My senior years at high school were spent writing essays. Teachers believed that the best preparation for university was learning to research a subject and condense the findings into carefully structured arguments. It worked well, except when students missed the point. Then the red ink appeared: “Answer the question!” If the disciples had been more […]
People of Lystra, “Why are you doing these things? We are also men of the same nature as you, and preach the gospel to you in order that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them.” […]
Multivitamins are useless if they remain in the container. They must be eaten. Would anyone be so foolish as to buy a jar and leave it unopened on the kitchen counter? Yet perhaps we do that with the gospel. You see, the idea of “the gospel” is like the unopened pot. Sometimes we think that […]
FRAGILE—HANDLE WITH CARE Assuming that the item you ordered from Amazon arrives unbroken in its box, you will be able to unpack it, assemble it if necessary, and enjoy all its benefits. But some of the things we buy come with instructions for proper use and maintenance. The story of Saul is rarely used in […]
Narahari is a Sanscrit word meaning “man-God”.1 It expresses well the nature of Jesus. Think about it. Jesus was God in human flesh, which of course means that Jesus was human flesh with God inside. Jesus did two basic things. He showed us what God is like when He puts on human flesh and lives […]
One of the hardest things to do when we pray is to get our focus off the need and onto God. Jesus’ interaction with the woman at the well in Samaria helps us understand how important that refocusing is. Jesus said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is who […]
Every now and then, something happens in life that seems to destroy any chance of the outcome we had been praying for and expecting. Along with the pain and grief comes dashed hope. It taunts our minds, making it hard to trust even ourselves again. “Why should I allow the birth of any new hope […]
Although we will never experience the full suffering of Jesus, we sometimes find ourselves in situations that are similar in type. Jesus knew trouble was coming: Betrayal, abandonment by friends, false accusations, a mock trial without due process, unjust condemnation, mockery, torture, and cruel death. We have so many things to shout when someone cuts […]
I use glasses to read because I am long-sighted. I also have an astigmatism in one eye, which means that the image in my eye is distorted horizontally more than it is vertically. To correct that imbalance, one corrective lens is slightly thicker on one plane than it is on the other. I started using […]
Sometimes we learn a lot when we think about the flip side of what Jesus said. Take the following conversation: The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” And He said to them, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents […]