He is foolish indeed who harps about justice when he truly deserves condemnation. This opening sentence sure seems to set a harsh tone! I hope not. Most of my readers will know that this devotional series grew out of a request from my family for something deeper in a daily devotional. They committed to read whatever I pen, and I have been writing for nearly five years. The opening sentence to this...  Read More

Suffering makes God “appear to be absent.” So what are we to do when we suffer and when God does not answer the question, “Why am I suffering?” Job teaches us that we should use our God-given minds and hearts to respond to Him in faith. God has demonstrated the vastness of His person and the scope of His reach into areas well beyond anything that Job can comprehend. The contrite, suffering man cle...  Read More

“Come let us reason!” I cannot help but think of Paul whenever I consider the use of solid reasoning to convince people of Christian truth. One of Paul’s wonderful attributes, and there were many, was his use of argument. By this term, I mean rhetoric. For example, there is a key thread of reasoning that he weaves throughout 1 Corinthians 8-10. In our focal verses, he reaches back to 1 Corinthians...  Read More

What comes to mind when I say, “War?” You may think of any number of global and regional conflicts like World War II and the war in Iraq. We have another possibility to consider. The comic strip Pogo once stated famously, when referring to ecology, “We have met the enemy and it is us.” The psalmist reminds us today that we are often our own worst enemies! War does not take place solely on battlefi...  Read More

It has been said, “The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings” (Kate Chopin, The Awakening). Jewish tradition had become an oppressive burden for Jews to carry. Our Lord challenged it and called for it to be stripped away for people to take flight in a direct encounter with God. Jesus was gathering a new community, and it would be necessary to ...  Read More

Could it be possible that a single church’s response of forgiveness in crisis turned an entire nation toward peace? The answer is yes, and a work not new to Malkhaz Songulashvili, who has led the Baptists of Georgia (former Soviet Republic) to model reconciliation in their war-ravaged nation for years. Generations of the Republic of Georgia’s citizens have lived through the World Wars, with their ...  Read More

One bright day on 23 August 1835 in the village of Homer, New York, about thirty miles south of Syracuse, near Lake Ontario, a young bride greeted her soon-to-be husband, Samuel. They entered the little Homer church together to take their vows and began a legacy that has endured until the present day. The handsome young groom, Samuel Stearns Day, was born in a hamlet in Ontario, Canada, in 1808 to...  Read More

In March of 1901, a tiny girl-child was born to a Presbyterian lay preacher and his wife in Toronto, Canada. Her grandfather had been an ordained Presbyterian minister. Even so, with all of these generations of good models and devout home life, Belle did not know Jesus personally. She entered college, and her professor sneered at her belief in God and the Bible, proclaiming that no enlightened per...  Read More

Early in 1612, Edmund was arrested for preaching “that the baptizing of infants is an abominable custom; that the Lord’s supper and baptism are not to be celebrated as they are now practiced in the Church of England; and that Christianity is not wholly professed and preached in the Church of England, but only in part.” Later historians noted that “they found him guilty of many heresies, some of wh...  Read More

 Ida Sophia Scudder (December 9, 1870 – May 23, 1960) was born into the famous Scudder family. Her grandfather, Rev. Dr. John Scudder, Sr., had been the first American medical missionary, and had served as a doctor in Panditeripo, Ceylon, India with the Reformed Church in America. His seven sons, all born in India, became missionaries too. The youngest son, John Jr., married and soon became Ida’s ...  Read More

Born and reared in the north as a free black during the Revolutionary War in America, Thomas Paul heard the cry for freedom. He became one of the most ardent supporters of “soul-liberty” that America has ever known. While all but forgotten today, the legacy of this pastor, church planter, abolitionist, and missionary, still echoes, both from pulpits and in the hearts of freedom-advocates across th...  Read More

“The Way” creates disruption because it causes a radical transformation of life, not simply because of its doctrinal truths (19:23, 35-37; see also 18:15). The form that Gospel resistance takes often changes shape, but the underlying reality is still the same. People resist God’s moral challenge to their lives. So, we need to be aware of the nature of the Good News and the responsibility that it p...  Read More