In Summary: * When I woke this morning I was surprised to find news of Maduro's capture, and throughout the day I kept following news reports about that and what it might portend. Lots of reports, lots of opinions. Then I caught an NFL game late in the afternoon, and a Saturday night monster movie is coming right up.

Prayers, etc.: My daily prayers

Health Metrics: * bw= 221.58 lbs. * bp= 129/80 (71)

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

Diet: * 07:20 – 1 peanut butter sandwich * 09:00 – red velvet cake * 12:00 – refried beans, fried rice, steak, guacamole, sour cream, nacho chips, sliced vegetables * 15:00 – 1 fresh apple

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 07:00 – bank accounts activity monitored * 07:30 – read, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials, nap * 15:30 – listening to the NFL on Westwood One, early in the 1st qtr. of the Carolina Panthers vs the Tamps Bay Buccaneers Game * 16:25 – ... and Tampa Bay wins, final score 16 to 14. * 19:00 – time for the Saturday night Svengoolie.

Chess: * 15:55 – moved in all pending CC games

There are moments in life when silence would be easier. When saying nothing would protect you. When blending in, backing away, or letting others speak for you would feel safer than opening your mouth. Acts 22 is one of the most emotionally charged examples in Scripture of a man who could have stayed quiet but chose instead to tell the truth about what happened to him, even when that truth put him in danger. This chapter is not merely Paul giving a speech. It is Paul standing inside his own story, fully exposed, knowing that every word could cost him his life, and still speaking because obedience mattered more than survival.

Acts 22 opens in chaos. Paul has just been seized by an angry crowd in Jerusalem. The accusations are loud, the violence is real, and the situation is spiraling quickly toward death. He is rescued not because the mob has a change of heart, but because Roman soldiers intervene. Even then, he is not freed. He is chained. He is misunderstood. He is assumed guilty. And yet, in one of the most striking moments in the book of Acts, Paul asks for permission to speak. That request alone tells us something important about the kind of faith Paul had. Faith, for Paul, was not about escaping danger. It was about faithfulness inside danger.

What follows is not a theological lecture in the traditional sense. Paul does not begin by arguing doctrine. He does not start by correcting misconceptions about Christian belief. Instead, he tells his story. He talks about where he came from. He names his past without defending it. He recounts his encounter with Jesus without softening it. He describes obedience that cost him everything. Acts 22 shows us that sometimes the most powerful testimony is not an argument, but a memory told with honesty.

Paul begins by addressing the crowd in Hebrew. This is not a small detail. He is not performing. He is not posturing. He is deliberately choosing the heart-language of his accusers. In doing so, he immediately reframes the situation. He is not an outsider attacking their faith. He is one of them. He shares their heritage. He knows their Scriptures. He understands their passion. This is not manipulation; it is connection. Paul meets them where they are linguistically, culturally, and emotionally, even though they have already decided he deserves to die.

He then does something that many of us struggle to do. He tells the truth about who he used to be without excusing it or minimizing it. Paul openly admits that he persecuted followers of “this Way.” He talks about imprisoning believers, both men and women. He acknowledges that he was zealous, convinced, and wrong. There is no attempt to rewrite history. There is no spiritual spin. Acts 22 reminds us that transformation does not require pretending the past never happened. In fact, the power of transformation is only visible when the past is named honestly.

Paul’s story forces us to confront something uncomfortable. Zeal is not the same as righteousness. Paul was passionate. He was educated. He was convinced he was defending God. And he was completely opposed to what God was actually doing. Acts 22 quietly warns us that sincerity alone is not proof of truth. It is possible to be deeply religious and deeply mistaken at the same time. Paul does not shy away from this reality, even though it implicates his former self and the very crowd listening to him.

When Paul recounts his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, he does so without drama for drama’s sake. He tells it plainly. A light. A voice. A question. “Why are you persecuting me?” This moment is crucial because it reframes everything Paul thought he knew about God. Jesus does not say, “Why are you persecuting my followers?” He says, “Why are you persecuting me?” In Acts 22, we see that Jesus so closely identifies with His people that harm done to them is harm done to Him. This is not abstract theology. It is personal, relational, and deeply confronting.

Paul’s blindness after the encounter is not incidental. He, who thought he saw clearly, is rendered unable to see at all. Acts 22 invites us to consider that sometimes loss of sight is the beginning of true vision. Paul has to be led by the hand into Damascus. The man who once led others now has to be guided. The one who issued orders now waits for instruction. There is humility baked into this story that cannot be ignored. Transformation often includes a season of dependency that feels humiliating but is actually healing.

Ananias enters the story quietly, without fanfare. He is not famous. He is not powerful. He is simply obedient. Acts 22 emphasizes that God often uses ordinary, faithful people to participate in extraordinary change. Ananias lays hands on Paul, calls him “brother,” and restores his sight. That word matters. Brother. Paul is no longer an enemy. He is family. This moment shows us that reconciliation is not theoretical. It is spoken. It is embodied. It is risky. Ananias had every reason to fear Paul, yet obedience overrides fear.

When Paul describes his calling, he emphasizes obedience rather than privilege. He is told that he will be a witness, not a celebrity. He will testify to what he has seen and heard, not build a platform. Acts 22 reframes calling as responsibility rather than status. Paul is not chosen because he is impressive. He is chosen because God intends to display mercy through him. This distinction matters, especially in a culture that equates calling with visibility and success.

The crowd listens quietly until Paul mentions one word: Gentiles. At that point, everything explodes again. This reaction reveals the real issue at the heart of Acts 22. The problem is not Paul’s past. It is not his conversion. It is not even his faith in Jesus. The problem is inclusion. The idea that God’s grace extends beyond ethnic, cultural, and religious boundaries is intolerable to them. Acts 22 exposes how deeply threatening grace can be when it disrupts identity-based superiority.

This moment forces us to ask hard questions about our own reactions to grace. Are there people we secretly believe God should not welcome? Are there boundaries we assume God would never cross? Acts 22 does not allow us to remain comfortable. The crowd’s rage is not about theology; it is about control. If God can reach Gentiles, then God is not contained. And if God is not contained, then no group gets to claim exclusive ownership of Him.

Paul’s Roman citizenship enters the story almost abruptly, but it serves an important function. It does not save him from suffering, but it prevents immediate injustice. Acts 22 reminds us that earthly systems, though imperfect, can sometimes be used by God to protect His servants long enough for the mission to continue. Paul does not rely on his citizenship first. He speaks as a servant of Christ before he asserts his legal rights. There is wisdom here. Faith does not require rejecting all earthly structures, but it also does not place ultimate trust in them.

What makes Acts 22 especially powerful is that Paul does not get the outcome he might have hoped for. His speech does not convert the crowd. It does not calm them. It does not resolve the conflict. And yet, it is still faithful. This chapter teaches us that obedience is not measured by immediate results. Paul speaks because he is called to speak, not because he is guaranteed success. In a world obsessed with metrics, Acts 22 redefines faithfulness as obedience regardless of outcome.

There is something deeply human about Paul’s willingness to recount his past in front of people who despise him. Many of us want redemption without memory. We want to be changed without being reminded of who we used to be. Paul models a different path. He does not weaponize his past against others, but he does not hide it either. Acts 22 shows us that healed memory becomes testimony, not shame.

This chapter also challenges how we think about defense. Paul is defending himself, yes, but not in the way we might expect. He does not deny the accusations. He reframes them. He explains how his life makes sense only in light of Jesus. His defense is not self-justification; it is witness. Acts 22 invites us to consider whether our own defenses are about protecting ego or pointing to truth.

As Acts 22 unfolds, it becomes clear that Paul’s real audience is larger than the crowd in Jerusalem. His words echo through history. His story speaks to anyone who has been misunderstood, misjudged, or rejected for following Jesus. It speaks to those who have changed and found that their transformation makes others uncomfortable. It speaks to believers who feel compelled to speak truth even when silence would be safer.

Acts 22 is not a chapter about winning arguments. It is a chapter about courage, memory, obedience, and the cost of faith. Paul stands chained and still speaks. He is accused and still testifies. He is rejected and still obeys. And in doing so, he shows us that faithfulness is not about controlling outcomes, but about trusting God with them.

This chapter leaves us with an uncomfortable but necessary truth. Sometimes your story will become the battlefield. Sometimes the very thing God has redeemed in you will be the thing others cannot accept. Acts 22 does not promise protection from that reality. What it offers instead is a model of how to stand with integrity when it happens.

And that is where the weight of this chapter truly settles. Paul does not escape suffering in Acts 22. But he refuses to escape obedience. He refuses to let fear silence testimony. He refuses to pretend that grace has limits. In a world that often demands conformity or silence, Acts 22 calls believers to something braver. Speak the truth. Tell the story. Obey God. Leave the results to Him.

Acts 22 also presses us to reflect on how we understand identity after conversion. Paul does not erase his Jewish identity. He does not speak as someone who has abandoned his people or rejected his heritage. Instead, he speaks as someone who believes his encounter with Jesus fulfilled, rather than destroyed, everything he once believed about God. This nuance matters. Acts 22 is not a rejection of roots; it is a reorientation of them. Paul’s life demonstrates that following Jesus does not require cultural amnesia. It requires reordered allegiance.

This is where Acts 22 becomes deeply relevant to modern believers who feel torn between faith and identity. Paul refuses to choose between being Jewish and being faithful to Christ. He insists that obedience to Jesus is the truest expression of fidelity to God. The tension he experiences is not accidental; it is the inevitable result of transformation that challenges entrenched systems. When faith disrupts inherited expectations, conflict follows. Acts 22 does not resolve that tension neatly, because real life rarely does.

Another overlooked dimension of this chapter is Paul’s emotional restraint. There is no self-pity in his speech. No anger. No accusation toward the crowd, even though they are actively trying to kill him. Paul does not demand fairness. He does not appeal to sympathy. He simply tells the truth. That restraint is not weakness; it is discipline. Acts 22 shows us that spiritual maturity often looks like calm clarity in the middle of chaos.

Paul’s willingness to recount his vision of Jesus publicly also deserves attention. Spiritual experiences are deeply personal, and many believers hesitate to speak about them for fear of being dismissed or misunderstood. Paul does not shy away from sharing what happened to him, even though it is the very thing that fuels the crowd’s anger. Acts 22 affirms that personal encounters with God are not meant to be hoarded or hidden. They are meant to be witnessed, even when they provoke resistance.

There is also a sobering lesson here about audience limitation. Paul speaks faithfully, but not everyone is willing or able to hear. Acts 22 reminds us that truth does not automatically generate openness. Some hearts are closed not because the message is unclear, but because it threatens deeply held assumptions. Paul does not water down the truth to make it palatable. He speaks plainly, and the reaction reveals the condition of the listeners rather than any flaw in the message.

This chapter forces us to confront the cost of obedience that does not produce visible success. Paul’s speech does not spark revival in Jerusalem. It sparks rage. And yet, this moment is still part of God’s unfolding plan. Acts 22 reminds us that faithfulness cannot be evaluated solely by immediate outcomes. Some acts of obedience plant seeds that do not bear fruit until much later, and sometimes in places we never see.

Paul’s appeal to Roman citizenship at the end of the chapter also highlights the complexity of living faithfully within imperfect systems. He does not reject the legal protections available to him, nor does he idolize them. He uses them as tools, not saviors. Acts 22 models a balanced approach to earthly authority: respect it where possible, challenge it when necessary, and never confuse it with ultimate justice.

There is an uncomfortable honesty in how Acts 22 ends. The chapter does not resolve the conflict. Paul is still in custody. The tension remains. Scripture resists the temptation to offer tidy conclusions because real faith journeys are rarely tidy. Acts 22 leaves us in the middle of the struggle, reminding us that obedience often unfolds in stages, not resolutions.

For modern readers, Acts 22 raises personal questions that cannot be ignored. Are we willing to tell our story honestly, even when it complicates how others see us? Are we prepared to speak truth when silence would protect our comfort? Do we trust God enough to obey without guarantees of acceptance or success? Paul’s example does not demand perfection; it invites courage.

This chapter also reframes suffering as participation rather than punishment. Paul’s hardships are not signs of divine displeasure. They are evidence that his life is aligned with a mission larger than himself. Acts 22 reminds us that suffering for obedience is not failure; it is fellowship. Paul’s story echoes the path of Jesus Himself, who spoke truth, was misunderstood, and endured rejection without abandoning His calling.

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of Acts 22 is its insistence that obedience sometimes isolates us. Paul stands between worlds, belonging fully to neither in the eyes of others. He is too Christian for his former peers and too Jewish for some Gentile believers. Acts 22 shows us that faithfulness can create loneliness, but it also creates depth. Paul’s strength does not come from universal approval, but from unwavering conviction.

As the chapter closes, we are left not with triumph, but with resolve. Paul does not know what will happen next. He does not have a roadmap. He has obedience, memory, and trust. Acts 22 invites us into that same posture. Not certainty about outcomes, but clarity about calling. Not control over circumstances, but confidence in God’s faithfulness.

In the end, Acts 22 is a chapter about standing when standing costs something. It is about speaking when speaking invites hostility. It is about remembering who you were, embracing who you are, and trusting who God is shaping you to become. Paul’s story does not belong to the past alone. It echoes wherever believers are asked to choose between safety and obedience.

And perhaps that is the enduring gift of Acts 22. It reminds us that our stories matter, not because they make us look good, but because they point to a God who redeems, redirects, and remains faithful even when the world responds with resistance. Paul’s chains do not silence him. They amplify the truth he carries. And in that, Acts 22 continues to speak.

Your friends, Douglas Vandergraph

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There is a moment in every serious walk with God when faith stops being theoretical and starts becoming costly. Not costly in poetic ways, but costly in ways that touch relationships, reputation, safety, comfort, and future plans. Acts 21 is one of the most misunderstood chapters in the New Testament because it forces us to confront a truth we would rather soften: obedience does not always look successful, popular, or safe. Sometimes it looks like walking directly into suffering with your eyes wide open, your heart steady, and your hands empty of every illusion except trust.

Acts 21 is not a story about reckless stubbornness or ignoring wise counsel. It is not a story about martyrdom-seeking or spiritual bravado. It is a story about clarity. About knowing what God has asked of you, even when the people who love you most cannot understand why you would keep going. It is about the tension between prophetic warning and divine calling. And if we read it honestly, it exposes how easily we confuse God’s protection with God’s approval, and God’s comfort with God’s will.

Paul is on his way to Jerusalem. Not accidentally. Not impulsively. He has already told the elders in Ephesus that imprisonment and hardship await him. He has already said goodbye to churches he knows he will never see again. His tone has shifted. The missionary journeys are no longer about expansion; they are about completion. Something is closing. Something is being handed over. Acts 21 is the threshold moment where Paul moves from the outward mission of the church to a personal offering of his own life.

Luke describes the journey with an unusual level of detail. Ports, islands, companions, short stays, tearful farewells. This is not filler. The Holy Spirit is slowing the pace on purpose. When Scripture lingers, it is inviting us to linger too. Paul’s journey is not rushed because obedience is not rushed. When God leads someone into difficulty, He does not shove them forward. He walks with them step by step.

