It’s a perennial dialogue: how do the various religions interrelate? Was Jesus merely a Jewish rabbi, a forerunner of Muhammad, a Hindu avatar, a Buddhist bodhisattva, a crypto-gnostic, or a Sufi in disguise? Or are Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and other religious traditions all diverse paths to a similar goal? These questions tend
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What Does Stranger Things Have in Common with the Bible?
A lot about the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, and its middle school reminds me of growing up. When I watch the show I can see old neighborhoods and the store where we bought baseball cards, the kind that came with chewing gum that was essentially sliced granite. I relive the bike rides to
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What’s the Difference Between Transgender and Transsexual? Understanding Gender Vocabulary
A missionary crosses boundaries to preach the good news of Jesus. This often means learning another language as well as the history and culture of the target people group. The fact is that all Christians are missionaries, since Jesus commissions his disciples to take the gospel to everyone (Matt 28:19-20; Acts 1:6-8). According to J.
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Unknown, and Yet Well Known
We were deeply saddened to learn of Warren Wiersbe’s passing last week. His wisdom and faithfulness fed the souls of many. In honor of his many contributions to Christianity, here is an excerpt from Truth on Its Head: Unusual Wisdom in the Paradoxes of the Bible by Warren Wiersbe (Lexham Press, 2016). * * *
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Art and the Empty Tomb: 3 Lessons for our Creative Lives from Luke 24
Creativity and Christlikeness go hand in hand. Jesus’ greatest commandment to love God with all of ourselves includes the imaginative and creative parts too. We gain three jolts to our creative lives from Luke’s account of the first Easter. Lesson 1: Matter Matters Jesus’ friends “found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when
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What Makes a Happy Marriage?
Is a satisfying marriage a mirage? Can two sinners—not to mention offspring!—live in close proximity and intimacy and be truly happy? It is possible, with work and wisdom. In Christian Marriage: A Comprehensive Introduction, David J. Ayers offers some guidelines for the pursuit of a fulfilling marriage. These are presented below as bullet point summaries,
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The Brokenness of Counterfeit Human Dignity
“What is man that you are mindful of him?” (Ps 8:4). The concept of human dignity is shared by many irrespective of any religious beliefs. However, upon what basis do we have dignity? Many of the divergences of opinion in cultural, societal, and legal debates stem from different understandings of human worth stemming from different worldviews.
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The Joys and Perils on the Road to Marriage
In its outward appearance, marriage is deceptively ordinary and simple. Just a man and a woman joined in lifelong sexual union, serving God together, loving and helping each other, laboring together, through good times and bad, as long as both live. Yet God personally and painstakingly created that structure and essence from the very beginning,
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Thaddeus Williams Reflects on Christian Identity
What if we worshiped Jesus? Not the imaginary Jesus invented by televangelism, consumerism, fundamentalism, mysticism, or some political ism, but the actual Jesus we meet in the New Testament? How can he, unlike any other object of worship, enlarge our intellects, our emotions, our actions, our relationships, our imaginations, our whole selves? Drawing from science,
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Why Do I Have to Learn This Stuff?! Christian Answers for the Start-of-School
The school year has begun. The initial euphoria induced by the smell of new pencils will be wearing off, however, and we parents and teachers need to get ready for the question that students will inevitably ask: Why do I have to learn this stuff?! If we want to avoid mutiny, we need to have
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