Posted October 28, 2026
If you’re looking for a clue to understanding our culture, the annual “word of the year” can help. Last year, it was 67, pronounced “six-seven,” which Dictionary.com says is “purposefully nonsensical and all about being in on the absurdity.” A chaotic word seems appropriate for chaotic times.
For 2026, it’s maxxing, which “refers to the practice of pursuing an activity to the fullest or optimizing a certain aspect of your life.” There’s looksmaxxing, optimizing your physical appearance, nonnamaxxing, bettering your life by adopting the habits of an Italian grandmother, and so on.
In fact, the Dictionary.com Understatement of the Year is that “there are now a lot of maxxings,” each demonstrating both the allure and the trap of secular materialism. If this world is all there is, it makes sense to get as much of it as we can for as long as we can. If this world is not all there is, “maxxing” wastes our lives on it.
Another “word of the year” explains the freedom we feel to make this choice. Oxford Dictionaries’ 2016 selection was post-truth, which relates to “circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” In a day when only 13 percent of us consider integrity and honesty to be shared values among all Americans, we should not be surprised that our shared truth is that there are no shared truths.
How is this working for us?
Bernard-Henri Lévy is one of the best-known intellectuals and writers in France. In a new Free Press article, he explains that the recent riots in his homeland are expressions of “the idea of an invisible, insidious, systemic violence supposedly exercised in democratic societies, which it is legitimate to oppose with the visible, direct, frank violence of the riot.” He describes the history of this idea in French culture, but it is just as prevalent in the Critical Theory narrative that has motivated street riots and antisemitic demonstrations in the US.
His response is therefore as relevant to America as it is to France:
As a result, Lévy writes that we must trust “the public authorities with the monopoly on legitimate force” and then hold them accountable for their monopoly. Otherwise, he warns:
The alternative is the jungle. It is man becoming a wolf to man again. It is the law giving way to the whims and fevered passions of each individual. It is a world without rules, where everyone arrogates to himself the right to punish and to strike. Today, in France, militias. Tomorrow, between a far right and a far left equally inflamed, a civil war.
Here’s the problem: for us to hold our leaders accountable, we must know to what they are accountable. A bumper sticker said, “With God, all things are possible. Without God, all things are permissible.”
Accordingly, in our post-truth culture, I want to make a case today for biblical truth as the indispensable compass of our lives and nation.
Of all the sinners in Scripture, none surpassed King Ahab of Israel. He ruled the Northern Kingdom for twenty-two years and was so sinful that Scripture says of him, “There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord like Ahab, whom Jezebel his wife incited” (1 Kings 21:25).
As just one example, Jezebel arranged for the murder of a man named Naboth so Ahab could have his vineyard (vv. 8–16). Ahab and his wicked wife “made Israel to sin” (v. 22) with their idolatry and immorality (v. 26). Accordingly, the Lord sent the prophet Elijah to condemn their sins, warning that God would “bring disaster upon you” (v. 21) and that his wife would die as well (v. 23).
Now comes the surprise. When Elijah announced God’s judgment to come, the king repented of his sins, not just privately, but publicly: “When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went about dejectedly” (v. 27).
The Lord saw his repentance and told Elijah, “Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days” (v. 29).
Unlike any other book ever written, God’s Word is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). When we speak biblical truth to the issues of our day, the Spirit who inspired Scripture uses it to convict humans of our sins and lead us to repentance (John 16:8).
The Lord says of the Bible, “Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” (Jeremiah 23:29). When the crowds at Pentecost heard God’s word preached by Peter, “they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’” (Acts 2:37).
Human words cannot change human hearts, but God’s words can. Biblical truth is the key to biblical morality. As the psalmist prayed, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11).
What words from God’s Word will you store in your heart today?
“To know the Word of God, to live the Word of God, to preach the Word of God, to teach the Word of God, is the sum of all wisdom, the heart of all Christian service.” —Charles E. Fuller
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