News From the Frontlines: July 25th, 2026
- Joshua Budimlic
- 18 hours ago
- 3 min read
I’ve been on something of a steady reading and writing kick this summer, and so I thought, “Why not make that the focus of this week’s News From the Frontlines?” Here are five articles and two videos on all things The Odyssey, classic literature, reading, writing, journaling, and art. Happy reading! And, in all your reading, remember the words of Charles Spurgeon who once said, “Visit many good books, but live in the Bible.”
News From the Frontlines:
Recommended Reading, Listening, & Watching
I’m currently working on an article myself about The Odyssey and the Second Coming of Christ after having recently read through Homer’s epic poem, so stay tuned for that sometime soon. In the meantime, I appreciated Owen Strachan’s thoughts on Christopher Nolan’s recent adaptation (which, despite its flaws, I thought was excellent). “Nolan is right, then: both societally and individually, we need salvation. But it will not come by striking off the head of the gods—by turning, that is, to atheism and deception and the rule of the weak by the strongest. No, we need a greater deliverer. We need a warrior-savior who purchases our redemption and the cosmos’s healing by his blood. Thankfully, we have him; he is not fictional, but gloriously real. The greater Odysseus is coming.”
Furthermore, Andrew Klaven of The Daily Wire has a new segment titled “The Klavens on Culture” where he and his son, who is himself a classicist, discuss all things art, culture, and Christianity. The episode is about 45-minutes long, but I quite enjoyed their commentary on The Odyssey (both the poem and the new film).
Over at his Substack, East and Eden, Taylor Combs lists 15 great books for anyone who wants to get into reading classic literature but may be unsure of where to begin. How many of these classics have you read? “The decline of reading—summed up in the fact that last year, significantly more American adults participated in sports gambling than read a single, solitary book—will be detrimental to our society. But it doesn’t have to happen. We can fight it. And even if we shouldn’t expect those efforts to be successful on a broad scale, we can invest in our own lives, our families, and our communities to rekindle a love of reading that will only contribute to a more beautiful vision of the good life.”
And, once you’ve had a taste for truly great books, Gavin Ortlund then explains in this video how you can keep on reading with five helpful strategies.
This is a really neat idea, and one that my wife and I are aiming to commit to on a weekly basis—in part to reduce time on our phones, but largely in an effort to spend more time reading, writing, and flexing our creative muscles. “I use a pocket notebook so that every aspect of my life is nurtured and acted upon. I don’t want my days to drift by, so knowing what I need to do and what I want to pay attention to is incredibly important to me. Your life is the sum of the attention you give to it. Give it a lot of attention.”
Writing for Desiring God, Scott Hubbard meditates on God’s good gift of writing for the good of others and the glory of Christ. “Once upon a time, you loved to write. Maybe as a child you spent hours in your room, scribbling imaginative stories. Or maybe you picked up poetry in high school. Or maybe during college you took refuge in a private journal, your prayers and outpoured hopes finding their home on paper. But then somewhere along the way, the joy faded.”
“People ask me all the time how I can write so quickly. I want to see more Christians write, and I don’t think I am great at it, but lately people have been asking me, how does a Father of 4, a Pastor, Biblical Counselor, 12th grade Greek teacher and PhD student write so much. The short answer is that the writing itself is rarely where I start. Speed is usually the byproduct of preparation. Most of the heavy lifting happens long before I ever open a blank document.”
Photo by Rey Seven, Unsplash
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