✝ FAITH IN FOCUS

A Word From Pastor Duke

I don’t know about you, but this week’s headlines had me thinking hard about what it costs, and what it’s worth, to hold on to your faith in public. A high school senior in Wisconsin lost a fight over a single Bible verse in a graduation slideshow, and instead of walking away quietly, she stood up at her school board meeting and spoke anyway. Down in Washington, a year-long commission handed the President a stack of recommendations meant to protect exactly that kind of courage. And halfway around the world, archaeologists pulled another piece of ancient Shiloh out of the ground, one more reminder that the book we build our lives on was written about real places and real people.

Three very different stories, but they all land in the same place: God has never asked His people to be quiet, and He has never left them without evidence that He is real. This week’s devotion pulls all three threads together around a verse Paul wrote to a young pastor who needed courage more than comfort. I pray it meets you right where you are.

— Pastor Duke Taber

Christian News This Week

🏺 Archaeologists Uncover New Evidence at Shiloh That May Point to the Ark of the Covenant’s Ancient Home

Researchers with the Associates for Biblical Research announced this week that they’ve finally uncovered the southern wall of a massive Iron Age structure at Tel Shiloh, allowing them to map its full footprint for the first time. The building’s orientation and proportions closely match the biblical description of the Tabernacle, and nearby digging turned up altar horns, ceramic pomegranates, and murex shells once used to produce the priestly blue dye described in the Torah. Excavators also found that a disproportionate number of animal bones recovered from the site came from the right side of the animal, a detail that quietly mirrors the instructions in Leviticus 7 reserving the right portion of a sacrifice for the priests. Researchers are careful to stress they haven’t found the Ark itself, and the structure hasn’t been definitively proven to be the Tabernacle, but the pattern of evidence keeps accumulating in Scripture’s favor. Read the full story for the details on this season’s dig, including new finds at Shiloh’s ancient fortification gate.

Source:AnsweredFaith.com​

📖 Wisconsin Graduate Says School Blocked Her Bible Verse From Graduation Slideshow, Now Faces Legal Challenge

Sarianne Beronja wanted Proverbs 3:6 displayed beside her senior photo at Arrowhead High School’s graduation. The district rejected it, and a shorter alternative thanking God, less than 24 hours before she walked the stage. The superintendent says the slideshow is school-sponsored speech under a three-year-old neutrality policy that bars both religious and political messages. But the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, now representing Beronja, points out the district approved secular messages ranging from song lyrics to a Venmo payment request while singling out her faith. Rather than let the matter drop, Beronja addressed the school board directly, saying she came back “because the students who come after me deserve better.” A follow-up board meeting is scheduled, and the legal challenge is moving forward. Read the full story to see how this dispute may shape religious expression policy at graduations nationwide.

Source:AnsweredFaith.com​

🏛️ White House Religious Liberty Commission Delivers Final Report, Recommends 12 Steps to Protect Faith in America

Nearly a year after President Trump established it by executive order, the White House Religious Liberty Commission has delivered a more than 200-page final report built on testimony from over 100 witnesses. The 12 recommendations include DOJ guidance clarifying the Establishment Clause, nationwide “Know Your Rights” resources for students and healthcare workers, repeal of the Johnson Amendment, and restored benefits for service members who declined COVID-19 vaccination on religious grounds. The report directly confronts the phrase “wall of separation between church and state,” noting it never appears in the Constitution and originated in a private letter from Thomas Jefferson, arguing the phrase has been “misapplied and weaponized” against religious expression in public life. As with any effort that strengthens protections for people of faith, the report has already drawn pushback from progressive advocacy groups. Read the full story for all 12 recommendations and what happens next in Congress.

Source:AnsweredFaith.com​

Weekly Devotion: Standing Firm in the Public Square

Paul wrote those words to a young pastor named Timothy, a man who by all accounts had a timid streak and a hard assignment ahead of him. He was pastoring a church in a hostile city, and Paul knew Timothy would be tempted to shrink back rather than stand up. So before Paul gives Timothy a single instruction about doctrine or church order, he reminds him what kind of spirit God actually gave him. Not fear. Power, love, and a sound mind.

