It is clear that when we think of the word "wrath" as applicable to God, it must be divested of everything that is like human passion, and especially the passion of revenge. It is one of the most obvious rules of interpretation that we are not to apply to God passions and feelings which, among us, have their origin in evil. [God's wrath] is the oppo…

What is your view of God? The scowling judge waiting to convict you? The disapproving parent whose love you have to earn? Your view of God affects every decision and relationship in your life. Kathleen Chesto wrote to Catholic Digest to tell them about an incident that occurred in her family. Her five-year-old child approached her one day in the kitchen and asked, "Mom, is God a grown-up or a parent?"

Mom was a little puzzled by the question. "I'm not s…

I am fond of a line from Niels Bohr, the physicist, and have quoted it before: "Prediction is a very difficult art especially when it involves the future."

Scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center report that one of the largest stars in our galaxy is about to self-destruct. Eta Carinae, which has a mass 100 times greater than that of our sun, is giving signs that its life is about over. Researchers say that it could become a supernova - a blazing, exploding star within the next 10,000 years. What was especially interesting about the report was the statement that since light from the star takes 9,000 years to reach the earth, the actual explosion could have already taken pl…

When I was in the hospital, I received many cards. Among them was one that had an actual mustard seed in a little container pasted on the front of it along with the words, "For if you had faith even as small as a tiny mustard seed you could say to this mountain, ‘Move!’ and it would go away. Nothing would be impossible." A mustard seed is really no big deal. But from this small seed grows a very large plant in a very short period of time.

Using a tiny mustard seed, Jesus suggests a very remarkable thing. He says that if …

If I were to mention the names of certain disciples to you and ask you to write down the first word that comes into your mind, it is unlikely you would come up with the same words. If I were to mention the name of Judas many of you would write down the word "betray" but not all of you. If I were to mention Simon Peter, some of you would write down the word "faith," but not all of you. If I were to mention the names of James and John, some of you would write down the phrase "Sons of Thunder," but not all of you. But when I mention the word Thomas, there is little question about the word most everyone would write down. It would be the word doubt. Indeed, so closely have we associated Thomas with this word, that we have coined a phrase to describe him: "Doubting Thomas."

You may be intereste…

Until Jesus Christ permeates every fiber of our being, we can never begin to appreciate the power and potentiality available in us. We continue to doubt whether we can do this or that or be what we want to be. Yet, God wants us to reach the heights of our created potential. God wants us to develop a faith that can handle both problems and opportunities. He desires that we capture his vision of our worth and our latent abilities.

Some time ago I saw the play Man of La Mancha. I believe it illustrates what I am saying. The man of La Mancha comes to a wayside inn. Here the camel drivers stop. He sees Aldonza, the waitress, there. She is also the local prostitute. Aldonza is dirty and smells from perspiration. "Ho, my lady. You will be my lady ... every knight needs a lady, and you will be my…

Four men were chained to trees in the black woods. They were hungry, heartsick, discouraged prisoners.

Then came a traveler. He knew the way to free them. He knew the combination to the locks, which held the chains, and could set the prisoners free.

He set the first man free, and then he went to the second man and freed him. In turn he cared for the third man, but failed to be able to loose the fourth.

The fourth was left in chains with the combination to his lock in doubt.

Many rejoiced at the heroic rescue, but the hero remained unsatisfi…

Most Christians think the great believers of the faith never doubted. They know about the faith of the famous Christian leaders, but not about their inner struggles. One Christian leader at the turn of the century wrote in his autobiography: "My religious faith remains in possession of the field only after prolonged civil war with my naturally skeptical mind." The Scottish reformer, John Knox, wrote of a t…

"Those who choose evil shall have their choice. Men who hate divine mercy shall not have it forced upon them, but (unless sovereign grace interpose) shall be left to themselves to aggravate their guilt and ensure their doom.

