Jesus told a story. It was about a father and his two sons. His older son was loyal, obedient, and followed all the rules. The younger son was a “free-spirit.” After demanding his share of his father’s inheritance, the younger son left home and squandered all he had on prostitutes and other displays of wild living. For…
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We’ve been watching the markets crashing, businesses shuttering doors, health care workers overwhelmed, people losing their jobs, getting sick, and dying. Now we’re being told this all could last for months. With this ominous foreboding hovering over our world like something from a Hollywood doomsday movie, how exactly does God want us to walk through…
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Yes…and no. God’s Word is there to help us see past appearances and plunge us into the reality. Such must be the case with interpreting events unfolding around us. Is this pandemic a manifestation of God’s judgment? Luke 13 provides a good starting point. In vv. 1-5, Jesus is asked to assess the theological reasons for…
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A truly good God would not want COVID-19 to exist.An all-powerful God would not allow COVID-19 to exist. COVID-19 exists. Therefore, a God who is both good and powerful cannot exist. So goes the logic. But there is a hidden premise buried inside the argument. The premise is: God does not have any good reasons to allow…
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The year was 165 AD. Marcus Aurelius was emperor in Rome. A devastating epidemic swept through the empire. Some medical historians suspect it was the first appearance of smallpox in the West. Regardless of the actual disease, it was lethal. During the fifteen year duration of the epidemic, between a quarter and a third of the empire’s population…
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I spent much of Thursday afternoon and Friday morning last week in correspondence with other pastors as we tried to figure out what we’re going to do in response to what we saw transpiring around us. We all had the same sense that this had gone from a concern to DEFCON 5 in just a…
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Suffering often leaves us wondering, “how is this all going to work out?” Suffering creates a sense of chaos; like the puzzle pieces aren’t fitting together. Elisabeth Elliot relays an amusing story that’s helpful for us. Apparently, her husband Jim was quite the handyman. He had the ability to build many things from scratch. Elisabeth…
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The famous missionary, Elisabeth Elliot, wrote a book, No Graven Image. It’s a story about a missionary who goes into the rainforest and wants to translate the Bible. At the end of the story, everything falls apart. The one man in the tribe who can enable her to do the translation and connect her to the tribe, she…
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“Glory.” It’s not a word we can define quickly or easily. We know God is glorious (Ps. 106:20; Jer. 2:13). We know we’re supposed to “glorify” God (Ps. 69:30). But what does it mean? Theologians have debated this for centuries, but one of the best directions to move in is consider what glory literally means: “weight.” When something is “weighty” it’s…
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