Only one week before his death in July 1555, English Protestant John Bradford wrote from prison to his mother. “I die not, my good mother, as a thief, a murderer, an adulterer,” he wrote, “but I die as a witness of Christ, His gospel and verity.” Though he would soon become a martyr for his faith, Bradford trusted in God’s goodness. Writing to comfort men and women who likewise faced suffering and death, he described the Christian life as a voyage on a stormy sea. Buffeted and beaten by … [Read more...]
The thread of Scripture leads us to the real Jesus
More than 2 million people flocked to northern Italy in 2015 to take a rare glimpse at the Shroud of Turin, purportedly the burial clothe in which the crucified Christ was wrapped and which now bears His image. Around the same time, CNN featured the shroud in the first of several documentaries attempting to uncover the “historical Jesus” by examining such relics. “Why are we so fascinated with any historical artifact—relics, as some call them—associated with Jesus?” David Gibson and … [Read more...]
Defend the sanctity of life with compassion, conviction
Decline to Sign initiative petition supporting abortion Struggling to survive in Nazi-occupied Holland during World War II, a Jewish mother and her baby sought refuge in the home of Casper ten Boom, who lived with his unmarried daughter’s Corrie and Betsie. At that time, their home was already the hiding place for a handful of other Jews, and adding a mother and child to the household would only draw unwanted attention from the authorities. They needed to find another safe space for the … [Read more...]
Lostness abounds in the United States
Pray for North American missions, March 3-10 Nearly a dozen years ago, I spoke with Southern Baptist missionaries who at that time served in the city of Thessaloniki, Greece – that is, the home of the biblical Thessalonians, one of the first cities the apostle Paul visited on his first missionary journey to the European continent. Before moving to Thessaloniki, these same missionaries had served on mission at the edge of the world – namely, in the Russian city of Petropavlovsk, lying on … [Read more...]
‘One generation will declare Your works to the next’
From within the walls of a bleak Nazi prison cell, German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote words of joy and wisdom to his niece and her soon-to-be husband in May 1943. “Marriage is more than your love for each other,” Bonhoeffer wrote at the conclusion of his letter. “It has a higher dignity and power, for it is God’s holy ordinance, through which He wills to perpetuate the human race till the end of time. “In your love you see only your two selves in the world,” he added, “but in … [Read more...]
‘Love came down at Christmas’
Crossway Baptist Church in Springfield recently put on a production of “The Gospel According to Scrooge.” Pictures of the production on social media looked amazing, and I only wish I could have made it to Springfield to see the show. After all, Charles Dickens’ classic book, The Christmas Carol, has been one of my favorite books for many years, and I love watching film and theatre productions of the story each year at Christmastime. This year, another story has joined The Christmas Carol … [Read more...]
Pray for Israel, global missions, the persecuted church
A Missouri Baptist church group nearly found themselves in a war zone early last month. The group of 42 people from Heritage Baptist Church in Lebanon, Mo., flew out of Israel on Friday, Oct. 6 – just before Hamas assailants attacked Israel and sparked an ongoing war that has claimed thousands of lives. “The war started while we were in the air coming home,” Pastor Kevin Smith told me earlier this month. “We came home with full hearts, with everything we had seen and experienced,” he … [Read more...]
On cats, dogs and the paradoxes of happiness
This evening, as I began writing my editorial, a white Shih Tzu with patches of sandy fur stood on his hind legs, set his paws on my recliner and stared up at me. Unable to resist, I picked him up and set him next to me in the chair. He has now nestled his small, warm body against my leg and has drifted off to sleep. He’s an affectionate little puppy, the runt of a litter, and his name is Bear. Now, Bear isn’t our dog. We’re actually dog-sitting for family members, as we do every chance we … [Read more...]
Fight for life, journalism and the marking of a year
Far more than mere documents, the U.S. Constitution and Missouri’s Constitution represent “the way of life of a citizen-body.” That, at least, is how the ancients talked about constitutions. Now abortion activists are asking Missourians to enshrine the culture of death in the Constitution defining the state’s “way of life.” In 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, Missouri thankfully became the first state in the nation to ban abortion. But earlier … [Read more...]
God’s Word a miracle, a gift that keeps on giving
Our world, as someone has said, is “awash with words.” Words wake us, entertain us, console us, pester us, defend us, teach us, lull us to sleep. From infancy, we learn how – with a puff of the diaphragm, a tightening of the throat, a twist of the tongue and curling of the lips – to speak a simple word, like “water.” As children, we struggle to decipher and then scratch on paper the intricate lines and curves that make up the written word, “w-a-t-e-r.” Then, as we age, we become used … [Read more...]
‘Belt of truth’ holds us secure amid temptation
“Pablo Picasso’s creative genius towers over twentieth-century art,” Christian author and sociologist Os Guinness writes in his classic book, The Call. “But in his relationships, especially with women, he could be a devouring monster. The ‘Minotaur’ was his own name for himself, and ‘monster’ was the word used by friends such as sculptor Alberto Giacometti. ‘When I die,’ Picasso said, ‘it will be a shipwreck, and as when a huge ship sinks, many people all around will be sucked down with … [Read more...]
Despite hectic headlines, the gospel gives us peace
A glance at global headlines from the past several weeks makes one thing clear: The world is starving for peace. Apparently, this is true even on the baseball field, where Guardians third baseman José Ramírez and White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson threw off their gloves, Aug. 5, for a game-stopping, bare-fisted fight at second base. But global turbulence and brokenness has spread far beyond the ballfield, as made evident by a few recent reports from WORLD News Group: • In a South Korean … [Read more...]
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