They arrive in Tyre, and something startling happens. The disciples there, “through the Spirit,” urge Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. That phrase matters. Through the Spirit. These are not fearful people speaking out of human anxiety alone. They are believers, spiritually sensitive, receiving real revelation about what awaits Paul. And yet Paul continues.

This is where many readers get uncomfortable. If the warning is from the Spirit, why does Paul not obey it? Because warning is not the same thing as prohibition. The Spirit reveals what will happen, not always what should be avoided. We often assume that if God shows us pain ahead, the purpose of the revelation is to help us escape it. Acts 21 dismantles that assumption completely.

The Spirit is preparing the community, not redirecting the calling. The believers see the suffering coming, and their love for Paul translates that revelation into pleading. They cannot separate the message from their emotions. And who could blame them? They kneel on the beach, weeping, praying, clinging. This is not a cold theological disagreement. This is family.

Paul does not rebuke them. He does not dismiss their concern. He lets them grieve. He lets them love him fully. But he does not change course.

This is one of the hardest spiritual disciplines there is: allowing people to disagree with your obedience without becoming defensive or self-righteous. Paul does not argue. He simply keeps walking.

As the journey continues, the pattern repeats. In Caesarea, a prophet named Agabus arrives. This is not a vague impression. This is a symbolic act, dramatic and unmistakable. Agabus takes Paul’s belt, binds his own hands and feet, and declares that the owner of this belt will be bound by the Jews in Jerusalem and handed over to the Gentiles. The imagery is severe. There is no ambiguity. Chains. Arrest. Loss of freedom.

The reaction is immediate and emotional. Everyone begs Paul not to go. Luke includes himself in the group. “We and the people there pleaded with Paul.” This is not just outsiders questioning his discernment. This is his inner circle. The people who know his prayers. The people who have suffered alongside him.

Paul’s response is one of the most revealing statements of his entire life. He asks them why they are breaking his heart. Not because they are warning him, but because they are trying to pull him away from what he already knows God has asked him to do. He says he is ready not only to be bound, but to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.

This is not fanaticism. This is settled resolve.

Paul is not chasing suffering. He is not trying to prove anything. He is simply refusing to negotiate with obedience. Somewhere along the way, Paul has already died to the idea that God’s will must preserve his safety. He understands something that many believers never fully accept: faithfulness is measured by obedience, not outcomes.

The people finally stop pleading and say, “The Lord’s will be done.” That sentence is not resignation. It is surrender. It is the moment when love releases control. It is the recognition that sometimes the most faithful thing you can do for someone is let them follow God even when it hurts you.

When Paul arrives in Jerusalem, the atmosphere shifts again. He meets with James and the elders. They rejoice at what God has done among the Gentiles, but tension immediately surfaces. There are thousands of Jewish believers who are zealous for the Law. Rumors have spread that Paul teaches Jews to abandon Moses. The leadership is concerned. Not about doctrine alone, but about public perception and unrest.

What follows is deeply uncomfortable for modern readers. Paul agrees to participate in a purification ritual at the temple to demonstrate respect for the Law. This is not hypocrisy. It is strategy. Paul has written extensively about freedom from the Law for justification, but he has also written about becoming all things to all people for the sake of the gospel. He is not compromising truth; he is contextualizing behavior.

This moment reveals something crucial about spiritual maturity. Paul is willing to limit his own freedom to prevent unnecessary offense, even as he is walking toward suffering he cannot avoid. He is flexible where he can be and immovable where he must be. That balance is rare, and it costs something. He pays for the expenses of others. He enters a public ritual. He submits himself to scrutiny.

And it still does not save him.

Obedience does not guarantee protection from misunderstanding. Compromise for peace does not guarantee peace. Even when Paul goes out of his way to honor his own people, false accusations ignite violence. Jews from Asia stir up the crowd, accusing Paul of defiling the temple. The mob erupts. The city is thrown into confusion. Paul is dragged out, beaten, and nearly killed.

This is the moment that shatters shallow theology. Paul did everything “right” by our standards. He listened to warnings. He honored leadership. He sought unity. He walked humbly. And yet the path leads directly to chaos.

Acts 21 forces us to ask a question most believers avoid: what if God’s will includes situations where obedience looks like failure, where faithfulness is mistaken for rebellion, and where doing the right thing puts you in danger instead of delivering you from it?

Paul is rescued by Roman soldiers, not because of spiritual recognition, but because of civil order. The irony is heavy. The apostle to the Gentiles is saved from his own people by the occupying empire. And even as he is carried away, bruised and bleeding, he asks permission to speak.

That request alone tells us everything about Paul’s heart. He is not thinking about escape. He is thinking about witness. Chains have not silenced him. Violence has not altered his calling. His voice is still oriented outward, still anchored in purpose.

Acts 21 does not end with resolution. It ends with tension. With Paul bound. With questions unanswered. With a story still unfolding. That is intentional. Because obedience does not always come with closure. Sometimes it only comes with the next step.

This chapter speaks directly to anyone who has felt God calling them forward while the people they love beg them to stop. To anyone who has obeyed sincerely and still faced loss. To anyone who has wondered whether they misheard God because the outcome was pain instead of peace.

Acts 21 answers that doubt quietly but firmly: obedience is not validated by comfort. It is validated by faithfulness.

Paul’s journey to Jerusalem mirrors the path of Jesus more closely than any other moment in Acts. Warnings given. Tears shed. Resolve unshaken. Entry into the city. Misunderstanding. False accusations. Arrest. Violence. The resemblance is not accidental. Paul is not just preaching Christ. He is walking in His pattern.

And that is the final, unsettling truth of Acts 21. Following Jesus does not only mean believing what He taught. It means being willing, when called, to walk where He walked, even when the road leads into suffering rather than away from it.

This chapter is not meant to inspire recklessness. It is meant to purify our understanding of obedience. To strip away the idea that God’s will is always the safest option. To remind us that love sometimes means letting go, that warning does not always mean avoidance, and that faithfulness is often proven not by what we escape, but by what we endure.

Paul does not enter Jerusalem confused. He enters it resolved. And that distinction changes everything.

Now we will continue this reflection by exploring how Acts 21 reshapes our understanding of calling, suffering, spiritual authority, and what it truly means to trust God when obedience costs more than we expected.

Acts 21 does something that very few chapters in Scripture are willing to do: it leaves us sitting in discomfort without rushing us toward relief. There is no tidy bow. No immediate vindication. No sudden miracle that reverses the consequences of obedience. Instead, the chapter hands us a reality that mature faith must eventually face—sometimes the clearest calling leads straight into the hardest season, and God does not apologize for that.

One of the most important things to notice in Acts 21 is that Paul never once claims confusion about God’s will. This is not a story about discernment gone wrong. It is not a lesson in learning to “hear God better.” In fact, the remarkable thing is how consistently aligned the spiritual insight is across the entire community. Everyone sees the same future. Everyone understands the cost. The disagreement is not about what will happen. The disagreement is about whether obedience should continue once suffering becomes certain.

This is where Acts 21 quietly dismantles a deeply ingrained assumption in modern faith culture: that God’s guidance is primarily about steering us away from harm. We talk often about God opening and closing doors, but we rarely talk about God leading people through doors they wish would stay shut. Yet Scripture is full of those moments. Abraham leaving home. Moses returning to Pharaoh. Jeremiah preaching rejection. Jesus setting His face toward Jerusalem. Paul belongs in that lineage.

When Paul says he is ready not only to be bound but to die for the name of Jesus, he is not making a dramatic vow in the heat of emotion. This is the fruit of a long obedience. He has already surrendered outcomes years earlier. Acts 21 simply reveals what has already been decided in his heart.

What makes this chapter especially painful is not the violence Paul faces, but the love that surrounds him before it happens. Luke emphasizes the tears, the prayers, the physical clinging. These are not casual goodbyes. They are the kind of farewells people give when something irreversible is happening. The church is not wrong to grieve. Love always grieves when obedience carries someone into danger.

But there is a subtle lesson here that many believers miss: love does not get to override calling. Even godly love. Even well-intentioned counsel. Even prophetic insight. At some point, obedience becomes deeply personal. Paul cannot outsource his calling to the consensus of the community. He must stand alone before God.

This is one of the loneliest aspects of spiritual maturity. Early in faith, guidance often feels communal. Decisions are affirmed easily. Doors open smoothly. But as calling deepens, there are moments when confirmation does not come in the form of agreement. Instead, it comes in the form of quiet resolve that remains even when everyone around you wishes you would choose differently.

Acts 21 also challenges how we think about prophetic warning. In many circles, prophecy is treated as directional instruction—if something bad is revealed, it must be avoided. But Scripture presents another category entirely: prophecy as preparation. The Spirit reveals suffering not to prevent obedience, but to remove surprise. Paul is not blindsided. He is braced. That makes all the difference.

Prepared suffering is different from accidental suffering. It does not remove pain, but it anchors the soul. Paul walks into Jerusalem already having grieved what he is about to lose. That is why he can stand steady while others are breaking down. He has already done his wrestling with God in private.

When Paul arrives in Jerusalem and meets with James and the elders, we see another dimension of obedience that is often overlooked: submission without surrendering conviction. Paul listens. He participates. He honors the sensitivities of the Jewish believers. This is not weakness. It is strength under control. He is not trying to protect his reputation. He is trying to protect the unity of the church.

And yet, even this humility does not spare him.

That detail matters because it dismantles another false belief—that if we are careful enough, gracious enough, strategic enough, we can avoid conflict. Acts 21 refuses that fantasy. Paul bends where he can, but obedience still leads him into accusation. The crowd does not investigate. They react. Truth is drowned out by rumor. Violence escalates faster than facts.

This is painfully relevant. Faithfulness does not guarantee fairness. Integrity does not guarantee understanding. There are moments when doing the right thing still results in being misrepresented. Acts 21 tells us plainly: that does not mean God has abandoned the situation.

In fact, it is precisely in this chaos that God’s larger plan continues unfolding. Paul’s arrest becomes the doorway into a witness he could not have orchestrated on his own. His imprisonment places him before governors, kings, and eventually Caesar himself. What looks like restriction is actually redirection. But that perspective only becomes visible later. In the moment, all Paul has is obedience.

One of the most striking details in the chapter is Paul’s request to speak after being rescued by the Romans. He is battered, restrained, and misunderstood—and yet his instinct is not self-defense, but testimony. That is not personality. That is formation. Suffering has not turned him inward. It has clarified his purpose.

Acts 21 invites us to examine our own thresholds. How far are we willing to go when obedience begins to cost us something tangible? Reputation. Security. Approval. Safety. The chapter does not shame hesitation, but it does confront half-hearted faith. It draws a line between admiration for courage and participation in it.

This is not a call for everyone to pursue suffering. Scripture never glorifies pain for its own sake. But it does call us to stop using comfort as the measuring stick for God’s will. Sometimes the clearest obedience feels like loss before it ever feels like fruit.

Paul does not see the full impact of his choice in Acts 21. He does not know how many letters he will write from prison. He does not know how deeply his testimony will shape the church. He only knows that God has asked him to keep walking.

And that is the quiet, demanding invitation of this chapter. Not to rush toward dramatic sacrifice, but to develop the kind of trust that keeps moving forward when the cost becomes unavoidable. To let love grieve without letting it decide. To listen to warning without mistaking it for retreat. To value faithfulness over immediate resolution.

Acts 21 ends with Paul bound, but it does not end with him defeated. Chains do not cancel calling. Obedience does not expire when circumstances turn hostile. God’s purposes are not fragile, and they do not depend on our comfort to succeed.

If Acts 21 unsettles you, it is doing its work. It is meant to strip faith down to its core and ask a simple but searching question: if obedience required everything, would we still call it obedience—or would we quietly start calling it a mistake?

Paul’s life answers that question without speeches or explanations. He just keeps walking.

And that, perhaps, is the most honest definition of faith Scripture ever gives us.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

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Acts 20 is one of the most emotionally charged chapters in the New Testament, yet it is often skimmed past too quickly. We remember the dramatic moment—Paul speaking late into the night, Eutychus falling from the window, the shock, the miracle, the continuation of teaching—but we miss the deeper current flowing beneath the surface. This chapter is not primarily about a miracle. It is about a farewell. It is about a leader who knows his time is short. It is about integrity under pressure, truth spoken without compromise, and love that refuses to manipulate or cling. Acts 20 is Paul at his most transparent, his most vulnerable, and perhaps his most instructive.

This chapter is not about how to grow a ministry. It is about how to leave one.

That distinction matters more than most people realize.

Acts 20 takes place near the end of Paul’s third missionary journey. He has spent years planting churches, nurturing believers, correcting error, and enduring suffering. He is now on his way to Jerusalem, compelled by the Spirit, fully aware that chains and afflictions await him. He does not know the details, but he knows the direction. He is walking toward difficulty, not away from it. And along the way, he does something that many leaders avoid: he gathers the people he loves and tells them the truth.

Not a softened truth. Not a managed truth. Not a truth shaped to preserve comfort.

The truth.

From the opening verses, Luke gives us a picture of motion and urgency. Paul is moving through Macedonia and Greece, strengthening believers, encouraging them with many words. There is no sense of coasting here. There is no sense of Paul slowing down or preserving himself. Even as danger looms, his focus remains outward. He is not asking how much he can take from the churches. He is asking how much he can leave behind in them.

That posture alone is worth sitting with.

Paul could have stayed. He could have chosen safety. He could have justified it spiritually. After all, weren’t there churches that still needed him? Weren’t there letters yet to be written? Sermons yet to be preached? But Acts 20 shows us a man who understands something many of us struggle to accept: obedience is not about maximizing comfort or visibility. It is about faithfulness to the next step, even when that step leads into uncertainty.

One of the most striking moments in the chapter occurs in Troas. Paul is gathered with believers on the first day of the week, breaking bread, teaching late into the night. This is not a polished service. This is not a carefully timed program. This is a room full of hungry people and a teacher who knows he may never see them again. So he keeps speaking. He keeps pouring himself out. He does not rush the moment.

And then Eutychus falls.

It would be easy to turn this story into a cautionary tale about long sermons or open windows. But Luke does not tell it that way. The emphasis is not on Eutychus’s mistake but on Paul’s response. There is no panic in Paul. No accusation. No rebuke. He goes down, embraces the young man, and life returns. Then—almost shockingly—Paul goes back upstairs and keeps teaching until daybreak.

That detail matters.

Paul does not let a crisis derail his calling. He does not let a miracle become a distraction from the work still to be done. He does not turn the resurrection of Eutychus into a spectacle. The story continues because the mission continues. This is a man deeply grounded in purpose, not performance.

But the heart of Acts 20 is not in Troas. It is in Miletus.

Paul calls for the elders of the church in Ephesus, men he has walked with for years, men he has taught publicly and privately, men whose lives are intertwined with his. And when they arrive, Paul does not reminisce. He does not celebrate achievements. He does not review numbers or growth metrics. He speaks about character.

He reminds them how he lived among them.

With humility. With tears. With endurance through trials.

Paul does something profoundly countercultural here. He roots his authority not in position but in example. He does not say, “You must listen to me because I am an apostle.” He says, in essence, “You know how I lived. You saw my life. You watched my conduct. Measure my words by my walk.”

