As the statistics on illness and death due to COVID-19 keep rising, the economic statistics keep falling. In March the stock market lost more than $11 trillion in value, and has been yo-yoing ever since. While the more fortunate are mourning their dwindling retirement plans, the truly desperate have joined the 30 million Americans applying for unemployment benefits. How will they pay the rent or feed their families? While watching the news one day, I flashed back to another time... Read more
None of us ever expects to be quarantined. I certainly didn’t. But following a bone marrow transplant in 2015, I was secluded for four months in hospital housing. Except for my wife, no visitors were allowed. Even after moving home, I remained in quasi-isolation for another eight months. Why? Because my immune system was susceptible to germs and viruses. With this personal history, what advice can I give to those who are being quarantined by the coronavirus today? Or to... Read more
How should be we respond to the plague we face now, the coronavirus? Rather than add to the millions of words on thousands of websites related to COVID-19, I’ll instead post links to a sampling of some I’ve found that offer perspective and help. Read more
Just over a year ago I wrote an article titled, Donald Trump is No Saint. The article was in response to a letter sent to me. The premise of the letter was that since God has used “very flawed” persons throughout the Bible, perhaps, he could use such today (i.e., Trump). I responded by noting that “very flawed” was not a proper designation for Noah, Moses, and Paul (some of the persons the letter characterized as used by God and... Read more
Doubt has a stubborn power, as the Bible itself reveals. Out of my own experience with doubt, I have reached a few conclusions. Read more
Is our current president an “instrument of righteousness”? The primary problem with this question is that it misunderstands what righteousness is, biblically speaking. Righteousness, in scripture, is intimately tied to God’s covenantal faithfulness. Read more
In 1989, shockingly, not just the Berlin Wall but the entire system of communism began to collapse. In the three decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall, historians have had a field day analyzing what prompted a revolution no one had predicted. Read more
By Matthew Myer Boulton At the very outset of the New Testament, Jesus’ public teaching begins in earnest with the Sermon on the Mount, the lovely “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” (Matthew 5:3). But some twenty chapters later, after countless parables and maxims, healings and disputes, Jesus gathers his disciples for one more session, one last lesson before he turns toward the cross. The moment demands a closing summary, an iconic “what’s-it-all-about” distillation of his teaching, a final argument... Read more
The death of Jarrid Wilson, a pastor at Harvest Christian Fellowship in California, makes clear once again that Christians are not immune to mental health difficulties; and clergypersons and their spouses are significantly more susceptible to depression and anxiety that the normal population. Read more
The short answer is nothing definitive is said about tattoos in the Bible. Scripture makes no specific reference to tattoos as we understand them in modern times. Read more
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