Love From Tragedy: Portland MAX Stabbing
On Friday, May 26th, three men were stabbed, two of them to death, by another man who was verbally attacking two young women on a MAX train in Portland. The suspect was apprehended not long afterward, but he was far from remorseful; even in court, he continued shouting racial and religious epithets, claiming patriotism and freedom as his motives and insisting that he was proud of what he did. When contemplating such a traumatic and tragic event, we Christians often fall back
Raising Spiritual Champions
George Barna makes the case in his book Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions (Regal Books, 2004) that the most important ministry in the church should be children's ministry. Out of all the people that come to Christ, so many of them do so before the age of 18. With this in mind, he asks the question: Who primarily has the responsibility of helping children grow into spiritual champions? Barna says unabashedly the primary responsibility falls on the parents. But it’
A Morning Meditation
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22 With the dawn of every new morning comes an extension of divine mercy. And it is not simply the case that His mercy is carried in, per se, by each new dawn; each new dawn is carried in by His mercy. If it were not for the steadfast and merciful love of God, opportunity for life would cease. As David Steindl-Rast says, “All of
Spiritual Armor
One of my favorite Bible passages of all time is Ephesians 6:10-20. Yes, probably because it sounds so superheroic - and I’m all about heroes. Everyone who grew up in church is at least somewhat familiar with the passage. It’s one of the Apostle Paul’s famous metaphors, and describes the essential elements of the Christian faith as pieces of armor that, when assembled and maintained properly, will allow us to “stand against the tactics of the devil” . . . But we can always us
Grace and Works
Historically, grace versus works has been a hot topic in the Church. So before beginning, I want to state emphatically that our own works have absolutely nothing to do with receiving God’s forgiveness (grace) unto salvation. Obviously, this sort of treatise can only scratch the surface of the interplay between grace and works. It is my hope and prayer to inspire you to do further study on this topic. That being said, let’s begin. Most of us are familiar with Ephesians 2:8 (by
