nehemiah on Myopia

Professional football players often get heated on the field, sometimes letting their emotions get the best of them when penalized by an official. Art Holst, a longtime NFL referee, recalls a Sunday ga...

If we see more and further than they, it is not because of our own clear eyes or tall bodies, but because we are raised on high by their gigantic stature.

Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, of building a personality beyond its normal limitations.

Culture is shaped by the primary medium of an era. Marshall McLuhan is widely known as the father of media studies. He coined the famous phrase “the medium is the message” in 1965. And while some to...

The animal behavior scientist Temple Grandin, who achieved significant success while struggling with autism, has this to say on the subject of progress: People are always looking for the single ma...

Many of the modern controversies surrounding the Bible—for example, human sexuality, creationism and the “openness” of God—revolve around questions concerning hermeneutics. The science of hermeneutics...

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.

God is more willing to pardon than to punish. Mercy does more multiply in Him than sin in us. Mercy is His nature.

The more I understand people and their needs, the more I am persuaded that God has uniquely designed the local church to respond to those needs.

Phillips Brooks, the author of the famous hymn “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” He wrote: Sad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely contented with the life he is living, with the thoug...

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.

One development of the exile was an additional language for the Jewish people. The Babylonians and Persians spoke Aramaic, and out of necessity the Jews learned it. Some even became more conversant in...

Since 1991, the adult population in the United States has grown by 15%. During that same period, the number of adults who do not attend church has nearly doubled, rising from 39 million to 75 million—...

Lord, open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, that as the Scriptures are read and your Word is proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you say to us today. Amen.

I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent. Curiosity, obsession, and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas. Especially strong thinking powers (...

When you take "personal" attacks personally, you unwittingly conspire in one of the common ways you can be taken out of action-you make yourself the issue. Attacks may be personal, understan...

After I graduated from seminary, I stopped reading the Bible. It’s been said that for all the gain that comes from dissecting a frog, all the hands-on knowledge one amasses from cutting out the organs...

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically, to say “no” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger “yes” burn...

The average adult brain consists of more than 10 billion neurons communicating with one another through more than 10 trillion synaptic connections. (Synaptic connections are the junctions or gaps betw...

We long to see our lives whole, to know that they matter. We wonder whether our many activities might ever come together in a way of life that is good for ourselves and others. Lacking a vision of a l...

Mending is an act that requires courage. To mend can be to repair a relationship, as described in the line above from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing . In this splendid play, Benedick and Be...

Joy is a net of love in which you can catch souls.

The Bible ceased to be a foreign book in a foreign tongue, and became naturalized, and hence far more clear and dear to the common people. Hereafter the Reformation depended no longer on the works of ...

Peter Drucker suggests that we should always sustain two streams of learning and self-improvement. And though he is speaking specifically about work and career, what he says is equally applicable whet...

In a talk about faith and doubt, the Irish Londoner Charlie Mackesy shares a humorous anecdote from a friend. This friend was attending a traditional Anglican worship service with his wife and their y...

Even Jesus who is the Lord of Lords and the king of kings fasted and prayed in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights. How much more we need to do the same with all our sinfulness and baggage's.

I do not go to church because it is enjoyable (usually it’s not), or because it is never dull (usually it is). I do not go to church because it satisfies my private needs and wishes (it seldom does). ...

Pastor: You are the LORD, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; ...

He who gives of his goods to help the poor, to send children to school, to educate them in God’s Word and other arts ... he is giving to the baby Jesus.

Pastor: Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.  People: I have hidden Your word in my heart, that I might not sin against You. