What does it mean for me, a happy person with a good life, to deny myself and take up a cross?
I have no final answer, but I did gain some insight from Fred Craddock, a well-known preacher. In a sermon on this text he spoke about commitment and sacrifice and grand gestures. He told this story: "A wealthy man went to his priest with a check for fifty thousand dollars made out to the church. He han...
2. Setting the Church Back 50 Years
Illustration
Paul Larsen
During the Brezhnev era at the height of the Cold War, Billy Graham visited Russia and met with government and church leaders. Conservatives back home reproached him for treating the Russians with such courtesy and respect. He should have taken a more prophetic role, they said, by condemning the abuses of human rights and religious liberty. One of his critics accused him of setting the church back...