That is legacy.

Paul emphasizes that he did not shrink back from declaring anything that was profitable. He taught in public and from house to house. He testified to Jews and Greeks alike of repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, he did not tailor truth to his audience. He did not soften hard edges to avoid conflict. He did not avoid uncomfortable conversations.

And this is where Acts 20 begins to press on us personally.

Most people are willing to teach what is popular. Many are willing to teach what is safe. Few are willing to teach what is necessary.

Paul did not measure his success by applause or acceptance. He measured it by faithfulness. That is why he can say, without arrogance, that he is innocent of the blood of all, because he did not shrink from declaring the whole counsel of God. That phrase—“the whole counsel of God”—is not poetic filler. It is a weighty statement. It means Paul did not cherry-pick truths. He did not avoid hard doctrines. He did not reduce the gospel to inspiration alone.

He told the truth even when it cost him.

Then Paul turns from his own example to a sober warning. He tells the elders to pay careful attention to themselves and to all the flock. Notice the order. First yourselves. Then the flock. Leadership that neglects the inner life will eventually harm the people it is meant to serve.

Paul warns them that fierce wolves will come, not sparing the flock. Even more unsettling, he says that from among their own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, drawing disciples after them. This is not paranoia. This is realism. Paul understands human nature. He understands how power, influence, and insecurity can corrupt even sincere leaders.

Truth does not only face threats from outside the church. It is often undermined from within.

That is why Paul does not leave them with techniques or strategies. He commends them to God and to the word of His grace. Not to charisma. Not to systems. Not to Paul himself. He knows he cannot stay. He knows they must stand without him. And so he places them in the only hands strong enough to hold them.

God’s hands.

Paul then does something deeply revealing. He speaks about money. He reminds them that he coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel. He worked with his own hands to support himself and those with him. He quotes Jesus, saying, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

This is not an abstract principle for Paul. It is a lived reality. He is not asking these elders to adopt a value he has not practiced. He has embodied generosity. He has refused entitlement. He has modeled a way of leadership that serves rather than consumes.

And then comes the moment that lingers long after the chapter ends.

Paul kneels. They pray. They weep. They embrace.

Luke tells us they were sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they accompany him to the ship.

There is no triumphal ending here. No neat resolution. No promise that everything will be easy.

Just obedience. Just love. Just faithfulness unto separation.

Acts 20 confronts us with a question many of us would rather avoid: What will remain when we are no longer present? Not when we are praised. Not when we are active. But when we are gone.

Paul’s concern is not his reputation. It is their endurance.

This chapter teaches us that real leadership prepares people for absence, not dependence. It points others toward God, not toward itself. It tells the truth even when that truth costs relationship, comfort, or safety.

And perhaps most challenging of all, Acts 20 shows us that obedience sometimes means walking away—not because you are finished loving, but because you are finished being assigned.

Paul boards that ship not because he wants to leave, but because he must.

And that distinction makes all the difference.

Acts 20 does not end with applause. It ends with tears. And that alone tells us something vital about the kind of faith Scripture is trying to form in us. This chapter refuses to romanticize leadership, ministry, or obedience. It shows us a man who is deeply loved, deeply faithful, and deeply aware that obedience can still be painful. Paul does not leave Ephesus because things are failing. He leaves because God is leading. And sometimes those two realities collide in ways that unsettle everyone involved.

One of the most overlooked dimensions of Acts 20 is how deeply relational Paul’s faith is. His theology is sharp, his doctrine precise, his calling clear—but his heart is wide open. He does not hide behind stoicism or spiritual detachment. Luke records tears openly. This is not weakness. This is love that refuses to pretend separation does not hurt.

Modern Christianity often struggles here.

We know how to celebrate beginnings. We know how to promote success. But we are deeply uncomfortable with endings.

Acts 20 forces us to sit with the kind of ending that does not feel clean. There is no closure in the modern sense. Paul cannot reassure the elders that everything will turn out fine. He cannot promise protection from suffering. What he can do—and what he does—is entrust them to God.

That act of entrusting is the true climax of the chapter.

Paul knows something many leaders learn too late: you cannot be the Holy Spirit for other people. You cannot control outcomes. You cannot shield others from every danger. And you cannot remain present forever, no matter how deep the love runs. The goal was never to replace God in their lives. The goal was to point them toward Him.

This is why Paul’s words carry such weight when he says he is innocent of the blood of all. That statement can sound severe until we understand it rightly. Paul is not claiming moral perfection. He is claiming faithfulness. He has told the truth. He has warned them. He has taught them the whole counsel of God. What they do with that truth now belongs to them—and to God.

There is a quiet freedom in that realization.

Many people carry guilt for outcomes they were never meant to control. Parents feel it. Leaders feel it. Teachers feel it. Pastors feel it. Acts 20 gently but firmly reminds us that responsibility has limits. Faithfulness does not guarantee compliance. Love does not guarantee acceptance. Truth does not guarantee safety.

Paul does not confuse obedience with success.

That may be one of the most countercultural messages in the chapter.

We live in a world obsessed with metrics. Numbers. Growth. Influence. Visibility. Even within faith communities, these measurements often creep in quietly and reshape our sense of worth. Acts 20 cuts through that noise. Paul measures his life not by how many followed him, but by whether he held anything back that God asked him to give.

That is a radically different way to evaluate a life.

Paul’s warning about wolves deserves special attention, because it reveals his deep understanding of spiritual danger. He does not describe enemies in abstract terms. He speaks plainly. Threats will come. Some will come from outside. Some will rise from within. And the danger will not always be obvious, because it will often arrive dressed in spiritual language.

That is why Paul’s instruction to the elders focuses on vigilance, not fear. He does not tell them to retreat. He tells them to watch. To pay attention. To guard the flock not with aggression, but with discernment. Truth does not need panic to defend it. It needs clarity.

There is also something profoundly humbling about Paul’s insistence that they watch themselves first. Self-awareness is not optional in spiritual leadership. Blind spots do not disappear because someone is sincere. In fact, sincerity without accountability can be especially dangerous. Paul’s warning is not cynical. It is compassionate. He knows how easy it is for pride, ambition, or fear to distort good intentions.

And yet, even after issuing these sobering warnings, Paul does not linger in suspicion. He does not give them a checklist of threats. He gives them God.

That choice matters.

Paul’s final appeal is not to his authority, his experience, or his future plans. It is to grace. The word of God’s grace, which is able to build them up and give them an inheritance among those who are sanctified. Paul believes deeply in the formative power of grace. Not as a vague comfort, but as an active force that shapes lives over time.

Grace builds. Grace strengthens. Grace sustains when human presence is gone.

Paul then returns to the theme of generosity, and here the chapter circles back to the heart of the gospel itself. “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” This is not merely a financial statement. It is a posture of life. Paul’s entire ministry has been shaped by giving—time, energy, comfort, reputation, safety. Acts 20 shows us a man who has poured himself out fully, without holding anything in reserve.

And that is precisely why he can leave without regret.

He has nothing left unsaid. Nothing withheld. Nothing protected at the expense of obedience.

That kind of peace does not come from ease. It comes from alignment.

When Paul kneels and prays with the elders, we are witnessing more than a farewell. We are witnessing a transfer of trust. Paul is not stepping away from responsibility; he is placing responsibility where it belongs. And the tears that follow are not signs of failure. They are evidence that love was real.

Christian faith was never meant to be emotionally sterile.

The gospel enters real relationships. It binds hearts together. It creates bonds that make separation ache. Acts 20 does not shy away from that cost. It honors it. The grief of the elders is not corrected or minimized. Luke records it as part of the story, because it is part of the truth.

There is also a quiet courage in Paul’s departure that should not be overlooked. He walks toward Jerusalem knowing suffering awaits him. He does not demand certainty before obedience. He does not wait for clarity beyond what God has given. He moves forward because faith sometimes means stepping into the unknown with nothing but trust to guide you.

That kind of faith is rarely loud.

It does not announce itself. It does not seek validation. It simply goes.

Acts 20 invites us to examine not just what we believe, but how we leave. How we let go. How we entrust people, work, and outcomes to God when our role comes to an end. It asks whether our leadership builds dependence on us—or resilience rooted in God.

Paul’s life reminds us that obedience is not proven by how tightly we hold on, but by how faithfully we release.

When the ship pulls away and the elders fade from view, Paul does not look back because he is unfeeling. He looks forward because he is faithful. His confidence is not in his legacy, but in God’s continuing work beyond him.

That is the quiet power of Acts 20.

It teaches us that a life poured out in truth, humility, and love does not end in loss—even when it ends in tears. It ends in trust. It ends in hope. It ends in the assurance that God’s work was never dependent on one voice, one leader, or one moment.

It was always dependent on grace.

And grace, Paul knows, does not end when we walk away.

It continues.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

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Acts 19 is one of the most uncomfortable chapters in the New Testament, not because it contains obscure theology or confusing doctrine, but because it exposes something most people would rather keep hidden. It reveals what happens when the message of Jesus stops being an abstract belief and starts colliding with real life. This chapter shows us what takes place when faith reaches deep enough to threaten identities, habits, income streams, social power, and cultural pride. It is not a story about a polite revival. It is a story about disruption, confrontation, and transformation that cannot be contained or controlled.

Paul arrives in Ephesus, one of the most influential cities in the Roman world. Ephesus is not a spiritual backwater. It is a center of commerce, philosophy, superstition, and religion. The Temple of Artemis dominates the city’s skyline and its economy. Pilgrims, craftsmen, merchants, and priests all benefit from a religious system that blends devotion, fear, magic, and money into a powerful machine. This is not a city that is looking for change. It is a city that thrives on stability, tradition, and profit. Into this environment walks the gospel, and Acts 19 shows us that when the gospel takes root, it does not simply add a new belief to an existing system. It begins to dismantle what cannot coexist with truth.

The chapter opens with Paul encountering a group of disciples who have only known the baptism of John. This moment is often rushed past, but it is deeply revealing. These men are sincere, spiritual, and responsive, yet incomplete. They have repentance without power, knowledge without fullness, devotion without the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Paul’s question to them is strikingly simple: “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” Their answer reveals something that still echoes today. They have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. This is not ignorance born of rebellion. It is ignorance born of partial teaching.

This moment reminds us that it is possible to be religiously active while spiritually underpowered. It is possible to follow sincerely while lacking the fullness God intends. Paul does not condemn them. He instructs them. He baptizes them in the name of Jesus, lays hands on them, and they receive the Holy Spirit. Immediately, there is evidence of transformation. Their faith becomes alive in a new way. The message here is not about superiority or hierarchy. It is about completeness. God does not want half-formed faith. He wants a living, empowered relationship with His Spirit active within us.

From there, Paul enters the synagogue and speaks boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading people about the kingdom of God. Some believe, but others harden their hearts and begin speaking evil of the Way. This pattern is consistent throughout Acts. The gospel invites response, but it also exposes resistance. Paul does not stay where the message is being distorted. He withdraws and takes the disciples with him, teaching daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This decision is strategic and instructive. Paul does not chase opposition. He invests in formation. He focuses on building depth rather than arguing endlessly with those who have closed themselves off.

For two years, Paul teaches daily, and the result is astonishing. Luke tells us that all the residents of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, hear the word of the Lord. This is not because Paul personally preaches to everyone. It is because transformed people carry the message outward. This is what happens when disciples are formed rather than merely informed. The gospel spreads organically through lives changed, conversations sparked, and communities influenced. Real revival is not centralized. It multiplies.

Then Acts 19 moves into a section that challenges modern comfort with faith. God performs extraordinary miracles through Paul. Handkerchiefs and aprons that touched him are taken to the sick, and they are healed. Evil spirits leave. This passage is often misunderstood or sensationalized, but the emphasis is not on the objects. It is on the authority of God working through a life fully surrendered to Him. The power is not magical. It is relational. It flows from alignment with Christ, not from technique.

This distinction becomes painfully clear with the story of the sons of Sceva. These men attempt to invoke the name of Jesus as a formula, casting out demons by saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” The response from the evil spirit is chilling in its clarity. “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” The man possessed overpowers them, leaving them beaten and humiliated. This is not a lesson about the dangers of spiritual warfare alone. It is a warning against borrowed faith. Authority in the spiritual realm does not come from repetition of names or imitation of others. It comes from genuine relationship and submission to Christ.

This incident spreads fear and reverence throughout Ephesus. The name of the Lord Jesus is held in high honor. Many who believed come forward, confessing and divulging their practices. Those involved in magic bring their scrolls and burn them publicly. The value of these scrolls is immense, equivalent to years of wages. This is not symbolic repentance. This is costly repentance. They are not hiding their past. They are severing ties with it.

This moment reveals something critical about genuine transformation. When Christ takes hold of a life, there are things that cannot remain. The people of Ephesus do not negotiate with their old practices. They destroy them. This is not legalism. It is liberation. They are not losing something valuable. They are shedding chains they no longer need.

Luke summarizes this section with a powerful statement. “So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.” The word prevails not because it is protected from resistance, but because it proves stronger than competing powers. Truth does not need permission to advance. It simply needs obedience.

At this point in Acts 19, the gospel has moved from the synagogue to the lecture hall, from individual hearts to public life, and now it collides directly with economics. This is where the chapter becomes particularly uncomfortable. A silversmith named Demetrius gathers other craftsmen who make silver shrines of Artemis. Their livelihood depends on religious devotion to the goddess. Demetrius frames his concern carefully. He speaks of their trade being endangered, but he also appeals to civic pride and religious loyalty. Paul’s teaching, he claims, threatens not only their income but the very identity of Ephesus.

This moment exposes a timeless truth. When the gospel challenges idols, it inevitably threatens systems built around those idols. The issue is not merely spiritual disagreement. It is loss of control, influence, and profit. Demetrius is not wrong about the impact of Paul’s message. People are turning away from idols. Demand is decreasing. The economy tied to false worship is beginning to crack.

What follows is chaos. A riot erupts. The city fills with confusion. People shout for hours without fully understanding why they are angry. This scene feels unsettlingly familiar. Emotion overtakes reason. Identity feels threatened. Crowds form around fear rather than truth. The gospel has not incited violence, but it has exposed how fragile systems become when their foundations are challenged.

Paul wants to enter the theater and address the crowd, but his disciples and city officials prevent him. They understand that truth spoken at the wrong moment can be swallowed by noise. Eventually, the city clerk calms the crowd and dismisses the assembly, reminding them that legal processes exist for grievances. Order is restored, but nothing is the same.

Acts 19 ends without a neat resolution because real transformation rarely provides one. The gospel does not promise comfort for every system it confronts. It promises truth, freedom, and allegiance to Christ above all else. Ephesus remains standing, but its idols have been exposed. Its economy has been shaken. Its people have been confronted with a choice.

This chapter forces us to ask difficult questions. What would happen if the gospel fully took root in our lives? Not just in belief, but in behavior, priorities, spending, and identity. What systems would be disrupted? What habits would need to be burned rather than managed? What sources of security would be revealed as idols?

