Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Commentary

Peak Craft Beer?

I rarely mention “drinking beer” as one of my hobbies, but I thoroughly enjoy trying new beers. My Untappd app tells me I’ve had well over 1500 unique beers. The Pacific Northwest is one of the best places in the world for craft beer, but lately, I’ve felt like maybe the fervor is dying down a bit.

I thought maybe some of it was just that my favorite brewery, Good Brewing Co, has effectively closed. The Sultan location still exists, but as far as I know, it was sold to new owners and no longer brews any of its own beer. Bummer!

But it’s more than just Good Brewing. When I visit Total Wine, the enormous selection of craft beer packs and singles has been reduced to a glimmer of its former glory. At Safeway, the craft beer section has been mostly replaced by cider and even more beer from the big/national breweries.

Expanding the scope, the picture doesn’t get better. Craft beer declined in 5% after a 4% decline in 2024. More breweries closed (434) than opened (268).

Craft beer isn’t dead, but it’s not expanding like it was before. Get out there and support your local brewery!

More info: 2025 craft beer year in review

benmartens January 15, 2026 Commentary No Comments

2025 Recaps

Every app seems to send some kind of stats page for your year. I picked out some of them to share here. If I spent this much time on these things, they probably get my default recommendation. After reading this, let me know what you think I missed out on.

Pocket Casts (podcasts)

  • 18,051 minutes listened
  • Top 5 podcasts by time listened
    • Stuff You Should Know
    • Making It
    • Cordkillers
    • No Dumb Questions
    • Wood Talk

Spotify

  • 47,106 minutes listened
  • Top artists: George Strait, Andrew Peterson, The Piano Guys, Third Day, Johnny Cash
  • Top Albums:
    • George Strait: 50 Number Ones
    • Downhere: Downhere
    • FFH: I Want To Be Like You
    • Caedmon’s Call: 40 Acres
    • The Arcadian Wild: The Arcadian Wild

Duolingo

  • 1995 Spanish lessons
  • 3684 minutes of studying
  • Current streak: 1911 days

Trakt (TV/movie tracking)

  • Most watched:
    • Star Wars (including Clone Wars, Rebels, and all the movies)
    • Bob’s Burgers
    • Superstore
    • Chuck

Untappd

  • 139 unique new beers
  • All time total distinct beers: 1573
  • Top 5 rated beers
    • Fort George – Pizza Pals
    • Icicle Brewing – Enhchantments Hazy IPA Series – Windy
    • Stemma Brewing – It’s Another Double IPA
    • WarPigs USA Brewing – Foggy Geezer
    • Icicle Brewing – Alpenhaze Hazy IPA

Goodreads

  • 8670 pages read
  • 22 books read
  • Most popular book read: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

I didn’t include YouTube because the channels with the most watch time aren’t necessarily the ones I’d recommend for most people. I watch some homesteading and construction channels in the background when I’m doing other things. I’ll save a refreshed edition of my YouTube channel recommendations for another day.

benmartens January 1, 2026 Commentary

2025 Year In Review

Another year has come and gone. There are a lot of good memories shared below, but on a more global scale, I think when I look back at 2025 it will be the year of AI. Sure ChatGPT has been around for three years now, but this year AI was a force multiplier in pretty much every aspect of my life. Every few months feels like another level up and every step we take forward is bigger and bigger. While there are certainly challenges and concerns with using it, it’s impossible to ignore the positive impact it has had not just at work, but at home and at church too.

Zooming in from that global view, we had a lot of trips around the country. There was our annual trip to Leavenworth with Tyla’s family in January, visiting MLC with Elijah, a trip to eastern WA as we crossed off more counties, camping with Tyla’s family at Ike Kinswa State Park, my solo trip to the synod convention in New Ulm, a summer week in Indiana, our family road trip to Yellowstone, another trip to MLC, and a few days in Mazama with my parents. Looking back at that list, maybe this is actually the year of New Ulm, MN! I was there three times this year. It’s a lot of travel to that specific small town, but Tyla and I are both really thankful to be part of those meetings at Martin Luther College.

We had quite a few fun day trips too. There was a Boeing Factory tour, seeing the Piano Guys in concert, riding bike/train things, our Leavenworth chocolate tour, and seeing another professional disc golf tournament.

