“Begin to rejoice in the Lord, and your bones will flourish like an herb, and your cheeks will glow with the bloom of health and freshness. Worry, fear, distrust, care—all are poisonous! Joy is balm and healing, and if you will but rejoice, God will give power” (A.B. Simpson). A keynote theme in Paul’s letter to the Philippian church is joy. The Apostle in fact uses the word “joy” 18 times in the ...  Read More

“Human history is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy” (C.S. Lewis). The Gospel writer Luke often uses historical “anchors,” as I will term them, to secure an event within a particular time frame (cf. HCBC). This is significant for us today because Luke wrote of an earth-changing event that has implications for all of time. Jesus came in...  Read More

Have you noticed that the greatest rescues often occur in the hour of deepest despair? I recently followed the stress-filled events following an under-construction road tunnel collapse in India where forty-one men were trapped for seventeen days. Hope hung in the balance as rescuers worked frantically around the clock to clear a path through 60 meters of collapsed shaft to rescue the workers.There...  Read More

“We must learn to regard people less in light of what they do or omit to do, and more in light of what they suffer” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer). These words reflect true biblical meaning and will often get a person persecuted!For example, I recall a time in ministry when I received a phone call from a religious-party activist who told me that I was being “watched” because I had not responded rightfully ...  Read More

Many climb the mountain of suffering and even rise above their circumstances, but they fail to understand how they arrived or how they will survive the descent. Job provides us with a powerful example of how to endure suffering and emerge victorious. The heart of Job’s testimony is grounded in his faith, and his example causes us to ask a question of our own life pilgrimages. What do we do when Go...  Read More

An oft-heard maxim is that you cannot legislate morality. Perhaps this is so, but we can bow our hearts to the Lord and live out the mandates of His law He has written on our hearts. This humility before the Lord provides us with standards for right living that will lead to His peace in our hearts, homes, churches, and communities (see Matthew 5:9, 17-48).The violence from Israel to Ukraine to her...  Read More

Corrie Ten Boom once said, “The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation.” Speaking of contributions, have you ever wondered why Mark would include this story of a poor woman’s offering at this pivotal place in his Gospel account? I have! He makes a powerful point by calling all of us to measure our gifts by their quality, not simply their quantity. But why would he want...  Read More

We live in a war-torn world. We are eyewitnesses to war within countries, war within regions, war within communities and families, and war within human hearts. This month, we spotlight a contemporary PeaceWeaver, who has spent his life addressing the causes, preventing, and halting war. For two decades, Greg Boyle has rescued young men and women from the ravages of soul-deep conflict. He is the Fo...  Read More

[Listen to the podcast of this article] The famous antiwar refrain to the 1970 song entitled, “War,” used as a title above, provides its own answer: “Absolutely nothin’!” Edwin Starr, who recorded that version of the song, continued to sing it through the years because he wanted such conflict to cease.War indeed represents one of the most controversial and complex moral issues of this age, and I w...  Read More

Job fiercely draws the bow of anger across the taught strings of his suffering, but rather than hearing discordance, we are blessed by the melodious strains of hope. What does one do with his or her suffering?Christians know that we do not suffer and grieve without hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14), but how may we embody such a testimony in our own travail? Let’s learn how to use our suffering to giv...  Read More

“Divine power and authority are not given for the purpose of parading flesh or exalting men, but to serve the church and save the lost” (T.L. Lowery). There are any number of ways the early church could have placed a spin on the deliverance of Peter from certain death, but they chose to present the case as total dependence upon God, His will, and the advance of the Gospel.This passage challenges t...  Read More

“Surrender yourselves then to be ledand disposed of just as God pleases,with respect both to your outwardand inward state.”* Most historians date the close of the Reformation to the year 1648. Luther in Germany, Zwingli and Calvin in Switzerland, Latimer and Ridley in England, and the Anabaptists in many parts of Europe, all had addressed errors they found in the Catholic tradition. Protests also...  Read More