Just a few weeks ago, my wife said to me, “Every time someone watches a Christmas movie before Thanksgiving, an elf kills a reindeer.” She feels pretty strongly about when the Christmas season does and does not begin. As for me, I’m ready to put up...
American culture and worldview is most heavily shaped by economic concerns. This is the result of capitalism and industry being at the heart of American history and cultural persona. This is good in so many ways. It means that more people than ever...
There is something very powerful and very sacred about the simple life. The life that finds God’s gracious and glorious presence even in the mundane. Simplicity makes the profane sacred. Simplicity is the attempt eliminate means of distraction...
This is a warning that this post is a bit more academic. Read at your own risk! Living in Haiti has forced me to develop a deeper theology of suffering. Suffering has been at the center of my thinking for the past number of years and has become the...
This is from my wife’s blog. It was so good I just had to share it. You can read it in its original location here. Matt has arrived safely in Atlanta and is very excited to be at the Society of Biblical Literature conference this weekend! We...
The book of Genesis is one of my favorite books in the Scriptures. There are numerous fascinating characters, events, charming stories, and ultimately a message of hope for a fallen world. This theme of hope is wrapped up in another major theme of...
He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” (The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society...
There is no part of our lives that Jesus isn’t interested in. He’s interested in all of it. Every bit of it. This idea can be quite unnerving. Each of us have things in our lives that are so deep, so secret, so hidden, and so painful...
Today I read the following testimony. “In 1975, our house was robbed. My father called 911 and the officer who received the dispatch raced to our house. While on the way, the policeman heard Jesus say to him, “Tell the person you meet...
When people hear that I’m a missionary in Haiti, many of them ask, “Aren’t you afraid?” The answer is always NO. Haitian voudou, like all mystic and pagan-anamistic worldview and religions, is one of fear and intimidation...