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.
Gulf Arab leaders sign declaration with Qatar to ease rift, By Fox News
Saudi Arabia – Gulf Arab leaders signed a declaration Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to mark a new page in relations following the kingdom’s decision to end a 3 1/2-year embargo of Qatar, easing a rift that deeply divided regional U.S. security allies and frayed social ties across the interconnected Arabian Peninsula
FIRST-PERSON: Agents of reconciliation in 2021, By Dr. David S. Dockery
Perhaps in recent weeks you have been given the opportunity to sing “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” one of Charles Wesley’s great Christmas carols. The angels sing, “Glory to the newborn King: peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.” Nowhere is the theme of reconciliation better pictured than in 2 Corinthians 5:11-21, which has been called one of the apostle Paul’s charters of Christian ministry.
New Mississippi flag without rebel symbol being put into law, By Emily Wagster Pettus
Mississippi is updating its laws to include a new state flag with a magnolia and the phrase “In God We Trust,” six months after legislators ditched the last state flag in the U.S. that had the Confederate battle emblem.
Voters approved the magnolia flag in November after a commission recommended the design.
5 WAYS TO PRAY IN THE MIDST OF A NATIONAL CRISIS, By Joy Allmond
On January 6, Americans watched in horror as angry mobs objecting to the 2020 presidential election results stormed the U.S. Capitol, overtaking police and inciting violence that left four people dead and a nation further fractured.
Amid the already challenging ministry climate, this harrowing catastrophe reminds pastors and church leaders of their calling to disciple people in biblical truth and to pray with and for their congregations. A few evangelical leaders wrote prayers for their churches, their communities, and our nation in light of the violent acts at the Capitol.
Stocks close higher as Wall Street shrugs off ‘very bad day’ in DC, By Thornton McEnery
The Dow Jones industrial average closed at an all-time high on Wednesday as investors brushed off the madness unfolding in DC to focus instead on the prospect of more stimulus funding to boost the economy.