The Museum of the Bible will impress you with its scale and amenities, but not with its evangelism. 

Located two blocks from the National Mall, the brand-new museum showcases its 430,000-square-foot building, historical artifact collections, and $42 million worth of cutting-edge technology to the public for the first time on Friday.

In Washington, D.C., at the end of October, the Museum of the Bible was preparing to open its giant golden doors for a Nov. 17 debut. The museum, two blocks off the National Mall, promises to draw big audiences to its collection, which purports to be one of the greatest private Biblical collections on display for the public.

Evangelist Billy Graham celebrates his 99th birthday Tuesday, surrounded by family. “As a family, we are just so very grateful that he is still with us,” Graham’s son Franklin said in a statement on the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association website. “His mind is good, but he’s quieter these days. He can’t see or hear well, but his health is stable.

Next month Hanukkah, a minor Jewish holiday, will get major attention because of its proximity to Christmas. On the eight evenings of Hanukkah (Dec. 12-19 this year), some Jewish children can look forward to a slow stream of presents rather than a rushing torrent on Christmas morning: Not a bad deal.

Five hundred years after Martin Luther sparked the Protestant Reformation, the cold creep of atheism has frozen much of Europe—but the continent’s longest-serving and most powerful Western leader still holds a candle of faith. Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor for the past 12 years and likely the next four as well, has said, “I believe in God, and religion is also my constant companion, and has been for the whole of my life. We as Christians should above all not be afraid of standing up for our beliefs.” Merkel, now 63, was a preacher’s kid: Her father was a Lutheran pastor.

If your children want to scare someone on Halloween, have them dress up as a giant Google. You don’t know exactly what that costume should look like? Join the crowd: No one else does, really, because Google is not just a giant octopus. It’s the ocean we swim in: Google has an 88 percent share of the search-engine market, and most of the nation’s school kids are coming to rely on Google education apps.

Years ago I was caught in the crosshairs of a church-discipline situation. Two confessing members, and dear friends, wished to marry. The elders had determined they should not. After soul-searching and prayer I declined their wedding invitation out of deference to the elders’ lawful authority. My decision was clearly influenced by Scripture (1 Peter 5:5, for one), but also by this: Of the three realms ordained by God to order human affairs—family, civil government, and church—the church was the only one that survived the grave.