You have a best friend. He is amazing and you’ve been with him for years. You are completely convinced that he’s the guy you’ve been waiting for all your life and now he’s asking you to get swords. “We have two,” you say, a bit doubtfully. “That’s enough,” your friend replies, and you remember the time he turned two fish into a feast for five thousand. Ah, well, it’s clear what he has planned, and

“When I forget my name, remind me.”1 Listening to Andrew Peterson’s song, “Dancing In The Minefields”, I was struck by this line. In particular, the importance of naming jumped out at me. The fact that names are special isn’t a huge surprise. One need only think about how strongly people feel about their own names to confirm this. Feelings aside though, when we look at Scripture, naming often appears to go beyond merely identifying an

While much of the field of the History of Christianity (and indeed, history in general) focuses on the great people and ideas of the tradition or period being studied, the genre of “people’s history” seeks to raise awareness of the ways in which ordinary people have lived throughout time and space. Admirable as this project sounds, it is not without its problems. In my experience, many “people’s histories” tend to make significant assumptions concerning the

The Lord’s Prayer holds a special place in Christian practice and worship. According to Scripture, it is the prayer handed down from Jesus Christ himself. Christians have prayed it since the conception of the Church, and over the centuries theologians have analyzed its spiritual meaning. One of the greatest and most renowned theologians, Saint Thomas Aquinas, emphasized the Lord’s Prayer as the prayer which cultivates right worship of God and brings the believer closer to

Happy Halloween! Or Happy Reformation Day. Or Happy All Hallow’s Eve. Or maybe I should just wish you all a Happy Friday. For many Christians, today seems to be marked with uncertainty. Yes, we all enjoy seeing (and buying, but this isn’t the place for personal confession) the gigantic bags of candy in the grocery store. And most of us enjoy seeing hilariously clever punny costumes (admit it, you chuckled at those). But for many

Luke 16:19-31 As I read the Gospel for this week I noticed that in the title, “The rich man and Lazarus,” the rich man has no name. Names are so important. One of the very first things we do when we meet someone is to ask their name. Names are much more than letters that have been strung together. Ben. . .David. . .Mary. . . John. Names indicate who we are. So, for the

I asked my nephew once whether he thought God wanted us to be happy. His answer, not surprisingly, was a resounding yes. When I asked him why he thought that, he said, “Because it’s fun.” When I pressed him for more information, he got rather tired of the discussion and went off to play. After all, he was only five years old. I had a good chuckle. I even wrote a blog post about it

Become an empty singing bowl, whose chime Is richness rising out of emptiness, and timelessness resounding into time1 Thus Malcolm Guite, chaplain at Girton College at the University of Cambridge, opens his recent poetry collection, The Singing Bowl. In lieu of the traditional invoking of a Greek muse, as poets from Homer to John Milton have done, Guite opens with a prayer for inner silence so that another Spirit, that mysterious third Person of the

“Can you love your neighbor as yourself and at the same time knee him in the face as hard as you can?”   The recently released documentary Fight Church is a fascinating narrative that seeks to understand the intriguing intersection between Christianity and Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). It spotlights the ministries of numerous pastors who live both as leaders of church congregations and of MMA “fight ministries,” where “feet, fist, and faith collide.” Numerous subplots

Be willing to be only a voice that is heard but not seen, or a mirror whose glass the eye cannot see because it is reflecting the brilliant glory of the Son. Be willing to be a breeze that arises just before daylight, saying, “The dawn! The dawn!” and then fades away.1 “What prayer are you praying right now that you’re afraid God will answer?” Dark, questioning eyes probed my startled face when my friend

During the past decade, a small group of evangelical Christians claiming to be “ex-Muslim extremists” have entered the public discourse on Islam. They have written books, given speeches to law enforcement and military personnel, and appeared in the media. Unfortunately, their narratives contain serious discrepancies and several outright falsehoods. It cannot be known whether their deception is based on ideological motives, monetary reasons (these men have earned substantial amounts of money, including taxpayer funds, to

If there is one thing that modern people are surrounded by, it’s music. Radio for the car (if you’re not plugging your phone into the speakers), streaming services for home and office, music piped through coffee shops and shopping centers – it’s not that difficult to live with a steady diet of music. In my own experience, spending the last month and a half in the middle of nowhere highlighted just how much music I

You occasionally hear it from the talking heads or on the History Channel. Maybe you notice an article about it on your newsfeed. Or catch the random title while browsing Amazon or Barnes and Nobles. Pagan Christianity: What you do on Sundays is really from Ancient Egypt, Imperial Rome, or Royal Greece and certainly is not real Christian worship. Maybe you listen for a few seconds, start to read that article, or read the back

In my previous article I discussed medieval mysticism and some of the many factors surrounding its rise, including an increased literacy among lay people and the booming presence of vernacular languages in literature. When considering late medieval literacy and the rise of vernacular literature, the beloved poet Dante Alighieri is one of the most renowned and remarkable examples. His Divina Commedia journeys through hell (Inferno), purgatory (Purgatorio), and heaven (Paradiso). Dante is known now as

In Leadership Lessons: Avoiding the Pitfalls of King Saul (Thomas Nelson, 2013), Ralph K. Hawkins and Richard Leslie Parrott outline ten principles for leadership building from the life and failures of King Saul of Israel. Leadership Lessons uses the “worst practices” model of instruction, learning through the examination of the failures of others, much in the model of Gary McIntosh and Samuel Rima’s classic Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership. Beginning with an explanation of

Our life in Christ is a life of freedom and love; and because it is, we must choose this life. Not just once, but continually. This Gospel is so simple and straight forward that it becomes problematic. The Author of life encounters death and the outcome is exactly what we expect. We understand immediately what the Church is trying to teach us. We see a prefiguring of Pascha. We see that death has been overthrown;

Art is a beautiful thing, and the ability to produce it is a wonderful gift from God. Whether it takes the form of music, the written word, hand crafted images, or even a film, a well-crafted piece of art can serve as an excellent manifestation of God’s good creation and the potential beauty of our world. However, the sinful nature of mankind frequently distorts and abuses the gift of art, as it has done with

“Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And he laid his hands on them and went away.” (Matthew 19: 13-15)1   About once a quarter, Pastor John, a towering figure with grey hair and rosy cheeks, corners my

Over the past week or so, the Christian blogosphere has lit up with discussion of the new Left Behind film. Plugged In gave the film 4/5 stars, claiming it will force you to “wonder what’s up with your own spiritual condition.”1 Christianity Today, by contrast, called it “garbage, slapped with the Christian label on it,” and “a disaster flick injected with the slightest, most infinitesimal amount of Christianity possible.” 2 The Gospel Coalition argues the theology undergirding

Imagine Dragons begins their song “Demons” by painting the scene of a hopeless man in the cold, watching the cards fold. The only saints he can see are made of gold rather than flesh and bone. All that is good is extinguished from his life and he can turn nowhere for help because the problem lies with the demons inside… But what if the saints were clothed in sinews and skin? What if they had