Acts 19 does not portray Christianity as a private spiritual preference. It presents it as a transformative force that reshapes individuals and communities from the inside out. It shows us that the cost of following Jesus is real, but so is the power. The word of the Lord still increases and prevails mightily, not when it is domesticated, but when it is lived without compromise.

Acts 19 refuses to let us keep faith in a private, decorative space. By the time the chapter ends, the gospel has touched theology, power, personal habits, public economics, and civic order. This is not accidental. Luke is showing us that when Jesus becomes Lord, He does not ask permission from the structures we have built. He confronts them. The unsettling power of this chapter is that it leaves no safe compartment untouched.

One of the most overlooked aspects of Acts 19 is how patiently the transformation unfolds before it becomes explosive. Paul does not arrive in Ephesus with a megaphone or a march. He teaches daily. He reasons. He invests time. He forms people deeply. For two years, the gospel spreads quietly but steadily. It grows beneath the surface before it ever makes headlines. This is how real change often happens. The loud moments come later. The groundwork is laid in ordinary days of obedience, study, repentance, and formation.

Modern culture is addicted to spectacle. We want immediate visible results. Acts 19 reminds us that sustained faithfulness can be more disruptive than dramatic gestures. Paul’s daily teaching reshapes minds, and reshaped minds eventually reshape behavior. When behavior changes at scale, systems feel the pressure. This is why Demetrius panics. The threat is not a single sermon. It is a slow, irreversible shift in allegiance.

The burning of the magic scrolls is one of the clearest pictures of repentance in the New Testament. These were not harmless trinkets. They represented security, identity, power, and control. Magic promised influence over the unseen world. It offered shortcuts to protection and advantage. When people encounter the authority of Jesus, they realize how hollow those promises are. They do not sell the scrolls. They burn them. There is no attempt to recover value from what once enslaved them.

This challenges the modern instinct to keep a safety net. Many people want Jesus without surrender. They want faith that enhances their life without demanding reorientation. Acts 19 exposes the illusion of partial allegiance. You cannot hold onto old sources of power while claiming a new Lord. Something eventually gives way. The people of Ephesus choose freedom over familiarity, even when it costs them materially.

The sons of Sceva offer another uncomfortable mirror. They want authority without relationship. They want results without surrender. They treat the name of Jesus as a tool rather than a Person. This is not ancient superstition. It is a modern temptation. Religious language, spiritual branding, and borrowed credibility can create the appearance of faith without its substance. The question asked by the spirit still cuts deeply: “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?”

This is not about public recognition. It is about spiritual authenticity. Heaven and hell both recognize real allegiance. Pretend authority collapses under pressure. Acts 19 warns us that proximity to spiritual things is not the same as participation in them. Faith cannot be inherited, imitated, or outsourced. It must be lived.

When the riot breaks out, Luke paints a picture of confusion that feels strikingly contemporary. People shout slogans they barely understand. Emotion overtakes reason. Fear becomes contagious. Identity feels under threat, and truth becomes secondary to preservation. The gospel has not attacked the city, yet the city feels attacked. This is what happens when idols are exposed. They cannot defend themselves, so their defenders grow louder.

Demetrius is careful in his framing. He does not say, “We love money.” He says, “Our traditions are under threat.” He appeals to heritage, pride, and communal identity. This tactic is as old as idolatry itself. False gods rarely announce themselves honestly. They cloak themselves in language of culture, continuity, and concern for the common good. Acts 19 trains us to listen beneath the surface. When fear and profit align, something is being protected.

The city clerk’s intervention is almost ironic. A secular official restores order when religious fervor becomes irrational. Luke includes this detail deliberately. The gospel does not need mob behavior to advance. It does not require chaos to prove its power. Truth stands on its own. Even Rome’s legal structures inadvertently protect the movement by dispersing the crowd.

Paul leaves Ephesus after this chapter, but the impact remains. A church has been planted in one of the most spiritually complex cities in the ancient world. Later, Paul will write to the Ephesians about spiritual warfare, unity, truth, and standing firm. Those themes do not emerge in a vacuum. They are forged in the fires of Acts 19. This chapter explains why Ephesus needed reminders about armor, identity, and allegiance. They had seen firsthand what happens when faith collides with power.

For modern readers, Acts 19 forces a reckoning. We live in a world full of Artemis-like systems. Some are obvious. Others are subtle. Careerism, consumerism, political identity, digital validation, and self-sufficiency all function as modern idols. They promise security and meaning, but demand loyalty. When the gospel challenges these systems, resistance is inevitable.

The question is not whether the gospel will disrupt something. The question is what we are willing to let go. Are we prepared to burn the scrolls that no longer belong in a life shaped by Christ? Or will we attempt to keep them hidden, hoping they never come into conflict with our faith?

Acts 19 does not end with triumphal language or tidy conclusions. It ends with movement. Paul moves on. The church remains. The city carries the tension. This is often how faithful obedience looks. We do not always see full resolution. We see seeds planted, systems shaken, and lives changed. That is enough.

This chapter reminds us that Christianity is not a private philosophy or a comforting tradition. It is an allegiance that rearranges everything. When Jesus becomes Lord, economies feel it, habits change, and idols lose their grip. The word of the Lord continues to increase and prevail mightily, not because it avoids conflict, but because it tells the truth in a world built on substitutes.

Acts 19 invites us to stop asking whether faith fits comfortably into our lives and start asking whether our lives are aligned with the truth we claim to believe. The gospel does not exist to decorate what already is. It exists to make all things new.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

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It’s hard to keep a diary when I spend most of the time on the yellow sofa.

There were sparks flying in the microwave the other day when we did warm some potatoes in a glass bowl.

Through the window, it looked like a diorama of the apocalypse. The sparks looked like flashes of lightning sent out like a divine punishment to smite the potatoes.

The firewood we got from our neighbours looks like they’ve been eaten on by termites.

Once when I was working in finance there used to be some type of sweet pastries like cinnamon rolls or muffins once a week, laid out in piles in the common areas.

When I got back once from a long weekend, early, I saw that they’d forgotten to throw away the uneaten ones; they were still lying there when I got back, dried. But now they were all covered in flies.

I remember thinking then that had they all concentrated their eating to one cinnamon roll, then the others could roll be eaten.

Now instead I think about that novel by Edgar Allan Poe, the masque of read death out something.

Because there is something decadent about the whole scene in my mind eye.

And I thought about that when I saw the termite riddled firewood

And I’m not sure whether it’s soothing or unsettling that everything got ruined this way.

Acts 18 is one of those chapters that does not announce its importance loudly, yet quietly reshapes how we understand faith lived out in the real world. There are no earthquakes here, no prison doors flung open by angels, no mass conversions in a single afternoon. Instead, Acts 18 unfolds slowly, deliberately, almost patiently, as if the Spirit is teaching us that some of the most transformative work of God happens not in moments of spectacle, but in seasons of endurance, dialogue, labor, and steady obedience. This chapter is about what happens when faith must survive outside the safety of constant affirmation, when ministry moves into the rhythms of work, debate, discouragement, and long-term presence.

Paul enters Corinth carrying more than the gospel message. He arrives carrying fatigue. By the time Acts 18 opens, Paul has already been beaten, mocked, expelled, and misunderstood across multiple cities. Thessalonica drove him out. Berea forced him to flee. Athens listened politely but largely dismissed him. Corinth, then, is not a triumphant next stop. It is a place where a weary apostle must decide whether he will continue at all. This is what makes Acts 18 so deeply human. We meet Paul not at his most dramatic, but at his most vulnerable.

Corinth itself was not a spiritually neutral city. It was a crossroads of commerce, culture, immorality, and ambition. Wealth and poverty collided daily. Religious pluralism was the norm. Moral restraint was optional. To bring the message of a crucified Messiah into such a city was not merely difficult; it was offensive. And Paul knows this. He does not arrive preaching with flair or philosophical polish. Later, in his letters, he admits that when he came to Corinth, he came “in weakness and fear and much trembling.” That admission alone should recalibrate how we imagine strong faith. Acts 18 does not hide that trembling. It builds the entire chapter around it.

One of the most overlooked details in this chapter is that Paul goes to work. Literally. He does not immediately take center stage in the synagogue. He finds employment as a tentmaker alongside Aquila and Priscilla. This matters more than we often realize. Paul does not separate his spiritual calling from his daily labor. He allows his hands to preach before his mouth ever does. In a city driven by commerce, Paul chooses not to be supported initially by those he ministers to. He works, earns, and lives among them. Faith here is not elevated above ordinary life. It is woven into it.

Aquila and Priscilla are introduced almost casually, yet they will become some of the most influential co-laborers in the New Testament. They are refugees, displaced by imperial decree, forced out of Rome. Their lives have already been disrupted by political power. And yet God uses that displacement to place them exactly where Paul needs them. Acts 18 quietly reminds us that what feels like loss or interruption in one chapter of our lives may be divine positioning for another. Aquila and Priscilla do not preach sermons here. They open their lives, their home, their workbench. Sometimes the kingdom advances not through platforms, but through proximity.

As the weeks pass, Paul does begin reasoning in the synagogue. The word “reasoning” is important. He is not shouting. He is not condemning. He is persuading. This is faith engaging the mind as well as the heart. But persuasion does not always lead to acceptance. When Silas and Timothy finally arrive with encouragement and support, Paul leans more fully into preaching Christ. And that is when resistance sharpens. Opposition hardens. Words turn abusive. The synagogue, once a place of conversation, becomes a place of rejection.

Here we see one of the most emotionally raw moments in Paul’s ministry. He symbolically shakes out his garments and declares that he will go to the Gentiles. This is not arrogance. It is heartbreak expressed through resolve. Paul has poured himself out, and the rejection is no longer merely intellectual disagreement. It has become personal hostility. Faith here reaches a boundary. Not because the gospel has failed, but because hearts have closed. Knowing when to move on is one of the most painful and necessary discernments in faithful living.

Yet even in rejection, God does not waste the moment. Right next door to the synagogue, a new community forms in the house of Titius Justus. The proximity is almost poetic. The door closes in one place and opens in another, sometimes within arm’s reach. Crispus, the synagogue ruler himself, believes. His household believes. The gospel slips through the cracks of resistance. Acts 18 shows us that God’s work is rarely binary. Even in seasons that feel like failure, quiet victories are unfolding nearby.

Still, the pressure weighs on Paul. This is where Acts 18 offers one of the most tender moments in all of Scripture. The Lord speaks to Paul in a vision and says, “Do not be afraid. Keep speaking. Do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.” These words are not spoken to a confident man. They are spoken to a man on the edge of exhaustion. God does not rebuke Paul for fear. He reassures him in it.

That phrase, “I have many people in this city,” deserves long contemplation. Paul cannot see them yet. Many are not yet believers. Some may not even know God at all. And yet God speaks of them as already His. This is a theology of hope that precedes evidence. It is faith that trusts divine knowledge over visible results. Acts 18 teaches us that obedience is sustained not by outcomes, but by promises.

Paul stays in Corinth a year and a half. That duration matters. This is not a hit-and-run ministry. This is slow, steady, relational work. Teaching. Listening. Building a community that will later struggle deeply, require correction, and yet remain profoundly gifted. The Corinthian church will not be easy. But Acts 18 shows us that its messy future is rooted in patient beginnings.

Opposition does not disappear. Eventually, Paul is dragged before Gallio, the Roman proconsul. This scene is deceptively significant. The charges brought against Paul are religious, not civil, and Gallio refuses to intervene. His dismissal becomes a kind of unintended protection. Christianity is not yet seen as a threat to Roman order. The gospel is shielded, for now, by imperial indifference. God uses even bureaucratic apathy to preserve His work. Acts 18 reminds us that God’s sovereignty does not always look like miracles. Sometimes it looks like a judge who cannot be bothered.

The chapter ends not with Paul settling permanently, but with movement again. He leaves Corinth stronger than he arrived, accompanied by Aquila and Priscilla. Before leaving, he takes a vow, a quiet act of devotion that signals gratitude, surrender, and continuity with his Jewish roots. Faith here is not static. It adapts without abandoning its core. Paul is neither rigid nor reckless. He is responsive.

Acts 18 does something remarkable. It normalizes the rhythm of faithful life. Work and worship. Courage and fear. Speech and silence. Staying and leaving. It tells us that being called does not mean being constantly confident. It means being constantly willing. The chapter invites us to stop romanticizing ministry and start honoring perseverance.

This is where Acts 18 begins to speak directly into modern faith. Many believers today feel caught between calling and exhaustion, between conviction and uncertainty, between desire to speak and fear of rejection. Acts 18 does not shame that tension. It sanctifies it. It tells us that God meets us not only in our bold declarations, but in our quiet persistence.

Paul’s story in Corinth is not about how to win a city. It is about how to remain faithful within one. It is about learning that the gospel does not always advance through applause, but often through endurance. It is about trusting that God sees fruit before we do. And it is about discovering that sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do is keep showing up.

Acts 18 ends with movement toward what comes next, but its lessons linger. Faith breathes here. It works. It rests. It reasons. It endures. And above all, it listens when God says, “Do not be afraid.”

If Acts 18 ended only with Paul surviving Corinth, it would already be a powerful chapter. But it goes further. It reshapes how we understand calling itself. This chapter quietly dismantles the idea that faith is proven by constant momentum, visible growth, or emotional certainty. Instead, Acts 18 presents faith as something that learns how to remain when quitting would be understandable, how to speak when silence feels safer, and how to trust God’s unseen work when the visible response feels thin.

One of the deepest theological threads in Acts 18 is the way God affirms Paul before outcomes justify confidence. When God says, “I have many people in this city,” He is not describing a present reality Paul can verify. He is revealing a future certainty rooted in divine foreknowledge. This reverses the way many believers subconsciously operate. We often look for results before we trust. God invites trust before results appear. Acts 18 insists that faith is not sustained by evidence but by assurance.

This is especially important in a culture obsessed with metrics. Corinth was a place where success was visible, measured, discussed, and flaunted. Yet Paul’s most productive season there begins when God removes the pressure to see success. The instruction is not “grow the church” or “win the city.” The instruction is simple: keep speaking, do not be afraid, do not go silent. Faithfulness is defined here not by expansion, but by obedience.

That redefinition matters deeply for modern believers. Many people quietly feel like failures because their obedience does not look dramatic. They show up. They work. They love their families. They pray when no one is watching. They speak truth carefully, not loudly. Acts 18 dignifies that life. It shows that the kingdom of God advances not only through apostles and sermons, but through consistency, integrity, and staying power.

Another often-missed dimension of Acts 18 is how communal Paul’s endurance is. He does not endure Corinth alone. Aquila and Priscilla are not background characters; they are anchors. Silas and Timothy arrive at a critical moment with encouragement. Even Titius Justus provides a physical space where faith can gather when one door closes. God’s reassurance to Paul does not eliminate the need for human support; it complements it. Acts 18 quietly teaches that spiritual strength is not isolation. It is interdependence.

This matters because burnout often masquerades as faithfulness. Paul does not push himself endlessly in isolation. When resistance escalates, God intervenes with reassurance. When support arrives, Paul leans into it. When danger threatens, God provides protection through unexpected means. Faith here is responsive, not rigid. Paul listens for God’s timing rather than forcing his own.

