes with being taught.

This chapter becomes a mirror for every servant who is tired of being misunderstood, tired of being overlooked, tired of being underestimated, or tired of being criticized for motives only God can see. Paul’s words remind us that God never wastes the seasons where people don’t get us. God never wastes the seasons where no one understands what we’re building. God never wastes the seasons where our work seems invisible, insignificant, or unimpressive. Those seasons do not diminish you—they forge you. They reveal what kind of steward you truly are. They test whether your obedience is grounded in love for God or in the desire for approval.

Paul’s own life becomes the embodiment of this truth. He had every earthly credential. He had the intellect, the training, the pedigree, the reputation, the heritage, and the authority. But after meeting Christ, none of those things became the measure of his identity. Instead, his life became a canvas of suffering, endurance, humility, and obedience. He counted himself a fool in the eyes of the world so that he could be faithful in the eyes of God. He embraced weakness knowing that God’s power shines brightest through surrendered lives. He accepted dishonor because he understood that God’s favor outweighs human recognition. He endured hardship knowing it was shaping something eternal inside him.

When he says “we have become the scum of the earth,” he is not complaining. He is revealing the cost of true apostleship. He is showing that greatness in the kingdom does not travel the road of applause; it travels the road of sacrifice. If the path you are walking feels heavy, if your obedience feels costly, if your service feels unnoticed, you are not failing—you are following the same road the apostles walked. You are being shaped by the same God who shaped their character. You are being trained in the same humility that trained them for eternal impact.

And if you feel unseen, misunderstood, or unappreciated, understand this: it is entirely possible that God is protecting you from being elevated too soon. Human recognition can destroy what humility protects. Applause can corrupt what obedience purifies. Early praise can uproot what steady faithfulness is trying to grow. God often hides the ones He is preparing. He often conceals the ones He is strengthening. He often allows seasons where you seem pushed aside so that arrogance never takes root in the soil of your calling.

Paul is calling the Corinthians back to humility not because they are insignificant but because God has plans for them, and pride would sabotage those plans. God cannot build on a foundation of self-exaltation. He cannot entrust spiritual depth to a heart that demands honor. He cannot release power through someone who insists on being seen. He cannot grow a believer who refuses correction. Humility is not just a virtue—it is the very environment where transformation becomes possible.

When Paul tells them “imitate me,” he is not pointing to achievements. He is pointing to posture. He is pointing to a life that has surrendered every claim to glory. He is pointing to the way he responds to hardship, to misunderstanding, to criticism, to persecution, and to mistreatment. He is pointing to the way he refuses to let bitterness corrupt his spirit. He is pointing to the way he chooses gentleness over retaliation. He is pointing to the way he allows God—not people—to define his worth.

He is ultimately pointing to Christ, because the humility Paul models is the humility he learned from Jesus. Christ—who had every right to be honored—chose to be a servant. Christ—who could have demanded loyalty—chose to wash feet. Christ—who could have silenced His critics—chose to remain obedient. Christ—who could have summoned angels—chose a cross. Christ—who deserved glory—embraced humiliation so that humanity could be redeemed. Paul is not asking anyone to imitate him for the sake of imitation; he is asking believers to learn the posture of Christ through the life of someone who is already walking that road.

This is why his warning at the end of the chapter is so powerful. He says there are many who are arrogant, many who talk confidently, many who sound spiritual—but the kingdom of God is not talk. Talk is cheap. Talk is easy. Talk impresses crowds but does not transform souls. Talk convinces listeners but does not change hearts. Talk can imitate the sound of spirituality but cannot imitate the substance of it. Paul is saying the kingdom is recognized by power—not the power to dominate, not the power to intimidate, not the power to persuade, but the power to endure, the power to forgive, the power to remain faithful, the power to love, the power to remain humble, the power to suffer without becoming bitter, the power to remain gentle in the face of hostility, the power to continue serving even when no one notices.