"They have loved darkness rather than light, and in darkness they shall abide. Eyes which see no …

Today I want to read to you a poem that is based on a rather famous poem about Christmas called ‘Twas the Beginning of Advent'. It is by a friend of mine - Todd Jenkins.  It will tell you a little bit about this season we celebrate.

'Twas the beginning of Advent and all through the Church
Our hope was all dying we'd given up on the search.
It wasn't so much that Christ wasn't invited,
But after 2,000 plus years we were no longer excited.

Oh, we knew what was coming no doubt about that.
And that was the trouble it was all "old hat."
November brought the first of an unending series of pains
With carefully orchestrated advertising campaigns.

There were gadgets and dolls and all sorts of toys.
Enough to seduce even the most devout girls and boys.
Unfortunately, it seemed, no one was complet…

Here's a critical issue for living.  The final outcome is not in doubt!  Life is not like an NBA basketball game where victory hangs in the balance until the last second and the crowd sits on the edge of their seats waiting to see who will prevail. In G…

Genesis 25:27 - "When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents."

Proverbs 6:5 - "save yourself like a gazelle from the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler."

The hunter or fowler was one of the earliest of occupations. Although the strictly hunting phase of man’s cultural development had been long gone before the biblical period began, still the hunt provided supplementary food for the diet, and as such, it was important. Hunting with dogs is known for the immediately pre-Israelite period in Palestine; we find this in the Egyptian story The Tale of Sinuhe. However, dogs don’t seem to have been used much in Israel itself.

Two hunters from the early time are mentioned by name in the Old Testament: Nimrod an…

One Sunday a little boy looked up at his dad and asked, “Daddy, how does God love us?” His father answered, “Son, God loves us with an unconditional love.”

The lad thought for a moment and then asked, “Daddy, what kind of love is unconditional love?” After a few minutes of silence his father answered, “Do you remember the two bo…

On February 15, 1947 Glenn Chambers boarded a plane bound for Quito, Ecuador to begin his ministry in missionary broadcasting with the important "Voice of the Andes." But he never arrived. In a horrible moment, the plane carrying Chambers crashed into a mountain peak and spiraled downward. Later it was learned that before leaving the Miami airport, Chambers wanted to write his mother a letter. All he could find for stationery was a page of advertising on which was written the single word "WHY?" Around that word he hastily scribbled a final note. After Chambers's mother learned of her son's death, his letter arrived. She opened the…

Will Rogers was known for his laughter, but he also knew how to weep. One day he was entertaining at the Milton H. Berry Institute in Los Angeles, a hospital that specialized in rehabilitating polio victims and people with broken backs and other extreme physical handicaps. Of course, Rogers had everybody laughing, even patients in really bad condition; but then he suddenly left the platform and went to the rest room. Milton Berry followed him to give him a towel; and when he opened the door, he saw Will Roger…

Unlike Gibran’s The Prophet, and other lyrical works dealing with love, the Lord does not speak with his head in the clouds but rather with his feet firmly planted on an earth filled with conflict and hatred. In the holiness code of Leviticus, God says that those who consider themselves among his children are not to take revenge on one another and are not to bear any grudges. I am sure that some of us have felt vengeful in the last week. Perhaps we have even sought to hurt or discredit someone who first hurt us. The feeling of wanting to even the score is what God is speaking against. Perhaps some of us are bearing a grudge as a result of some offense we suffered at the hands of someone else. Grudges are the result of an unforgiving spirit. In the Sermon of the Mount, Jesus speaks against …

The story is told of a pastor's words to a baby shortly after he had baptized her. No doubt, the minister was speaking as much to the congregation as to the infant. "Little sist…

"I am inwardly fashioned for faith, not for fear. Fear is not my native land; faith is. I am so mad that worry and anxiety are sand in the machinery of life; faith is the oil. I live better by faith and confidence than by fear, doubt and anxiety. …

