Being Christian Without Losing Your Mind
“Here’s my recommendation in this case: Distance yourselves from these men. Let them go! If their plan or activity is of human origin, it will end in ruin. If it originates with God, you won’t be able to stop them. Instead, you would actually find yourselves fighting God!” — Acts 5:38-39 These words were spoken by …
Remember the Sabbath day and treat it as holy. – Exodus 20:8 What does being holy mean? Sometimes it’s defined in negative terms. The old “holiness” movement conveyed that if you didn’t play cards, drink, and go to movies, you were approaching a holy life. It’s also been defined as something non-human. Some of the …
A popular political cartoon has a man holding two signs. On one: “No Mask Mandate! My body. My choice.” On the second: “No Abortion After 6 Weeks. Her body. My choice.” This is, of course, hypocritical. How can you plead for freedom from government regulation at times, and for it at others? Yet, the cartoon …
Nearby shepherds were living in the fields, guarding their sheep at night. – Luke 2:8 The message hidden in the Christmas story is this: In God’s kingdom, ordinary people are the real heroes. Shepherds see and hear a heavenly choir. Not the rabbis. A teenage girl gets visited by an angel. Not the princess in …
There are two defining virtues for a Christian: honesty and humility. Honesty: Christians have the courage to try and see themselves as they are, as objectively as possible. We search for blind spots, masked prejudices, self-justifications, and so forth. (Wasn’t that the point of Wesley’s small groups?) Humility: We admit we are hopelessly and unconsciously …
God understands [wisdom]; he knows her place; for he looks to the ends of the earth and surveys everything beneath the heavens. – Job 28:23-24 The online encyclopedia, where people contribute articles, is amazing. There are over 3.5 million contributions, with about 7,000 new ones appearing each day. If you want to know about anything, …
Don’t do anything for selfish purposes, but with humility think of others as better than yourselves. – Philippians 2:3 Humiliation is an important precursor to humility. I once hit a ball over the fence for a homerun in a softball game. It was my first and last time ever to do that. I made a …
After every senseless, racist murder, and after the public outcry and protests, we hope that we’ve moved closer to exposing racism and achieving a more just, peaceful society. Then there’s another George Floyd instance, and we’re back to pain and more division. As a white person who doesn’t know what it’s like to live the …
Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses on account of the Cushite woman whom he had married—for he had married a Cushite woman. They said, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” The Lord heard it. Now the man Moses was humble, more so than anyone on earth. – Numbers 12:1-3 These verses are a soap opera …
They were saying to each other, “Who’s going to roll the stone away from the entrance for us?” – Mark 16:3 The women going to anoint Jesus’ body after the Crucifixion should have planned better. Wouldn’t they have thought, before leaving, about the stone being a problem? Maybe they didn’t plan because nobody thinks clearly …