Emotions are fickle. Feelings are like waves; they come and go. Frederick Brotherton (F. B.) Meyer (1847-1929) made popular the slogan, “Fact! Faith! Feeling!” in his preaching and writing. The point of the motto is the order. First, the facts...
Her pastor saw real talent in her poetry. Robert Lowry, pastor of Hanson Place Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York urged Anne Hawks (1836-1918) to try her hand at writing hymns. When Anne sent Robert a copy of her simple five-stanza hymn, he...
The Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC has more than six hundred Bibles in its collection. One Bible on display is a rare 1872 Aitken's Bible, sometimes called the Congress Bible. Less than thirty copies are still in existence. Although Robert...
"Chronological snobbery" was a term coined by Owen Barfield in the 1920s and made popular in the writings of C.S. Lewis in the 1950s. The phrase communicates our modern prediction to regard the past as intrinsically inferior to the present. New is...
It’s hard to say goodbye. You may recall the immortal words Juliet spoke to Romeo, “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” Or consider the endearing line from Winnie the Pooh, “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” Jeremiah...
News outlets are all over the story that belief in God is on the wane in America. There is no shortage of testimonials on social media of people who have walked away from God and given up on faith. Surely, unanswered prayer has something to do with...
She was, of her own admission, a shy and awkward child. She lived in a house along Main Street in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, which Norman Rockwell painted with the title, "Stockbridge Main Street at Christmas." She said of herself, "I wasn't one...
It must rank as one of the most imaginative cover letters ever written. Robert Pirosh quit his job as a copy editor in New York to look for work as a Hollywood screenwriter in 1934. He sent the following letter to studio executives and producers,...
What is the second best-selling Christian book of all time? The all-time best seller is a no-brainer—the Bible. The runner-up is likely one you don’t know and haven’t read. It’s Thomas a Kempis’ (1380-1471) devotional classic, The Imitation of...
Why do we sing in worship? Singing is not mere filler, as warm-up to the sermon. Singing hymns has served as a valuable teaching role in church history. Songs helped worshipers internalize the theology preached in the sermon. Many of our cherished...
The BBC in 1957 aired a television special about a family in Switzerland harvesting a bumper crop of spaghetti from a spaghetti tree. Since pasta was relatively unknown in the United Kingdom at the time, unsuspecting viewers were oblivious that...
The dilemma of unanswered prayer is particularly vexing for us who pray. We who try to be diligent in prayer know the disappointment that attends prayers that seemingly go unanswered. Why doesn't a loved one recover from illness? Why can't family...
They were both passionate and strong-willed. John Wesley had heard about the gifted young preacher, Edward Perronet (1726-1797) and was eager to hear him. Since Wesley was eighteen years his senior and the elder statesman in the Methodist movement,...
Melito of Sardis (ca. d-180) was both tough and tender. He had the audacity to make a bold request of the Roman Emperor yet did so nicely. Melito sent his Apology for Christianity (apology means defense) to Emperor Marcus Aurelius in AD 170. His...
My sermons follow a predictable pattern. I begin by attempting to draw congregants into the message, aware that most people decide in the first minute or so whether they will give full attention to the sermon. The middle portion of my message seeks...
The day between Good Friday and Easter, Holy Saturday, is one of the most uneventful days in the Christian calendar, situated between the agony of Good Friday and the joy of Easter. Nothing much happens on that first Holy Saturday. Jesus' body has...
It seems counterintuitive to call the day on which Jesus died "Good Friday." The phrase likely originated in the Middle Ages. Jesus' death on the cross is good in what it accomplishes--death to our sins and the harbinger of our resurrection to...
It was a most unlikely marriage. The former monk Martin Luther had to find husbands for nineteen nuns who fled convent life to join the Reformation movement. One ex-nun, Katie von Bora, insisted she would only marry Martin Luther and prevailed upon...