ldquo There rsquo s no place like home rdquo says Dorothy clicking the heels of her ruby slippers In The Wizard of Oz that was all it took to magically transport Dorothy and Toto from Oz back to their home in Kansas Unfortunately there aren rsquo t enough ruby slippers for everyone Although many share Dorothy rsquo s longing for home finding that home mdash a place to belong mdash is sometimes easier said than done One of the consequences of living in a highly mobile transient world is a sense of detachment mdash wondering if we rsquo ll ever [... more]

In the Church of England founded the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in order to send missionaries around the globe The motto they chose was transiens adiuva nos mdash Latin for ldquo Come over and help us rdquo This has been the call on gospel ambassadors since the first century as followers of Jesus take the message of His love and forgiveness to a world in desperate need of it nbsp The phrase ldquo come over and help us rdquo comes from the ldquo Macedonian call rdquo described in Acts Paul and his team had arrived at Troas [... more]

The United Kingdom brims with history Everywhere you go you see plaques honoring historic figures or commemorating sites where important events occurred But one such sign exemplifies the droll British sense of humor On a weathered plaque outside a bed and breakfast in Sandwich England a message reads ldquo On this site Sept nothing happened rdquo nbsp nbsp Sometimes it seems to us that nothing is happening regarding our prayers We pray and pray bringing our petitions to our Father with expectation that He will respond mdash right now The psalmist David expressed such frustration when he prayed ldquo How [... more]

ldquo The average person will make decisions over a lifetime rdquo claims the Daily Mirror The British newspaper goes on to assert that we ldquo will come to regret of them rdquo I have no idea how the paper arrived at these numbers but it rsquo s clear that we face countless decisions throughout our lifetime The sheer quantity of them might become paralyzing especially when we consider that all our choices have consequences some far more momentous than others After forty years wandering in the wilderness the children of Israel stood at the threshold of their new homeland Later [... more]

In November physicist John W Mauchly said ldquo There is no reason to suppose the average boy or girl cannot be master of a nbsp personal computer rdquo Mauchly rsquo s prediction seemed remarkable at the time but it proved astonishingly accurate Today using a computer or handheld device is one of the earliest skills a child learns While Mauchly rsquo s prediction has come true so have much more important predictions mdash those made in Scripture about the coming of Christ For example Micah declared ldquo But you Bethlehem Ephrathah though you are small among the clans of Judah [... more]

Many consider Ferrante and Teicher to be the greatest piano duet team of all time Their collaborative presentations were so precise that their style was described as four hands but only one mind Hearing their music one can begin to grasp the amount of effort required to perfect their craft But there rsquo s more They loved what they did In fact even after they had retired in Ferrante and Teicher would occasionally show up at a local piano store just to play an impromptu concert They simply loved making music David also loved making music mdash but he teamed [... more]

During the coronavirus pandemic many suffered the loss of loved ones On November our family joined their ranks when Bee Crowder my ninety-five-year-old mom died mdash though not from COVID- Like so many other families we weren rsquo t able to gather to grieve Mom honor her life or encourage one another Instead we used other means to celebrate her loving influence mdash and we found great comfort from her insistence that if God called her home she was ready and even eager to go That confident hope evidenced in so much of Mom rsquo s living was also how [... more]

When I was a boy the schoolyard was where bullies threw their weight around and kids like me received that bullying with minimal protest As we cowered in fear before our tormenters there was something even worse their taunts of ldquo Are you scared You rsquo re afraid of me aren rsquo t you There rsquo s no one here to protect you rdquo In fact most of those times I really was frightened mdash and with good cause Having been punched in the past I knew I didn rsquo t want to experience that again So what could I [... more]

Following the Sunday morning worship service my Moscow host took me to lunch at a restaurant outside the Kremlin Upon arrival we noticed a line of newlywed couples in wedding garb approaching the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier outside the Kremlin wall The happiness of their wedding day intentionally included remembering the sacrifices others had made to help make such a day possible It was a sobering sight as the couples took pictures by the memorial before laying wedding flowers at its base nbsp nbsp All of us have cause to be thankful for others who in one way or [... more]

Robert Todd Lincoln son of US president Abraham Lincoln was present for three major events mdash the death of his own father as well as the assassinations of presidents James Garfield and William McKinley But consider that the apostle John was present at four of history rsquo s most crucial events the last supper of Jesus Christ rsquo s agony in Gethsemane His crucifixion and His resurrection John knew that bearing witness to these events was the ultimate why behind his presence in these moments In John he wrote ldquo This is the disciple who nbsp testifies to these things [... more]

