Royal Oak, MI
July 7, 2019 Tim Keller wrote: “You can never break any of the other commandments without breaking the first…idolatry is not one sin among many…all our failures are, at their root, based on idolatry.” Each of us has a guiding principle, an organizing thought behind…
June 23, 2019 When you point your finger at another person, three fingers point back at you. “He does not believe that does not live according to his belief.” ― Sigmund Freud “You are not a Christian because you go to church. If I stand…
June 16, 2019 As we are exploring prayer, and what it means to live by faith, I felt called to go deeper into Paul’s letter to the Romans, the fullest, longest, and deepest of Paul’s letters in its discussion of faith, salvation, and the Christian…
June 9, 2019 Diana and I were in the car one day when she started giggling, then outright guffawing, and I had no idea why. “Diana, what’s so funny?” I asked. She responded, still laughing, “this song!” “What’s so funny about it?” I asked. The…
May 26, 2019 The World Christian Encyclopedia cites that there are 33,000 different Christian denominations. When you look at that number, it’s clear it’s kind of inflated—the Encyclopedia counts some groups whose beliefs fall outside mainstream Christianity, and also counts different groups within denominations as…
May 19, 2019 When I was a youth pastor, I pulled my share of all-night lock-ins. Young people love the idea of staying up all night…to the dismay of parents and youth pastors. The Bible tells us that Jesus pulled an all-nighter before His greatest…
May 5, 2019 As a parent, I’ve come to the conclusion that anyone who thinks they have all the answers to parenting just hasn’t lived long enough. One reason for that is that I have three children, and just when you think you’ve got something…
April 21, 2019 Spoiler alert: Jesus wins! The term “spoiler alert,” according to Google, originated on or about June 8, 1982, when, in the infancy days of the Internet, a Star Trek geek used the phrase “spoiler alert” before mentioning a detail about the plot…
April 14, 2019 In one of the earlier episodes of the TV series M*A*S*H the doctor known as “Trapper” gets diagnosed with a stomach ulcer. Although initially upset about having to deal with a hole in his gut, Trapper soon beams with joy when his bunkmate Hawkeye…
April 7, 2019 The dancer Martha Graham wrote: “Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.” Habakkuk is not a hero of the Bible we tend to hear much about, like Moses or David or Elijah. Not many Sunday-school songs get written about…