As the Roman Empire came to its close, all the old gods of the pagan world were seen as demons by the Christians who rose. It was useless to tell them as the centuries passed that their Christ was but another God of the Wood, dying and rising, as Dio...
What a terrible thing it is for children to see death, you say. We have it all wrong. If you make a child terrified of death, he won't embrace it so easily. And death must be embraced if you wish to follow Christ. Listen to His teaching. 'Unless you ...
His argument runs like this: there is no goodness without free will. Without the ability to freely choose-or reject-the good, an individual possesses no control over his own soul, and without that control, there is not possibility of attaining grace....
If I speak in the tongues of Reformers and of professional theologians, and I have not personal faith in Christ, my theology is nothing but the noisy beating of a snare drum. And if I have analytic powers and the gift of creating coherent conceptual ...
If we feel unloved, it is difficult to truly love. If we feel rejected, it is difficult to truly accept. If we feel afraid, it is difficult to truly live. If we feel abandoned, it is difficult to truly belong. If we feel despair, it is difficult to t...
If God is love (1 John 4:7) but intended Christ’s atoning death to be the propitiation for only certain people so only they have any chance of being saved, then 'love' has no intelligible meaning when referring to God. All Christians agree that God...
One day when God fell asleep And the Holy Ghost went off flying, He got into a box of miracles and stole three. With the first he made it so that no one would know he had run away. With the second he made himself a human boy forever. With the third h...
...This is the way we should see Christ. He is our friend, our brother; He is whatever is good and beautiful. He is everything. Yet, He is still a friend and He shouts it out, "You're my friends, don't you understand that? We're brothers. I'm not...I...
But in his lapsed and sinful state, man is not capable, of any by himself, either to think, to will, or to do that which is really good, but it is necessary for him to be regenerated and renewed in his intellect, affections or will, and in all his po...
Think of the self that God has given as an acorn. It is a marvelous little thing, a perfect shape, perfectly designed for its purpose, perfectly functional. Think of the grand glory of an oak tree. God’s intention when He made the acorn was the oak...
One response was given by the innkeeper when Mary and Joseph wanted to find a room where the Child could be born. The innkeeper was not hostile; he was not opposed to them, but his inn was crowded; his hands were full; his mind was preoccupied. This�...
God uses chronic pain and weakness, along with other afflictions, as his chisel for sculpting our lives. Felt weakness deepens dependence on Christ for strength each day. The weaker we feel, the harder we lean. And the harder we lean, the stronger we...
I am not here to serve myself. I am not here to be lauded, petted, admired or ‘affirmed.’ I am here to build men, cultures and kingdoms. When I find myself in the midst of difficulties and pain, will I persevere, or will I become a coward and pit...
Bob: [Bob is waiting outside the city prison after Hartigan's release] It's a lotta miles into town, Hartigan. You care for a ride? John Hartigan: Long as you stay in front of me. Bob: Prison's made you paranoid. Talk about water under the bridge. Ch...
Withnail: [looking at the kitchen sink overflowing with dirty dishes] Oh, Christ almighty. Sinew in nicotine base. Keep back, keep back! The entire sink's gone rotten. I don't know what's in here. [he picks up the kettle on the stove. It's too hot so...
God reminds us again and again that things between He and us are forever fixed. They are the rendezvous points where God declares to us concretely that the debt has been paid, the ledger put away, and that everything we need, in Christ we already pos...
A picture in a book, a lynching. The bland faces of men who watch a Christ go up in flames, smiling, as if he were a hooked fish, a felled antelope, some wild thing tied to boards and burned. His charred body gives off light--a halo burns out of him....
No one should be surprised at the difficulty of faith, if there is some part of his life where he is consciously resisting or disobeying the commandment of Jesus. Is there some part of your life which you are refusing to surrender at his behest, some...
Literature for me… tries to heal the harm done by stories. (How much harm? Most of the atrocities of history have been created by stories, e.g., the Jews killed Jesus.) I follow Sartre that the freedom the author claims for herself must be shared w...
By shattering my preconceptions and cultural stereotypes, what materialized was a massive personality who was astonishingly winsome yet gravely terrifying. A man whose breathtaking compassion would draw you in, but whose ferocious honesty could cut a...
Christianity may be good and Satanism evil. Under the Constitution, however, both are neutral. This is an important, but difficult, concept for many law enforcement officers to accept. They are paid to uphold the penal code, not the Ten Commandments ...