J. I. Packer uses the following illustration of the antinomy of divine sovereignty and human responsibility: “Modern physics faces an antinomy, in this sense, in its study of light. There is cogent evidence to show that light consists of waves, and equa…

Teachers, students, and school personnel across the country are getting ready for another academic year.  Lutheran pastor Larry Henning tells a humorous story about when he was in the fourth grade. He writes:

Our teacher, Mrs. Cannon, would periodically leave the room and say, I'll be back in a few minutes. Just work quietly at your desks on your math worksheets. Now, my friends and I tried hard to figure out just when Mrs. Cannon was coming back. We would take turns going to the door to see if she was indeed making her return. Why this obsession about the exact timing of her return? Because in her absence, we were throwing chalkboard erasers around the room and didn't want to get caug…

A man from El Paso lived a good four miles from the main parade ground at Fort Bliss. On most mornings you could hear the whump, whump, whump of the thirteen-gun salute which was sounded every morning at seven o'clock. But on some mornings you could hear the sound of the drum corps as they rolled their cadences.

However, if the morning was clear and still, as in the winter time when the air was crisp and cold, you could also h…

Isaiah 18:2 - "which sends ambassadors by the Nile, in vessels of papyrus upon the waters! Go, you swift messengers, to a nation, tall and smooth, to a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land the rivers divided."

Ezekiel 17:15 - "But he rebelled against him, by sending ambassadors to Egypt, that they might give him horses and a large army ..."

There are several ways in which we can translate the words used for "ambassador" in the Bible, but the most frequently used interpretation is that of messenger, from the Hebrew mal’ akh, or malach, which means messenger. This word has an interesting biblical history of its own. We are, of course, familiar with the Old Testament book of Malachi, and no doubt assumed that this was the author’s name. However, this was a …

No doubt you have heard about the postal service's "Dead Letter Department." That's the place where mail goes when it is not clearly addressed or has insufficient postage and the sender's identity cannot be determined. There the letter is opened and its contents examined fo…

The French Mathematician, Lecompte de Nouy, examined the laws of probability for a single molecule of high dissymmetry to be formed by the action of chance. Dissymmetry in molecules is found in plants and animals. Non-organic molecules are clean and s…

This statement (Matt 12:32, par Mk. 3:29, Luke 12:10) has been the subject of much questioning. Obviously the reference here is not to the naming of the Holy Spirit in a blasphemous utterance, for in Matt. 12:32 even blasphemy against the Son of man can be forgiven. Among the many attempts at exegesis, the most convincing is the suggestion that the man who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit is he who has recognized that God is working through the Holy Spirit in the actions of Jesus, and who quite consciously "misrepresent faith in God as faith in the devil.  This saying is an extremely serious warning against the demonic and scarcely conceivable potential in man: To declare war on God.  This is not done in weakness and doubt, but by one who has been overcome by the Holy Spirit and who know…

Class never runs scared. It is sure-footed and confident in the knowledge that you can meet life head-on and handle whatever comes along.

Jacob had it. Esau didn’t. Symbolically, we can look to Jacob’s wrestling match with the angel. Those who have class have wrestled with their own personal angel and won a victory that marks them thereafte…

Absalom was born in Hebron. His first recorded experience is the pathetic story of the rape of his sister, Tamar. Later, during a feast he masterminded the slaying of Amnon after which he escaped to the home of his grandfather at Geshur where he remained for three years. Absalom approached Joab to intercede for him with David in an effort to be reinstated in the royal family. Joab refused twice. Absalom then proceeded to set fire to Joab’s barley fields, forcing him to appear before David in order to escape the wrath of Absalom. In time, Absalom set about to undermine the people’s confidence in David by exaggerating the evils of the king’s court and presenting himself as the champion of the people. At the end of four years, confidence in David was sufficiently weakened and Absalom made bol…

One of the greatest voices of the church was St. Augustine. He lived between the 4th and 5th centuries in Rome and was a Bishop. After Rome fell and faded into dust it was largely Augustine's writings that kept Christianity alive and made it the most influential movement the world had ever known. It is remarkable that between the 8th and 12th centuries his writings were more widely read than any other. And that was 400 to 700 years after his death.