Church continues to occupy a lot of time on my calendar and space in my head. We spun up a new leadership structure last year that creates teams to handle a lot of the work that we used to handle on council. That has certainly helped and is going well, but somehow it seems like the work for council is still a very long list. Thankfully we are seeing a lot of growth and energy while record numbers of visitors are walking through the doors.

I’m thankful to have spent another year working from home. That will be changing next year when they bring us back to the office in February, but for now it’s nice to have lunch with Tyla while also not spending 1.5 hours in traffic every day. The return-to-work next year will be a big change for all of us, but I’m still thankful to have this job so I’m willing to make that commute even if I don’t know where that time will come from. It’s wonderful to have a supportive family that is willing to roll with the changes.

Woodworking remained near the top of my favorite hobbies even though the list of completed wood working projects feels very short this year. I spent a huge portion of the year playing with different ways to make coasters. I finally landed on a fairly repeatable process and I made a bunch of MLC coasters. I enjoyed being able to refine my approach and get better each time, but eventually I had to stop because it felt like I was just troubleshooting little issues and it wasn’t fun anymore. I also built a new desk top for my standing desk, finished a nightstand for Tyla, and built us our own nativity set. More recently I have been experimenting with machine a plastic called HDPE. It’s like milk jug plastic, but it has white material sandwiched between two layers of color so depending on how far down you cut, you reveal different colors. I started with an American flag in the shape of the United States and then also made an MLC logo and an eagle sign.

If I look at how much time I spend doing various hobbies, piano would probably be at the top by quite a big stretch. I don’t think of it as a hobby because I’m usually practicing for an upcoming church service, but even when I have a break in the church piano schedule, I still like to play every day. I like to record every song that I learn in MIDI and then render out a nice audio version. Sometimes I do video too and, in those cases, I throw them up on YouTube.

2025 was “just another year” without any grand events, but that’s something to be thankful for too.

Previous Year In Review Posts: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024

benmartens December 31, 2025 Commentary, Family

Merry Christmas!

LUKE 2

THE BIRTH OF JESUS

1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register.

4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

benmartens December 25, 2025 Commentary

Leaving the Nest

A few years ago, Elijah and I built a birdhouse. We looked up all the recommendations for the dimensions of a birdhouse that would work for birds in our area and then waited anxiously. Year after year no birds were using it. Initially we found that the inside was getting wet so we improved the design. Then we wondered if the location was not inviting so we attached it to the house under and overhang where no squirrel could ever reach. We even installed an extra security camera aimed at the box to see if maybe they were using it and we just couldn’t tell. Nothing.

Then finally this year we started seeing a couple chickadees making a lot of trips to/from the birdhouse! Later we heard lots of chirping from the babies. The parents made so many trips back and forth bringing them food. Then finally one day it was quiet.

I scanned the camera footage and I think I found video of all five(?) babies leaving the nest. The internet says 6-8 babies are more common so it’s possible that I missed a couple. I edited it down to about 5 minutes so if you want to check out the riveting footage, it’s there for you to enjoy:

It sounds like there is a small chance that a mating pair would attempt a second brood in one year so we’ll wait until later in the summer to clean out the birdhouse and see what we find.

benmartens June 5, 2025 Commentary

Invisalign Review: The First 8 Weeks

Without turning this into a disgusting post about my dental history, I’ll just say that I got enough nudges to get some orthodontic work done that I finally investigated it. Once the orthodontist gave me a detailed overview of my mouth, I was grossed out enough that I couldn’t wait to get started. But this was still more preventative maintenance than anything else.

All I knew about Invisalign was that it was expensive and that it was hard to tell if people were wearing it. Both proved true. The details were interesting though. The process starts with a full 3D scan of my mouth. Based on that scan, the orthodontist designs a correction plan and ships it off to Invisalign. The company takes all the data and predicts how much my teeth should move each week. For each week they print a separate set of clear U-shaped “trays” that fit over the top and bottom teeth. I then had an appointment where the orthodontist’s office put anchors onto my teeth in specific places. They would get them into mostly the correct position and then a custom template (also printed by Invisalign) was held on my teeth while they used a UV light to cure what I assume was resin.

I’ll go back for another visit at the 11 week mark for a physical check up but otherwise, everything is handled through an app. Each week I use an adapter they provided for my phone to take pictures of my mouth with and without the trays in. Through some combination of automated scanning and human verification, they make sure that the trays are working as planned and then clear me to move on to the next set of trays.