That’s the spirit behind a high school senior in Wisconsin who lost her fight over a Bible verse and chose to speak up anyway. Sarianne Beronja wasn’t trying to win an argument with her school district for her own sake. Her graduation had already happened. She went back to that board meeting for the students coming after her, the ones who would face the same choice she did. That’s not fear talking. That’s the spirit Paul described to Timothy, showing up two thousand years later in a school board meeting in Hartland, Wisconsin.

It’s worth noticing that this kind of courage rarely feels dramatic from the inside. It usually just feels like discomfort you decide to walk through anyway. Beronja described the whole experience as feeling like “a full rejection of my journey,” and she spoke up regardless. That is what obedience looks like most of the time, not the absence of fear, but a decision to act in spite of it.

The Religious Liberty Commission’s report reminds us that this struggle isn’t isolated to one student or one school district. Believers across the country have quietly absorbed the message that faith belongs at home and nowhere else, and many have gone along with it simply to avoid friction. A government report can create more room for public faith to breathe, and that is worth being grateful for, but it can’t manufacture the courage itself. That still has to come from the same place Timothy’s did.

And then there’s Shiloh. I find something quietly reassuring about archaeologists carefully uncovering, layer by layer, evidence that lines up with a book written more than three thousand years ago. It doesn’t prove every mystery of faith, and the researchers themselves are the first to say so. But it reminds us that the confidence Scripture asks us to have isn’t a leap into the dark. It’s trust placed in a book that keeps getting vindicated by the ground beneath it.

So here is the invitation this week, whatever your own version of that graduation slideshow looks like: the quiet conversation at work where faith could come up but usually doesn’t, the family gathering where you soften your convictions to keep the peace, the moment you talk yourself out of speaking because it might cost you something. God has not given you a spirit of fear. He has given you power, love, and a sound mind, and He has given you a foundation solid enough to stand on, in Scripture and in the ground it was written about.

A Prayer for This Week:

Recommended Reading from AnsweredFaith.com

If this week’s news stirred something in you, these three articles are a great place to keep going:

​Evidence Supporting the BibleA wider look at how archaeology and historical scholarship continue to affirm the reliability of Scripture, the perfect companion piece to this week’s discoveries at Shiloh.

​What Does the Bible Actually Say About Faith?A foundational study on biblical faith, useful for anyone processing what it looks like to hold convictions publicly the way Sarianne Beronja did at her school board meeting.

​Standing for Truth in an Age of SpinA timely reminder that conviction and courage aren’t optional for believers navigating a culture that often prefers faith kept private, directly relevant to this week’s Religious Liberty Commission report.

This Week’s Resource

​How to Tell the Truth: The Story of How God Saved Me to Win Hearts, Not Just Arguments By Preston Perry, with a foreword by Jackie Hill Perry · B&H Publishing · Goodreads average rating 4.65 across more than 2,200 ratings

This week’s stories all circle the same question: what does it cost to speak up about your faith, and how do you do it well? Preston Perry’s book is the best answer I’ve read in a long time. Perry grew up on the south side of Chicago and learned to share his faith the hard way, through real conversations with Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and Hebrew Israelites on the street, long before he ever learned to do it with love instead of just winning arguments. His central conviction, that sharing the gospel is about winning hearts rather than debates, reframes boldness as something rooted in obedience rather than personality.

If Sarianne Beronja’s story stirred something in you this week, or if you’ve ever gone quiet about your faith to avoid an awkward conversation, this book will meet you there. It’s short, honest, and genuinely practical, the kind of book you can read in an afternoon and think about for months.

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*Weekly Christian NewsletterWeek of June 29 – July 5, 2026***📚 Book RecommendationAvailable on Amazon***Faith in FocusWeek of June 29 – July 5, 2026Serving the Body of Christ*