We live in a rapidly changing world.  What is not as evident is how these global changes influence the church’s role in the world.  This is particularly true in the area of missions.  Many people still think about missions as it was in the 19th century. While the missions mandate itself remains unchanged, the context […]

One of the most important, but often neglected, phrases in the Apostles’ Creed is the statement, “he suffered under Pontius Pilate.”  Some have wondered why the early church would include the name of the very Roman Governor who presided over Jesus’ trial and ordered his crucifixion into this very ancient confession of faith.  Upon reflection, […]

Neill McGregor, the former director of the National Gallery of Art in London, noted a few years ago that roughly one-third of the greatest European paintings in the collection depict an explicitly biblical theme.[1] This reflects the obvious historical impact which Christianity has had on western civilization.  The irony emerges in that the vast majority […]

Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, is one of the earliest writers to record the ancient myth of Narcissus.  According to Ovid, after Narcissus’ encounter with Echo, he fled to a river where he knelt down to drink.  However, as he was about to drink, he caught sight of his own reflection in the water and fell […]

In the mid nineties two students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, sat in their dorm room at Stanford University and pledged themselves, “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”  The result was Google, the most powerful and widely used search engine in the world.  The word Google is a term […]

It’s fascinating to think about how much time Mark spends demonstrating Jesus’ encounters with human pain and suffering.  According to one early church tradition, Mark himself had deformed hands.  This may explain his special interest in Peter’s eye witness accounts of Jesus’ healings.  Throughout the gospel, we regularly see Jesus encountering the blind, the lame, […]

The following is the my Sermon I preached in chapel on the Orlando Dunnam campus on February 9, 2010 and in Estes Chapel in Wilmore, Kentucky, on February 11, 2010.  You can listen to the address on iTunes by clicking here. __________________________________________________________________________________________ This Sunday is the Sunday when the church around the world remembers the […]

The title of this reflection is “The God Who Passes Us By.”  This is the kind of title which may cause a few readers to move quickly on to the next chapter.  However, this particular passage falls into a category of miracles in the New Testament of which there are very few examples.  Indeed, this […]

Christianity, when it is true to itself, proclaims the power, healing and transformation which is found in Jesus Christ.  The moment that any Christian movement loses its focus on the person of Jesus Christ, it ceases to be fully, wholly Christian.  It is the person of Jesus Christ which makes us the people of God. […]

In these two texts from Mark’s gospel we find a stunning contrast.  We are met with that which appears to be indestructible, but is, in fact, quite destructible; and that which appears so vulnerable and destructible and which is, in fact, indestructible.  In Mark 13 the disciples are walking with Jesus and they are admiring […]