We grow up hungry for love, and in ways so deep as to remain unexpressed we long for our Maker to love us.
Virtually every passage on suffering in the New Testament deflects the emphasis from cause to response. Although we cannot grasp the master plan of the universe, which allows for so much evil and pain...
To put the issue bluntly, are the Beatitudes true? If so, why doesn't the church encourage poverty and mourning and meekness and persecution instead of striving against them? What is the real meaning...
To pray is to walk in the full light of God, and to say simply, without holding back, ‘I am human and you are God.
Those who observe suffering are tempted to reject God; those who experience it often cannot give up on God, their solace and their agony. The presence of so many in church on a wintry night proved his...
The key is this: the main benefit of giving is in its effect on the giver. Yes, people in Africa and India need my financial help, as the fund-raising appeals urgently remind me. But in truth my need...
Taken as a whole, the Bible clearly puts the emphasis on what pleases God—the point of worship, after all. To worship, says Walter Wink, is to remember Who owns the house.
Religious faith—for all its problems, despite its maddening tendency to replicate ungrace—lives on because we sense the numinous beauty of a gift undeserved that comes at unexpected moments from Outsi...
Rejoicing in suffering does not mean Christians should act happy about tragedy and pain when they feel like crying. Rather, the Bible aims the spotlight on the end result, the productive use God can m...
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; th...
Modern humanity does not perceive the world as worth God dying for. We Christians must demonstrate it.
I have mentioned that no one offers the name of a philosopher when I ask the question, Who helped you most? Most often they answer by describing a quiet, unassuming person. Someone who was there whene...
How differently would the world view Christians if we focused on our own failings rather than on society’s? As I read the New Testament I am struck by how little attention it gives to the faults of th...
From Jesus I learn that God is on the side of the sufferer.
Doubt always coexists with faith, for in the presence of certainty who would need faith at all?
Dependence, sorrow, repentance, a longing to change—these are the gates to God's kingdom.
Dependence, humility, simplicity, cooperation, and a sense of abandon are qualities greatly prized in the spiritual life, but extremely elusive for people who live in comfort.
Church is a place where I can say, unashamedly, I don't need to sin. I need another sinner.
C. S. Lewis shocked many people in his day when he came out in favor of allowing divorce, on the grounds that we Christians have no right to impose our morality on society at large. Although he would...
But the strength and beauty of age is spiritual. We gradually lose the strength and beauty that is temporary so we’ll be sure to concentrate on the strength and beauty which is forever.