joshua on Science

A businessman well known for his ruthlessness once announced to writer Mark Twain, “Before I die I mean to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I will climb Mount Sinai and read the 10 Commandments alo...

There’s no shortage of the religiously faithless who seem eager to tell us what faith is. Many of these characterizations of faith are reminiscent of Mark Twain’s precocious schoolboy who quipped, “Fa...

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

The Federal Aviation Administration once developed a cannon-like device to test the strength of windshields of airplanes. They actually shot a dead chicken (I’m serious) into the windshield at the app...

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Myth becomes myth not in the living but in the retelling.

I…vividly remember one of my teachers telling the story of three young boys whose route to school went alongside a high wall. Every day as the boys walked to school, they wondered what was on the othe...

Unless there is an element of risk in our exploits for God, there is no need for faith.

God's word, if you don't use it, you'll lose it. If you don't apply it, you'll forget it.

How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.

At their core, transitions are the internal adjustments by which we reorient ourselves to new environments, new experiences, and new seasons of life.

Life is always dull and insipid to those who have no great works on their hands to do and no lofty ideals to elevate their spirits.

Becoming a Navy Seal is considered the most challenging training of any military unit in the U.S. military. And as difficult as most of their training is, nothing can compare to BUDS, which stands for...

Rituals are procedures or routines that are fused with meaning. Ritual actions include various rites of passage (birth, marriage, death) or calendrical rites (religious holy days, national holidays), ...

Courage is Fear That has said its prayers.

The style [of the Bible] is of the battlefield rather than the cloister.

Introduction Leaning Toward the Light What does it mean to lean towards the light of Christ? What does it mean to be open to the work of God? For the Pharisee in Jesus’ time, the answer was clear: y...

Living God, help us so to hear your holy Word that we may truly understand; that, understanding, we may believe and believing, we may follow in all faithfulness and obedience, seeking your honor and g...

Context Ritual Purity The most important broad contextual issue to address with this passage is the concept of ritual purity, and the ways in which this served as a boundary and identity marker for ...

Your decisions . . . along with your responses to other people’s decisions, which are also your decisions...are about the only thing you can control in life, which means your decisions are how you con...

You’re afraid? So what. Everybody’s afraid. Fear is the common ground of humanity. The question you must wrestle to the ground is, ‘Will I allow my fear to bind me to mediocrity?’

We might say that convictions are firmly held moral or religious beliefs that guide our beliefs, actions, or choices.

Context Ritual Purity The most important broad contextual issue to address with this passage is the concept of ritual purity, and the ways in which this served as a boundary and identity marker for ...

Take the case of courage. No quality has ever so much addled the brains and tangled the definitions of merely rational sages. Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to li...

Every now and then it shows through the clouds that are moving across its face. One moment it looks like the eye of a hawk in profile. The next it looks like the eye at the top of the pyramid on a dol...

In truth, people can generally make time for what they choose to do; it is not really the time but the will that is lacking.

The famous poem The Charge of the Light Brigade includes these haunting lines: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred… Someone had blundered. Theirs not to reason why, ...

This is an age for spiritual heroes—a time for men and women to be heroic in faith and in spiritual character and power. The greatest danger to the Christian church today is that of pitching its messa...

Transition is one of the givens in our lives, and we only live well, we only manage our lives well, when we manage these transitions well. Our world changes; the circumstances of our lives change. The...

Now I have to ask you: If Jesus Christ, the Son of God, did not presume to face the forces of evil in the world without a profound knowledge of the Bible in mind and heart, how could we try to face li...