It’s Saturday, March 1, 2025.

Today’s edition covers the Islamic belief that leads to violence like the recent beheading of 70 Christians in the Congo, the story behind the Doxology, a poetic device in biblical poetry called parallelism, and more.

Enjoy!

Of Christian Concern

THE ISLAMIC CONTEXT OF THE 70 CHRISTIANS BEHEADED IN THE CONGO

“Seventy Christians were just beheaded, and hardly anyone is talking about it,” says Brandon McGuire of Daily Dose of Wisdom. In a video published Tuesday, McGuire offers context for “why this type of atrocity continues to happen.”

The Attack

The attack occurred last week in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where “terrorist forces are sweeping through large tracts of land and seizing cities,” reports International Christian Concern. This “lightning offensive” is only the latest development in “a decades-long conflict that has killed about 6 million people and displaced many more.”

The massacre of 70 took place in the Lubero Territory, where the decapitated bodies were found in a Protestant church. It is suspected to be the doing of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).

The Danger of the Radical Minority

McGuire shares a clip from The Heritage Foundation’s 2014 panel discussion on the 2012 Benghazi attacks.

In the clip, panelist Brigitte Gabriel notes that of 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide, the radicals are estimated to be 15-25%. That’s 180-300 million people, a population “as big [as] the United States,” who are “dedicated to the destruction of Western civilization.”

The ACT for America founder points out that, despite being the minority, radicals are always a cause for concern. She cites several historical examples in which a violent minority resulted in a disproportianate number of deaths, from the Nazis in Germany, to China, to Japan, to the September 11 attacks.

“The peaceful majority,” she says after each example, “were irrelevant.”

Stages of Jihad

Next, McGuire presents a clip from his recent interview with an expert in Islam, the Christian apologist David Wood, who argues that the violent subjugation of Islam’s enemies is its ultimate and inevitable goal “so that, as the Quran says, all religion is for Allah.”

Wood explains that all of the Muslim religious sources—from the Quran to the Hadith to the Sīrah to the Tafsir—present “successive stages of Jihad [Muslim holy war] depending on how things are going for the Muslim community.”

He suggests that this can be observed in Muhammad’s life, and the same pattern exists in countries today. Where Muslims make up a small percentage of the population, they preach “peace and tolerance.” Where they are around 20-30% of the population, they preach retaliation for criticism. Where they “dominate the society, everyone else has to be a second-class citizen.”

As Gabriel’s fellow panelist Frank Gaffney, founder of the Center for Security Policy, says in The Heritage Foundation clip, violent Jihad is not the only danger. There is also “subversion,” which is “not so much [the] non-violent form of Jihad as the pre-violent form of Jihad.”

Watch McGuire’s entire report here.

Also Noteworthy

→ On Thursday, President Donald Trump’s first cabinet meeting opened with a prayer by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner.

→ Pew Research found in a new study that the “Decline of Christianity in the U.S. Has Slowed,” and “May Have Leveled Off.”

→ Iowa House Republicans have advanced a bill to make taking minors to drag shows a felony.

→ 9.3% of Americans now identify as LGBTQ, up from 3.5% in 2012, according to a recent Gallup poll.

→ West Virginia lawmakers voted to allow religious and philosophical exemptions for vaccinations in school, “bringing us up with 45 other states,” said Republican Sen. Laura Wakim Chapman.

→ Georgia’s Supreme Court voted 6-1 to uphold the state’s law banning abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detectable. The law allows for the murder of preborn children under six weeks old.

→ Supporters of Kentucky’s bill to abolish abortion made a strong showing at the Kentucky March for Life in Frankfort on Wednesday, with “Support HB 523” signs peppering the crowd of over 600 pro-lifers. FOX 56’s report overestimated that “hundreds” were holding these signs, showing the significant impact the bill’s supporters had on the event. The bill, assigned to the Judiciary Committee, has not yet been heard, with only a few days’ window remaining.

Church History Tidbit

The Story of the Doxology

Christians the world over know and sing the Doxology:

Where do these words come from? As Dr. James D. Smith III writes in Christian History, they were written by Anglican Bishop Thomas Ken (1637–1711).

His Life

Ken was raised by his sister Ann and her husband, the author Isaak Walton, famous for his book about fishing, The Compleat Angler.

Ken studied at Winchester College and New College, Oxford, and served as chaplain to Princess Mary and, later, Charles II, before being appointed Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1684.

His Hymns

Before his bishopric, Ken was deeply involved in the life at Winchester. In 1674, he published A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Scholars of Winchester College, in which he mentioned “the Morning and Evening Hymn”—unpublished hymns already known to his students.

Those two hymns, and a third, were finally published as an appendix in a 1695 edition:

• The Morning Hymn (“Awake, My Soul, and with the Sun”)

• The Evening Hymn (“All Praise to Thee, My God, This Night”), and

• The Midnight Hymn (“My God, I Now from Sleep Awake”)

The final stanza of each was the same, the Doxology we know today—that is, once Ken changed the line “Praise him above y’ Angelick Host” to “Praise him above, ye heavenly host” in a 1709 edition.

The Bible, Briefly

Parallelism in Hebrew Poetry

Hebrew poetry is prominent in the Old Testament books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. One poetic device used throughout is poetic parallelism.

Poetic parallelism is when “two or more lines of poetry [correspond] closely to make a point.” There are three primary types:

1. Synonomous Parallelism

This is when one line states an idea, and then another line restates the same idea differently.

Example:

In this verse, “the wise” is synonymous with “the one who understands,” and “increase in learning” is synonymous with “obtain guidance.” Both phrases communicate the same idea using different words.

2. Antithetical Parallelism

This is when one line states an idea, and then another states its opposite. The contrast clarifies the point.

Example:

The wicked is contrasted with the righteous, and arms being broken is contrasted with the Lord’s upholding. The evocative imagery highlights the judiciousness of God’s care.

3. Synthetic Parallelism

This is when one line states an idea, and the subsequent line(s) build upon it with new information. Arguably, it is “not really parallelism at all” but is when “related thoughts are brought together to emphasize similarities, contrasts, or other correlations.”

Example:

While “has strong confidence” and “have a refuge” are synonymous, the second line introduces an element that is absent in the first: one’s “children.” There are many types of synthetic parallelism.

What’s the point?

Besides adding rhythm, aesthetics, emotion, and memorability, poetic parallelism allows readers to consider different aspects of a verse’s message. As Linda Lyle writes, “A good teacher will always find multiple ways of stating the same facts to students so that more students can grasp them based on their learning styles.” Recognizing this feature in a biblical text can help you better understand and appreciate its message.

To explore additional types of poetic parallelism, see this list of seven.

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Why "18:15"? The name Project 18:15 is based on Proverbs 18:15: “An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.” The aim is for this weekly email—a Christian news briefing, a Bible study, and a Church history lesson rolled into one—to be one way you keep abreast of current events and acquire knowledge you might not acquire elsewhere.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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