Healthy Self
June 3, 2022

Ten Biblical Principles For Christian Professionals

Miranda Carls, the Author of The Word At Work, delves into ten biblical principles for Christians in the workplace.

Miranda Carls, author of "The Word at Work", joins us on the podcast this week to discuss 10 biblical principles for Christian professionals to follow. As a Christian in the workplace, it's hard to know what to do or what not to do. The world we live in today demands from us certain things that as Christians, we don't agree with. Award-winning author Miranda Carls released her book "The Word At Work" which goes over 10 biblical principles for Christians in the workplace. Tune in to this podcast to find out what they are and hear more from Miranda on what inspired her to write it.

Miranda Carls is an author, facilitator, and ICF-certified leadership and executive coach. Her experience spans the field of professional performance, learning, and development. She has worked with start-ups, non-profits, churches, mid-size organizations, and Fortune 500 companies. After spending some time managing the training and professional development functions of a large non-profit, Miranda spent 8 years at a successful learning strategy firm. Miranda is a contributor to the Gospel Coalition. Miranda lives outside of St. Louis, Missouri with her husband and three young sons. She enjoys spending time with her family, leading worship at her church, sewing, and getting immersed in a good book.

MIRANDA'S SOCIALS

LINKED IN: linkedin.com/in/mirandacarlspcc

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/itsmirandacarls

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/miranda.carls/

MIRANDA'S WEBSITE - https://www.mirandacarls.com/

MIRANDA'S BOOK - https://www.mirandacarls.com/book

MIRANDA'S PODCAST - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-word-at-work-with-miranda-carls-a-podcast/id1616708190

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As a Christian in the workplace, it's hard to know what to do or what not to do. The world we live in today demands certain things, as Christians, we don't agree with. Award-winning author Miranda Carls recently released her book, The Word At Work, which dives into ten biblical principles for Christians in the workplace. Tune in to this podcast to find out what they are and hear more from Miranda on what inspired her to write it.

Ten Biblical Principles For Christian Professionals

Before I introduce the guest of this episode, go over to our YouTube channel Iron Deep. You are not going to want to miss some of the videos that we're coming out with. I put out a video about sacrificing your family for your career. There was a quote in a book that I read that talked about how can a man have an amazing career, leave his family in ruins but still be considered great. I don't think that's true. I don't think you do either.

Make sure you go over and check that out on our Iron Deep Channel and go over to IronDeep.com. If you're interested in our Men's Awakening which is coming up super fast from September 25th to the 28th, 2022, make sure you register for that. We got two spots left but we do have a spot for you if you're interested. You can apply on IronDeep.com.

I want to introduce you to Miranda Carls. She is an author, a speaker, and a multi-certified corporate leadership coach. She's written a new book called The Word at Work: Ten Biblical Principles for Christian Professionals. Miranda has a heart for helping Christian professionals show up as high performers and leaders at work while remaining firmly rooted in the truth of the gospel.

We need it so badly. We don't need another pastor at the pulpit as much as we need real men and women in the marketplace falling in love with Christ, sharing the gospel, and modeling it in the workplace and their environments. This is what Miranda's going to talk about in this episode. I'm going to introduce you to Miranda.

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I am with Miranda Carls out of St. Louis, Missouri. What's going on, Miranda?

Brett, not a lot. It is good to be chatting with you.

I was on Miranda's podcast. I am not sure when that's going to be out but I am super excited because you have your podcast, The Word at Work. That's your book, The Word At Work: Ten Biblical Principles for Christian Professionals. We're excited to talk about that.

IDP 89 | Biblical Principles For Professionals
The Word at Work: Ten Biblical Principles for Christian Professionals

Thank you for blocking out so much of your time to hang out with me.

It's fabulous. We have some similar vibes. You got 3 kids and I got 4. We’re in the Midwest. I always like to start with this question and this is the deep one. Here it goes. Who is Miranda Carls?

First and foremost, I'm a child of God. I'm a Christ follower. I try to have that as foundational to who I am and hopefully, that comes through in everything. Some of the fun personal stuff is I'm also a wife. My handsome husband, Dustin, and I have been married for several years. We have three beautiful little boys, Riker, Brevan, and Garren. They're fun. I stay pretty busy with all my guys at home. I'm the only girl in the house aside from the dog. We have a Maltipoo, Piper.

