Month: September 2016

Toward the end of his gospel, in the penultimate scene where Jesus is arrested in the garden, Mark includes an oddly out-of-place incident, one that seems more appropriate to an Adam Sandler or Melissa MaCarthy movie. Jesus and his disciples have retreated to the Garden of Gethsemane. His earnest prayers to be delivered from the cross have been answered with silence. The three disciples closest to him, Peter, James and John, have slumbered through his struggle. As he awakens them the third time, another disciple, Judas, appears, followed closely by an armed squad of the Temple guard. It is dark … Read more…

On April 14, 1912 at 11:40 p.m., the largest, most luxurious ocean liner to ever sail slipped beneath the surface of the northern Atlantic. Survivors of the Titanic remembered the ice-cold water, the gasps of the dying, the darkness. And music. They say the band played Nearer My God to Thee to the very end. In 1944, a group of American POWs spent the last year of the war in a Japanese prison camp. Conditions were brutal, degrading and inhumane. One morning, as the prisoners were being led out to work in the fields, a fellow from Illinois started humming … Read more…

In Exodus 32, God is more than a little miffed. He is door-slamming, wall-punching, foot-stomping furious. His eyes are red and bulging. The veins in His forehead are a blood-pressure point away from bursting. And though there are no textual hints about the tone He uses when He speaks, I bet His voice is deep, tense and terrifying. “Go down,” he says to Moses, “because your people whom you brought up out of Egypt have become corrupt.” Your people? Whom you brought? It sounds like God is finished with Israel. They are no longer “My people.” He is no longer … Read more…

Years ago, I asked a friend, in his 70’s at the time, “At what age did you finally outgrow the temptation to lust?” “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll let you know when it happens.” He hasn’t gotten back to me on that one yet. I’ve lived long enough now to know that he won’t. So let’s acknowledge two things. God expects us to be sexually pure. First Thessalonians 4:3 puts it bluntly: It is God’s will that you should be sanctified; that you should avoid sexual immorality. On this matter, the Bible is unequivocal, exceptionless and clear. The other … Read more…