A book review on the last day of 2024 in the Wall Street Journal has a wonderful and surprising final paragraph. The reviewer is Maxwell Carter, who is vice chairman of 20th- and 21st-century art at Christie’s in New York, and the book is The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: An Extraordinary New Journey … [Read more…]
In the last sermon of 2024 at our church, the pastor made what I thought was a good point about the Great Commission, Matthew 28:18-20: 18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them … [Read more…]
What better topic than sin as you draw up your New Year’s resolutions? When trying to avoid sin, it seems to me that two problems commonly arise that are not quite the same thing: They are close but distinct. First, we might wonder whether the Bible labels an action sinful at all. Second, we might … [Read more…]
Of course he was, but you wouldn’t know from the NBC national news tonight. That program closed with a segment that the show promised would describe the important life role played by the late president’s deep personal “faith.” And, to be sure, it did mention”Sunday school” and “God” and even showed briefly a shot of … [Read more…]
Christmas gets some bad press these days for, especially, its commercialism. But let’s not miss the forest for the (Christmas) trees: It’s a great holiday, especially for Christians — and it’s a great way to send the Christian message to everyone else. For starters, how could Christians not celebrate the birth of their Savior? You … [Read more…]
Playwright David Mamet (here) recently had an interesting observation on the Book of Jonah. His synagogue’s congregation was meditating on the book during the recent Yom Kippur; his insight was triggered by remembering Rush Limbaugh’s observation once that, when you’re arguing with someone intransigent, it isn’t necessarily futile, because some third party might be listening: … [Read more…]
I was googling “best gospel books” or something like that and, lo and behold, I found the subject of this blog post, namely Leo Tolstoy’s The Gospel in Brief. My thought then was, well, Tolstoy was one of the great writers of all time, and a committed Christian, and so it would make a lot … [Read more…]
Jesus’ famous dialogue in the synoptic Gospels with the “rich young ruler” is intriguing and was the subject of a sermon and then small-group discussion at our church recently. Here’s the version in Mark 10: 17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good … [Read more…]
There is an almost surreal quality to the last chapter of John, the last chapter of the Gospels. Jesus has already be resurrected and appeared to the disciples, and Peter decides to go back to his fishing. And other disciples join him, and they fish all night, unsuccessfully. Jesus then appears on the shore, cooking … [Read more…]
A couple of weeks ago (on October 18) a friend of mine sent around this short biography of St. Luke, which I generally enjoyed and thought I would share here. My friend cautions that he drew this from a number of sites and that he may have been guilty of some plagiarism in doing so, … [Read more…]