On the work front, my background is in corporate learning and development. I have been in the people development field for my full career. I started out working for a nonprofit. I stayed in that space for a little while before joining a friend who was starting up a learning and development company. I joined from pretty close to the ground level on that. I stayed there for almost a decade, helping with that company. I was leading the learning design function when I left that company a couple of years ago to start what I'm doing here.

I have my coaching practice that I started while I was working at that company. I provide leadership and professional development coaching largely to people who work in corporate settings but also to a few folks who are entrepreneurs or work in other settings as well. The fun stuff that I've started is taking some of that corporate background, marrying it with my faith, and providing resources specifically for Christians who work in secular work settings.

That's quite the resume. You’ve done a lot. You've always worked with people. Everybody says that every business is a people business. My business has been real estate. I have people that work for me. You could say it is people but there are a lot of transactions here and there. You've worked with people. What is that like? Aren't people the miracles? Sometimes, it can be a messy business. Is that what you think?

Yeah. When you're primarily working with people, it's never a dull moment. There's no formula for anything with people. We can read all of these books that have these formulas.

What about The Five Tips to the Happiest Life? I don't know. There are so many books.

I've got books on my shelf e that are probably some of those formulas for working with people. They're great but at the end of the day, every individual that God made is different and is going to process situations differently, show up differently, and communicate differently. That's something I love about what I do. I love getting curious about people and what makes them tick.

I love first sessions with new clients where I get to learn who they are, what they're all about, and what makes them different. That's fun for me. As a kid, I was always the one who loved meeting new people. My mom would say we'd be on family vacations and she'd look over and I was chatting with an old man on a bench or something. That's what got me into working with people.

We have something in common, Brett. You shared when we were talking on my podcast that you went to school to be a teacher. You taught for a hot minute and then transitioned into business. My undergrad was in education. I had a wonderful student teaching experience but ended up going into the business world as well. It’s also a people-driven field.

Was it elementary, middle school, or high school?

High school.

What subject?

Agriculture.

I would've pictured you as an English teacher for some reason. The agriculture, I wouldn't have said that. I was a Math teacher. Math is very transactional and pretty black and white. I like to do the show, tell a lot of stories, and stuff like that. With Math, it is harder to tell a story about the problems. That's cool that we both had that experience.

I have a quick question before we talk about your book. You have this book, The Word at Work: Ten Biblical Principles for Christian Professionals, which I want to dive into. You're in the people business, developing people. What do you think about personality tests? That's a question I was very interested in. Do you like personality tests? You put somebody in what you'll call a box. If you do like personality tests, which is one that you love?

I'm not going to give you a straight answer on this one because it does depend. I'm one to shy away from putting things in little boxes when we're talking about people. As a leadership coach, I've administered a lot of personality-type tests. I'm certified to do emotional intelligence assessments on folks so I use a lot of those.

I'll tell you the same thing I tell my clients. It’s just an assessment. It's giving you numbers and data based on what you put into it at that moment that you were sitting down and taking it. It can be impacted by your mood that day. If you're hungry, what context are you thinking of the scenario in when you're responding to the question?

They're never going to be perfect. I like to use them as a conversation starter to start digging into, “It says this. How do you feel about that response? Does that sound like you? Does that not feel like you? Let's look at some situations.” We can then dig into the real stuff there. There is a fun one I like that's free if anyone reading wants to take advantage of it. It's called the Saboteur Assessment.

That’s interesting. I have never heard of that one.

It is a positive intelligence one. It talks about how we talk to ourselves. I looked at it from a Christian perspective on my own as well. We all have these messages that we tell ourselves throughout the day and that impacts how we interact with other people and how we show up in situations. As an example, one of them is avoider. Someone who has a loud avoider saboteur might sound like, “Don't have that hard conversation. It's not going to go well. Don't take that risk. Don't do that. You're not quite ready. Something might go wrong.”

One is a pleaser. That's the people pleaser. They are like, “Don't do that. That won't make them happy.” You get the idea. There are ten different saboteurs that they unpack. That's a fun one. With all of them, we can over-lean on them or we start to say, “Tell me your Myers-Briggs type, and then I'm going to make all these judgments about you.”

I was always interested. Have you ever taken the Enneagram test?

I haven't. It is super popular but I've not gotten into that one.

