Tom

I’ve been reading a book lately by the unusual title of “Christians are hate-filled hypocrites and other lies you’ve been told” by a gentleman named Bradley Wright.  His purpose in writing this was to counter the flow of dire predictions about the state of evangelicalism today.  The author takes a look at the various propositions [...]

Peggy has a cousin who, in a relatively short period of time, lost her husband to cancer and later her mother to an illness that appeared suddenly, caused her to suffer a few months, and eventually took her life.  Our hearts go out to her and it is hard to grasp how such grief and [...]

“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men – robbers, evildoers and adulterers – or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week and [...]

The title above is stolen directly from the 1919 Chicago “Black Sox” baseball scandal which, if you are a student of baseball history, you know was the plea of a boy admirer to “Shoeless” Joe Jackson.  The John in my theft of this line is John Piper.
 I have long admired John Piper and it is [...]

It occurs to me that in some ways Christianity is the most difficult of religions.  We have within our faith the concept of discipleship.  Indeed, if the Great Commission is to be believed, it is the cornerstone of our faith and witness.  Each and every believer should be a disciple, growing in the faith.  What [...]

I’m sure you have heard the term.  Coined first by right-of-center political types and since picked up by many evangelicals, it has the theme that all the values we have and the things we stand for are under attack in The U.S. and that it is urgent we fight back with zeal.  We are at [...]

Well, I almost hit a deer on my way to work the other night.  In most of the places I’ve lived you always have to watch for animals on the road when you are driving after dark.  In Sri Lanka it was lizards.  The large lizards, often over five feet long, would crawl out onto [...]

A few blocks from my house is a charming, well-kept older house.  It is clear that someone, probably the lady of the house, has a decorator’s touch.  One item that stands out is that they have one of those decorative flags hanging from the front porch.  You know the type, they have pleasant pictures or [...]

We all know that line, don’t we?  From the hymn America the Beautiful, it has become embedded in the American psyche.  Written as a poem in the late 1800s under the original title Pikes Peak, it was renamed America the Beautiful and set to music by 1910.  By the way, the music was swiped from [...]

Once you have determined to live by grace or, as a friend of mine says, “live at the speed of grace” the next obvious question becomes “How do I do it?”  In some settings it is easy.  Just reach out to people where they are and touch them with grace and love as a believer.  [...]