The third episode in a 4-part series titled “The Bible, the Body, & the Brain”

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Episode Summary/For Further Exploration

These are lessons and recordings from our Young Adult Ministry-wide "Summer Bible Study Series" in the summer of 2023. In this episode, join our Young Adult Minister, John Lemons, along with special guests Christina Hearne, Kristin Prasad, and John Holloway as they talk about what the Bible has to say about aging and why it is an important part of how we follow Jesus.

*If you have thoughts or questions, we’d love to talk with you! Email your questions to [email protected] or [email protected]*

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Items Referenced in the Episode:

Book:

How God Works

Quotes from book referenced in episode:

“Data from across the world shows the effects of that storm. Wherever you look, people’s happiness across the life span follows a U-shaped curve, with its nadir occurring right around age fifty. Happiness starts to decline in the late thirties and early forties, bottoming out between the late forties and early fifties, before beginning to rise again from the late fifties into the seventies and eighties. At that point, people’s happiness tracks show a good deal of variability that depends on whether and when serious health issues arise….

“...A similar pattern is revealed by antidepressant use. Data from twenty-seven European nations documenting the consumption of these drugs shows an [hill-shaped] pattern across the same ages. Antidepressant use starts increasing in the mid-twenties, peaks in the late forties, and then drops through the sixties and seventies. In fact, the data make clear that people are three times more likely to take antidepressants around the age of fifty than around the ages of twenty or eighty.”

David DeSteno, How God Works

Scriptures Referenced:

Psalm 90:3-6, 10

• 3 You turn people back to dust, saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.” 4 A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. 5 Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death—they are like the new grass of the morning: 6 In the morning it springs up new, but by evening it is dry and withered... 10 Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

Ecclesiastes 12:1-8

• 1 Don’t let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator. Honor him in your youth before you grow old and say, “Life is not pleasant anymore.” 2 Remember him before the light of the sun, moon, and stars is dim to your old eyes, and rain clouds continually darken your sky. 3 Remember him before your legs—the guards of your house—start to tremble; and before your shoulders—the strong men—stoop. Remember him before your teeth—your few remaining servants—stop grinding; and before your eyes—the women looking through the windows—see dimly. 4 Remember him before the door to life’s opportunities is closed and the sound of work fades. Now you rise at the first chirping of the birds, but then all their sounds will grow faint. 5 Remember him before you become fearful of falling and worry about danger in the streets; before your hair turns white like an almond tree in bloom, and you drag along without energy like a dying grasshopper, and the caperberry no longer inspires sexual desire. Remember him before you near the grave, your everlasting home, when the mourners will weep at your funeral. 6 Yes,...