Novelist Charles Dickens called him "one of the greatest masters of elocution I ever knew." High praise indeed! Frederick William (F.W.) Robertson (1818-1853) was born into a family of soldiers. His father was an artillery officer, his grandfather...
Washington Gladden (1836-1918) was given his first name in honor of his great-grandfather who served as George Washington's bodyguard in the Revolutionary War. Washington Gladden came to faith at age eighteen. While he listened to many appeals by...
Catherine Marshall (1914-1983) wrote Beyond Ourselves about her three-year struggle with a serious lung affection at age twenty-eight. When she contracted tuberculosis in 1943, there was no known cure. She sought out a bevy of specialists who were...
Jesus prayed that his disciples would “all be one” (John 17.21). The unity of Jesus’ followers stands out as a persistent New Testament theme. Jesus intended our Christian harmony to become a demonstrable witness to the world of the power of the...
It was a hot summer morning in 1150. Guigo II (d. ca. 1188) was working in his garden in a Carthusian monastery in France, harvesting herbs to produce a liqueur called Chartreuse, which Carthusian monks are known for. He was meditating on the story...
It may be the most popular prayer of our modern era. Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), a theology professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, preached a sermon at the Heath Union Church in Massachusetts in 1943. He concluded the sermon by...
"The Bronte sisters" sounds like a singing group. They were first-rate novelists in nineteenth century England. During the Victorian era, it was considered unladylike to be a writer. That’s why these three sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne,...
Langdon Gilkey wrote about his experiences at a prisoner of war camp in China during World War II. His book Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure is hardly a flattering portrait of humanity. Not only were the guards cruel,...
Church fights aren't pretty. I can attest to it from personal experience! A major dispute broke out in 340 AD following the death of the bishop of Milan. There were two factions: those who affirmed Christ’s divinity (orthodox Christians) and those...
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1909-1945) is one of my heroes. For real! The courageous witness of this twentieth century Christian martyr both inspires and humbles me. Dietrich left Germany at age twenty-three for a year of post-graduate theological studies...
He had already been dead for thirty years, yet I heard plenty of stories about Peter Marshall (1902-1949) when I came to serve a church in the Washington, DC area. He was the gold standard for Presbyterian ministers back in the day. I used to...
It is estimated that twenty percent of the world's population live with chronic pain. You may include yourself in this number of persistent pain sufferers.Roger Hurding (1934-2019) lived most of his life with chronic pain. He became diabetic in...
I was sorting through my library after retiring from full time pastoral ministry. During my time in church ministry, building a library was one of the pastoral tools of the trade. Now, we go online for everything, including Greek exegesis! It was...
William Ames (1576-1633) was no stranger to controversy. A promising career as a college professor lay ahead of him but he was a card-carrying Puritan, who sought to purify the Church of England of its excesses. As a newly appointed professor at...
The idea for this prayer initiative began in a small, unassuming way. My cousin Elizabeth was in ICU recovering from back surgery. Since the doctors suspected that she had contracted COVID, she was not permitted visitors and was treated by nurses...
It was in a seminary preaching class that I came to a deeper appreciation of Martin Luther King. Jr. (1929-1968). Our class was studying great sermons from American history and listened to MLK's "I Have a Dream" Speech on August 28, 1963, as the...
Francis Xavier (1506-1552) was full of worldly ambition when he enrolled at the University of Paris. He shared a dorm room with Ignatius of Loyola, several years older and already well along in faith. Francis resisted Ignatius' overtures to follow...
I don't appreciate it when people label me. I feel constrained by the limits that labels force on me. There is truth to the quote attributed to Soren Kierkegaard, that "once you label me, you negate me." Born in the small city of Tel Mahre in...