Posted April 22, 2026
The big tech news of the week has been Tim Cook’s decision to step down as Apple’s CEO and his advice to his successor. Under his watch, the company grew from roughly $350 billion in market cap to $4 trillion.
According to the Wall Street Journal, when Cook took over for Steve Jobs, the legendary genius looked him in the eyes and gave him a piece of advice that guided all his decisions. “Don’t ask what I would do,” Jobs told Cook. “Just do the right thing.”
What advice would he give John Ternus, his successor at Apple? “I would probably say the same thing.”
“Just do the right thing” is excellent advice. The question, of course, is, how do we know the “right thing”?
As the “America Reads the Bible” emphasis continues in Washington, DC, this week, we’re thinking together about relating God’s word to our secularized culture. We’ve explored the power of Scripture to change hearts and lives when we submit to its truth in the power of the Spirit.
There’s another dimension to this discussion we need to consider today.
Eric Swalwell went to a Christian college on a soccer scholarship and often talked publicly about his faith. Then came his resignation from Congress following allegations of sexual harassment, assault, and rape by four women.
Tony Gonzalez is a US Navy veteran and lifelong Catholic. He told the National Catholic Register, “On election night, when we got word that we were successful and won, the very first thing I did was praise God and give thanks and all the glory to him.”
Then came his resignation from Congress after revealing he had an affair with an aide who later died by suicide. (For more on both former congressmen, see Mark Legg’s excellent article on our website.)
Their public moral failures highlight the challenge of putting our beliefs into practice and point to a principle evangelicals overlook to our peril.
I’m fighting two losing battles in my yard this spring.
One problem is perennial: Fire ants love our home. I sprinkle on their mounds what I’m told to use in our part of the world, and it does in fact “kill” the mound. But before long, there’s another one a few feet away. And over time, ants even reclaim the mound I thought I killed.
This is because they build tunnels underground that connect their nests and mounds, employing pheromones to organize construction without a central planner and adapting their tunnel depth to moisture and heat. During heavy rains such as we have had this spring, they create rafts by linking their bodies together, floating on the surface of the water, and starting new colonies where they land.
In other words, they’re smarter than I am.
My other problem is new: Greenbrier vines have invaded our yard as well. These slender, thorny vines grow up through shrubbery and other plants. Their tuberous roots can be over six inches wide underground. I am not strong enough to pull the roots out, so I’m forced to cut the vines I can see and remove them. But in only a few days, they grow back.
In other words, they’re tougher than I am.
But I’m at least smart enough to try to learn from those smarter than I am. In this case, I learned from fire ants the importance of community. Accordingly, I reached out to a lawn service whose professionals have the tools and expertise to extract the vines I cannot remove. Over time, they’ll solve my second problem.
I’ll be fighting the first one until my lawn is someone else’s problem.
I say that to say this: God’s word is most transformative in our lives when we choose to obey it in accountable community with others.
Lifeway Research has released new data showing that weekly churchgoers are much more likely to embrace biblical truth than those who attend less often. For example:
This only makes sense. The more countercultural biblical morality becomes, the more we need countercultural community to encourage us in fidelity to biblical truth. We are therefore commanded to “confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16). We are to “encourage one another and build one another up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11), knowing that “iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17).
One of the many ways Satan uses our relativistic, existential culture against us is by encouraging us to believe that all truth is subjective and personal. This lie leads us to think that we don’t need anyone’s “truth” but our own and that, in fact, no one else has the right to correct us.
Evangelicals can be especially susceptive to such spiritual isolation. We focus (rightly) on the urgency of individual salvation, seeking to lead all people to trust in Christ, but we’re not always sure what to do with those who respond. Few of our churches have catechetical processes for growing people in faith. Many do not even have classes for new members, and many who do focus on practical matters of church membership more than on personal sanctification.
No wonder loneliness, depression, and anxiety are at epidemic levels today.
Every significant step I have taken in spiritual growth over these many years has come through accountable community: people who pray for me and for whom I pray, spiritual sisters and brothers with whom I share God’s word and seek to serve God’s call.
I have experienced the truth of Tim Keller’s observation:
“If this world was made by a triune God, a being of community, then relationships of love are what life is really all about.”
What “relationships of love” will you strengthen today?
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.” —John Donne
In this week’s Faith & Clarity, Dr. Mark Turman explores the growing challenges of reaching the next generation—from rising loneliness to the impact of AI—and what it will take for the church to respond with clarity and purpose. It’s a hopeful, practical conversation about staying faithful, building trust, and rediscovering the church’s role in a changing world.
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