This week – with flags and fireworks, parades and picnics, back-yard cook-outs and ballgame tailgates, water sports and watermelon, patriotic church services and patriotic goose bumps – we will celebrate our nation’s birthday one more time. Make no mistake about it, I am proud to be an American. I am glad I live in a…
My office was moved again last week – this time into a “Retirement Office.” It is my seventh office in twenty-two years on the Southwestern Baptist Seminary faculty, and my last. My wife won’t let me bring all the books and file cabinets and pictures home. So I have two options: keep teaching as an…
I’ve just returned from the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in San Antonio, Texas. More amazing to me than the inspiring sermons, the uplifting music, the debatable reports, and the non-binding resolutions, was hearing an experience from a colleague of mine. Staying in a hotel just a few block from the historic Alamo,…
I have been reading with great interest the activities surrounding the dedication of the Billy Graham Museum in North Carolina. Proving that no family is perfect, the Graham family has had their disagreements aired in the media. Finally the Museum is dedicated and open to the public. The most interesting event to me was reported…
Ever had an Elijah complex? Elijah was a 9th century prophet in Israel during the reign of King Ahab. At the darkest hour, God sent him to confront Ahab. There had been no rain for three years in Israel. Elijah had encountered the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel and killed all 850 of them…
Spiritual conflict! You have likely thought about this subject in terms of something that happens elsewhere–such as on the front lines of missionary service. After all, isn’t the heat of the battle always on the front lines? It is until the front lines reach your front door. Conflict is no longer something for other people…
The other morning I got up with a list of things that had to be done that day. When I lay down on the same bed that same night, none of the things I had planned to do had been done. Have you ever had a day when you never got to your “To Do”…
While I’ve always believed that the Bible was fully inspired by God, lately I’ve been inspired by even the divine arrangement of ideas in the Bible. For instance, the Psalmist – in the Psalm without equal – proclaims God “restores his soul” then goes on to affirm that God leads him “in paths of righteousness”…