Gallio’s dismissal of the case against Paul may feel anticlimactic, but it carries profound theological weight. It shows that God’s purposes are not always advanced by confrontation. Sometimes they are advanced by being ignored. The Roman state does not yet recognize Christianity as a separate or dangerous movement, and that legal ambiguity creates breathing room for the gospel. God’s sovereignty operates even through indifference. This should comfort anyone who feels unseen. Not every season of God’s protection feels dramatic. Some feel quiet, bureaucratic, almost accidental. Acts 18 tells us those moments matter just as much.

Paul’s vow before leaving Corinth also deserves reflection. It is deeply personal, voluntary, and largely unexplained. Scripture does not dramatize it. There is no sermon attached. And yet it reveals something crucial about Paul’s inner life. Despite persecution, discouragement, and weariness, his devotion remains intact. His faith is not transactional. He does not worship only when things go well. He honors God quietly, privately, without spectacle. Acts 18 reminds us that the truest expressions of faith are often unseen.

As Paul departs Corinth, Aquila and Priscilla continue the work. They will later instruct Apollos, refining his understanding with humility and grace. This continuation reinforces one of Acts’ central themes: the gospel does not depend on one personality. Paul is essential, but not irreplaceable. The work continues through faithful hands long after the apostle moves on. Acts 18 invites us to loosen our grip on legacy and trust that God multiplies faithfulness beyond our direct involvement.

What emerges by the end of Acts 18 is a mature vision of spiritual life. Faith is not portrayed as endless emotional highs. It includes doubt, fear, recalibration, redirection, and rest. God does not demand constant intensity; He invites steady trust. Paul’s time in Corinth becomes a template for how believers can inhabit difficult spaces without being consumed by them.

For modern readers, Acts 18 speaks directly to seasons of quiet perseverance. It speaks to pastors who feel discouraged by slow growth, believers who feel unheard, workers who integrate faith into ordinary labor, and anyone tempted to equate impact with immediacy. This chapter assures us that God’s timeline often unfolds beneath the surface, unseen but unstoppable.

Acts 18 also corrects our understanding of courage. Courage here is not bravado. It is obedience in the presence of fear. God does not say, “You should not be afraid.” He says, “Do not be afraid,” because fear is already present. Courage is choosing to continue despite it. That distinction matters. Faith does not require the absence of fear; it requires the presence of trust.

Ultimately, Acts 18 teaches us how faith stays. It stays in the tension between calling and fatigue. It stays in conversation even when misunderstood. It stays rooted in work, community, prayer, and obedience. And when it leaves, it does so with discernment, not defeat.

This chapter leaves us with a quiet but powerful truth: God often does His deepest work in seasons that feel ordinary, slow, or uncertain. The faith that endures is not the faith that never trembles, but the faith that listens when God says, “I am with you.”

That promise, spoken to Paul in Corinth, still echoes today.

Watch Douglas Vandergraph’s inspiring faith-based videos on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@douglasvandergraph

Support the ministry by buying Douglas a coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/douglasvandergraph

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

Note: English below.

Na početku 2026. godine želimo vam srećnu i vrednu novu godinu.

U poslednjoj godini zadruga je inicirala ili započela saradnje sa nekoliko inicijativa u oblasti izdavaštva. Namera ove radionice je da se međusobno upoznamo, kao i sa drugim inicijativama koje bi nam se pridružile. U tom kontekstu organizujemo dve radionice za štampu – radionicu želatin štampe i radionicu sitoštampe, kako bismo ojačali našu praksu i konceptualni rad. Vode ih naš dugoročni saradnik Viktor Vejvoda i naš zadrugar Radisav Stijović, umetnici sa velikim iskustvom u umetničkoj štampi.

Kroz ove prakse, s jedne strane, posmatraćemo kako putem zadruge možemo da postavimo bolje uslove rada (na primer kroz udruživanje resursa, znanja i veština), kao i politike i prakse marketinga i distribucije.

Poslednje pitanje je ono koje obično izbegavamo: kome se obraćamo i kako? Umetničkom svetu? Ili tzv. levičarskom svetu? Lokalnim zajednicama? Kako postaviti strukturu u kojoj su ljudi učesnici, a ne samo korisnici ili kupci? Da li nam je kao zadruzi potrebna velika marketinška kampanja koja bi obuhvatila i izdavaštvo, ili se opredeljujemo za manje događaje, poput tematskih vašara i bazara, razmena, radionica ili onlajn crowdfunding platformi?

Radionica će se održati u Beogradu, od 23. do 26. januara. Prijavite se do 15. januara popunjavanjem kratkog upitnika.

Call for a Cooperative Printmaking Workshop

At the beginning of 2026, we wish you a happy and productive new year.

Over the past year, the cooperative has initiated or begun collaborations with several initiatives in the field of publishing. The intention of this workshop is to get to know each other, as well as other initiatives that may wish to join us. In this context, we are organizing two printmaking workshops – a gelatin printing workshop and a screen-printing workshop – in order to strengthen our practice and conceptual work. The workshops will be led by our long-term collaborator Viktor Vejvoda and our cooperative member Radisav Stijović, artists with extensive experience in artistic printmaking.

Through these practices, on the one hand, we will explore how, through the cooperative, we can establish better working conditions (for example, by pooling resources, knowledge, and skills), as well as develop marketing and distribution policies and practices.

The final question is one we usually avoid: who are we addressing, and how? The art world? Or the so-called leftist world? Local communities? How do we create a structure in which people are participants rather than merely users or consumers? As a cooperative, do we need a large-scale marketing campaign that also includes publishing, or do we opt for smaller events such as thematic fairs and bazaars, exchanges, workshops, or online crowdfunding platforms?

The workshop will take place in Belgrade from January 23 to 26. Please apply by January 15 by filling out a short questionnaire.

how can I always be traveling but never go anywhere?

Starrider isn’t a love song in the way most people mean it. Not the kind of lyrics that scream 'hey babe, we're meant to be', and it never promises to stay. It’s a song about moving without apology—the same way we don’t apologize for breathing. Prose about stepping onto something luminous as it passes, not because it’s safe, but because it’s alive. Alive in a way we start life, but then somehow manage to be anesthetized against.

Gates are sighted, not entered. Meaning appears, and instead of stopping, the song accelerates. That matters to me. I’ve learned that the moments that feel most true don’t ask me to arrive; they ask me to remain awake while moving.

What makes Starrider dangerous and beautiful is that it never hands responsibility to another person. It doesn’t say come to me, save me, stay with me. It says show me where you are. Orientation instead of possession. Alignment instead not capture. And that’s all I’ve ever asked. There’s a trust here—not in outcomes, but in growth. Control belongs to those who know, and knowing is earned by staying in motion long enough to be changed by it.

I hear this song now as a kind of vow. Not to leave, and not to land, but to keep choosing, eyes and heart open while time burns. To love without asking someone else to be the answer. To move forward without pretending that movement guarantees happiness. If I’m riding anything, it’s not toward escape—it’s toward becoming. And if someone rides alongside me for a while, that’s a gift. The sky is wide enough for both of us.

Danger Will Robinson

Bright Baby Blues is simply irresistible. It feels like an old coat that everyone knows me for. And those that don’t, they say, “yeah, that looks right in him.”

There’s a line in Your Bright Baby Blues that catches me every time—not because it’s wrong, but because it’s tempting.

“Baby you can free me / All in the power of your sweet tenderness.”

I’ve lived long enough to know how persuasive that idea can be: that closeness might finish a job I’ve been carrying alone, that another person’s care could smooth the last rough edge. It’s a beautiful thought, and I want it. So bad. But, It’s also a heavy one. These days I hear that line less as a wish and more as a warning—not against love, but against mistaking tenderness for agency. Love can accompany the work. It can’t do it for us.

What I love about this song is how clearly it sees her—the brightness, the watchfulness, the way she stands just slightly apart from the game even while playing it. That recognition feels accurate, not blaming. But the song also tries to hand her a role she never asked for: guide, gatekeeper, savior. The hidden passage through the garden wall. Or, maybe it’s my garden. And I always kept that portal to see a life I could never have. She doesn’t strike me as someone who wants to pull another person through their life, or be the answer that lets someone finally arrive. She feels more like someone who walks alongside—present, luminous, but not responsible for anyone else’s crossing.

What these songs keep teaching me—Starrider, The Pretender, The Fuse, —is that meaning doesn’t come from being rescued or from stopping motion altogether. It comes from choosing how to move while time is burning. I want to walk openly. If someone walks with me, that’s a gift—not a solution. And if they don’t, the work is still mine. That feels less romantic, but honest. And honesty, I’m learning, is its own kind of tenderness. —

────────────────────────

STARRIDER

“I stole a ride on a passing star” Impulse over plan. Choice without guarantee.

“Not knowing where I was going / How near or how far” Curiosity without destination. Motion without map.

“Through years of light, lands of future and past” Time collapses; experience outweighs chronology.

“Until the heavenly gates / Were sighted at last” Recognition, not arrival. Seeing meaning without stopping.

“Starrider, rider, rider / Take me to the stars” Asking the universe, not a person, to carry her onward.

“Starrider, rider, rider / Show me where you are” Orientation, not possession. Presence without demand.

“Northern lights flashed by / And then they were gone” Beauty allowed to be transient.

“And as old stars would die / So the new ones were born” Change without tragedy. Renewal as natural law.

“And ever on I sailed / Celestial ways” Meaning increases motion, not rest.

“And in the light of my years / Shone the rest of my days” Experience becomes illumination.

“Speed increasing” Trust produces acceleration.

“All control is in the hands of those who know” Authority through understanding, not force.

“Will they help us grow” Growth as the sole test.

“To one day be starriders” Identity is achieved through motion, not claimed.

────────────────────────

THE PRETENDER

“I’m going to rent myself a house / In the shade of the freeway” Life built near movement, not inside it.

“I’m going to pack my lunch…go to work each day” Routine as consent, not coercion.

“I’ll go on home and lay my body down” The body treated as equipment.

“I’ll get up and do it again” Repetition replaces expansion.

“Amen” Sanctifying compromise.

“I want to know what became of the changes / We waited for love to bring” Remembered belief that love would restructure life.

“Were they only the fitful dreams…” Questioning whether hope was ever real.

“I’ve been aware of the time going by” Mortality acknowledged quietly.

“You’ll get up and do it again” The trap universalized.

“Caught between the longing for love / And the struggle for the legal tender” The thesis: desire vs survival.

“Where the sirens sing and the church bells ring” The sacred and seductive coexist unresolved.

“Veterans dream of the fight…” Glory reduced to memory.

“Children wait for the ice cream vendor” Even joy requires patience.

“Out into the cool of the evening strolls the Pretender” Adaptation, not villainy.

“He knows that all his hopes and dreams begin and end there” Dreams fenced, not destroyed.

“Laughter of the lovers…” Others still risk everything.

“Ships bearing their dreams sail out of sight” Dreams depart rather than fail.

“I’m going to find myself a girl…” Love as repair strategy.

“Paint-by-number dreams” No blank canvas left.

“Dark glasses on” Avoidance aestheticized.

“We’ll make love…do it again” Even intimacy absorbed into routine.

“I’m going to be a happy idiot” Happiness as survival tactic.

“Ads take aim…” Desire monetized.

“True love could have been a contender” Love didn’t fail—it lost priority.

“Say a prayer for the Pretender” Witness requested, not rescue.

“Only to surrender” Gradual compliance, not collapse.

────────────────────────

THE FUSE

“It’s coming from so far away” Intuition before clarity.

“Music or the wind through an open door” Meaning vs accident; openness already exists.

“Fire high in the empty sky” Contact point between inner and outer worlds.

“Long distance loneliness” Civilizational solitude, not personal.

“Years spent lost in the mystery fall away” Confusion dissolves.

“Only the sound of the drum” Life reduced to rhythm.

“It speaks to the heart of me” Recognition, not instruction.

“You are what you choose to be” Identity as responsibility.

“It’s whatever it is you see that life will become” Attention shapes destiny.

“You have nothing to lose” Attachment exposed as illusion.

“Time runs like a fuse” Finite, burning, irreversible.

“The earth is turning” Inevitability without panic.

“Fear of living for nothing” Meaninglessness as true enemy.

“Alive in eternity that nothing can kill” Continuity beyond circumstance.

“Are there really people starving still?” Moral awakening.

“Beyond the walls of Babylon” Comfort indicts itself.

“I’m going to be around” Presence as vow.

“When towers are tumbling down” Collapse assumed, not feared.

“Tune my spirit to the gentle sound” Attention as discipline.

“Waters lapping on higher ground” Survival with grace.

“Children laughing” Continuation, not permanence.

────────────────────────

YOUR BRIGHT BABY BLUES —

“Sitting down by the highway” Paused while life accelerates.

“Everybody’s going somewhere” Urgency mistaken for purpose.

“Lives are justified” Existence treated as something to earn.

“Pray to God…let me slide” Request for grace.

“Can’t get away from me” The self as inescapable terrain.

“A day away from where I want to be” Permanent near-arrival.

“Running home like a river to the sea” Return replaces escape.

“You can free me…sweet tenderness” Agency handed outward (dangerous).

“Bright baby blues” Brightness as distance.

“Don’t like to lose” Risk-averse longing.

“Watching from the sidelines” Self-observation over inhabitation.

“Turn down your radio” Noise replacing presence.

“Love stirring in my soul” Connection is real but intermittent.

“Feeling of peace hard to come by” Peace is rare.

“Thought I was flying” Temporary transcendence.

“Standing on my knees” Illusion breaks.

“Someone to help me please” Naked need.

“Hole in your garden wall” Secret passage, not door.

“Pull me through” Asking another to perform the crossing.

I just had to snap a photo when I saw this scene. A full moon peeking out from behind those clouds. It was such a dramatic, moody sight with the silhouettes of trees just barely visible at the bottom. Isn't it amazing how nature puts on a show like this? This is a werewolf's nightmare 😉.

#photos #landscape

I haven’t written many posts in 2025; here are the measly few I’ve managed to squeak out:

• Literacy Is Not Just for ELA: The Power of Content-Rich Teacher Tall
• More Productive Than an Hour of Instruction?: The Surprising Cognitive Science of a Walk in the Park
• AI, Mastery, and the Barbell of Cognitive Enhancement

While my bandwidth to peruse research has diminished this year (work has been busy, and I like spending time with my children) I have still encountered a fair number of compelling studies. In keeping with the tradition begun in 2023, and building on last year’s review, I am endeavoring to round up the research that has crossed my radar over the last 12 months.

This year presents a difficult juncture for research. Political aggression against academic institutions, the immigrants who power their PhD programs, and the federal contracts essential to their survival has disrupted research. Despite this, strong research continues to be published. Because research is a slow-moving endeavor, I suspect the full effects of these disruptions will manifest increasingly in future roundups; for now, the good work persists.

The research landscape of 2025 highlights a continued shift toward experience-dependent plasticity. This view treats the human mind as a dynamic ecosystem shaped by biological rhythms, cultural “software,” and technological catalysts. Learning is no longer seen as a linear accumulation of skills, but as a sophisticated orchestration of “statistical” internal models and external social and cultural and technological attunements.