Bluestone is a fascinating variety of rock When struck certain bluestones will ring with a musical tone Maenclochog a Welsh village whose name means ldquo bell rdquo or ldquo ringing stones rdquo used bluestones as nbsp church bells nbsp until the eighteenth century Interestingly the ruins of Stonehenge in England are built of bluestone causing some to wonder if that landmark rsquo s original purpose was musical Some researchers claim that the bluestone at Stonehenge was brought from near Maenclochog nearly two hundred miles away because of their unique acoustic properties Musical ringing stones are yet another of the wonders [... more]

Scholar Kenneth E Bailey told of the leader of an African nation who had learned to maintain an unusual posture in the international community He rsquo d established a good relationship with both Israel and the nations surrounding it When someone asked him how his nation maintained this fragile balance he responded ldquo We choose our friends We do not encourage our friends to choose our enemies for us rdquo nbsp nbsp That is wise mdash and genuinely practical What that African country modeled on an international level is what Paul encouraged his readers to do on a personal level [... more]

When Doris Kearns Goodwin decided to write a book about Abraham Lincoln the fact that some books had already been written about America rsquo s sixteenth president intimidated her What could be left to say about this beloved leader Still Goodwin pressed on her work resulting in A Team of Rivals The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln Her fresh insights on Lincoln rsquo s leadership style became a top-rated and top-reviewed book in spite of the mass of volumes already available on him The apostle John faced a different challenge as he wrote his account of the ministry and passion [... more]

ldquo Men have been found to resist the most powerful monarchs and to refuse to bow down before them rdquo observed philosopher and author Hannah Arendt ndash She added ldquo B ut few indeed have been found to resist the crowd to stand up alone before misguided masses to face their implacable frenzy without weapons rdquo As a Jew Arendt witnessed this firsthand in her native Germany There rsquo s something terrifying about being rejected by the group The apostle Paul experienced such rejection Trained as a Pharisee and rabbi his life was turned upside down when he encountered the [... more]

ldquo I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day rdquo based on an poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is a truly unusual Christmas song Instead of the expected Christmas joy and mirth the lyric forms a lament crying out ldquo And in despair I bowed my head There is no peace on earth I said For hate is strong and mocks the song Of peace on earth good will to men rdquo This lament however moves forward into hope reassuring us that ldquo God is not dead nor does he sleep The wrong shall fail the right prevail nbsp With peace [... more]

In the Socratic Club was established at England rsquo s Oxford University The club was formed for the express purpose of encouraging debate between believers in Jesus and atheists or agnostics Religious debate at a secular university isn rsquo t that unusual but what is surprising the man who chaired the Socratic Club for fifteen years mdash the great Christian scholar C S Lewis Willing to have his thinking tested Lewis believed that faith in Christ could stand up to whatever scrutiny it received He knew there was credible rational evidence for believing in Jesus In a sense Lewis was [... more]

Guernica Pablo Picasso rsquo s most important political painting was a modernist portrayal of the destruction of a small Spanish town by that name During the Spanish revolution and the ramp-up to World War II Nazi Germany rsquo s planes were permitted by Spain rsquo s Nationalist forces to use the town for bombing practice These controversial bombings took scores of lives drawing the attention of a global community concerned over the immorality of bombing civilian targets Picasso rsquo s painting captured and horrified the imaginations of the watching world and became a catalyst for debate about humanity rsquo s [... more]

In the most ambitious private home construction project in the United States began On-site manufacturing produced some bricks a day The work continued until the completion of George Vanderbilt II rsquo s ldquo summer house rdquo mdash six years later The result was the Biltmore Estate in Asheville North Carolina To this day it remains the largest private residence in America with rooms including bedrooms and bathrooms consuming a staggering square feet sq meters of floor space This project ambitious as it was was nothing compared to the ldquo building rdquo intentions Jesus proclaimed to His disciples in Matthew After [... more]

The impala a member of the antelope family is able to jump up to ten feet high and thirty feet in length It rsquo s an incredible feat and no doubt essential to its survival in the African wild Yet at many impala enclosures found in zoos you rsquo ll find that the animals are kept in place by a wall that rsquo s merely three feet tall How can such a low wall contain these athletic animals It works because impalas will never jump unless they can see where they rsquo ll land The wall keeps the impalas inside [... more]

It has become sadly ldquo normal rdquo to attack not only the opinions of others but also the person holding the opinion This can be true in academic circles as well For this reason I was stunned when scholar and theologian Richard B Hays wrote a paper that forcefully took to task a work that he himself had written years earlier In Reading With the Grain of Scripture Hays demonstrated great humility of heart as he corrected his own past thinking now fine-tuned by his lifelong commitment to learning nbsp nbsp As the book of Proverbs was being introduced King [... more]

