As I wrote a few days ago, coming to a deep recognition of humanity’s sinfulness has made me much more forgiving. I am no longer surprised by sin  – either my own or anybody else’s.  Here’s another of my growing convictions that likewise makes me more forgiving: All sin is birthed from a legitimate need that takes a wrong turn.  What if, instead of being offended by someone’s sin against us, we considered it a challenge to get to the bottom of what that person really needs?

Many Christians can cite a specific “life verse” from the Bible that encapsulates their faith and life. Something like “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31) or “I can all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13) or the like. Nobody ever picks Acts 19:32. Here’s the lead up: Acts 19 recounts an incident which took place in Ephesus with a silversmith named Demetrius whose main source of income was creating shrines of the goddess Artemis. He calls together fellow craftsmen and tells them that the Apostle Paul’s preaching is endangering their income. And…

 Why are we constantly surprised when people sin? Why am I surprised when *I* sin?  Malcolm Muggeridge once observed, “The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact.” Human beings ARE depraved and our hearts ARE bent towards sin. So why are we constantly shocked and offended by bad behavior or hurtful words? Over the last few years I think I have made progress in reversing my intellectual resistance to the fact of depravity. And although it may seem counterintuitive, I have found that this acceptance of the…

A few days before I came across that passage from James 4 that I described yesterday, I encountered the very first Scriptural passage that would come to be written on my heart. My friend Phil had died late on a Saturday night at the end of our junior year in high school. It was Memorial Day weekend and at church Sunday morning I heard rumors of the deaths of a couple of teenagers. A phone call after returning home confirmed that Phil had been the driver and that he and his neighbor were both dead on impact. This rocked my…

 James 4:13-14a – “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.” This was the second passage of Scripture I ever memorized. I had just finished my junior year in high school; it was June of 1985. With the encouragement of my sweet Sunday School teachers, Tom and Marcia Kuhn, I was reading through the New Testament a chapter at a time. It must have been June when I came to James because…

If it’s not obvious already, all of my recent pondering of Peter’s miraculous escape from prison and James’s death by Herod’s sword and Paul blocked by the Spirit of Jesus at one point and by Satan at another is my heart still churning over my family’s departure from Haiti and trying to make sense of it. For me, it comes back to this question: In what sense was it God’s will for us to leave Haiti? Maybe it was the Spirit of Jesus blocking our return.  Perhaps to spare us from something bad? We certainly tempted fate often while living…

 It is late and my brain is going foggy, so tonight I am merely making note of two passages where the Apostle Paul was blocked from doing something he felt was God’s will. The first instance is recorded in Acts 16:6-7 – “Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.”  But this red light is quickly followed…

So why is it, in Acts 12, that James got the sword while Peter got the angel? I have been mulling this over for the last 24 hours and, so far, I’ve come up with this: Don’t know. I’m sure James had people praying for him, just like Peter did. Probably a lot of the same people, actually.  I bet after James’ death, the disciples were a lot more motivated to pray for Peter now that he too had been detained by Herod. Maybe the angel was in answer to more fervent prayer?  Maybe. But even the most fervent prayer…

 In Acts chapter 12 we find the incredible story of Peter being locked up by King Herod and placed under heavy guards while Herod planned a public trial.  But miraculous events ended the trial the night before it began. As the church prayed, an angel appeared in Peter’s cell, the chains fell from Peter’s arms and he was ushered past guards to a gate that opened on its own, freeing Peter into the city.  You probably remember the account of Peter late night knock at the door of the house where other disciples were gathered for prayer and the servant…

My 8th grade honors class has started reading Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, a prescient novel from 1953 about a dystopian future where it is the job of firemen to start fires rather than to extinguish them. And every such fire begins with the discovery of a homeowner illegally in possession of a book.  Reading is shunned while distracting technology is wholeheartedly embraced. The hero, Guy Montag, is a fireman who gets a little too curious about the books he is tasked with destroying, sneaking one home to secretly peruse, looking for something that is missing from his life.  Guy recalls…