Paul is not saying that I must have nothing to do with the people and things of the world. Ironically, if I must have nothing to do with the world and must separate from it, then the world still has q...
Let the knowledge of your grace make me never less but only more intensely devoted to obeying you.
Let me put it another way. There is a stupid peace and then there is a smart peace. The stupid peace comes from refusing to think about your overall situation. If you go that way, you can pop a cork,...
Jesus’s miracles in particular were never magic tricks, designed only to impress and coerce. You never see him say something like: See that tree over there? Watch me make it burst into flames! Instead...
It is worth asking ourselves: Where am I saying I can’t but God is saying You won’t? Israel’s failure to obey was based on what they saw as good reasons—God said they were flimsy excuses. Why? Because...
I think that people will definitely go on holding to their beliefs in human dignity even when conscious belief in God is gone. Why is this the case? I have a radical thesis. I think people in our cult...
Here, then, is the message. Don’t love anything less; instead learn to love God more, and you will love other things with far more satisfaction.
God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed an...
Freedom, then, is not the absence of limitations and constraints but it is finding the right ones, those that fit our nature and liberate us.
El Señor del universo se identificó con los más excluidos y los más pequeños de la raza humana.
Christians do not claim that their faith gives them omniscience or absolute knowledge of reality. Only God has that. But they believe that the Christian account of things—creation, fall, redemption, a...
Charles Taylor explains why modern people are far more likely to lose their faith over suffering than those in times past. He says it is because, culturally, our belief and confidence in the powers of...
Augustine believed that even when you seem to be enjoying something else, God is the actual source of your joy. The thing you love is from him and is lovely because it bears his signature. All joy is...
At one level, the only reason you can know anything is because of God. God made your mind and your cognitive faculties. At another level, we can’t possibly know who God is unless he reveals it to us,...
Adoption usually occurred when a wealthy adult had no heir for his estate. He would then adopt someone as heir—it could be a child, a youth, or an adult. The moment adoption occurred, several things w...
A common image of hell in the Bible is that of fire.10 Fire disintegrates. Even in this life we can see the kind of soul disintegration that self-centeredness creates. We know how selfishness and self...
Lord, admitting my accomplishments are your gift is a bittersweet thing to do. It stings at first because it humbles. But then it is so very sweet and brings such peace. It is not up to me, and it nev...
Christians, then, should expect to find nonbelievers who are much nicer, kinder, wiser, and better than they are. Why? Christian believers are not accepted by God because of their moral performance, w...
A theologically thick view of sin, by contrast, sees it as a compulsive drive of the heart to produce idols. This view should lead neither to withdrawal nor to uncritical consumption, but rather to hu...