I lean on that sometimes. We won't have to get into all that but you have to check that one out. I'll check out the saboteur one. The Word at Work: Ten Biblical Principles for Christian Professionals, you wrote this book. I read the book. It's awesome. If you guys want to check it out, it has a lot of good practical principles. It has a lot of great stories too. I love reading through your stories. Let’s start with that. When did you get this idea? You go to the Christian book section and there are a lot of Christian books. You felt like you were called to write this particular book about bringing the word more into the secular marketplace. Why'd you do that?

In some ways, I can look at a moment that was the catalyst for that and then in other ways, it felt like this long thing where God was placing this on my heart. I'll start with the moment, though the moment didn't lead to the next day I got up and started writing a book. The moment was when I was in a coaching session with a client of mine. He was a leader. I had met with him for a few sessions so this was not the first session. We had a good rapport with one another. He was always very open.

Caching sessions are confidential. That's why I'm not sharing his name. People are always pretty comfortable speaking with me, especially after we've met a couple of times. He was getting ready to share something with me. I could tell by his body language and everything that he had something he wanted to share but he wasn't quite sure how I would take it. There was almost some associated shame that I was picking up on. I'm sitting there like, “What is he about to share or disclose with me?”

He took a deep breath and said, “I'm a Christian,” and went into continuing to speak. It hit me so hard. I walked away from that session thinking about it so much. There were a couple of things that stuck out to me. Number one is this man felt so hesitant and ashamed. He wasn't delivering a sermon or anything. He stated, “I'm a Christian,” and then shared how that impacted something he was working through. That hit me hard. The other piece of it that was a little bit convicting was I've been meeting with him for a few times and he, in no way, picked up on the fact that that might be something that we share.

I did a lot of reflecting on, “How am I showing up?” I don't start every session with, “I am Miranda and I'm a Christian,” but I was like, “How am I showing up?” I was thinking about that. What is it about the secular workplace that sometimes makes Christians feel like they have to hide that’s who they are? That was the moment that God used to plant this little seed in me. He kept working on me for a little while after that to the point of me getting clarity around what that would look like and then writing the book.

Let me dig into that a little bit. You had this story in your book that starts with dropping off a student at school in middle school. The parent drops them off and the kid's looking around. He doesn't want to be around a parent. I experienced that. All of a sudden, you raised this kid. You love them. You hug them. You're with them all the time.

They then reach this season of their life where they don't want to be around you anymore and they're embarrassed by you. You related that to us as Christians in the workplace. Why do you think that is as you were reflecting on that? Why do we hide that? We can come up and I can say, “I'm a Cubs fan. I like wings. I like this show. I do this for a living,” but then we hide that. We leave that out. Why is that, do you think?

As people, we like to share things that connect us to other people and that we have in common with people. I live in St. Louis. It's a very popular thing to say, “I am a Cardinals fan.” I'm not a sports fan in general but that would be a popular thing to hold. It is things that make us interesting in a cool way, a way that's culturally acceptable and cool. Christianity doesn't always feel like either of those.

IDP 89 | Biblical Principles For Professionals
Biblical Principles For Professionals: We like to share things that connect us to other people.

The first point of holding things in common with people is we sit there and wonder, “What if I'm the only Christian in my department or this room? If I mention that I'm going to a church event after work or when they ask me about my weekend plans and I mention going to church, what are they going to think?” It's that sinful thing that we all struggle with in trying to please a man and wanting a man to be happy with us.

That second part is things that make us different in a cool way or a socially acceptable way. Christianity is becoming less and less of that even by the day. There are associations that come with Christianity where there's this fear. I'm sharing all of this because it's what I hear from Christian professionals that I work with. There's this fear of, “If they know I'm a Christian, are they then going to think of this? Are they going to think that I hate this group of people? Are they going to label me as this? Are they going to label me as intolerant or even worse?” There is all of that. It's fear-based at the root.

The easy thing to do for most folks, which is something I would not recommend, is to hide it. You leave God on the curb like a middle school girl leaving her dad there, which you've experienced. I'm still in the stage where my child was clinging to me as the teacher pride of a way, which is how we should be. We cling to it and take our faith wholeheartedly into the workplace. There's no shame associated with that.

There's a guy, Reagan Rose. He's a Christian productivity expert. He put a quote out. I had him on my podcast a while back. There was something he posted on social media. I'm going to butcher it but I want to credit him because the base idea is from him. He was like, “Jesus died, Jesus rose again, and He is coming back. There's nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed about.” That's how we have to think about it and approach things as Christians. There's nothing shameful about being in Christ.