But he was not always a saint. Before he was converted at age 29 he lived to fulfill every lust and pleasure. But Augustine had one great quality that saved his pitiful life—a praying mother. She never gave up on him until one day he stopped long enough to listen to the voices around him. Augustine had just heard a sermon by Saint Ambrose, Bish…

I gave you life,
but I cannot live it for you.
I can teach you things
but I cannot make you learn.

I can give you directions
but I cannot always be there to lead you.
I can allow you freedom
but I cannot account for it.

I can take you to church
but I cannot make you believe.
I can teach you right from wrong
but I can't always decide for you.

I can buy you beautiful clothes
but I cannot make you lovely inside.
I can offer you advice
but I cannot accept it for you.

I can give you love
but I cannot force it upon you.
I can t…

A workman of the great chemist Michael Faraday accidentally knocked a silver cup into a solution of acid. It was promptly dissolved, eaten up by the acid. The workman was ter…

Years ago this country witnessed the execution of Timothy McVeigh, the man responsible for the worst act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. A USA Today poll taken in April showed that 81 percent of Americans wanted McVeigh to be executed -- and 28 percent of that support was from people who are normally against the death penalty. No matter where you stand on the issue of capital punishment, this particular execution has forced itself on our consciousness. One thing that particularly caught my attention was that in lieu of any verbal comment, McVeigh gave a handwritten statement to the warden, quoting a section of the poem "Invictus," which is Latin for "unconquered." That poem, by 19th-century British poet William Ernest Henley (1849-1903), reads in part "I am the master of my fate: I …

Our being able to hang in there in the difficult times is determined by the nature of our hope. For Christians, it has to do with our holding to the promises of God, a holding that is determined by our confidence in the integrity of God. Here alone our hope rests, as do all of life's possibilities and probabilities. Only in this way can we talk of a hope that does not disappoint us, even if that hope's fulfillment is delayed.

The air terminal was a sea of people, hurrying and pushing. It's always…

Here are types of risks we take annually and their respective odds. Your Odds are:

one in 12 that you will have an accident
one in 2,900 that you will die in a auto accident
one in 80,000 that you will die from complications in surgery
one in 250,000 that you will die in a plane crash
one in 1,000,000 that you will die in your bath tub

There was also an article in the newspaper, which spoke to the things that people fear, in light of their probability of occurring. According to this article, one of the fears that people had, was dying in a plane crash, and yet statistically, we are more likely …

Working in a small town in Latin America, a woman felt despair. She was experiencing marital problems, as well as conflicts with people she worked with. Without warning, an earthquake struck one day. In those moments of panic and fear she ran with other people to the relative safety of a garden plaza as buildings shattered and dust billowed.

"For those moments I saw everything so clearly," she recalls, "how I could become so much kind…

Often people will say, "How good God is! We prayed that it would not rain for our church picnic, and look at the lovely weather!'"

Yes, God is good when He sends good weather. But as Corrie Ten Boom shares, God was also good when He allowed her sister, Betsie, to starve to death before her ey…

The pagan world was always haunted by the unknowability of God. At best, men could but grope after his mystery. “It is hard,” said Plato, “to investigate and to find the framer and the father of the universe. And, if one did find him, it would be impossible to express him in terms which all could…

Mike Rowe has made a career out of doing disgusting stuff. As the host of the Discovery Channel series "Dirty Jobs," Rowe has mucked-out, dug under, flushed, slogged, and slid through some of the most filthy and foul places on the planet.

Bu…

Psalm 37:25 - "... yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging bread."