This is the power you carry when you surrender your life to Christ. This is the power that grows in hidden places. This is the power that emerges in seasons where it feels like God is silent. This is the power that is shaped through trials, rejection, and misunderstanding. This is the power that allows you to remain steady when others fall away. This is the power that helps you forgive people who will never understand what their words cost you. This is the power that teaches you to keep walking when your heart feels broken. This is the power that keeps your spirit alive when your circumstances feel impossible.

Paul’s message is timeless: if you want to carry spiritual power, you must embrace spiritual humility. If you want to be entrusted with influence, you must be willing to be misunderstood. If you want God to exalt you, you must be willing to walk through seasons where you are overlooked. If you want depth, you must be willing to let God strip away the pride that keeps you shallow. If you want maturity, you must be willing to be corrected. If you want the kingdom, you must want God more than you want applause.

And in this way, 1 Corinthians 4 is not merely a rebuke—it is an invitation. An invitation to free yourself from the pressure to perform. An invitation to stop defending yourself against the opinions of people who cannot see your motives. An invitation to stop pretending you have spiritually arrived. An invitation to return to the humility that first softened your heart when Christ found you. An invitation to accept the quiet work God is doing even when no one else recognizes it. An invitation to discover the strength that only humility can produce.

You do not need to be validated to be valuable. You do not need to be visible to be effective. You do not need to be applauded to be anointed. You do not need to be honored to be used by God. Heaven sees what the world overlooks. Heaven values what the world ignores. Heaven celebrates what the world misunderstands. Heaven rewards what the world cannot measure.

This chapter is God’s gentle reminder that your worth is not determined by how you appear to people but by how you are seen by Him. Your calling cannot be evaluated by those who did not assign it. Your obedience cannot be judged by those who did not witness it. Your faithfulness cannot be diminished by those who do not understand it. You are not defined by public perception. You are defined by the God who knows the secrets of your heart and the intentions behind every step you take.

And when you embrace that truth, everything changes. The pressure lifts. The striving stops. The insecurity fades. The comparisons lose their grip. The criticism loses its sting. The pride loses its power. You begin to breathe again. You begin to rest again. You begin to serve again with joy instead of exhaustion. You begin to walk again without needing the approval of anyone but God.

This is the beauty of the gospel revealed through Paul’s words: you are free. Free from judgment. Free from comparison. Free from the need to impress. Free from the burden of pretending. Free from the weight of expectations that were never yours to carry. Free from the illusion that you must be seen to matter.

If you walk away from this chapter with only one truth, let it be this: humility is not a sign of weakness—it is the soil where spiritual greatness grows. And God is not looking for the ones who appear mighty. He is looking for the ones who remain surrendered. He is not seeking the ones who seem impressive. He is seeking the ones who remain faithful when no one is watching. He is not drawn to those who promote themselves. He is drawn to those who quietly trust Him when everything around them feels uncertain.

Let your heart return to humility. Let your soul find rest in the God who sees you. Let your spirit be strengthened by the truth that obedience is never wasted. And let your life become the living evidence of what Paul wrote so long ago: that the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.

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It’s a feast for the eyes. More photos here.

Merry Christmas, Ted Cooper Hallmark, 2025 (4 out of 5 Hot Chocolates)

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The season’s first banger. Atypical male lead, fresh story beats, and riffing on zany Anchorman-style comedies. The romance is a Christmas Ale buzz. You root for leads Ted and Hope.

Supporting cast matters in holiday movies. From Ted’s high-strung sibling to the Sole Sisters, an a-hole newsman nemesis, and Hope’s straight-talkin' coworker, this movie has a fruitcake of an ensemble.

The plot had a third-act problem with an asinine Three’s Company miscommunication “conflict.” Hope is unnecessarily mean, as she delivers a brutal, undeserved Ted takedown. Justice for Ted! But the hot, handsy, elongated on-camera make-out scene saved Christmas. Watch it.

#movies #ChristmasMovies #HallmarkMovies #RomCom #HolidayMovies #100HotChocolates #ChristmasReview #100WordReview #Larrys100 #100DaysToOffload