In an ideal church, all whose hearts have been touched by God’s love will volunteer and dedicate themselves to serve God and His people, no matter how big or petty, difficult or easy the tasks are. But most churches operate by the 10-90 rule, where 10 percent of the people do 90 percent of the work. The other 90 percent may be viewed as dead weight
Do Christians have the easy road? Some seem to think that because they believe in God, life will be smooth sailing. Actually, those choosing to live according to God’s perfect plan will face many trials and perplexities here on earth. The Christian way will not be popular or free from challenges. However, we have not known a time in earth’s recent
Sunday, August 24, 2014, concluded the 10-day International Conference on the Bible and Science: Affirming Creation, held primarily in Saint George, Utah. The conference brought together approximately 400 attendees from all 13 divisions of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and more than 35 presenters from the fields of religion, biology, paleontolog
Seventh-day Adventist Church President Ted N.C. Wilson presented the opening and closing speeches at the International Conference on the Bible and Science: Affirming Creation in Saint George, Utah, August 14-24. His sermons centered on the two points emphasized throughout the conference by various presenters: the authority of Scripture and the inte
A few participants at the International Conference on the Bible and Science shared their impressions with the readers of The Compass Magazine as answers to the questions below or in free form. We extend them another “thank you” for taking the time to share their reflections with us. Please summarize in a couple sentences your overall impression of
The Greek philosopher Socrates was known as the gadfly of the state because he attempted to “sting” his Athenian contemporaries into consideration of the justice and rightness of their actions. In his book Socrates Meets Jesus: History's Greatest Questioner Confronts the Claims of Christ, Peter Kreeft addresses the gadfly phenomenon by exploring Je
How do we learn how to follow Jesus, and persuade others to do likewise? This is not as easy a question to answer as we might suppose. Let’s look at the story of the brothers Charles and John Wesley, as told by Ellen White, to see why. White observed that “[Charles] Wesley and his associates were led to see that true religion is seated in the heart
