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During the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, security guard Richard Jewell noticed a suspicious backpack left in an open square. He alerted the authorities and began clearing the area. The backpack turned out to contain a bomb. But rather than being hailed as a hero, Jewell was suspected of planting the bomb.

Since its inception in 1902, Popular Mechanics magazine has published speculation and predictions about the world of the future, but some confident declarations have missed the mark—the 1929 prediction that people of the future would wear asbestos clothing and the 1951 assertion that people would fly personal helicopters in place of cars haven’t...

In his biography of Douglas MacArthur, William Manchester describes him in this way: “His belief in . . . God was genuine, yet he seemed to worship only at the altar of himself. He never went to church, but regarded himself as one of the world’s two great defenders of Christendom (the other was the pope).” Powerful leaders often succumb to...

In our passage, Joseph has also had a remarkable reversal of fortune. He woke up that morning in a prison. By the end of the day, he was proclaimed second in command in Egypt, the most powerful nation in the world.

Can people change? The answer has been debated for generations by philosophers, psychologists, and poets. Some argue we are born as blank slates to be shaped by our circumstances. Others claim we come into this world with our personalities and proclivities already determined.

oseph and his brothers all had scars from the betrayal that had torn apart their family several decades earlier. But finally reunification and reconciliation was possible. Joseph embraced his brothers, and “afterward his brothers talked with him” (v. 15). This is more than a throwaway observation. Recall that, years before, “they hated him...

In the 1950s, Bill Fair and Earl Isaac created an automated scoring system to rate how likely a person was to repay a debt, which became the credit-score system vital in the economy today. If someone makes a promise, how do we know they will fulfill it? The credit rating is important because humans can be unpredictable. The objective measurement...

From 1845 to 1849, Ireland experienced what became known as the Great Famine. A potato blight wiped out the crop most people depended on for both food and wages, absentee landlords allowed high rents to be collected for squalid living conditions, and high taxes made other available food such as bread too expensive. Some one million people...

Promise Kept at Mount Sinai Mount Rushmore in South Dakota has been called the “Shrine of Democracy.” The heads of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln were carved out of the mountain in 1941 and restored for the 50th anniversary in 1991. It currently welcomes nearly three million visitors per year.

Aaron’s Death on Mount Hor The English language includes many idiomatic expressions for death and dying. We might say someone “kicked the bucket” or is “pushing up daisies.” More respectful expressions include “passed on” or “departed this life.” Christians might say a fellow believer has been “promoted to glory.” And it’s certainly accurate...