Longtime readers will recognize this “ecosystem” view from my other blog on Schools as Ecosystems. It is validating to see the field increasingly adopting this ecological lens—viewing the learner not as an isolated machine, but as an organism deeply embedded in a biological and cultural context.

Our “big buckets” for this year have ended up mirroring the 2024 roundup, which means, methinks, that we have settled upon a perennial organizational structure:

• The Science of Reading and Writing
• Content Knowledge as an Anchor to Literacy
• Studies on Language Development
• Multilinguals and Multilingualism
• Rhythm, Attention, and Memory
• School, Social-Emotional, and Contextual Effects
• The Frontier of Artificial Intelligence and Neural Modeling
  

Let’s jump in!

I. The Science of Reading and Writing

The Critical Role of Morphology and Vocabulary

Readers of my 2023 roundup will recall that morphology was a major theme that year, and it remains central in 2025. Morphology refers to the smallest units of meaning in a word, and is strongly connected to the origins and evolution of words (etymology), and to vocabulary development and reading comprehension in general. It also serves as a crucial link to spelling, given the irregularities in a language such as English that cannot be resolved via phonological decoding alone.

In any given orthography, it is indeed the combination of phonology (the sounds) and morphology that enable a finite number of phonemes or symbols to be recombined into a potentially infinite number of unique words.

• “Combinatoriality enables an orthography to provide learnability and decipherability for the novice reader (via phonological transparency) as well as unitizability and automatizability for the expert (via morphemic transparency).” (Blueprint for a Universal Theory of Learning to Read: The Combinatorial Model, Reading Research Quarterly)

Early writing is a “canary in the coal mine” for future reading success. A study of 243 preschoolers found that initial levels and growth in name writing and letter writing significantly predicted later word reading and passage comprehension. This association held true for both monolingual and bilingual children identified as at-risk for reading difficulties, indicating that writing development is a universal literacy milestone.

• “Children’s initial levels of name writing, letter writing, and picture writing... predicted their later reading abilities in both word reading and passage comprehension.” (Beyond Word Recognition: The Role of Efficient Sequential Processing in Word- and Text-Reading Fluency Development, Scientific Studies of Reading)

A massive analysis of 1,116 children demonstrated that word reading and spelling are effectively a single latent trait (r = 0.96). However, spoken vocabulary knowledge acts as a bridge, allowing readers to use known word meanings to compensate for “fuzzy” or imprecise knowledge of letter-sound rules.

• “Our results suggest that word reading and spelling are one and the same, almost, but that spoken vocabulary knowledge is more closely related to reading than to spelling.” (On the relationship between word reading ability and spelling ability, Reading and Writing)

The ability to form and retrieve letter sequences (orthographic mapping) is a consistent driver across both typical and dyslexic populations:

• “Among typically developing children, orthographic mapping, phonological awareness, oral vocabulary, and working memory scores uniquely explained reading comprehension. Among children with dyslexia, only orthographic mapping and oral vocabulary scores uniquely predicted reading comprehension.” (The effects of orthography, phonology, semantics, and working memory on the reading comprehension of children with and without reading dyslexia, Annals of Dyslexia)

Longitudinal data showed that from Grade 3 to Grade 5, morphological awareness (manipulating prefixes, suffixes, roots) overtakes phonological awareness as the primary driver of reading comprehension and the mastery of complex, multi-morphemic words.

• “These results indicate continuing and pervasive roles for phonological awareness, naming speed, and morphological awareness over the later elementary school years, especially for morphological awareness in reading comprehension.” (Effects of morphological awareness, naming speed, and phonological awareness on reading skills from Grade 3 to Grade 5, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology)

Explicit and Implicit Instruction

All this leads to interesting findings this year around explicit instruction (EI) vs. statistical and implicit learning. We often pit these two against each other, but 2025 gave us some direction towards a more synergistic understanding.

Explicit instruction in alphabet instruction is critically important, regardless of modality and language status.

• “Young children benefit from explicit and systematic alphabet instruction, regardless of whether such instruction is multisensory or visual-auditory. . . EB and English monolingual children experienced a similar benefit from alphabet instruction, perhaps because they had similar socio-economic status and language backgrounds.” (An initial yet rigorous test of multisensory alphabet instruction for english monolingual and emergent bilingual children, Early Childhood Research Quarterly)

• “It is unrealistic to teach children a minimal set of letter–sound correspondences and expect them to deduce the more complex statistics of a writing system without guidance.. . . it is clear that the findings of laboratory studies of statistical learning do not generalize straightforwardly to the real world.” (Statistical learning in spelling and reading, Trends in Cognitive Sciences)

• “These findings clearly show that the learning via exposure is slow and does not guarantee successful learning of regularities in written languages, especially when there is more than one pattern in the input.” (Simultaneous learning of semantic and graphotactic regularities in spelling: An artificial orthography learning experiment, OSF Preprint)

But as word-level reading becomes increasing automatized, it moves to more “top-down, meaning-driven processes” related to language.

• “When we first learn to read, our brain heavily relies on its general problem-solving network (i.e. “multiple demand network”), but as we become skilled, it increasingly shifts to using specialized language networks.” (Contributions of the multiple demand network to emergent and skilled reading, Scientific Reports)

This shift is mirrored in the brain's “salience network,” which a large scale meta-analysis identifies as a shared foundation for both math and reading. While children rely on this network broadly for learning, adults engage it primarily for challenging, unmastered tasks, highlighting the importance of targeting attention and effort during the formative years.

• “The implication is that children and adults engage cognitive control networks for number-arithmetic tasks that are not yet automatized. . . ....the salience network might contribute to the common finding that learning difficulties in mathematics and reading are comorbid. . . . LD interventions should incorporate features that support the functions of cognitive control networks, including external factors that motivate attentional focus... and that highlight key information.” (Shared brain network acts as a foundation for both math and reading, Nature Communications)

For children with developmental language disorder (DLD), explicit instruction in meaning (“semantics”) is most important.

• “As a group, children with DLD showed significantly greater word-learning gain from explicit semantic interventions compared with explicit phonological therapy.” (Vocabulary interventions for children with developmental language disorder: a systematic review, Frontiers in Psychology)

Mechanisms of retention are equally critical; for children with DLD, vocabulary retention is specifically driven by the frequency of successful retrieval across multiple sessions, rather than just the intensity of exposure.

• “the number of sessions in which a child successfully produces a word's form or meaning relates positively to their ability to remember that word after extended delays . . “ (The Number of Sessions Children With Developmental Language Disorder Retrieve Words Relates Positively to Retrieval After Extended Post-Training Delays, Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools)

• “word retention in children with DLD is influenced not only by the robustness of the initial learning phase but also meaningful retrieval and practice opportunities” (Vocabulary interventions for children with developmental language disorder: a systematic review, Frontiers in Psychology)

• While response to treatment generally improves with intensity, there can be “diminishing returns” once a certain threshold is passed, such as 48 exposures in a book-reading context” . . . Retention is further enhanced when retrieval occurs with “other words intervening,” which has been shown to help with “word learning and... retention more than if they just completed the task without intervening words.” (IJLCD Winter Lecture 2025: What makes language interventions work – exploring the active ingredients, Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists)

In an orthography such as Chinese, gaining automatization with the “sub-lexical mappings between orthography (form), phonology (sound), and semantics (meaning)” can be an even greater challenge for students with dyslexia. An RCT found that explicit instruction was necessary for abstracting rules (form-sound mappings), but implicit exposure was also key for optimizing speed and efficiency.

• “Only the explicit-SL [Statistical Learning] group showed abstraction of form-sound mappings, while only the implicit-SL group showed optimized reading processes across phonology and semantics.” (Abstraction and Optimization in Statistical Learning: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Implicit and Explicit Reading Intervention for Students with Dyslexia, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society)

In other words, while explicit instruction is critical, it must be accompanied by sufficient volume for application and practice.

• “These results demonstrate that efficient processing of complex syntactic structures depends on both good statistical learning skills and exposure to a large amount of print so that these skills have the opportunity to extract the relevant statistical relationships in the language” (Statistical learning ability influences adults’ reading of complex sentences, Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology)

(I wrote about this need for balancing explicit instruction and statistical learning in my post, LLMs, Statistical Learning, and Explicit Teaching)

When it comes to learning the more precise and challenging statistics of orthography, even skilled adults are “satisficers,” choosing the simplest or easiest pronunciations rather than the statistically optimal ones predicted by vocabulary data.

• “Despite years of exposure, English readers produce /k/ pronunciations for the letter “c” before “e” and “i” over 10% of the time, “even though /k/ pronunciations of ⟨c⟩ virtually never occur in this context in English words.” (Statistical learning in spelling and reading, Trends in Cognitive Sciences)

As literacy learning shifts more towards that language-based side of things, the importance of “usage-based” learning becomes even more important, as with students learning a new language.

• “The bulk of language acquisition is implicit learning from usage. Most knowledge is tacit knowledge; most learning is implicit; the vast majority of our cognitive processing is unconscious. . . . Explicit instruction can be ill-timed and out of synchrony with development... it can be confusing; it can be easily forgotten; it can be ignored.” (Usage-based approaches to SLA, Theories in Second Language Acquisition: An Introduction)
  

After all, learning a new language (oracy, vocabulary, comprehension) is not only about reading or writing silently, but also about communication, which is social in nature. Balancing when new vocabulary is introduced and used therefore becomes a consideration.

• “Vocabulary acquisition through interactive tasks involves a dynamic interplay between language-specific neural networks and social-cognitive processes, with their relative contributions shifting as learners progress through sequential collaborative tasks. . . Pre-task vocabulary practice led to greater learning, while post-task practice resulted in higher IBS [inter-brain synchronization] in the brain region underlying language processing.” (Timing matters for interactive task-based learning: Effects of vocabulary practice on learning multiword expressions and neural synchronization, Studies in Second Language Acquisition)

Assessing Literacy

Gaining a deeper understanding of student’s literacy profiles in order to tailor and target instruction to their needs is important. In the past, teachers relied on “miscue analysis” and “running records” to gain this understanding, but such analysis is about as useful as flipping a coin. Instead, a study suggests that error analysis using the valid and reliable CBM measure of Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) can provide key information on whether errors are phonemic, orthographic, morphemic, and high frequency in nature.

• “Analyzing student errors and the features of the words wherein these errors occur allows for a more tailored understanding of the area in which students are struggling and provides guidance on how to adjust instruction accordingly. . . The DBI [data-based instruction] process is iterative, and the ongoing analysis of student assessment data to inform the intensification and individualization of an intervention is essential to this process.” (What’s in a Word? Analyzing Students’ Oral Reading Fluency to Inform Instructional Decision-Making, Intervention in School and Clinic)
  

Automated oral reading fluency assessments often exhibit bias against English learners due to speech-to-text inaccuracies, which can be mitigated by including prosody as a core sub-construct.

• “The inclusion of prosody improves automated ORF assessment by reducing discrepancies between ELLs and English first language students.” (Investigating construct representativeness and linguistic equity of automated oral reading fluency assessment with prosody, Language Testing)

Furthermore, it is important to draw upon multiple sources of data to fully understand any student’s unique needs.

• “The results of the Delphi study highlight the complexity involved in assessing dyslexia and the need to draw upon multiple sources of information: background information, standardised test results, and qualitative observations.” (Towards a Consensus for Dyslexia Practice: Findings of a Delphi Study on Assessment and Identification, Dyslexia)

II. Content Knowledge as an Anchor to Literacy

Just as we moved from word-level phonological decoding and orthographic mapping towards the importance of semantic and language-based learning, we must pair the learning of any school language not only to social communication, but furthermore to the conceptual and topical knowledge entrenched in academic disciplines. And that conceptual and topical knowledge – so critical for critical thinking – is founded upon facts.

• “Critical thinking cannot develop and cannot flourish without facts. You need to start with evidence, with things that are true so that you can think about causality.” (Young Minds, Smart Strategies: How Children Decide When to Use External Memory Aids, APS Podcast)

Curriculum programs are typically designed around “thematic units to build content schemas.” Yet categorization may be a better means.

• “Categories are rule-based (e.g. something is or is not in a category) and hierarchical (e.g. superordinate categories/subcategories). In this respect, they provided an organizational framework that is different from traditional theme-based instructional approach, which is reliant on associative relationships, and situations. . . . Topics which build concepts through categorization provide children with a more facilitative way to process, store and retrieve information, while promoting inferences that extend knowledge beyond past and current experiences.” (Knowledge-Building Through Categorization: Boosting Children’s Vocabulary and Content Knowledge in a Shared Book Reading Program, Early Education and Development)

OK, not part of 2025 research but a great connection on this, back in 2023 Susan Pimentel, David Liben, and Meredith Liben similarly advocated for a shift from broad thematic units toward a shift for building knowledge through specific topics, which they argued could more effectively support the development of content schemas.

• “To accelerate literacy learning... teachers need instructional tools that create sustained opportunities for reading and discussing informational texts, examining the language encountered in those texts, and building new content knowledge.” (Scaling the 'dinosaur effect': Topic vs. theme in elementary classrooms, Knowledge Matters Campaign)
  

Relatedly, while general prior knowledge facilitates basic comprehension, topic-specific knowledge is the primary driver for building the situational models required for complex knowledge transfer. This effect is mediated by the learner’s initial mastery of a base text, as the ability to apply information to new contexts depends entirely on the foundational transfer skills established during that first encounter.

• “The amount and specificity of prior knowledge influenced learning from both texts. Additionally, learning from the first text mediated the impact of topic-specific knowledge on learning from the second text. . . .Topic-general knowledge showed a stronger correlation with comprehension, while topic-specific knowledge was more closely associated with transfer.” (The effects of the topic-specific and topic-general prior knowledge on learning from multiple complementary texts, Learning and Individual Differences)

III. Studies on Language Development

Talker Variability

Building off our previous section on the importance of content knowledge, one single predictor of a multilingual child’s ability to master complex science and social studies vocabulary is driven by a core set of foundational language skills. A student’s foundational language factor (vocab/syntax) explained 58% of the variance in their ability to produce definitions for science concepts.

• “Learning content vocabulary is significantly related to student language skills in Spanish and in English. . . We find that content is learned when the language is learned. As such, all teachers are, first and foremost, language teachers of the subject matter that they present. . . This finding suggests that developing student language skills early facilitates the learning of curricular vocabulary words later.” (Predicting Science and Social Studies Vocabulary Learning in Spanish–English Bilingual Children, Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools)

While we often think “more speakers = better,” it turns out variability helps children with strong language skills (1.95x more likely to learn), but it can actually “thwart the discovery” of patterns for children with weaker language skills.

• “This study suggests that children with different levels of language skills and bilingual experience may learn new words differently. More variability = good for children with more bilingual experience or strong language skills, less variability = good for children with less bilingual experience or weaker language skills.” (The graded effects of bilingualism and language ability on children’s cross-situational word learning, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition)

Yet some variability remains key, including for students with developmental language disorder (DLD).

