Once again “end of the world” associations are being given to a natural disaster. For example, an online video shows video of the destruction observed by a survivor who emerges from a storm cellar to capture images of apocaplyptic destruction.. The only audible words are, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.” Other survivors [...]
As baseball season returns, I bumped into an old story that still makes me smile. My apology to cricket fans, and the March Madness of college basketball. Three baseball umpires are each asked how they call balls and strikes. The first explains,”If a thrown pitch crosses the plate between the knees and the shoulders, it’s [...]
Who among us hasn’t seen the pain we can bring to ourselves and others by thoughtlessly saying the truth without humility, love, or wisdom. Those who accused Jesus of being a sinner, or worse (demon possessed) weren’t all wrong. They were followers of Moses. They had heard the rumors about Jesus’ birth, and were not [...]
I’ve noticed over time an awkward pain that can show up in followers of Christ in their later years. My first memory of what I’m referring to came when an aging pastor invited me as a young man to have lunch with him. I’m sure that we talked about many things in the hour or [...]
Is there anything that followers of Christ can do to get the attention of those who dismiss them as uneducated and backward? Our Lord had a reputation of being “unschooled”. He drew crowds of people by healing them of all kinds of diseases (Matt 4:24) (John 7:15). At one point he sent his apostles out [...]
A friend recently passed along an article from USA Today titled “Why Certainty About God is Overrated.” The article told the story of John Polkinghorne, a world class physicist who also has the reputation of being a leading voice on the relationship between science and faith. Polkinghorne maintains that “We don’t believe in quarks because [...]
According to Matthew’s gospel, Jesus began telling his disciples that he had to go to Jerusalem to suffer and die at the hands of the religious leaders (Matt 16:21). The same Gospel shows that the Lord predicted his death several more times in the days to come (Matt 17:22-23; 20:17-19; 20:28; 26:2). One text even [...]
Would God hold us accountable for something He had not given us the ability to do? The people of Israel might have wondered as much when they heard Moses say, in his farewell address, “The Lord has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear” (Deuteronomy 29:4 NKJV). [...]
What does trust look like when we can’t explain our trouble, or see beyond it? Listening to others as they try to show faith in crisis can be confusing. Some say they are “believing God” for a job, restored health, a reconciled marriage, or the return of a prodigal. Others say reliance on Him means [...]
Over the past decade, there has been growing controversy about “a new way of doing church.” Many of our sons and daughters are forming or joining congregations that don’t look or sound like our kind of church. Yet, they are likely to tell us they are just trying to be authentic followers of Jesus, and [...]