Yesterday was my birthday. And this annual event has occupied my thinking a little more than in past years.
I have fluctuated between competing emotions. For instance I have felt a little like the baseball great Ty Cobb, who played in a different era. He retired in 1928 at the age of 41 with a lifetime .367 batting average. When he was 70 a reporter asked, “What do you think you’d hit if you were playing today?” Continue reading
Filed under Age
We’ve been watching the History Channel’s presentation of The Bible from Executive Producers Roma Downey and Mark Burnett. The reaction has been interesting.
Movie critics called it “fractious and overwrought,” “a further piece of evidence that drama and reverence don’t mix well,” and “a mini-series full of emoting that does not register emotionally.”
Predictability the Christian Post and similar news outlets have hailed The Bible as “awesome,” inspiring, and “spot on.” Continue reading
Filed under Bible, Discipleship
“These are the times that try men’s souls,” wrote Founding Father Thomas Paine in The American Crisis, as he described the beginning of the American Revolution.
Today in America we face a different kind of trial. A culture crisis. A clash of thought. Of Philosophy. Of basic beliefs. It is a culture war between the Judeo-Christian ethic on which our country was founded, and post-modernism, which rejects Christian values and seeks to eliminate religious thought from the public life. Continue reading
“A picture is worth a thousand words.” Really? Says who?
Give me 1,000 words and I will give you: Continue reading
Filed under Communication, Word of the Week, Words
He was a transgressor. A thief. A loser. He deserved to die. And so on that fateful Friday he and his comrade in crime would be executed. They would die alone and unknown. Except for an unexpected intervention in providence.
Between the two thieves would be an innocent man. A good man. A blameless man. Actually, a sinless man. It was the man called Jesus. It was the day Christ was crucified between two outlaws. Continue reading
Filed under Cross, It's Friday. But Sunday's Coming!
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” –Jesus, John 14:6
Jesus’ statement seems simple. Straightforward. Clear-cut. Right?
Apparently Dr. Steve McSwain doesn’t think so. In a Huffington Post blog entitled, “Six Things Christians Should Just Stop Saying,” he says that we need to quit saying “Jesus is the only way to heaven.” Continue reading
Filed under Christ
“It isn’t inerrant and not likely even in the “original manuscripts.” But then, I cannot say that with absolute certainty, anymore than anyone else can either, writes Steve McSwain in the Huffington Post regarding the Bible.
McSwain, who is billed as a “Thought Leader, author, speaker and spiritual teacher,” posted this under the title “Six Things Christians should just stop Saying.” Why does McSwain make this charge? His answer?
Continue reading
Filed under Bible, Uncategorized
Norma Jean and I like to walk. It’s not only good exercise, but it’s a time for conversation and connection. From our house we walk to a park close by and enjoy its beauty and serenity, the fountain and an occasional deer in the woods.
However, the Kansas City winters have severely limited our outdoor walking. So, when it’s cold we walk indoors on the treadmill. Now the treadmill is not as much fun. There’s nothing to see. No scenery to enjoy. Only a small TV in front of us to look at. Sometimes we find ourselves in an almost trance-like state staring ahead and walking the treadmill.
All of this got me to thinking how life is like a cross between the treadmill and a walk in the park. Continue reading
“As white as the driven snow,” wrote Shakespeare in A Winter’s Tale. In Macbeth the poet used the expression “pure as snow.” Is there any better metaphor for whiteness than snow?
We witnessed this first hand recently in Kansas City, Missouri. We’ve had snow. Lots of it! Over two feet. Following the first snow, Norma Jean and I marveled one night on how light everything looked behind our house. The snow was so white. So bright. So intense in color that it looked like day light!
But do you know what’s whiter than snow? Continue reading
Filed under Salvation, Sin, Uncategorized
It has been said that a man is made in a crisis. I don’t think so. Rather, I believe that a man is revealed in crisis. Problems declare our demeanor. Either kind or caustic. Adversity unveils our underlying attitudes. Either positive or negative. Hardship displays our true character. Either honorable or disgraceful. Continue reading
Filed under It's Friday. But Sunday's Coming!, Uncategorized
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