I wondered why Invisalign was targeted more at older kids and adults than at younger kids. For example, Elijah has regular braces right now and Invisalign wasn’t even part of the conversation. I think it’s because the trays can be a lot more work. You have to take them out every single time you eat and anytime you drink anything except water. After you finish eating or drinking, you have to brush your teeth and then reinsert the trays. That’s not terrible, but the trick is that you’re supposed to have the trays in 20-22 hours per day. More is better. I’ve heard that some people really push the limits of how long they can leave them out, but I figure if I’m paying this much money, I want it to work so I almost always hit the 22-hour mark, if not 23.

The side effect here is that it’s an amazing weight loss program for three reasons:

  1. It’s annoying to go through the hassle of cleaning my teeth just for a snack.
  2. My teeth hurt some days and it’s painful to chew.
  3. My teeth are moving around and some days they just don’t line up very well making it hard to chew.

Add all those things together and I’m dropping about two pounds per week. I’m currently hovering right around my “record” low point as an adult. I’m curious to see how far this will go. I feel like I generally still eat what I want but there is literally zero snacking at any point in the day. I’ve been good about cutting out extra food at various points in my life before, but I’m curious to see how much of this will stick around given that I’m forced to do it for so long.

The total process varies by patient but mine was estimated to last around 16 months. About halfway through, they’ll do another scan, assess the progress, and print another set of trays. I expect I’ll know more about the total estimated duration at that point. On the Invisalign website, I can track my progress and see a video of what will change over the first half of treatment and it’s incredible how much my teeth will move.

Once this is all done, I’ll get a retainer to wear (hopefully only at night) for the rest of my life. That is, of course, optional, but given that I really don’t want to go through this cost/effort again, I expect I’ll make good use of that.

benmartens May 8, 2025 Commentary

COVID-19: Day 1826 (Five Years)

This blog serves a few purposes, but one of the major ones is being a (public) journal. It’s interesting, for example, to look back at my thoughts right after the planes crashed on September 11. The spread of COVID-19 feels like one of those events that we’ll remember for a long time so it felt worthy of at least one post, but this probably won’t be the last one.

That was the first paragraph of a post from March 6, 2020, one week before the lockdown started for us. Looking back at the many posts I wrote about COVID-19 I had two thoughts. First, I’m so glad that I wrote all those posts. It’s an incredible record of what was going through my head as I went through an event that will be in history books. Secondly, I’m not embarrassed by what I wrote. That’s a surprise… you can’t find the first years of this blog (mid 2000’s) on my site anymore because I cringe when I read a lot of those posts. But our family’s approach to COVID-19 and other health issues hasn’t changed even after five years: get vaccinated, trust the current science (even when new research invalidates old research), and rely on guidelines from the experts (even when it gets updated.)

The disease is still killing a lot of people. Thankfully death rates are lower now, but it’s still well-entrenched in the top 10 causes for death (though it takes a couple years for agencies to collect exact numbers.)

Our family has been COVID-19 free for quite a while. I’m very thankful for that because even though the risk of death is lower than before, there are still risks of nasty downstream impacts from the disease. Two of the YouTubers that we follow have been hit by long COVID-19. Shawn from Kids Invent Stuff recently announced his challenges with it and Diana from Physics girl just got out of bed for the first time in two years. While I like that society isn’t shut down by this disease anymore, we can’t just ignore it. Research needs to continue, and we need to keep communicating the importance of vaccines. If everyone got vaccinated, couldn’t we remove this from the top 10 killer list?

One of the biggest challenges, especially during the first couple years of COVID-19, was educating people. There is enough blame for that to spread around to everyone: scientists, news media, government, the general population, etc. Unfortunately, this problem doesn’t seem to have gotten better. How much of people’s opinions are currently formed by TikTok and doom scrolling? How is our reaction going to be any more informed the next time we go through an emergency like this? On the home front, I’ve put extra effort into trying to teach Elijah how to evaluate information that he hears.

