Happy Weekend and Happy New Year to you!  After a brief holiday break, the Weekend Reading is back. So here are the most interesting articles, videos and blogs I collected throughout the last few weeks.

As you know there’s sort of standoff right now between the Bundy’s and the federal government out in the desert in OR. One of the most interesting articles I read was on how these guys are Mormons – militant Mormons! Which led me to wonder more about Captain Moroni, which led me to wonder more about these so-called ‘Nephites‘.  Enjoy the rabbit trail!

King….errr….President Obama recently issued an executive order having to do with gun control. Breitbart gives the rundown on why its a constitutional overreach.

Speaking of guns and gun control, The Donald recently had an interesting proposal for Hillary Clinton to consider.  

And there was a bit of a dust-up in the wake of John Piper’s article on whether or not Christians should carry guns – which itself was a reaction to the President of Liberty University encouraging students to “arm themselves.” I may have posted Tim Challies’ article on this a while back (which is an excellent summary of the matter), but just recently I was sent James White’s post on these matters and thought it worth passing along as a follow up. (h/t my Kate).

Back to the POTUS race, I thought this Presidential candidate tracker for 2015 was pretty cool. And this was my favorite Politico piece over the holidays: the 2015 Holiday Gif Guide!

I must have read the most random stuff during the holiday break, because here’s a hilarious story about how one guy several years back went home for the holidays only to realize that his bedding/sleeping setup looked, well ridiculous. He took some pictures, posted them online, and in the U.K. its become a sort of hilarious holiday tradition to do this…

Funny: College Students are Renting out their Dorm Rooms on AIRBNB: What Could Go Wrong?

If you’re like me, then you may have taken the family to the movie theater over Christmas to see the new Star Wars movie. My opinion? It was excellent!  But in follow up to that, Buzzfeed did what they do best, organized a list of 30 things you “definitely missed” in the movie (h/t Parris P. — and of course there are spoilers here).

And…if you’re like me, you used some of your free time over the holiday season to do some fun things – like draw BB-8!  I enjoyed this tutorial video…

Kind of an odd story that peaked my interest this week: This Robot Suit is Designed to Make You Feel 100 Years Old. 

And this is depressing…the cake bakers in OR who refused to make a cake for a lesbian wedding are being “silenced” by a judge and fined etc etc.  The hits just keep on coming for these guys.

Random: This was the Christmas music (lists) played by the Obama’s. This is probably the most secular list of Christmas songs I’ve seen in a long time. I mean, its hard to avoid good Christmas hymns since they makeup the bulk of the Christmas music montage, but boy to the Obama’s do a good job of it! (at least they kept on Silent Night and Away in a Manger).

Speaking of the holidays at the White House, here’s a nifty little feature you may have missed about the gingerbread cakes they made…

Now that its the new year, there are all kinds of challenges being issued, and expectations to live up to. I like the 100 book challenge that Tim Challies put out, and this follow up article on how to achieve it. John Piper makes the point, however, that there’s only one must-read book this year…

Lastly, here’s an article I haven’t been able to read yet but looks fascinating. It’s from 2013 and was mentioned in a recent seminary lecture of mine this week: From Hitler’s Wolves to Christ’s Lambs. 

Have a great weekend!  I’ll leave you with a great verse for the new year – a “restoring” reminder of God’s care and joyful love for His people:

The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. (Zephaniah 3:17 ESV)