After rising from baptismal burial with Jesus, a new convert feels wonderfully clean before God. The blood of Christ has washed away his sins, and he is certain that death will find him prepared for the day of judgment. With the passing of time, though, insidious doubts begin to creep in and steal the new…
My father grew up on an Iowa farm in the 1930’s and 40’s. One Saturday afternoon his older brother, Verle, was taking a bath in a tub placed in the middle of the kitchen floor. “The Morlan girls are coming!” someone called out. Hoping to escape the eyes of his cousins, my uncle jumped out…
Teenagers long to excel in something important to them. James studies tirelessly, hoping to be the class valedictorian. Heather monitors every bite of food and follows all the beauty tips in her teen magazines, hoping to be chosen homecoming queen. Drew spends endless hours lifting weights and running, hoping to become the most valuable player…
Paul, along with Silas and Timothy, established the Philippian church on his second missionary journey (Acts 16:12-40). Apparently, most of the new converts were non-Jewish. The absence of a synagogue in the city (v. 13) indicated that few Jews lived in the area. In addition, the names of the Philippians mentioned in Paul’s letter to…
Historian Saul Friedlander is the author of Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution 1933-1939. In a phone conversation with my mom a few years ago, I told her that I was about to read this book. At one point she remarked that Holocaust deniers astonished her. How could people deny a historical…
Nehemiah, cupbearer to the Persian king Ar-ta-xerxes, received royal permission to take an extended leave and go to Jerusalem as its governor to rebuild the city’s broken walls. Nehemiah completed this project far more quickly than anyone thought possible. But Sanballat and Tobiah, enemies of the Jewish people, opposed the governor at every turn. One…