Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey starred together in the 1997 film Contact. About halfway through the film Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster), who is an agnostic scientist and the protagonist of the film, introduces the theory of Occam’s...
From the outset of the Scriptures, God forbids his people to create idols. In the ancient world, idols not only represent gods, but were also the physical manifestation of the gods. The idol was the incarnation of the deity. The ancients believed...
I was recently visiting with some wonderful Christian men and women at a church in Waco, Texas. They invited me to come to share about ministry in Haiti. Many of the people I spoke with had never been to Haiti before. This meant that when they asked...
Raising kids has reminded me that we don’t always know what’s best for ourselves, even as adults. This seems simple, but this is really is the issue at the heart of the brokenness of humanity. This is ultimately what has gone wrong. This very point...
The Bible is full of stories. Furthermore, those stories have main characters (as all good stories do). One of the wonderful things about stories and characters therein is that the characters become our way into the story. That is, we are able to...
And Jesus said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous buy sinners to repentance. — Luke 5:31–32 Grace is a one of the most essential components of Christian belief and...
Freedom is a theme that runs through Christianity. But what is freedom for the Christian? The strongest teaching of freedom that we find in the Bible is freedom from the shame and guilt of sin. Christianity espouses that every human being is born in...
From N.T. Wright But how can the living God become a human being? How does it make sense? It makes sense precisely in terms of the creation story which John evokes with the very first words of his gospel. The climax of the creation in Genesis was...
The book of Ezekiel is fascinating. There is content in Ezekiel that is unlike any other book of the Bible. Of particular interest is the first three chapters where we find the prophet’s inaugural vision where he sees heavenly beings and the...
The beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount have always intrigued me. For one, when I first read them they seem so simple, but the more I reflect on them at a greater depth, more complex contours begin to appear. Blessed are the poor in spirit Why...