As I write this, it is the morning of Christmas Eve, 2016.  Tonight and tomorrow, all around the world billions of people will be celebrating the birth of a baby born in poverty, scandal, and obscurity over two thousand years ago. Who was this Jesus? I could attempt answer this

Singing in the dark has been a central and distinctive habit of the Christian life from the beginning.  People of other faith traditions sing for sure, but Christians have the habit of singing loud and long and joyfully, triumphantly no matter the circumstances.  We sing our songs all the more

One day back in college, one of my favorite business professors was doing a lecture on ethics in business when one of the students (most of us were in our late teens and early twenties – just kids really) raised her hand and said that she would never work for

This is something that I wrote for my church a little while back: In the book of Acts (found around the last 1/8th of the Bible), Jesus tells his followers, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”

 – I’m just following orders.  – I’m just doing my job.  – If I don’t do it, they’ll just get someone else to do it.  – It’s okay, they’re rats, leaches, terrorists, scum, etc.*  – It’s for the greater good.^ It is pretty safe to say that more human suffering,

The short answer is no, not according to the Bible. I will post a longer explanation below because this deserves a fuller answer. First though I’m going to answer the question of “How is it that so much of Christian history and tradition hold that God will torture people forever

The angels declared almost two thousand years ago that God had broken into our world in a special way, that the savior of the world had come. Peace on earth was declared and it was foretold that this baby would save his people from their sins – save them from

[This is an excerpt from a sermon I recently preached.] Later on Jesus would grow up and he would tell this story that helps us understand the joy, the magic, and meaning of Christmas (Luke 15:11-32) . There was once a wealthy man who had two sons. His youngest son

I just found this in an old file folder.  I never published it but it was definitely something I needed to read again. Most of my life I’ve heard, “God’s timing is different than ours.” What people usually mean by that is that God doesn’t do what we want when

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. – 1 John 3:16 I love God because God first loved me I love God because when I was so incredibly lonely and hurting God gave me the most incredible wife, companion, and friend.