You're exactly right. The culture is starting to go in the direction of labeling Christians with a negative connotation. You even talk about that. I was reading through your book. You talk about how as workers, we want to develop this personal brand. You represent this brand. I come off with this show. I represent some sort of brand. Every company has this brand. They want to develop that reputation.

I was reading your book. People don't want their personal brand to be labeled as Christian. I was like, “Why is that?” If you're labeled as a Christian, I feel like you have these biblical principles, which are integrity, loyalty, lover of people, and all these different things. People don't want to be labeled as that as their brand. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

It is interesting. It sounds so odd and almost jarring to us as believers because we know the truth, what Jesus represents, what we're called to as believers, and what He has done for us. We have this internal pride but then, we're also sometimes trying to reconcile that with what we know the perceptions are within the larger culture.

There are a couple of things in why they're those perceptions. We sometimes don't represent them well. We know what we're called to as Christians but then, we don't behave in that way. That can ruin the brand so to speak, of Christianity. The other thing is I'll go back to culture as a whole. There are a lot of things that are celebrated in culture that we're not called to as believers. There's that conflict.

The first principle in the book is to expect the expected. This should not surprise us. I could tell people all the time, “We are not told in scripture that when you become a Christian, everyone will love you, celebrate what you believe, give you high fives, and be so supportive.” We are told quite the opposite. We are told that we will be hated for His name. We have to keep that perspective too. This should not be surprising. This is what we're told will happen. That shouldn't take hold of us and impact us because that becomes us trying to please man instead of pleasing our Heavenly Father.

Sometimes, we can use the language and some of it is not that offensive. If I said I have faith and I believe in God, it's not super offensive. If you say, “I'm in love with Jesus Christ. I'm a follower of Jesus Christ,” then it'd be like, “That is over the line.” You can't say that as much without offending people. That’s interesting.

You have one chapter in your book that I resonated with. It talked about identity. This was called Don't Misplace Your and you put a blank there. One of them was identity. As professionals, we label our identity and what we do, especially as men. I work with a lot of men. Much of our identity is sucked into that. We have this pride like, “I do this. I'm a leader of this.” We label ourselves as that. You talk about Don't Misplace Your Identity. Can you talk to us a little bit about that as the identity chapter?

As Christians, we are called to place our identity in Christ. That is the foundation of who we are far and above everything else. Even far and above being a wife and a mother, my two most cherished earthly roles are my identity as a daughter of the King and my identity in Christ. As Christians, that's what we're called to but that becomes hard. That's not a norm, especially in our Western culture.

What's that question that we always ask kids? It's that small talk with children, which includes, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I don't know how many times people will ask my kids that or it's on a questionnaire at school. I even ask my kids that from time to time because it's fun to talk about. It does point to the fact that we place identity in what we do. It is the same thing with adults at a party. If you meet another couple at church, that's likely one of the first questions you want to ask, “What do you do?” That’s because we know that's a big part of our lives.

Part of it is the norms that we're into and then the sheer time. We place our identity in what we give our time to. I don't work this many hours per week but I do have clients that do. If I'm a working professional and I work 50 to 60 hours a week, if you ask me who I am, that's the first thing that's going to come to mind. Whereas if I start to fill my time with other things, time in the word, prayer, fellowship with other believers, or showing up well for my family, I'm going to paint this different picture in my mind and how I communicate my identity with others.

The other piece of that is not compartmentalizing that. Even if you are a working professional and you're spending 50 to 60 hours working and that's your role, are you bringing your faith into that? Is your identity in Christ woven throughout every layer of how you are spending your time? You are not leaving God at the curb but being engaged in communication with God throughout the workday. That can be like, “I'm heading into this difficult conversation. I'm going to pause and pray quickly here.”

It is all those quiet little things that we can do that no one else notices but it's you walking your day with God. You are like, “I am going to pause and pray here. I'm going to take a deep breath and ask the Spirit for discernment here.” It is all of those little things that help us remind ourselves of our identity and then that comes through in how we communicate that to others as well.

I had a phone call with a gentleman. A lot of this is our Western culture too. In North America, we label ourselves as what we do. He was talking about some of the discipleship-making movements and house church planting in some of these other countries where they're planting a lot of house churches. He says, “They have different perception signs when they become a Christian or a follower of Christ.” If there's a taxi driver, he'll be driving a taxi. The person that he's given a ride to will say, “What do you do?” He's like, “I'm a follower of Jesus but I also drive a cab sometimes,” or something like that.

