September 11, 2001, was my generation’s Pearl Harbor. I was awakened by my grandfather who exclaimed in his native tongue that New York was in chaos. I turned on the television in my room and I saw a strange sight. I saw one of the Twin Towers with a gaping hole with smoke coming out of it and I was perplexed that the other tower was missing. I
Unlike robots, all human beings are likely to experience fatigue. Regardless of age, gender, or race, we can grow tired; we can become weak. No matter how healthy we can become or how strong we may be right now, at some point in our lives we will experience exhaustion and weakness. At any moment of our lives, our hearts may faint our spirits may wa
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.” The above poem
ישו הנצרי מלך היהודים Ο ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΤΩΝ ΙΟΥΔΑΙΩΝ ΟΥΤΟΣ REX IUDAEORUM HIC EST Three Languages, one message: This is the king of the Jews. In other words, what do you think of your king now? As John and the three Mary’s (Jesus’ Mother, her sister, and Mary Magdalene) watched the culmination of that most horrific day, they couldn’t help but think, “it wa
PAX ET SECURITAS, ‘Peace and security.’ PAX ROMANA, ‘Roman Peace.’ These were Rome’s promises. But the road between Capua and Rome seemed anything but peaceful that day in 71 B.C. as 6,000 dead and dying men lined the 120-mile span, the last prisoners of Spartacus’ slave revolt.[1] About every hundred feet, one would have seen a rebel grotesquely c
CAESAR AUGUSTUS DIVI PATER PATRIAE, “Caesar Augustus the divine, father of the country.”[1] Thus read the denarius that Jesus had asked for and examined in His hand. He knew that Caesar was not the first earthly ruler to claim divinity. One recalls the haughty decrees of Nebuchadnezzar and Darius during the Babylonian and Medo-Persian empires, resp
"Papa, buy for me asbestos." My 5-year-old boy pleaded with me recently. Like any curious parent, I asked him why he wanted asbestos. It turns out that they had been binge reading the apocalyptic book of Revelation. They had also been binge-watching YouTube videos that are connected with the second coming of Christ. There was mention of people runn
There are plenty of clues out there to convince us that whatever happened was important. The first affects everyone’s lives, Christian or not: the year. To this day, though most western governments pride themselves on a detachment from religion, Christmas remains the great pillar in time that splits our counting of the years in two. Instead of reck
Desire needs mystery. - Esther Perel In the previous article, we saw that mission in emerging secular contexts requires the church to shift from the centralization of rational discourse toward a more holistic rhythm that balances gnosis (knowledge), koinonia (relationships), and doulos (service). In fact, it is the element of service that, in the p
Most Seventh-day Adventists and Adventist churches I know are functionally binitarian. - David Hamstra In his book “The Rise of the Nones: Understanding and Reaching the Religiously Unaffiliated”, authors James Emery White makes a remarkable observation about contemporary mission. In the olden days, he argues, a church could reach its community by
