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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...

Free and Forgiven Celebrated children’s television host Fred Rogers was also an ordained Presbyterian minister. When he was dying of stomach cancer, he often read Matthew 25 where Jesus tells the parable of the sheep and the goats. “Am I a sheep?” he would ask his wife, Joanne. She would reply, “Fred, if anyone is a sheep, then you are.”...

Jesus the Creator John Calvin once declared, “There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.” One of the fundamental beliefs in the Bible is that the world is not the result of chance, but rather that God is the Creator of all things. This belief leads to a sense of purpose in our...

The Hope of the Gospel “I now pronounce you husband and wife!” In the right context and spoken by the right person, these are beautiful and powerful words. Philosopher J. L. Austin calls this type of statement a “speech-act.” That is, in the speaking of certain words, an action is taking place. With this statement, the bride and groom, who...

Joy in Suffering In early October 1536, William Tyndale was put to death for translating the Bible into the English language. He had tried to procure permission to translate it legally, but was rejected. He knew the risks of continuing the project, but did it anyway because he understood the value of God’s Word. Tradition tells us his last...

Receive and Live Academic dissertations often have the most incomprehensible titles. In an effort to help, one website encouraged scholars to sum up their work in one easily understood sentence. The results were quite comic. For example, one complex dissertation titled “Using Zinc Finger Nucleases to Characterize the Regulation of c-MYC Transcription”...

Don’t Be Taken Captive Iker Casillas is arguably one of the greatest goalkeepers to have played the game of soccer. In the 2013–2014 playoffs in Spain, Casillas became the first goalkeeper in history not to allow a goal for the entire eight-game tournament. That level of perfection takes constant vigilance. You cannot take your eyes off the...

Alive in Christ: Part 1 “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” This line from William Shakespeare’s As You Like It has staying power because of the strength of metaphor. Metaphor is one of the most potent ways to communicate an idea. As one writer explains, a “metaphor consists in bringing two sets of ideas close...

Dying to Self In January, Netflix released a special featuring Marie Kondo, who urged home owners to “tidy” by getting rid of excess clothing, books, and household items. Her best-selling book and the televised special received so much attention that many people began emptying closets and drawers, trying to live a new life less cluttered...