The day before Palm Sunday is known in the church calendar as Lazarus Saturday, the day Christians commemorate Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, as recorded in the 11th chapter of the Gospel of John. There are many notable things about this miracle. First, though he was not one of Jesus’ 12 apostles, Lazarus was…
At a recent pastors’ conference someone threw out the question, “Why does God often refer to himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?” (See Exodus 3:6, I Kings 18:36 & Matthew 22:32) Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were the three patriarchs who got the Jewish nation, God’s chosen people, started. When you refer to God…
The preacher in Ecclesiastes 1 says, “Vanity of vanities! all is vanity The poet Ogden Nash puts it this way The prophets chant and the prophets chatter But somehow it never seems to matter, For the world hangs on to its ancient sanity And orders another round of vanity.
No matter where you go in this county, if you walk into a Wal-Mart or Target, you know you are in a Wal-Mart or Target. That is because these companies work very hard on their corporate identity and the uniformity of their stores helps maintain their identity, which is good for business. Sadly, in most Christian…
According the Associated Press out of London, England, fantastic fibbers gathered at a remote pub in northwestern England on a recent Thursday in November to compete for the title of world’s biggest liar. The contest was held at the Bridge Inn in the town of Santon Bridge. Contestants had five minutes to impress the judges with a whopping but convincing…
In 2 Samuel, chpater 7 we read that the Lord gave King David rest from all his surrounding enemies. David thought this would be a perfect opportunity to build a temple for the Lord since, “I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent.” (v. 2) Nathan the prophet tells David, “What…
All Saints Day Text: “These are the one who have come out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Revelation 7:14 The Feast of All Saints goes back to ancient Rome. The Pantheon had been built in the year 27 BC to honor…
I had the opportunity recently to view a work of art that was based on the fascinating Fibonacci sequence. The Fibonacci sequence is named after Leonardo Pisa (or Pisano?) who was known as Fibonacci. Fibonacci’s 1202 book Liber Abaci introduced the sequence to Western European mathematics although the sequence had been described earlier in Indian…
Let me illustrate how I see the importance of Christian doctrine. I have two children. One lives in a city a few hundred miles away and the other lives overseas. It occured to me that when I go to visit the child that lives a few hundred miles away I pack very differently than when I go to visit the child…
Why not start with Martin Luther? In his 1518 Heidelberg Theses Luther points out that God’s love is fundamentally different from human love. God’s love does not find its object but creates its object. Human love finds its object, We love people or things because we find in them something loveable, something attractive. God does…
Mirror Neurons 