It would be hard to live through a situation like this and not be forever changed. The mental and emotional aspects are hard to evaluate but there are regular parts of my visible life that are still different than before the pandemic. Here are some that I can think of:

  1. I still work from home! I’m officially a 100% remote employee, and I love not having to commute into the office. No two members of my team work in the same building and most of us are spread out across North America.
  2. We still wear masks on planes. I used to get sick so often when I flew. Why didn’t I do this before? Now I haven’t gotten sick from a flight in five years.
  3. I still do my grocery shopping on Friday mornings before 7am. This started during the lockdown to avoid contact with other people, but I’ve grown to love it. I don’t have to give up more valuable evening/weekend time, it forces me to food plan for the whole week so I make less trips to the store, and my shopping is faster because the store is so empty.
  4. Almost all our meals have always been made at home, but when we do eat from a restaurant, we still do takeout like we did during the lockdown. Ordering online, picking it up, and eating at home is not only cheaper, but it saves us a ton of time waiting around at the table.
  5. We have always tried to keep up with flu shots and other vaccines, but other than flu and COVID, Tyla and I were behind on some. As an adult, nobody says “Hey, have you had a DTaP lately?” There has been an outbreak of Pertussis (whopping cough) at Elijah’s school, and I was thankful that all three of us had gotten that particular vaccine updated in the last year.
  6. I love all the previously in-person meetings that are now online. I get to skip a lot of rush hour/evening drives for church leadership meetings and daytime meetings like school and doctor appointments take so much less time when you just hop online for a call.

These small changes have enhanced my life in unexpected ways, but the continued toll of COVID-19 shows the need for ongoing research and vaccine promotion. We can’t afford to let misinformation shape our actions. We have to prioritize education and getting information from trustworthy sources to handle inevitable future emergencies more effectively.

benmartens March 13, 2025 Commentary

2024 Year In Review

As I sit here staring at this blinking cursor trying to remember what happened in 2024, I’m thankful that I keep this website going. I don’t post every day like I used to, but it is nice to have a record of our trips, my projects, and other family events (with some nonsense posts in the mix of course too.) So let’s flip back through the posts and see what happened this year:

We usually try for one big (I guess that’s a relative term that varies by family) vacation per year, but this year had two because Tyla got to go on her AGE-REDATCED’th birthday adventure to Leaping Lamb Farm. We had been there in 2022 for the first time and Tyla immediately wanted to schedule a return visit so we booked spring break week this year. We had to wait a year and a half for the trip but it was worth it. There were baby lambs and baby goats hopping and falling all over the place.

I took a solo trip in May to the 2024 PacNW Men’s Retreat and promptly returned home with food poisoning. Not only was that a horrible experience but I was really bummed to miss Pastor Dave Scharf’s talks. Little did I know I’d run into him later in the year… (Also, I’m happy to say that the restaurant that got me sick is now permanently closed. There appeared to be some serious health code violations, and I should have just walked away.)

We took a quick day trip down to Portland to see a professional disc golf tournament. It was such a fun day for all of us that we already have a tournament on our calendar for 2025. It’s a small sport but big enough that the pros are mind-bogglingly good. It was amazing to see in person what they’re capable of instead of just watching it on TV. Elijah also got to watch his disc golf teacher play and then got to take a picture with her on the first tee!

Pretty much every summer we try to make it back to my parents’ house in Indiana for some pool fun. They surprised us this year by installing a diving board and it got a lot of use! Given how far away we live, I’m thankful that Elijah gets to spend so much time there and get a little taste of what it was like where I grew up.

Our “official” big vacation was a cruise to Alaska. This was the third cruise for Tyla and me, and we knew Elijah was excited to see Alaska, but when we told him it was a cruise, it was a hard sell. He really didn’t want to go. Ask him what he thinks about cruises now! I’m thankful he kept an open mind, and he has now done a complete 180. It wasn’t nearly as relaxing as our previous cruises, but it was fun to experience it through his eyes.

We squeezed in one more quick family trip to Moses Lake in central Washington so we could drive up to the Grand Coulee Dam. We wanted to show it to Elijah and we were also able to snag a couple more counties as we try to color in the entire map of Washington counties. I think we’d all agree that the highlight of that trip was our ride on the tiny Keller Ferry. Our cars have been on a lot of boats, but never one that small!

As you may have noticed, pretty much all our trips involve all three of us, but in October, Tyla and I took our own trip out to New Ulm, MN for a weekend at Martin Luther College. We’re getting more involved with supporting the school and were involved in some meetings. A huge thank you goes to Megan for staying at the house and watching Elijah!

Then finally, this year we spent Christmas in Indiana. Two trips to Indiana in one year! I know it’s a lot of work for my parents to host us all, but we really appreciate being able to spend Christmas with everyone.

