1 peter on Anonymity

Editor’s Note: This story is often told as a true story, when in fact it is probably fictitious. Nevertheless, there is a significant illustrative point: sometimes the things we fear most may in fact ...

People can say one thing and do something totally different. You see the darkness that is often hidden from polite society. The thing that you see is a widespread insecurity. I think people put on a f...

Character is always lost when a high ideal is sacrificed on the altar of conformity and popularity. Before any great achievement, some measure of depression is very usual.

Humility is so shy. If you begin talking about it, it leaves.

Humility is royalty without a crown.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity..

Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am bla...

The invincible weapon against all our enemies is humility.

Truth is the only healthy place from which to speak. Assumption is the birthplace of godless chatter.

Though beauty gives you a weird sense of entitlement, it's rather frightening and threatening to have others ascribe such importance to something you know you're just renting for a while.

Paradoxically, if we wish to become more aware of others and their concerns, there is perhaps no better work we can do than developing self-awareness. Consider the findings of a team of psychologists ...

All of us struggle with our own desires for accomplishment and ambition. Christians especially find it difficult to discern their own worldly ambitions vs. following Jesus’ comand to seek first the ki...

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others. In your ...

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.

Faith is seeing the invisible, but not the nonexistent.

I am not perfect, and I will struggle with the “old Jim,” who was and is influenced by American culture, narratives and values. But the key is that identity comes before behavior. We almost always do ...

While movies and novels often present stories of a budding love interest willing to give up everything for “true love” (Romeo and Juliet, for example), the renowned poet, and later clergyman, John Don...

My wife is a big fan of an advice column called “Ask a Manager.” The articles offer a variety of subjects, many of which are serious, but some are downright hilarious. They often capture the absurditi...

Have you ever noticed that we often see ourselves, specifically our bodies, our facial features differently? In 2013 the soap company Dove decided to explore this phenomenon by hiring an FBI-trained f...

But what will not Ambition and Revenge Descend to? Who aspires must down as low As high he sor’d, obnoxious first or last To basest things.

The suffering addressed in 1 Peter is not random misfortune but the social cost of a new identity that challenges prevailing cultural norms.

Of all the values at our disposal, humility seems to be the least attractive. You don’t see many television ads or billboards extolling the virtues of humility, do you?

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

My husband, Jeff, is an excellent driver. He has never had an accident, excepting two incidents in high school which hardly bear mentioning— Several years ago, I was driving across town to get to a sp...

In an early Christian document known as the Epistle to Diognetus (c. A.D. 120-200), the author wrote a response to some propaganda circulating in the Roman Empire. People had spread false rumors about...

Gracious, almighty God, we think of John the Baptist, who was a faithful witness to you. He understood that this role was pointing people toward you and not himself. Yet we know that all too often we ...

In Silence, Shusaku Endo writes of the journey of Portuguese Jesuits journeying to Japan. It is a conversation about those who intend to take the path of Jesus, only to find they are on the path of Ju...

Far too many people, especially within evangelicalism, think that the individual is all that matters, and that the corporate dimension is a distraction or diversion. Of course Christianity is deeply p...

Sometimes moments of forgiveness and friendship come from unexpected places. In 2018, the comedian Pete Davidson appeared on the “Weekend Update” segment of Saturday Night Live (SNL). Davidson made a ...

A friend of mine who is an entrepreneur was listening to a CD of a series of messages I had given on the Beatitudes. When he came to meekness, he told me, he skipped over it. He wasn’t interested in b...