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Righteous Excess A prominent pastor faces accusations of sexual impropriety. A Christian college president admits to financial misdeeds. A ministry leader is revealed to be verbally abusive to the staff. Behind each new revelation are broken lives and damaged trust, magnifying the toll of the sin. We might be surprised to read that one of...

False Fasting Fasting used to be done primarily for religious purposes. Today, most of those who voluntarily abstain from eating want to improve their health or to lose weight, with little thought given to fasting as a spiritual practice. In Isaiah’s day, people practiced fasting in an attempt to get God’s attention and enlist His aid. They...

The River and the City Magazines such as U.S. News & World Report, Kiplingers, and Money often publish articles about the best places to live or retire. These cities are chosen based on a combination of features that include scenery, the economy, and the range of amenities offered to residents. Safety is another important factor. Safety was...

God’s Care for All Creation Deism is a philosophy that believes in the existence of a supreme being but does not believe that this being is engaged with the universe. The god of deism created all things and then stepped back to let creation run according to its own laws. We might describe this god as the world’s absentee landlord. Today’s...

The Miraculous Feast In addition to mass-produced bread, many grocery stores now also sell artisan bread, which has been baked by a trained craftsman. And a renewed interest in ancient grains such as spelt has increased the kinds of breads that are available. Bread still tends to be an incidental part of meals for most of us, but in the ancient...

The Bread King Toddlers who receive gifts are often more interested in the wrapping paper and packaging than in what those things contain. We can do the same with God’s gifts. We become focused on the things we want from God and we lose sight of God Himself. This was the problem with the crowd that followed Jesus across the lake after the...

Bread from Heaven Many churches take steps to make certain that visitors feel comfortable. The greeting at the door, the music during the service, and the illustrations used in the sermon are all especially designed to make people curious about faith feel at home, in the hope that they will consider the gospel. Jesus’ interaction with the...

What Is Food For? Phyllis grew up in poverty during the Great Depression. Hunger was a daily concern for her family. Sometimes they had enough food for only three or four meals per week. On other occasions the entire family had to share a single can of beans. Perhaps because of this, Phyllis became obsessed with food as an adult. She had...

Partners Through Prayer As a junior high school student, I received a letter from an elderly woman in my home church. She wrote that she could not do much physically any longer, so she saw her primary ministry as prayer. She wrote to let me know that she would be praying for me daily for the rest of her life. Paul similarly encouraged the...

Knowing God Since 1995, Oxford University Press has been publishing a series of books called A Very Short Introduction. The purpose of this series is to provide readers with an overview of an entire complex subject in a very short book. The series has been quite successful with over 600 titles, ranging from introductions to animal behavior...