• “Highly variable linguistic input seems to facilitate grammatical morphine learning in children with DLD . . .Increasing the variability in how an object is represented in treatment also has the potential to improve children's ability to generalize their next lexical knowledge.” (IJLCD Winter Lecture 2025: What makes language interventions work – exploring the active ingredients, Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists)

For adults learning new words in their native language there was no evidence that either talker variability or scaffolding the talker presentation assisted learning. Instead success was almost entirely predicted by the learner's phonological working memory and general language ability.

• “In particular, exposure to multiple speakers of the same variety resulted in the largest gain. Thus, to facilitate adaptation to unfamiliar L2 pronunciation, high-intelligibility speakers and/or multiple speakers of the same language background should be used”. (The impact of talker variability and individual differences on word learning in adults, Brain Research)

All that said, in the context of second language learning, talker variability remains a vital tool—provided the variability maintains high intelligibility and stays within the same dialect or language variety. This principle resonates with my own experience learning Spanish in Peru. I spent roughly equivalent amounts of time en la costa, en los Andes, y en la selva; yet, just as I felt I was gaining fluency, moving to a new region and encountering an entirely different variety of the language made it feel as though I were learning it all over again.

• “In particular, exposure to multiple speakers of the same variety resulted in the largest gain. Thus, to facilitate adaptation to unfamiliar L2 pronunciation, high-intelligibility speakers and/or multiple speakers of the same language background should be used”. (Intelligibility and input variability influence adaptation to unfamiliar L2 pronunciation in L2, Foreign Language Annals)
  

Further considerations for a practice structure with “variability”: when learning new L2 vocabulary, interleaving different categories produced superior outcomes compared to studying them in blocks, likely due to a spacing effect that forces the brain to constantly retrieve and contrast new information.

• “Mixing different language categories during practice (interleaving) rather than studying them in separate blocks produced superior learning outcomes . . . Our findings indicate that the interleaving advantage observed in other domains extends to dual language learning.” (The effects of interleaving and rest on L2 vocabulary learning, Second Language Research)
  

Quality vs Quantity

A central question in language research is whether children primarily need a high volume of speech (quantity) or speech that is linguistically and conceptually rich (quality).

A meta-analysis found that in the home, quantity and quality of speech are highly correlated (r=0.88); “parents who talk more naturally tend to use a more diverse and complex vocabulary.”

• Furthermore, “Younger children benefit less from lexical diversity... because words that children acquire early in life are so common and so concrete that they are likely to appear in informative contexts even in the speech of parents who exhibit lower lexical diversity.” (How strong is the relationship between caregiver speech and language development? A meta-analysis, Journal of Child Language)

Conversely, in school, only quality moves the needle. This meta-analysis examined teacher language practices from preschool to third grade and found a statistically significant association between teachers’ language quality—defined as interactive scaffolding and conceptual challenge—and children’s development, but no significant association with the quantity of teacher talk.

• “Enhancing teacher language practices is not only strategically vital but also cost-effective and scalable. . . . These findings emphasize the need to focus on improving the quality of teachers’ language practices in early childhood education through enhanced teacher preparation and ongoing professional development” (Does Teacher Talk Matter Too? A Meta-Analysis of Partial Correlations Between Teachers’ Language Practices and Children’s Language Development from Preschool to Third Grade, Review of Educational Research)

The finding that quality of teacher talk trumps quantity reinforces what I have previously explored in Research Highlight 2 and Literacy Is Not Just for ELA. We know that explicit use of academic vocabulary and decontextualized language is what drives growth, not just a whole bunch of words.

Yet despite the importance of quality talk in classrooms, large-scale recordings of 97 preschool classrooms revealed a dearth of linguistically challenging interactions.

• Researchers found that 40% “Instructional time was primarily devoted to alphabetics, with a stark paucity of opportunities for children to acquire the language and content knowledge essential for later learning.”

• In contrast, time spent on vocabulary and science instruction supported the most complex and pedagogical language, yet these activities combined received less than half the time allotted to simple letter drills.

• There was a significant misalignment between beliefs and practice: while 96% of teachers felt confident in their ability to foster rich discussions, automated recordings showed they rarely used wh-questions or extended conversational turns (Preschool Teachers’ Child-Directed Talk, Early Education and Development)

$## From Womb to Weave: Human Language Development

In 2025, language research has deepened our understanding of the biological and evolutionary roots of communication. Language is not merely a set of learned properties and rules but a form of social, statistical, and biological attunement.

Human language, influenced by the sounds of the words of the adults around us, begins to develop while we are in the womb, and we begin to distinguish between our home languages and other languages.

• “Newborns recognize foreign languages they heard while in the womb.” (Babies’ Brains Recognize Foreign Languages They Heard before Birth, Scientific American)

Even mere exposure to the sounds of a tonal language like Mandarin creates lasting structural imprints in the brain's white matter that persist even if the language is no longer used.

• “Exposure to a tonal language like Mandarin early in life exerts lasting effects on white matter architecture in the brain... persisting even if the language is discontinued.” (Early but discontinued exposure to a language exerts lasting effects on white matter architecture in the brain, Communications Biology)

Once out in the world, infant attunement to their mother’s heartbeat during face-to-face interaction correlates with word segmentation ability.

• When mothers and infants had more synchronized heartbeats, the infants were better at identifying individual words within a stream of speech. . . . This biological synchrony correlated with maternal sensitivity to an infant's mental states, suggesting that an attuned emotional environment literally sets the rhythm for learning.” (Individual Differences in Infants' Speech Segmentation Performance, Infancy)

A nine-year longitudinal study furthermore found that index-finger pointing at age one is a specific developmental predictor of metaphor comprehension at age nine. This correlation reinforces the “embodied cognition” view—the idea that physical grounding in infancy serves as a required scaffold for abstract thought later in life.

• “Iconic gesture comprehension at age 3;0 was correlated with all language skills, performance on the ToM-scale and metaphor comprehension at age 9;0.” (Does early gesture usage contribute alongside oral language to later theory of mind performance and metaphor comprehension?, Language Acquisition)

You know how adults talk all silly as they goo goo and gah gah at babies? That baby talk seems to be an innate scaffolding technique that accelerates infant language development for all kids, including those with autism.

• “Infants were more likely to produce a speech-like vocalization following an adult utterance directed to them in parentese compared to an adult utterance directed to them in adult register. . . . Both neurotypical & autistic infants make more speech-like sounds when spoken to in parentese.” (Parentese Elicits Infant Speech-Like Vocalizations in Typically Developing and Autistic Infants, Infancy)

Such “parentese,” or “infant-directed speech,” is something that sets us apart from apes.

• “The rate that children heard infant-directed communication was 69 times as high as what Dr. Fryns observed among chimpanzees, and 399 times as high as what Dr. Wegdell observed among bonobos.” (Did Baby Talk Give Rise to Language?, NYTimes)

While macaque monkeys share similar visual-encoding machinery to us, they do not form “consensus color categories,” suggesting that language provides the needed cognitive and cultural framework to achieve shared conceptual agreement.

• “One animal showed evidence for a private color category, demonstrating that monkeys have the capacity to form color categories even if they do not form consensus color categories. . . Innate similarities between monkeys and humans are not sufficient to produce consensus color categories . . . This implies that human color categories are not 'hard-wired' by birth but depend on language and cultural coordination to achieve shared agreement.” (The origin of color categories, Psychological and Cognitive Sciences)

One interesting aspect of human gender differences is that girls develop more advanced language abilities than boys at an earlier age.

• “Girls learn language skills more rapidly than boys. Boys learn cognitive and fine motor skills more rapidly than girls.” (A Study of the Microdynamics of Early Childhood Learning, NBER Working Paper) Across typologically diverse languages and cultures, children follow a universal pattern of transitioning from salient free negators (e.g. “No,” “Not”) to less salient bound negator morphemes (e.g. “-nt”).

• “Children transition from relatively easy and salient free negators to less salient bound negator morphemes.” (Negation in First Language Acquisition: Universal or Language-Specific?, Cognitive Science)

Furthermore, a phonemic analysis of animal onomatopoeia across 21 languages reveals that humans perceive animal sounds in ways that are similar across cultures. While cultural filters vary the spelling, the underlying sound interpretation transcends linguistic differences.

• “Phonemically the sounds made by the animals across the world are cognate in cat-speak, duck-speak, pig-speak, and so forth”. (Phonemic analysis of animal sounds as spelled in various popular languages, Language Log)

Phonemes can be viewed as “cognitive tools” that support and extend human thinking and ability. These basic sound units are predicated on physical and biological constraints but vary across cultural lineages to facilitate the efficient transmission of information.

• “Phonemes—the basic sound units of language—function as cognitive tools that shape and extend human thinking.” (The Phoneme as a Cognitive Tool, Topics in Cognitive Science)

For adults, familiar prosody is also a primary gateway to learning a new language.

• “Adults can quickly pick up on the melodic and rhythmic patterns of a completely novel language” (How to learn a language like a baby, The Conversation)

• Familiar pitch patterns (like those from a listener’s native language) significantly boost the ability to parse word boundaries and complex dependencies; without these melodic cues, complex structures remain unlearnable within short timeframes. (Prosody enhances learning of statistical dependencies from continuous speech streams in adults, Cognition)

And speaking of adults and parents: having more books in the house and parents who are knowledgeable about children’s stories independently helps a child's reading skills, even after accounting for the parents' own natural reading abilities.

• “Children’s reading in Grade 3 was predicted by mothers’ engagement in reading activities and by literacy resources at home, even after controlling for the genetic proxy of parental reading abilities. . . .The mothers of children who struggle tend to engage in more reading activities. . . Fathers' reported frequency of reading activities was not predictive.” (The intergenerational impact of mothers and fathers on children's word reading development, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry)

Human and Animal Evolution

In 2025, the century-long view of Darwinian gradualism—the idea that species develop through slow, imperceptible increments—was further challenged by a new mathematical framework. This research reveals that living systems often evolve in sudden, explosive surges rather than a steady marathon of change. These “phantom bursts” of evolution suggest that spiky growth patterns are a general characteristic of any branching system of inherited modifications, whether in proteins, languages, or complex organisms. (The Sudden Surges That Forge Evolutionary Trees, Quanta Magazine)

What I find especially interesting about this idea of “spiky bursts” of growth is that in last year’s research roundup, we reviewed a study of 292 children which found that those who heard speech in intense, concentrated bursts had significantly larger vocabularies than those exposed to a more consistent, steady stream of language.

I also have a 2025 book recommendation, if you are interested in the history of language evolution: Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global by Laure Spinney. Here’s an interesting quote:

“In the Caucasus, dubbed 'the mountain of tongues' by a tenth-century Arab geographer, linguists describe a phenomenon called vertical bilingualism, where people in higher villages know the languages of those living lower down, but the reverse is not true. Why would people living in higher-altitude communities be more fluent in the languages of those residing at lower elevations? Perhaps because mountain dwellers had to travel down to lower villages for trade and resources, therefore they learned the languages of those below. Whereas, people in lower villages had less reason to travel to harder to reach and thus, more isolated higher-altitude communities. So they were less likely to learn those languages. This created the vertical flow of linguistic knowledge, mirroring the flow of physical movement.”

IV. Multilinguals and Multilingualism

Just as our biological evolution has shaped our capacity for language, our environment continues to shape how those languages manifest. In 2025, the research landscape for multilingualism shifted toward an “experience-dependent plasticity” framework, viewing multiple languages not as competing systems, but as a dynamic, integrated repertoire.

Longitudinal data tracking Spanish-English bilinguals between ages 4 and 12 revealed that language dominance is fluid, not fixed. Researchers observed a rapid switch in dominance characterized by a steady decline in Spanish-only interactions as children aged. Crucially, this developmental shift is not merely a process of “loss” but one of complexity transfer.

• “The narrative complexity of a child’s Spanish (L1) stories significantly predicted the complexity of their English (L2) narratives one year later. . . . Bilinguals who produce nativelike L2 vowels are also able to maintain native L1 productions, suggesting that an increased L2 proficiency does not inevitably entail a decline in L1 proficiency.” (Factor structure and longitudinal changes in bilinguals’ oral narratives production, Applied Psycholinguistics)

This finding is complemented by validation of the Simple View of Reading (SVR) in Spanish Heritage learners, where linguistic comprehension (morphosyntax and vocabulary) was the primary predictor of reading success, echoing the need for strong L1 foundations.

• “Across both types of orthographies, decoding and linguistic comprehension together explain approximately 60% of the variance in RC. Variations between the so-named phonologically transparent and opaque orthographies highlight differences in the contributions of decoding and comprehension to RC and how these factors evolve during children's literacy development. The simplified nature of SVR thus provides a principled foundation for exploring these important questions.” (Can the Simple View of Reading Inform the Study of Reading Comprehension in Young Spanish Heritage Language Learners?, Reading Research Quarterly)

Furthermore, the structural relationship between languages matters. New research indicates that high structural and lexical overlap between a child's languages—a concept known as small linguistic distance—reduces the amount of exposure required to reach heritage language proficiency.

• “We found that language similarity affected the amount of exposure needed to reach a certain level of proficiency.” (The role of linguistic context and language similarity in the relationship between language exposure and language proficiency in bilingual children, Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism)

I have explored this concept of “linguistic distance” in relation to diglossia and African American English, noting the greater challenged introduced when written forms diverge significantly from a student's spoken vernacular. This new research affirms that finding: just as greater distance requires more exposure, smaller distance facilitates quicker proficiency.

We often hear about the “bilingual advantage” in executive function, but 2025 research added necessary nuance regarding code-switching. The link between cross-speaker code-switching and cognitive control is heavily moderated by overall language ability. High frequency of switching was associated with better inhibitory control only for children with strong language skills; for those with weaker skills, switching often reflected lapses in production rather than strategic control.

• “Higher frequency of cross-speaker code-switches was associated with better inhibitory control only for children with higher levels of language ability . . . For children with weaker omnibus language skills, cross-speaker switches may reflect difficulties generating a message (in either language) and/or difficulties tracking language use. . . The same switching behavior may be rooted in different mechanisms in children with different levels of language ability.” (The influence of cross-speaker code-switching and language ability on inhibitory control in bilingual children, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition)

Perhaps the most striking finding this year comes from the other end of the lifespan. New evidence from 27 European countries has redefined multilingualism as a biological asset that actively slows the aging process. In a study of over 86,000 participants, monolingualism was associated with more than double the risk of accelerated biological aging compared to multilingual peers.

• “Monolingualism was associated with more than double the risk of accelerated biological aging (OR = 2.11). . . . Speaking two or more additional languages provided progressively stronger protection as individuals grew older.” (Multilingualism protects against accelerated aging in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of 27 European countries, Nature Aging)

V. Rhythm, Attention, and Memory

We are moving away from viewing music and speech as isolated auditory signals and toward a model of social and biological “attunement.” The latest studies suggest that rhythmic synchrony is a fundamental gateway for human connection and cognitive growth.

This attunement extends to the very mechanics of how the brain processes sound. Humans instantaneously distinguish talking from singing based on “amplitude modulation,” or the rate at which volume changes. While speech modulations reflect human vocal comfort at 4–5 hertz, music is slower and more regular at 1–2 hertz, potentially evolving specifically to facilitate group synchrony and bonding.