In November a riot broke out in Staffordshire England to protest against the gospel message Charles Wesley was preaching It seems Charles and his brother John were changing some longstanding church traditions and that was too much for many of the townsfolk When John Wesley heard about the riot he hurried to Staffordshire to help his brother Soon an unruly crowd surrounded the place where John was staying Courageously he met face to face with their leaders speaking with them so serenely that one by one their anger was assuaged John Wesley rsquo s gentle and quiet spirit calmed a [... more]

Fingerprints have long been used to identify people but they can be faked by creating copies Similarly the pattern of the iris in the human eye is a reliable source for ID mdash until someone alters the pattern with a contact lens to skew the results The use of biometrics to identify individuals can be defeated So what qualifies as a unique identifying characteristic It turns out that everyone rsquo s blood-vessel patterns are unique and virtually impossible to counterfeit Your own personal ldquo vein map rdquo is a one-of-a-kind identifier setting you apart from everyone else on the planet [... more]

When we think of historic trailblazing missionaries the name of George Liele ndash doesn rsquo t leap to mind Perhaps it should Born into slavery Liele came to Christ in Georgia and gained his freedom prior to the American Revolutionary War He took the message of Jesus to Jamaica ministering to the slaves in the plantations there and served as the founding pastor of two African churches in Savannah Georgia mdash one of which is considered the ldquo mother church of black Baptists rdquo Liele rsquo s remarkable life of kingdom service may have been forgotten by some but his [... more]

In the early s the US was filled with anticipation of a bright future Youthful President John F Kennedy had introduced the New Frontier the Peace Corps and the task of reaching the moon A thriving economy caused many people to expect the future to simply ldquo let the good times roll rdquo Then the war in Vietnam escalated unrest on a national level unfolded Kennedy rsquo s assassination took place and a dismantling of the accepted norms of that previously optimistic society ensued Optimism simply wasn rsquo t enough and in its wake disillusionment prevailed nbsp Then in theologian [... more]

Our bus finally arrived at our much-anticipated destination mdash an archaeological dig in Israel where we would actually do some excavation work of our own The site rsquo s director explained that anything we might unearth had been untouched for thousands of years Digging up broken shards of pottery we felt as though we were touching history After an extended time we were led to a workstation where those broken pieces mdash from huge vases shattered long long ago mdash were being put back together nbsp nbsp nbsp The picture was crystal clear Those artisans reconstructing centuries-old broken pottery were [... more]

Seneca the great philosopher of ancient Rome bc ndash ad was once accused by the empress Messalina of adultery After the Senate sentenced Seneca to death the emperor Claudius instead exiled him to Corsica perhaps because he suspected the charge was false This reprieve may have shaped Seneca rsquo s view of thankfulness when he wrote ldquo homicides tyrants thieves adulterers robbers sacrilegious men and traitors there always will be but worse than all these is the crime of ingratitude rdquo [... more]

As the French soldier dug in the desert sand reinforcing the defenses of his army rsquo s encampment he had no idea he would make a momentous discovery Moving another shovel-full of sand he saw a stone Not just any stone The Rosetta Stone containing laws and governance from King Ptolemy V written in three languages That stone now housed in the British Museum would be one of the most important archaeological finds of the nineteenth century helping to unlock the mysteries of the ancient Egyptian writing known as hieroglyphics For many of us much of Scripture is also wrapped [... more]

On December explosions rocked a small community in the US state of West Virginia producing one of the worst disasters in the history of the coal mining industry Some miners were killed and it rsquo s been estimated that this horrific tragedy left behind about widows and one thousand children without fathers Historians maintain that the memorial service became the seedbed from which the celebration of Father rsquo s Day in the US would eventually grow Out of great loss came remembrance and mdash eventually mdash celebration The greatest tragedy in human history occurred when human beings crucified their Creator [... more]

As the cabbie drove us to London rsquo s Heathrow Airport he told us his story He had come alone to the United Kingdom at age fifteen seeking to escape war and deprivation Now eleven years later he has a family of his own and is able to provide for them in ways unavailable in his native land But he laments that he rsquo s still separated from his parents and siblings He told us that he has had a hard journey that won rsquo t be complete until he rsquo s reunited with his family Being separated from our [... more]

In Perth Australia there is a place called Shalom House where men struggling with addictions go to find help At Shalom House they rsquo ll meet caring staff members who introduce them to God rsquo s shalom Hebrew for peace Lives crushed under the weight of addictions to drugs alcohol gambling and other destructive behaviors are being transformed by the love of God Central to this transformation is the message of the cross The broken people of Shalom discover that through the resurrection of Jesus they can find their own lives resurrected In Christ we gain true peace and healing [... more]

Lake Baikal the world rsquo s deepest lake is vast and magnificent Measuring one mile deep and nearly miles km by miles km across it contains one-fifth of all the surface fresh water in the world But this water is largely inaccessible Lake Baikal is located in Siberia mdash one of the most remote areas of Russia With water so desperately needed in much of our planet it rsquo s ironic that such a vast supply of water is tucked away in a place where not many people can access it Although Lake Baikal may be remote there is an [... more]