A beggar is a person who lives on the charity of others; there were (and are) professional beggars, who solicited alms publicly, and even went from door to door. They are still numerous in the East; they are usually "lame, maimed, or blind" (Luke 14:13). The commonest and most pathetic form of infirmity is blindness; some of these blind beggars are led by children and have regular places to station themselves.

The begging was sometimes only a simple statement of poverty. "I am poor," "I want a loaf of bread," or "give me the price of a loaf of bread." But occasionally they used the expressive gesture of bringing the forefinger across the teeth and holding it up as a proof that there was absolute…

This passage (4:1—11) is often appointed by lectionaries for the first Sunday of Lent. The presumption is that the narrative is of direct relevance for Christians as they enter a period of penitence. Ordinary Christians are unlikely to perceive it so, and with good cause. The story does not correspond with our experience; we do not hold conversations with a visible devil, nor are we whisked from place to place as Jesus is in the story. Moreover, the temptations that Jesus faces are peculiar to him; they seem very remote from those we face day by day. This passage may in fact prompt some to doubt the validity of Hebrews 4:15: "For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize w…

A certain minister has made it a policy for many years to refer "six-year-old theology questions" to his wife. Since she has taught very young children for many years, he says, she has a much better grasp than he does of how to address the questions which little kids ask.

A first-grader brought a drawing of a skeleton into class where she teaches English as a second language. The title across the top of the drawing read "Inside of Me." It was designed to teach children that everyone has a skeleton inside of them. He unfolded it proudly and showed it to t…

Athanasian Creed: Athanasius, known as Athanasius of Alexandria, was the 20th bishop of Alexandria. His intermittent episcopacy spanned 45 years, of which over 17 encompassed five exiles. He is traditionally thought to be the author of the this Creed named after him. It was created to guard Nicene Christianity from the heresy of Arianism. It is widely accepted as orthodox and some abreviated version of it are still in use today. And yes, the intro and outro are actually part of the original text. 

Whoever desires to be saved should above all hold to the catholic faith.

Anyone who does not keep it whole and unbroken will doubtless perish eternally.

Now this is the catholic faith:

That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity,
    neither blending their persons
    nor …

Martin Luther said to P. Melanchthon, when the latter showed him the nativity of Cicero from the sta…

Contrary to what some of you may be thinking, this meditation, "Dips in Discipleship," is not a pejorative way of speaking about certain disciples of Christ. Had that been my intent, I would not have used an outdated term like "dip." We are not talking about dumb people who are out of touch with reality. Rather, I am referring to those times in our lives as Christian disciples when we enter into the valleys of depression. The times when nothing goes right, when thing get so bad that even God seems to have deserted us. We probably all have been through some of these times in our Christian lives. Perhaps some of us have dipped into the valley of depression recently and are still there. There are even times when it seems that the harder we try to do the will of the Lord, the more life gangs u…

The Bible is a book that is loaded with images from agriculture.  The reason is obvious.  The people described from the first page to the last lived close to the land.  They were a people who knew what it was to stoop for long hours in the hot sun to till the soil.  Their toes and feet were often covered by the black soil on a spring day.  They chopped and hoed through the …

Why did only one man cleansed from leprosy return to thank Jesus? Someone has made a list of nine suggested reasons why the nine did not return:

One waited to see if the cure was real.
One waited to see if it would last.
One said he wou…

A young employee secretly misappropriated several hundred dollars of his business firm's money. When this action was discovered the young man was told to report to the office of the senior partner of the firm. As he walked up the stairs toward the administrative office the young employee was heavy-hearted. He knew without a doubt he would lose his position with the firm. He also feared the possibility of legal action taken against him. Seeming…

H.H. Staton in his book, "A Guide To the Parables of Jesus" tells the story of having been on an ocean liner headed to the Middle East.

Nine hundred miles out to sea a sail was sighted on the horizon. As the liner drew closer, the passengers saw that the boat - a small sloop flying a Turkish flag - had run up a distress signal and other flags asking for its position at sea. Through a faulty chronometer or imma…