Harry Spiller collects things. I have learned that Harry collects string, for example: he has mounds of it in his New York City apartment. Harry collects plastic spoons, too: bags upon boxes of plastic tableware. And Harry boasts the world’s … (read more)
New Testament people are a wonderfully unusual bunch. Not perhaps for the way they look. Not for the way they dress or the things they do or say. They are unusual for who they are — for their basic … (read more)
A few days ago I returned from a wonderful visit to several of our mission partners in India. I returned to Minneapolis full of enthusiasm — the sort of enthusiasm that issues from the conviction that God is at work … (read more)
Why Bethlehem, of all places in the world? Why should the Savior of all peoples everywhere land here – in “the little town of Bethlehem”? Surely our wonderful Lord might have done better! Heaven must have known, for example, that … (read more)
It turns out that the earth is rather smaller than previously estimated. I learned of the discrepancy just the other day. Researcher Axel Nothnagel of the University of Bonn discovered the error, having recently completed a measure of the earth’s … (read more)
I have been thinking lately of a little word from the New Testament — a word, like so many, that has changed dramatically over the years. It is a little word with big implications — paroikos, from which we derive … (read more)
“I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified….” (1 Corinthians 2:1-2) September brings us an ancient commemoration in the ecclesiastical calendar: “Holy Cross Day.” It falls every year on September 14. The day commemorates the … (read more)
“For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Corinthians 4:5). This year marks the 300th birthday of the “father of modern taxonomy.” It is possible that you … (read more)
It is a little word, in many ways, and unassuming. Yet it is large enough to convey our deepest Christian identity — and our mandate as Christians in the world. “Kaleo,” in New Testament Greek. “Called.” “In the use of … (read more)
“Let the little children come to me,” Jesus said. “For it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs” (Matthew 19:13-15). But the kingdom of heaven has missed a few of the little ones recently, it seems. … (read more)