• “Audio clips with slower amplitude-modulation rates and more regular rhythms were more likely to be judged as music, and the opposite pattern applied for speech. . . . Our brain associates slower, more regular changes in amplitude with music (1–2 hertz) and faster, irregular changes with speech (4–5 hertz).” (How Your Brain Tells Speech and Music Apart, Scientific American)

The foundations of language development may actually lie in biological coregulation. When mothers and 9-month-old infants have synchronized heartbeats (measured via Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia), the infants demonstrate advanced word segmentation skills. This suggests that an attuned emotional environment literally sets the rhythm for learning. (Note: we covered this one in a previous section, but worth repeating this one!)

• “The higher the cross recurrence rate (RR) of mother's and infant's RSA, the longer infants look... which we interpret as advanced word segmentation. . . . When mothers and infants had more synchronized heartbeats, the infants were better at identifying individual words within a stream of speech.” (Individual Differences in Infants' Speech Segmentation Performance, Infancy)

Readers may recall a similar theme from the 2024 roundup, where we discussed research indicating that “synchrony is learning”—showing that brain-to-brain synchrony predicts engagement and learning. This new research on heartbeat and blink synchrony takes that concept even deeper, into the physiological rhythms of our bodies.

This synchrony even extends to our motor systems. One of the year's most fascinating discoveries is that our bodies synchronize with music in ways we never realized: spontaneous eye blinks align with musical beats. This “blink synchronization” occurs without instruction and improves the detection of subtle differences in pitch, indicating that motor alignment helps optimize attention and auditory perception.

• “Spontaneous eye blinks synchronize with musical beats... Blink synchronization performance was linked to white matter microstructure variation in the left superior longitudinal fasciculus.” (Eye blinks synchronize with musical beats during music listening, PLoS Biology)

However, just as synchrony can boost learning, “dys-synchrony” can derail it. It isn't just peer distraction that disrupts the rhythm of learning; it is the acoustic environment itself. New data reveals that background noise (the “cocktail party effect”) negatively impacts all levels of auditory processing—from reaction time to memory recall. Crucially, this burden is heavier for non-native speakers, whose brains must work double-time to filter signal from noise.

• Background noise negatively impacts all levels of auditory processing, from RT [Reaction Time] to speech recognition and memory recall.” (Reaction Time, Speech Recognition, and Verbal Memory Performance: Nonnative Versus Native English Speakers, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research)

Research on “attention contagion” furthermore found that students implicitly pick up the inattentive states of their peers. In virtual learning environments, sitting “next to” (virtually) a distracted classmate significantly increased task-unrelated thoughts, proving that focus is a social phenomenon.

• “Students in the study did actually 'catch' inattentiveness from peers, though only when sitting next to or between inattentive classmates.” (The Effects of Attention Contagion on Task-Unrelated Thought in a Virtual Lecture, Collabra: Psychology)

Finally, as we rely more on digital tools, we face new trade-offs in how we manage memory. When external aids (like a digital list) are made slower or more “annoying” to access, children spontaneously choose to use their own memory more. It appears that cognitive effort is a calculated decision based on the efficiency of the environment.

• “Once you introduce [a lag time], they started using their memory more. It’s a trade-off... essentially the minimum that you can get away with.” (Young Minds, Smart Strategies: How Children Decide When to Use External Memory Aids, APS Podcast)

VI. School, Social-Emotional, and Contextual Effects

We are increasingly moving away from studying the brain in isolation, focusing instead on how the classroom functions as a biological ecosystem.

Researchers have proposed a new framework called “Classroom Carrying Capacity,” which conceptualizes the teacher as the leader of a sustainable biological ecosystem. A teacher’s own self-efficacy and burnout levels are primary determinants of this capacity; high-burnout environments often see a sharp decline in the quality of instructional support provided to students.

• “The quality of the classroom environment is determined, in part, by interactions between features of individual students, teachers, and the classroom, which influence one another reciprocally over time.” (Classrooms are complex host environments: An integrative theoretical measurement model of the pre-k to grade 3 classroom )ecology

While we often rush to digitize these learning environments, 2025 research suggests we should tap the brakes. A comparative study on reading mediums found that while digital reading enhances processing speed, it often compromises deep comprehension, retention, and “cognitive comfort.” The researchers suggest that the physical landscape of a book provides “spatial cues” that anchor memory—cues that vanish on a scrolling screen.

• “While digital reading enhances reading speed, it compromises comprehension, retention, engagement, and cognitive comfort.” (A comparative study on the effects of digital reading and print reading on children's reading engagement and story comprehension, International Journal of Chinese Writing Systems)

This ecosystem is further influenced by external events. In Florida, a study demonstrated that increased exposure to immigration enforcement actions led to a measurable decline in test scores for both U.S.-born and foreign-born Spanish-speaking students. The psychological burden disrupts the “cognitive bandwidth” necessary for academic performance.

• “Immigration enforcement reduced test scores for both U.S.-born and foreign-born Spanish-speaking students... these effects are more pronounced for students in middle and high schools.” (The Effects of Immigration Enforcement on Student Outcomes in a New Era of Immigration Policy in the United States, NBER Working Paper)
  

This “external weather” of policy can cast a shadow that lasts a lifetime. A sobering study found that Black adults who attended segregated schools decades ago are now showing significantly higher risks of dementia. The chronic inflammation caused by the stress of discrimination appears to leave a biological scar that persists over the course of a life span.

• “When children are segregated in school, they experience discrimination... which can lead to... inflammation in the brain... even after 70 years.” (Exposure to School Racial Segregation and Late-Life Cognitive Outcomes, JAMA)

However, educational attainment itself appears to be a potent buffer. New research indicates that staying in school substantially reduces the risk of almost all studied mental disorders, suggesting that the school environment provides a critical scaffolding for resilience.

• “The finding that educational attainment is not merely a reflection of cognitive abilities suggests that educational attainment itself could be used as a unique predictor of mental disorders” (Cognitive Abilities and Educational Attainment as Antecedents of Mental Disorders: A Total Population Study of Males, Psychological Science)

Similarly, family structure plays a pivotal role. Using full population data from Denmark, researchers found that parental separation resulted in an immediate decline in reading scores (3% to 4% of a standard deviation), an effect that grew to 6.5% four years later. Notably, this decline was driven primarily by students in the middle of the skill distribution, who are often overlooked by policy.

• “Children who experience parental union dissolution are found to slow down in their biological maturation following the event... and report increased levels of stress.” (The effects of parental union dissolution on children’s test scores, OSF Preprint)

However, the social composition of the classroom can also be protective. Being exposed to a higher proportion of female peers was found to improve mental health for both boys and girls.

• “Being exposed to a higher proportion of female peers, despite only improving school satisfaction for boys, improves mental health for both boys and girls.” (More Girls, Fewer Blues: Peer Gender Ratios and Adolescent Mental Health, NBER Working Paper)

Finally, for adolescents, longitudinal neuroimaging and behavioral interviews revealed that the effort of making deeper meaning–through a cognitive process called transcendent thinking–literally sculpts the physical brain. This counteracts age-related thinning of the cerebral cortex and acted as a biological “heat shield” for those teens exposed to community violence.

• “Transcendent thinking may be to the adolescent mind and brain what exercise is to the body: most people can exercise, but only those who do will reap the benefits”. (Transcendent Thinking May Boost Teen Brains, Scientific American)

VII. The Frontier of Artificial Intelligence and Neural Modeling

The final frontier of 2025 research reveals that Artificial Intelligence is becoming a powerful mirror for human cognition. It is no longer just a tool for doing work, but a “model organism” for understanding how we think.

Groundbreaking neuroscience research is using Large Language Models (LLMs) to unlock the “black box” of the brain. Research led by Andrea de Varda demonstrated that multilingual neural networks share a “shared meaning space” with the human brain. A model trained to map brain activity in English and Tamil can accurately predict brain responses to a completely new language, like Italian, in a zero-shot transfer. This suggests that despite the vast diversity of 7,000 human languages, our brains and our most advanced models are all orbiting the same fundamental laws of meaning.

• “Encoding models can be transferred zero-shot across languages... providing evidence for a shared component of linguistic representations.” (Multilingual Computational Models Reveal Shared Brain Responses to 21 Languages, BioRxiv/Preprint)

This concept of a shared meaning space that is essentially statistical in nature provides fascinating confirmation for the hypothesis I explored in my series on AI and Language—specifically the idea that “the meaning and experiences of our world are more deeply entwined with the form and structure of our language than we previously imagined.” (See The Algebra of Language).

On a practical level, AI is proving to be a potent equalizer. An intervention in the UAE found that ChatGPT-based support significantly improved the coherence and writing scores of children with Arabic dysgraphia compared to standard instruction. Furthermore, medical students using AI-personalized pathways scored significantly higher on standardized tests, and classroom participation frequencies doubled.

• “AI tools like ChatGPT can significantly enhance writing abilities in children with dysgraphia... promoting a more inclusive and effective learning environment.” (Supplemental role of ChatGPT in enhancing writing ability for children with dysgraphia in the Arabic language, Education and Information Technologies)

However, access to AI tools is not enough. The “active ingredient” determining whether a student succeeds with AI isn't the technology, but their own belief in their ability to use it. Self-efficacy was found to be the single strongest predictor of achievement in AI-based settings, mediating the technology's effectiveness.

• “Successful achievement in AI-based settings is mediated by self-efficacy... Psychological predictors all together explained 61 percent of the variation in student achievement and persistence with self-efficacy being the most important predictor.” (Digital literacy and academic performance: the mediating roles of digital informal learning, self-efficacy, and students' digital competence, Frontiers in Education)

This self-efficacy finding provides the other half of the equation to the “barbell” theory of AI cognitive enhancement. We cannot simply hand the heavy lifting of cognition over to AI; the “weights” must still be lifted by the student to build the belief in their own capability that is required to effectively guide the technology.

Perhaps the most “sci-fi” finding of the year involves our ocean's giants. Project CETI has successfully used LLMs to decode the codas of sperm whales, discovering that whale communication contains vowels and diphthongs used in ways strikingly similar to human speech. These whales possess “culturally defined clans” with distinct dialects, suggesting that culture is a primary driver of communicative complexity across species.

• “AI analysis of sperm whale 'codas' uncovered vowel- and diphthong-like spectral patterns.” (Vowel- and Diphthong-Like Spectral Patterns in Sperm Whale Codas, Open Mind: Discoveries in Cognitive Science)

(Fans of previous roundups will appreciate the continuity here: in 2023, we highlighted Gašper Beguš's work on ANNs and whale phonology.)

Researchers have even identified a “meta-law” where the statistical patterns in the equations of physics mirror the mathematical distributions found in human language (Zipf's Law). This suggests that the same computational principles of efficiency govern both our communication and the physical laws of the universe.

• Understanding these patterns “may shed light on Nature’s modus operandi or reveal recurrent patterns in physicists’ attempts to formalise the laws of Nature . . . The patterns may arise from “communication optimisation,” where operators are defined “to describe common ideas as succinctly as possible . . These regularities could “provide crucial input for symbolic regression, potentially augmenting language models to generate symbolic models for physical phenomena.” (Statistical Patterns in the Equations of Physics and the Emergence of a Meta-Law of Nature, arXiv)

This finding of a universal statistical law of efficiency brings us back to Stephen Wolfram's concept of “computational irreducibility,” which I touched on in the AI barbell post. While language and physics may share efficient patterns (making them partially reducible), the act of learning—of internalizing these patterns into a human mind—remains an irreducible process that cannot be fully automated away.

Closing Thoughts

If there is a single thread tying the research of 2025 together, it is connectivity. Whether it is the synchronization of a mother’s heartbeat with her infant, the shared “meaning space” between an AI model and a human brain, or the “vertical flow” of language in ancient mountain villages, the evidence confirms that we are not isolated cognitive units. We are ecologically situated, rhythmically attuned, and socially dependent learners.

Here’s to another year of learning, connecting, and—hopefully—a little more positive synchronization and interactive attunement with the world around us.

#language #literacy #research #reading #writing #multilingualism #assessment #brain #cognition #academics #curriculum #wrapup

Some important things happened today which I must write down!

Firstly, when we went in the Volvo to buy some groceries and recycle, the moon stood full on the night sky, bigger than usual, full and with a bright shine.

On our way back home, the only cloud in the sky, thick and dark, covered it, but the cool moonshine still is leaking upwards and downwards; not even this black cloud could stop it today.

That is a powerful omen! I need this right now!

Secondly, the I have got my (sense of) smell back! When I first got the medicine this fall, all of the snells of the city which went through my nostrils filled my body and mind with impressions! I will never forget that day, the sun stood high and I felt that I could navigate the city just by smell.

But then they went away so slowly that I wasn’t sure until even the coffee smelled of nothing.

Now they’re back but weak — but back — but still I already take them for granted

The rich taste of food like tomatoes or cod or even potatoes, the smell of oregano and garlic;

Of onion fried in olive oil

I already take all of this for granted!

I’ve always considered myself the luckiest man alive.

But it takes just a grain of sand for the machinery to stop.

I’m thinking about something my therapist said, about me being so eager to forgive, that I’m so understanding, that there is a place for anger, and to stop and realise that I’ve been wronged,

That perhaps my issue is that I’ve always considered what problems I’ve had mere grains of sand, where in reality they deserve a little bit more respect than that,

That they deserve to be taken seriously

Because I do.

JOURNAL 3 janvier 2026 #auberge

Quand vous lirez ça nous deux on dormira depuis longtemps, demain matin on se lève 4h30 : un solide petit dej., ensuite les bento, une bouteille isotherme de thé bien chaud, les raquettes et en route vers 5h. Les sacs sont prêts, bourrés de cadeaux, des algues séchées, du miso, une bouteille, un trésor de fukushima osake, et des souvenirs… Pas de pot la météo marche pas, on espère qu’il ne neigera pas, ça peut devenir dangereux s'il neige beaucoup, mais il faut absolument que A soit rentrée lundi, donc quoi qu'il arrive on part demain matin.

Ce soir c'était mélancolique ici. Les adieux c'est toujours un peu triste, surtout avec les gens âgés, ils sont pas idiots ils connaissent leur âge. On est désolées de les laisser. Ma princesse me dit qu’il faut dormir maintenant. Je ne sais pas quand je pourrai donner nos nouvelles. Soyez pas inquiets on est solides et prudentes et bien équipées et on connaît les dangers et la conduite à tenir.

Limelight by Rush sure has some strange time signatures. I don't think I've ever been good at understanding the bottom number of a time signature, but I can count how many beats seem to be in each measure. Without counting how many measures there are of each time signature, I hear the time signature start at 4, then go to 7, then 6, then 4, then 7, then 6, then 4, then 7, then 3. After that, I can't keep track.

Pretty wacky. I like it!

#Life

#002285 – 31 de Agosto de 2025

Junto ao Castelo do Queijo, há duas mesas quadradas na areia, a poucos metros do mar. Dois grupos de velhotes jogam às cartas, vizinhos deste som imenso do mar se inverno e do entardecer.

#002284 – 30 de Agosto de 2025

Felizmente o bar barulhento junto ao edifício transparente está fechado durante o inverno. Ficamos perante o mar, marulhento, e o seu estrondo reconfortante, de mãe feroz, indomável.