A Christmas Story
I want to tell you a story… It takes place during the early 1800s in a small town in Upstate New York. It’s about a man, his wife and their four sons. The man was the owner of a small grocery store that kept his family quite busy. The summers in their town were warm but the winters were brutally cold. Because of this, the grocery store didn’t do very much business during the winter months. It seems that people would stock up on their supplies at the end of fall so they wouldn’t have to travel out in the [...]
Prove It!
A friend of mine was talking to his friend about Christianity. Along the way, the topic of the truth of the Bible came up. But it seemed that no matter how he tried, he couldn’t convince his friend of the authority of the scriptures. In frustration, he asked me for some help. He asked, “How can I prove to someone that God wrote the Bible?” Good question… Tough question… My answer might surprise a lot of people. Here’s what I think: I don’t think that anyone can “prove” that God wrote the Bible. It’s not like we can point to [...]
Military Funeral
A friend of mine asked me a question about a hot social topic that is sure to ruffle some feathers but here goes: It was regarding an item we saw on the news about a group of Christians who were protesting outside the funeral service of a U.S. Marine. The reason for their protest was because the soldier was gay. The question asked to me was, “From a Christian perspective, who was wrong: the soldier, the protestors, or both?” As I said, my response may elicit some negative responses, but I have to tell it like it is. Make no [...]
The Boston Tragedy—Where Was God?
Like most everybody else, I rushed home from work to turn on the news and try to digest what had just happened. Was it an accident? Was it a terrorist attack? Those questions led to a flood of other, more pressing questions that I’m sure went through everybody else’s minds, too. How could this happen? What was going on? Is this just a piece of a bigger terrorist plot that’s about to unfold? How do I keep my family safe? I wonder what my kids are feeling now, watching this as adults? In 2001, they were so young. I wonder [...]
The Importance of Resurrection Day
Is Easter really all that important? How important is the commemoration of the resurrection of Christ? Without a doubt, it has got to be the most important day on the Christian calendar! Forget Christmas; nothing beats Resurrection Day. The Apostle Paul said that if the resurrection didn’t happen, then our whole Christian faith system is a waste of time!1 So, yeah, it’s that important. For many of us Christians, Easter is one of those few days a year when we get to see and converse with a lot of family members that we don’t normally get to. We get a [...]
Who Are the Foolish Ones?
I received a question from a friend of mine wondering about the symbolism in one of Jesus’ parables. It was from the story of the ten virgins in Matthew 25:1–13. To paraphrase, the story goes something like this: Ten young ladies took their oil lamps and were waiting for their bridegroom to arrive. We are told that five were wise and the other five were foolish. The reason they were foolish was that those five forgot to bring a supply of oil to keep their lamps lit so the bridegroom could find them when he got there. It takes a [...]
Go Out Into the World
Jesus called His people to “go out into the world and make disciples.” He knew that for the most part, people outside Christianity would not go to those inside, so He told us Christians to do the “going.” Unfortunately, many Christians today neither “go out” nor try to “make any disciples.” Let’s face it: neither step is very easy. In fact, both steps can be quite uncomfortable. In order to make disciples, we need to be disciples ourselves. By studying some Church history we learn that at the time of Christ, disciples were more than just “learners” of the sayings [...]
Angels Watching Over Me
Whenever someone brings up the topic of the supernatural, a wide range of emotional responses fly through people’s minds. Those responses range from one extreme to the other. Some people find the very thought of the supernatural to be absolutely ridiculous, while others are so intrigued by it that they expect to see the face of a demon around every corner. Of course, the fact is that Christians do believe in a Supernatural God. He is a God who is a Spirit Being, One who is not only capable of defying natural laws but does so at will. He is [...]
The Nature of Prayer
I was recently asked an interesting question by a friend of mine about the nature of prayer. His question went along these lines: “If two people are both praying to God but asking Him for two opposite things, to whom does God listen?” At first I thought that this would be rather easy to answer and just say, “He listens to the one who prays the will of God.” But after thinking about it more carefully, I realized that this was no easy question. We need to take a good look at all the many different facets of prayer. First [...]
The Problem of Evil
At some point in everyone’s life, we all ponder the same question about the existence of God. We think about all the evil in the world and then wonder, “If there is such a One as an all-powerful God, then why is there so much tragedy, suffering, and pain in this world?” This question (or some form of it) has been asked since the beginning of time. It just seems like a paradox to our logical way of thinking. Although this is a very common question, it is by no means an easy one to answer. It is a question [...]