At home, I felt like I had a lot less free time to do projects. I’m not sure if that’s because I was a lot busier with my volunteer work at church or because I was lazier in the evenings. It’s probably a combination of both. My woodworking Instagram account does remind me that there were quite a few projects even though none of them were huge. I made a walnut trash can with some interesting angles, a keepsake box made with wood from an old cross with Elijah’s school logo on the lid, a walnut tissue box holder, a coat rack, a kids bakery sign, a cat bed, and an updated silverware tray. There are some big projects underway now but those will probably land in 2025. And while it’s not woodworking, I replaced the rotten wood backsplash in our kitchen with tile. It was my first time doing tile and it makes me smile every time I do the dishes because I’m not staring at something I need to fix.

I think the biggest change for me personally this year was mostly dropping off of social media. I still post my finished woodworking projects to Instagram and I post for our church Facebook and Instagram accounts, but I have broken the habit of doomscrolling and it feels amazing! I removed the Instagram icon from my phone’s home screen and left that spot blank. It was shocking and scary how many times I would pull out my phone and click that spot. That just reinforced my desire to stop. I set a rule for myself that I would only go through what the people I follow had posted once per week on Friday nights, but now I find myself going multiple weeks before I remember to check in. This feels much healthier and certainly removed a lot of pointless screen time from my day.

To combat the relentless acceleration of the calendar and ever-dwindling free time, I’m trying to be even more intentional with my time. Making task lists for each day, removing wastes like social media, and trying to schedule family activities on a regular basis are all helping. There’s also the problem of having too much stuff to cram into a week, but I haven’t figured that one out yet. There’s always next year!

Previous Year In Review Posts: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

benmartens December 31, 2024 Commentary

Wrapped

Lots of websites are doing these “Wrapped” style emails where they show statistics about your usage of their service. Here’s a sampling of mine:

Spotify

I listen to a lot of Spotify while I’m working and I found myself listening to a playlist of Christian radio songs that I listened to in the ~90’s. You can listen to it here (no subscription needed if you’re ok with ads.) That combined with our reading of the Wingfeather Saga got me into listening to a lot of Andrew Peterson music.

  • Listened for 51,049 minutes
  • Play 4,898 songs
  • Listened to 1,249 artists
  • Top songs (mostly because these are two of my favorite albums)
    • FFH – One of These Days
    • FFH – Big Fish
    • Caedmon’s Call – Thankful
    • FFH – Power In His blood
    • Caedmon’s Call – Table for Two
  • Top artists
    • Andrew Peterson
    • Third Day
    • George Strait
    • The Arcadian Wild
    • Josh Turner

Pocket Casts

This one was less interesting to me because I already know which podcasts I listen to regularly, but here it is anyway:

  • 23 different shows and 403 total episodes
  • 12 days, 17 hours, 5 minutes of listening
  • Top podcasts
    • Stuff You Should Know
    • Making It
    • Cordkills
    • No Dumb Questions
    • Wood Talk

Duolingo

I started doing Duolingo in 2020 as a way to make good use of the time I previously spent commuting and I’m still doing it every day.

  • Completed 2217 lessons earning 96,226 XP over 3201 minutes
  • Current streak is at 1529 days

Goodreads

There are so many books that I’d like to read that I really enjoy using Goodreads to keep track of them all. My Kindle syncs with my Goodreads account but given how old my Kindle is, it crashes every couple weeks and prematurely marks books as completed so I don’t put much confidence in the things like the number of days that it takes me to read a book.

  • 31 books read, 9827 pages read
  • Most common book read: Percy Jackson and the Olympians
  • Least common book read: Taboo (Read this!)
  • Highest rated book read: The Wingfeather Saga: The Warden and the Wolf King

UDisc

I played less disc golf than last year, but here are my stats.

  • Steps: 42,300
  • Holes played: 141
  • Total throws: 465
  • Distance thrown: 7 miles
  • Courses played: 6

Trakt

I use Trakt to keep track of all the movies and TV shows that I watch. It’s great for hopping around between shows and remembering our show progress as we add and remove various streaming services.

  • Elijah and I watched 121 episodes of Mythbusters
  • The show Tyla and I watched the most episodes of was The Chosen.
  • The show we all watched the most episodes of together was The Wingfeather Saga.

Untappd

I track all my beers and have fun seeing how many different ones I can experience.

  • I tried 112 new beers from 64 breweries covering 31 different styles.
benmartens December 26, 2024 Commentary

Merry Christmas

LUKE 2

THE BIRTH OF JESUS

1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register.

4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

benmartens December 25, 2024 Commentary