The following articles have been selected because they are informative, instructive, entertaining, or simply interesting. Articles appearing in Your Friday Five do not represent an endorsement.

Cyber Monday shoppers spend record-breaking $10.8B, By Daniella Genovese

Consumers filled their virtual carts in record numbers on Cyber Monday, making it the largest online shopping day in U.S. history.

2020’s Most-Read Bible Verse: ‘Do Not Fear’, By Kate Shellnutt

During the hardest moments of a particularly difficult year, Bible searches soared online, and a record number of people turned to Scripture for passages addressing fear, healing, and justice. The popular YouVersion Bible App saw searches increase by 80 percent in 2020, totaling nearly 600 million worldwide.

Court ruling on Medicaid funds for Planned Parenthood praised, By Tom Strode

NEW ORLEANS (BP) – Southern Baptist leaders praised a federal appeals court decision that enables states to prohibit abortion giant Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds.

Top 10 Books of 2020, By Kevin DeYoung

First off, my usual disclaimer and explanation.

This list is not meant to assess the thousands of good books published in 2020. There are plenty of worthy titles that I am not able to read (and lots I never hear of). This is simply a list of the books (Christian and non-Christian, but all non-fiction) that I thought were the best in the past year. “Best” doesn’t mean I agreed with everything in them; it means I found these books—all published in 2020 (or the very end of 2019)—a strong combination of thoughtful, useful, interesting, helpful, insightful, and challenging. For more discussion on some of these books, check out my podcast Life and Books and Everything with Collin Hansen and Justin Taylor.

Facebook vows to remove false claims about COVID-19 vaccines, By Noah Manskar

Facebook says it will remove bogus claims about coronavirus vaccines from its platforms in its latest effort to clamp down on misinformation during the pandemic.