The Power & Effects Of Sin
In the aftermath of World War I, and during the 1918–19 Spanish flu pandemic, William Butler Yeats wrote the now nearly ubiquitous line, Things fall apart the center cannot hold. Borrowing imagery from Christian apocalyptic writings, Yeats’s poem “The Second Coming” conveys the sense of overwhelming disaster. Things are not just different. They are disintegrating. […]
(PART THREE OF A FIVE-PART SERIES) If we can tell anything about him from the brief epistle that bears his name, Jude was not one of those people who always walks on the sunny side of life. His letter hoists the danger pennant for the Christians to whom he’s writing at the very beginning and […]
I’m stuck. I’m having difficulty finding a home in the church. I’m either being given less than the gospel or more than the gospel. One side denies transformative grace, and the other demands adherence to a severe legalism. Shortly after I came to faith and was baptized, I was told by a well-known pastor to […]
Skandalon is a word dear to the first-semester Greek student’it literally means ‘stumbling block.’ To English speakers, scandal connotes a lewd CNN headline or a story from the next church over. Scandal is engrossing and lets us shake our heads in superior disgust. We would never do anything so icky and dumb. The Greek student, […]
Almost every culture’whether it be ancient or modern’possesses a common superstitious belief that whenever anything bad happens to someone, it is because the person has done something to bring about the tragic event. It is common for people to ask themselves (or even ask others) what the victim did to cause God (or fate or […]
Vocations are grounded in creation itself and are symbolized in Scripture with commands to fill the earth and subdue it’that is, family and work (Gen. 1:28). These creational gifts from our benevolent Father remain in effect even after the Fall, though in that sinful moment they were distorted and transformed, or more appropriately “malformed,” by […]
I have a disease. I was born with it. I will die with it. In fact, I will die of it. An autopsy that could see everything about me would prove it to be the underlying cause of my death. While not all realize this and fewer acknowledge it, I have this malady in common […]