Let's talk about this chapter Fellowship. I know this is on your heart. We talked about that when I was on your podcast. You talk about how the book of Acts starts to describe the fellowship of these people going out, spreading the gospel, and how they interacted with each other. They broke bread together, ate together, prayed together, and worshiped together.

They had this deepness about their relationship. You started to talk about how we interact in fellowship with other Christians. We might have a meal together and that's it. We’re like, “Have a nice day.” Maybe describe your fellowship with your circle. Do you have people that you have that deeper connection with? What does that look like in your life?

I'll say that it has looked different at different points in my life. I've learned a little bit from that and that's part of why I'm so passionate about it. We do see models of deeper fellowship in the Bible or the scriptures. Sometimes, we label things as fellowship that are warm, fuzzy little interactions with people. That could be grabbing a bite to eat for lunch or sitting by them at the fellowship dinner after church on Sunday but are you having real conversations? Are you doing life together with these other people? Do you know what's going on in their life and what they're struggling with?

Do they know what's going on in your life? Do they have your permission to hold you accountable for things? That's the goal, that deep fellowship. For believers, any situation that you're facing in life, you're going to fare better if you have a believer walking alongside you. For men reading this, that's another Christian male. For women reading this, that's another Christian woman. We can lean on our spouses for a lot of this as well but we have to have those relationships with other Christians.

I have not always had that similar to what we talked about when we were talking on my podcast that you shared like, “We will sometimes have our work friends and then we'll have our church friends.” I've always had church friends. I have been fortunate to go to the same church for quite a while and have good friendships there but I didn't always even know if some of my coworkers were Christians or how big of a part of their life that was.

A story I share in the book is about one of my best friends, Ange. This is my biggest example of engaging in Christian fellowship. It is interesting because Ange and I have only been in person together fewer times than I could hold my hand up for the last few years. I'll give a little background. We were working for the same virtual company. We had been working there for quite a while.

I was working from home for an organization before it was the thing to do. I was feeling very isolated. When I had my first child, the working-from-home mom gig felt very isolating. I went to a work meeting where this other woman was there. There was something she said that I knew she was a Christian. She seemed to have the same quirky sense of humor that I did. I had this little feeling that we could be friends.

We got back and I pinged her. It was the Spirit's leading. I sent her a message and all I said was something to the extent of, “Do you want to get together once a week and pray?” I said that not knowing, “Is she going to think I'm weird?” It ended up turning into this beautiful workplace friendship where we would pray together once a week. We got to know each other well over the phone and talked to each other once a week.

She ended up leaving the company several years before I did but we stayed connected. I Marco Polo’d her on my way back from school and I have one waiting on my phone from her. We are almost in constant communication with each other. It's that type of relationship where I can call her when I'm sobbing because something terrible happened. She can call me when she's running into a situation.

We need those types of relationships in our lives. I firmly believe that as believers, we need those types of relationships with other believers. That doesn't mean that we don't have non-Christian friendships. I have a lot of friends who are not Christians. That doesn't mean that we can rely only on that because we get things out of Christian fellowship with other believers that we don't get out of those relationships with people that are not sharing in that goal of walking the road with Jesus.

IDP 89 | Biblical Principles For Professionals
Biblical Principles For Professionals: We get things out of Christian fellowship with other believers that we don't get out of those relationships with people who are not sharing in that goal of walking the road with Jesus.

I love that story. You putting yourself out there takes so much risk. I work with the guys. We don't risk that. We play it safe in that. Look where it's got you. That’s amazing. You guys have a lot of road miles together. You have a lot of experience together, maybe not physically but a lot of different seasons and road miles. It takes that time to build that deepness in that relationship.

I love what you said about having Christian friends, which is awesome. I believe in sharpening each other in that. Sometimes, we can get into the trap of writing off everyone who is not a Christian and then dealing in that circle. I don't think that's what Christ would've done. It's not what He did in His image. These are awesome stuff.

I want to talk about a couple of last things here. The last chapter is called Kingdom Minded in your book. I love that. This might just be me but I feel like we get into this trap as professionals. We're in our work world and secular workplaces. We're like, “When I get out of this, when I retire, or when I sell my business or stop doing this, then I will go be the man of God in missionary or whatever it is that God's called me to do.” That's such a trap. You take that chapter and talk about being Kingdom-minded, whatever you're doing. Can you talk about that?

