The other day my wife said that the pursuit of the cause of Christ would be infinitely easier if I didn’t have a family. She said it casually, kindly, towards the end of a conversation we were having about pursuing missionary work. She said if not for the obligation to care and support a family…
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This is one of the reasons I find the Bible so fascinating. It’s also one of the reasons that thousands of people consider the Bible good literature–in spite of its claims to being redemptive history. I’ll take redemptive history any day over good literature, but fortunately I’m not forced to decide. The text in question at the…
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Part of a new weekly series on the book of Matthew. This week: Matthew 12:42 There was no more spirit in her. After seeing all his wisdom, the house he built, the food on his table, the seating of his servants, the attendance of his waiters and their clothes, his cup bearers and the stairway…
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Jude is a tiny book at the back of your Bible, second to the last, right before the book of Revelation, and immediately after 3 John. Even at 25 verses, though, Jude isn’t the smallest book in the Bible. That distinction goes to 2 John. Then 3 John. Jude is a workhorse, however, despite its small…
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Back in 2009 I wrote a post in the Curmudgeon’s Guide to Sharing the Gospel on creating a simple statement of faith. The point behind this exercise was to create a one-word sentence that defines you. That defines your faith. That serves as a compass in tight situations when you have to think fast or…
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is a 1,000 plus page book. It weighs about a pound. It crams about 500 words per page. And it includes chapter headings like this: The old buffoon Stinking Lizavetta The torment of a soul. The first torment A little demon For a moment a lie becomes the truth. And it was my book of…
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That’s a quote from a discussion I started on Reddit. I asked the question ““ The answers fell into two general categories: one, without question, sharing the gospel was more important. And two, the two are not mutually exclusive. They are the same thing. My own bias leans toward sharing the gospel. In the introduction…
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Part of a new weekly series on the book of Matthew. This week: Matthew 12:38-41 Jonah had no idea what to expect the day he walked into Nineveh. As the capital of the Assyrian Empire, it was quite possibly the largest city in the known world. The inner city was surrounded by walls 8 miles…
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Scoffing, he said, ‘Couldn’t these people think of anything else to paint?’ If there ever was a case of art in the cause for Christ then this anecdote will certainly qualify. In fact, as Peter Hitchens put it in his book , 500 years after his death Van der Weyden was still earning his…
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In which I encounter one of the most sublime definitions of beauty–because God cares about art. In the last two decades of the 19th Century Leo Tolstoy went on a philosophical and polemical tear, attacking the Russian church, landowners and even the Gospels. It culminated in a book called To say this book is intense…
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