This week we will turn a page on our calendars. A new year will begin. Someone said an optimist stays up until midnight to greet the New Year. A pessimist stays up to be sure the old year departs. There are other differences between optimists and pessimists. Most churches have both in their membership. My…
A group of shepherds left their flock to follow an angelic announcement of “a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). Among the well-known details, my question is: who kept the sheep? The shepherds left “with haste” for “the city of David”. Sheep lost ground on the shepherd’s priority list, when Jesus was born….
“God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world” is beautiful poetry written by Robert Browning. However, if God had remained in heaven, “all” could have never been right with the world. The story of Christmas is that God did not remain in heaven, but descended to earth in the person of a boy-child, arriving…
We stood at the very back of the magnificent Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City while a tour host dropped a pin on the platform. In the silence and the semi-darkness, we clearly heard the sound of the pin hitting the floor. Such are the amazing acoustics of the Tabernacle. For four hundred years there…
I had a difficult time switching from CNN last week as the terrorist attack on Mombai continued. Having ministered briefly in India and having former students presently serving in India, my interest level was high. All the good descriptive adjectives were used early and all I could think about were questions. How did we get…
Much recent news has been about money: stocks, bonds, the Dow, market failure, foreclosures, and bankruptcies. Few have avoided the aftereffects of the financial news. The times make Ecclesiastes 10:19 seem truer than ever: “Money answers everything.” Money is not particular about which master it serves, answering the call of both good and bad. It…
The first presidential election I remember was Eisenhower. Everyone in my family was a yellow-dog Democrat and Ike was a Republican, promising change. It was an appropriate promise since Ike’s predecessor, Harry Truman, had the lowest approval rating of any president in sixty years. I remember chaos and confusion. But Ike won and years later…
With the kind of friends Job had, he probably needed no additional enemies. When these three friends heard of Satan’s attack on Job’s character, property, children, and health, they made a visit to him. The first week of the visit was most interesting. “They sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven…
Everyone who knows the Bible knows that Job had a truck load of problems. He also asked a few good questions. “Who is the almighty, that we should serve Him and what profit do we have if we pray to Him? (Job 21:15)” I think you know who the almighty is and why we should…
The Apostle Paul said he had learned that in whatever circumstance he found himself to be “content” (Phil. 4:11). He didn’t say “satisfied.” There is a difference. Had Paul been willing to accept all his surroundings, positive as well as negative, he might have used the word “satisfied”, meaning, “happy, gratified, pleased.” Makes me wonder…