February 5, 2024
The Bible has a love/hate relationship with signs or miracles. On the one hand they can engender faith (John 10:25). On the other hand they can derail faith in the miracle worker (John 6:26). . . .
September 6, 2017
By Diane Stortz With missionaries in the family, she had become pretty good at saying good-bye, although it”s never easy. This time, the leave-taking felt especially difficult, because not only were her daughter and son-in-law returning to the mission field, but this time they were taking their 7-week-old baby, Solomon, her first grandchild. One of the first things Solomon”s grandma did when she got home from the airport was frame some of the many pictures taken during those first seven weeks of Solomon”s life. She placed three in the family room, one on the piano, one in the bedroom, and
July 11, 2016
By T.R. Robertson The narrative of bad news dominates our culture, a culture that increasingly sees religion as a major purveyor of bad news. “We”re living in a day and age that the news media is a drug-pusher. And negative news is their drug,” says Dr. Peter H. Diamandis. “And on every device that we get””our cell phones, our smart phones, our laptops, our newspapers, our radios””we are fed negative news 24 hours a day, seven days a week, over and over and over again.” Diamandis, speaking in 2013 at a conference called “Global Future 2045: Towards a New Strategy for
March 15, 2015
By Jay Engelbrecht There is balm in Gilead, To make the wounded whole; There”s power enough in heaven, To cure a sin-sick soul. The opening line of an old African-American spiritual answers Jeremiah”s rhetorical question, “Is there no balm in Gilead[?]” (Jeremiah 8:22, King James Version*). In Marilynne Robinson”s novel Gilead, I discovered balm for my soul. The novel”s narrator, a fictional Iowa preacher named John Ames, is dying. He uses his remaining days to write an account of his life for his young son. Three sentences in Gilead changed the way I view 1 Corinthians 15:51-53, which reads: Listen,
October 13, 2012
By Dale Reeves  The Air I Breathe: Worship as a Way of Life Louie Giglio Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2009 I”ve had a calling on my life to be a lifelong worshipper of God since I was a little boy sitting in Sunday evening services at Clovernook (now LifeSpring) Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Back in those days, David Lang led us in singing the great hymns of the faith””all of the verses””and to this day it”s amazing how the lyrics of those hymns are tucked away in my brain. They often rise to the surface during a season of seeking
April 30, 2012
This treatment of the International Sunday School Lesson is written by Sam E. Stone, former editor of CHRISTIAN STANDARD. ______ By Sam E. Stone An entire year elapsed between the healing of the lame man (John 5) and the feeding of the 5,000 (John 6). This would be two years after the first cleansing of the temple and one year before the crucifixion. John explains that his Gospel contains only a limited number of the many miracles and teachings of the Lord (John 20:30, 31; 21:25). Seth Wilson observes that the feeding of the 5,000 was a “turning-point in Jesus”
September 30, 2011
By Chris DeWelt “My food . . . “ It was quite tasty. A large whole lamb fixed in a traditional Albanian way””stuffed with rice. Really good rice. It even had some almonds and bits of liver mixed in. The college students all looked my way with some degree of uncertainty. Maybe it was because the whole lamb was present (minus the wool and hide). Fish with the head attached is one thing, but this definitely was stretching the comfort zone, and here in Durres, Albania, we had already been stretched quite a bit. Perhaps I was a bit
May 11, 2008
By Bill McClure My brother was once a professional Pacific Ocean fisherman. I vividly remember the times we were out in his boat looking for increasingly hard-to-find salmon. It was so windy one time I could barely stand straight and had to hold on to avoid falling overboard. Another time, in spite of over-the-counter remedies, I got really seasick. I also recall the time we went far from shore””even losing sight of land””and the fog became so dense we navigated using only the radar gear on board. It dawned on me later: we had taken some major risks. Why would
March 30, 2008
By Greg Taylor Living seven years in poverty in Uganda changed my life. We didn”t make a lot of money by American standards””$27,500 annually””but we were rich compared to our Ugandan neighbors who live on less than $2 a day. We had 30 times more money than our Ugandan friends! They seemed to think we had a bottomless bucket of money, and we soon realized they viewed our wealth as we might look at that of Bill Gates. Some wondered why we couldn”t always help them with medical problems, school expenses, or a good business idea that needed funding. Incredible
December 30, 2007
By Jackina Stark Transformation is a cultural phenomenon. I know this because I have television. HGTV is practically devoted to it. But I think every network has hopped on the transformation bandwagon. Aren”t you amazed at Extreme Makeover? Of course, most of us are amazed that people would stand before cameras in their underwear and have someone draw lines to show what kind of work is going to be done. What a nightmare! But I must admit the unveiling is exciting, as each brave and transformed soul steps out of the limousine that transports them to their reveal party. I
October 14, 2007
By Greg Allen Jesus had traveled half the distance between Judea and Galilee, and was resting in Samaria beside a very famous well. A Samaritan woman arrived at the same well. We do not know her name, but I call her Sam. Jesus and Sam had a short conversation about water, which gave Jesus the opportunity to tell Sam something that could change her life. He told her if she continued to drink only well water, she would continue to be thirsty. But if Sam would drink from the living water Jesus gives, her thirst would be quenched . .
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April 28, 2026
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