Being Kingdom-minded is keeping the bigger picture in mind that we are part of God's Kingdom. Ultimately, during our little blip of time here on Earth, we are to follow Him, bring glory to Him, and point to Him so that other souls can come to Christ and be saved through the Holy Spirit as well. That's not always easy to do. The big thing is we get distracted from that larger perspective.

This might be relatable to people reading. If you're not working in ministry as a full-time missionary or a pastor at a church, if you're a Christian, you're still working in ministry. What people might be able to relate to is that feeling of, “That's not my role to think about that as much.  I am personally walking with God.” We make it something smaller than it needs to be.

I would say to everyone reading that I don't even have to know where you're at, if you had a baby and you're a stay-at-home mom, you're a CEO of a company, or you're an entrepreneur. I don't need to know any of that to know that if you're a believer, there's Kingdom work for you to do right exactly where you're at. The biggest thing for us to keep in mind is to not be distracted and stay Kingdom-minded.

I'll try to talk about this. The example I use in the book is my brother who unfortunately passed away in November 2021. He is my favorite example of being Kingdom-minded. He was a brilliant guy. He graduated top of his class. He went to med school. He had invitations from Harvard Med, Johns Hopkins, and Mayo Clinic. He had a great career ahead of him. After all of these other health ailments that he had throughout childhood, he was diagnosed with leukemia a few days after graduating med school.

Through the decade of treatments and everything after that up to the moment he went to be with Jesus, he remained Kingdom-minded through all of that. He was pointing to Jesus through every opportunity. He never lost that perspective. If he can do it through all of that, I'm always like, “I can do it right here where I'm sitting.” We can all do it. No matter what your circumstances are, you can keep your focus on having the Kingdom impact right where you are.

Thanks for sharing the story of your brother. I'm sorry for his loss. He's with Jesus in Heaven face to face. He is living in paradise. I know that was hard but I love that story as well. He was giving out letters, encouraging people even during his circumstances. This is awesome. The Work at Work, you guys have to get it. It’s a great practical book about taking the Kingdom to the workplace. Miranda, thank you so much for being on the show. I want to give you an opportunity. Where's the best place for them to go to maybe get more information about you? You also do coaching and you have your book. Talk to us about that.

The best hub for everything is my website, MirandaCarls.com. That will link to all of the services I provide. It will also give information on where to get the book. I do some blogging. I dabble in social media but try not to spend a ton of time there. You can also find me on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn as well.

I'm going to ask you two questions at the end. They are a fun couple of questions. Maybe they’ll still catch you off guard. You also lead worship, is that right?

I do.

IDP 89 | Biblical Principles For Professionals
The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World

What's one of your favorite songs that you get to sing?

That would've been a hard question but we practiced and one that we did that I love. I love a lot of worship music. I love connecting with God through music. Christ Be Magnified is one that I love because of the lyrics. It is Christ being magnified through us so very much less of us and more of Him. I love the bridge of that song. It talks about sticking with God through it all. Even if we're in the fire, we're going to rejoice because He's there with us. That's a great song, Christ Be Magnified. There's a version by Cody Carnes out and probably a few others as well.

That’s cool. Check that out. This is the last one. You also love reading. Is there a book that you've read that you were like, “This is good?”

I do read. I love reading. There are so many so I'm not saying that I don't like all the other books in the world when I call attention to a couple. I'm going to say two if that's okay. One that I recommend to people a lot, especially if they are interested in learning more about logical defenses for the Christian faith or apologetics, Alisa Childers is a great resource for that in general.

I love her book Another Gospel. It has been a while since I read it but I think about it a lot and I recommend it to people. Brett McCracken from The Gospel Coalition wrote a book called The Wisdom Pyramid. I read that over the summer of 2022. I don't have it next to me but it's one of those books that you can tell it was well-loved, taken to the pool, and all sorts of things. Like the food pyramid, we have this consumption of our diet of information sources or sources of wisdom.

It prescribes having the Bible as the foundation and then the church and edification from other believers, God's creation is part of that, and other books like books written by anyone other than God. Tiny at the top, it has got social media and all of that. That is one that I read and loved. I have him on my podcast. I love the concept of that. I find myself telling everyone about that book. Christian or non-Christian, you have to read this and think about where you're getting your sources of wisdom from. That's one that I've enjoyed as well.

I'm going to get those. I always like to ask them even for my collection. I typically order them right after the show. I am going to check that out. This is a wrap, Miranda. Thank you so much for being on the show. It's been awesome. God bless you.

Thanks, Brett.

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