The hostages return finally from Gaza. Gen Z increases both in faith and suicide rates,

and genocide against Christians in Nigeria and a crackdown on house churches in China.

These are the stories we'll cover and will answer some of your questions.

I'm your host Scott Ray and sitting in for Sean, who's on the road today is my Talbot colleague, Dr. Eric Tonnist. This is the Think Biblically Weekly Cultural

Update coming to you from Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. Eric, thanks for being

with us. Always great. Appreciate you being willing to take a deep dive into some of these

stories and bring us your perspective. Now, Eric, this first story,

I don't think needs a lot of introduction. My guess is unless our listeners have been living

on a desert island or are completely off the grid, they are likely aware of it. But very good news

in Gaza, all of the still living Israeli hostages returned to their homes on Monday.

They were delivered initially to the Reim military base near the Gaza border.

To say the least, there were joyous reunions with loved ones.

I've not gotten tired of watching those.

They are really moving.

Some 400,000 people gathered in Tel Aviv to celebrate the end of the war and the return

of the hostages.

And as part of the ceasefire agreement, roughly 2,000 Palestinians were released, including

about 250 who were serving life sentences in Israel for killing Israelis and others who were held

following the events of October 7th, 2023.

And the Palestinians rejoiced in mass over the end of the war and began returning to what's

left of their communities.

Now, as Sean and I mentioned last week, this is only phase one of the peace accord. The next phase includes

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