If you want to live well and share wisdom with your children and your neighbors about how they can also live well, the Bible will chart a sound course. If you are looking for inspiration or comfort or if you are preparing a speech, you will certainly want to lift some of the soaring phrases…
I taught 2nd grade at a small Christian school for a couple of years before moving up to 6th grade. I remember one day in class talking about James, the brother of Jesus. You would have thought I had just told them that the Easter Bunny was real the way some of them reacted to…
Unlike the people of Jesus’ day, or any modern-day religious Jew, most of us do not have the Old Testament as part of our collective memory. Unlike us, the Israelites of Jesus’ day had in their imaginations signs, images, and longings that were formed through their people’s history and the work of God among them….
Today’s younger generations, according to the Pew Research Center, may be leaving religion for good. Four in ten millennials now say they are religiously unaffiliated. They are “now almost as likely to say they have no religion as they are to identify as Christian.“ (1) This may sound alarming especially if you live in a…
She knocked on the dorm room door with fuzzy Sponge Bob pajama pants and a bowl of cereal in hand, looking for a little milk. Her hallmate, the student leader with whom I was co-hosting a small group Bible study, shared some milk and invited her to sit in on our study. The dynamic in…
According to Guinness World Records, “There is little doubt that the Bible is the world’s best-selling and most widely distributed book.” And yet, for a book acclaimed for the teachings of Jesus, its readers—and teachers—have vastly different ideas of what it looks like to follow these teachings. Our tendency is to approach the Bible as…
In July 2020, author and radio host, Eric Metaxas, tweeted, “Jesus was white.”(1) His tweet was in response to news that the United Methodist Church had enlisted author Robin DiAngelo to produce a series of videos about white privilege. He went on to say, “Did [Jesus] have ‘white privilege’ even though he was entirely without…
Each Thursday evening, my routine is the same. Swirl into the house after dinner with my in-laws, help get the bedtime routine off to a solid start, pop downstairs to make a quick cup of tea, and then head back upstairs to the office, where I settle into the rocking chair nestled in the far…