I have to admit that my motive for White Horse Inn trips is partly selfish. I’ve learned that I always receive more than I give of actual learning, challenge, example, and encouragement. Even though Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population, there seems to be respect for the minority Christian population. The republic’s constitution, drafted [...]
A native Turk, Fikret Bocek never imagined being anything other than a Muslim, however nominal. One day in Istanbul, a European couple gave him a Bible and he couldn’t stop reading. After graduating from Westminster Seminary California, he returned and planted a Reformed church that now has planted a number of sister churches in the [...]
It’s Commencement time again. Many of us can’t remember the address at our college graduation. Occasionally, though, there are some zingers. This year the buzz is Joss Whedon’s speech on Sunday, May 26 at Wesleyan University. The full address may be found here: youtu.be/Wn866ryQ5RY. An accomplished screenwriter (“Toy Story” and “The Avengers”) and creator of [...]
“Given all the demands on my time every day, it’s really hard to invest a lot of hours in preparing my sermons.” I hear this sentiment a lot out there these days. It’s expressed in a series of clips for a new service. The ad invites pastors to take advantage of an energetic team of [...]
In his Wednesday Mass homily this week, Pope Francis attracted considerable media attention. According to reports, the message drew on Mark 9:40, where Jesus says, “He who is not against us is for us.” Like the disciples, we can be intolerant of the good that others can do—even atheists. Because we’re all created in God’s [...]
No matter how many times it’s been asked–and answers offered–the perennial question is provoked by fresh wounds: “How could a good and all-powerful God allow such a tragedy?” The massive 2-mile-wide tornado that leveled much of Moore, Oklahoma, exposes the fragility of life—but also the apparent contradiction between a God who is good and all-powerful. [...]
One of the most enjoyable and encouraging parts of my travel around the United States and across the world is meeting people whose lives have been changed by the work of White Horse Inn. It’s a great blessing to me to speak to believers in the Philippines, Brazil, and Germany and hear the same stories [...]
Yesterday I offered the musings of a generalist in reaction to Hal Taussig’s A New New Testament (Houghton Mifflin, 2013). As promised, today Michael Kruger digs more deeply into the book as a noted specialist in the field. President and Professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte), he wrote his dissertation at Edinburgh [...]
A Buddhist monk, a rabbi, a nun, and a Protestant professor walk into a bar… If it weren’t so sad, it might be a good set-up for a joke. But a recent Huffington Post article heralds a New New Testament that now includes heretofore lost pieces of Scripture. As the book’s subtitle has it: “A [...]
“What is your only comfort in life and in death?” The Reformation was provoked by that question. Our lives are driven by it. People look for comfort in all sorts of places, but find superficial and short-lived parodies of God’s comfort in the gospel of his Son. This is the first question of the Heidelberg Catechism, whose 450th Anniversary [...]