Historians say the Atomic Age began on July when the first nuclear weapon was detonated in a remote desert of New Mexico But long before the invention of anything that could even see these tiny building blocks of the universe the Greek philosopher Democritus c bc ndash bc was exploring the existence and power of the atom Democritus comprehended more than he could see and atomic theory was the result The Scriptures tell us that the essence of faith is embracing what can rsquo t be seen Hebrews affirms ldquo Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and [... more]

Michelangelo rsquo s works explored many facets of the life of Jesus yet one of the most poignant was also one of the most simple In the s he sketched a pieta a picture of Jesus rsquo mother holding the body of the dead Christ for his friend Vittoria Colonna Done in chalk the drawing depicts Mary looking to the heavens as she cradles her Son rsquo s still form Rising behind Mary the upright beam of the cross carries these words from Dante rsquo s Paradise ldquo There they don t think of how much blood it costs rdquo [... more]

In his book Fearfully and Wonderfully Made co-authored with Philip Yancey Dr Paul Brand observed ldquo A hummingbird heart weighs a fraction of an ounce and beats eight hundred times a minute a blue whale rsquo s heart weighs half a ton beats only ten times per minute and can be heard two miles away In contrast to either the human heart seems dully functional yet it does its job beating times a day ndash times a minute with no time off for rest to get most of us through seventy years or more rdquo The amazing heart so thoroughly [... more]

As a boy theologian Bruce Ware was frustrated that Peter ndash calls us to be like Jesus Ware wrote of his youthful exasperation in his book The Man Christ Jesus ldquo Not fair I determined Especially when the passage says to follow in the steps of one lsquo who did no sin rsquo This was totally outlandish I just couldn rsquo t see how God could really mean for us to take it seriously rdquo I understand why Ware would find such a biblical challenge so daunting An old chorus says ldquo To be like Jesus to be like Jesus [... more]

Victor Hugo ndash a poet and novelist during the social and political upheavals of nineteenth-century France is perhaps best known for his classic Les Miserables Over a century later a musical adaption of his novel has become one of our generation rsquo s most popular productions This shouldn rsquo t surprise us As Hugo once said ldquo Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent rdquo The psalmists would have agreed Their songs and prayers provide us with honest reflections on life and its inevitable pain They touch us in places we [... more]

Pastor Tim Keller said ldquo Nobody ever learns who they are by being told They must be shown rdquo In a sense it is one application of the adage ldquo Actions speak louder than words rdquo Spouses show their mates that they are appreciated by listening to them and loving them Parents show their children they are valued by lovingly caring for them Coaches show athletes they have potential by investing in their development And on it goes By the same token a different kind of action can show people painful things that communicate much darker messages Of all the [... more]

When World War I erupted in British statesman Sir Edward Grey declared ldquo The lamps are going out all over Europe we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime rdquo Grey was right When the ldquo war to end all wars rdquo finally ended some million had been killed million of them civilians and another million injured While not on the same scale or magnitude devastation can also occur in our personal lives The home workplace church or neighborhood can also be shrouded by the dark specter of conflict This is one of the reasons our God calls [... more]

Have you ever fought a dragon If you answered ldquo No rdquo author Eugene Peterson disagrees with you In A Long Obedience in the Same Direction he wrote ldquo Dragons are projections of our fears horrible constructions of all that might hurt us A peasant confronted by a magnificent dragon is completely outclassed rdquo Peterson rsquo s point Life is filled with dragons The life-threatening health crisis the sudden job loss the failed marriage the estranged prodigal child These ldquo dragons rdquo are the supersized dangers and frailties of life that we are inadequate to fight But in those battles [... more]

When my brother David suddenly died of cardiac failure my perspectives on life changed dramatically Dave was the fourth of seven children but he was the first of us to pass mdash and the unexpected nature of that passing gave me much to ponder It became apparent that as age began to catch up with us our family rsquo s future was going to be marked more by loss than by gain It was going to be characterized as much by goodbyes as hellos None of this was a surprise intellectually mdash that is just how life works But this [... more]

During her ministry to men incarcerated in South Africa rsquo s most violent prison Joanna Flanders-Thomas witnessed the power of Christ to transform hearts In Vanishing Grace Philip Yancey describes her experience ldquo Joanna started visiting prisoners daily bringing them a simple gospel message of forgiveness and reconciliation She earned their trust got them to talk about their abusive childhoods and showed them a better way of resolving conflicts The year before her visits began the prison recorded acts of violence against inmates and guards the next year there were two rdquo The apostle Paul wrote ldquo If anyone is [... more]