Blog Features

WHEN EVERYTHING STARTED, Jesus was already there. He was the living Word of God. Jesus was with God. Jesus was God. He was right there with God all along. It was with this very Word that God spoke creation into existence. Nothing was made without …

NOT BEING A PREACHER, this isn’t a sermon I’ve preached. And not being someone who lived with a drug-addicted parent, this isn’t a reality I’ve had to wrestle. But it’s a sermon many pastors preach. It’s a reality many souls endure. And today, it’s …

BY “HERO” I DON’T MEAN JESUS. I’m talking about people with skin. Bones, too. You can see their breath when the cold wind blows. This week I had to help someone do a hard thing. I can’t tell you what it is. Family and close friends know …

I’M WORKING ON GENESIS at the moment. Odd, I know, given the Christmas season. But Jesus shows up in Genesis, too. At least that’s what one writer says: In the beginning was the one who is called the Word. The Word was with God and was truly God…. …

THERE ARE NOTHING BUT GUESSES about what exactly led the wise men to Bethlehem. Clues in the Bible: It pointed toward Israel. The star led them initially to the capital of the Jewish homeland, not to Bethlehem: “Some wise men from eastern lands …

HELLO CHRISTMAS. There’s just one more Friday between us and the biggest holiday on our plug of the planet. When we’ve lived through enough Christmases, we build ghostly memories of Christmas past. There was the Train Christmas. Mom and Dad …

I APOLOGIZE for talking so much about social issues lately. But doggone if it’s not all over the news. Like egg on Wolf Blitzer’s face, it’s just too hard to ignore. Torture is the headline of the moment. It captured the world’s attention with …

THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE reacting to  news about police officers killing unarmed black men and boys: Friends of the living. Friends of the dead. I got some pushback from the article I wrote on Friday, Christians doing nothing for nobody. It was …

I’M WHITE. More accurately, I think, light orange. I held my hand up to a color palette on my computer. The closest match I could find was #ffe39f. In the CMYK color mode that my publisher uses to print photos in books I write, you get that Caucasian …

IT WASN’T THE DEVIL that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden. Not according to the story’s anonymous writer—which ancient Jewish tradition says was Moses. It was just a snake with a vocabulary. Another Bible writer does, however, ID the talking critter …

HERE’S HOW JEWISH SONGWRITERS said thanks to God more than 2,000 years ago. Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth! Psalm 100:1 Lord, it is good to praise you. Most High God, it is good to make music to honor you. Psalm 92:1 Our God, we thank you …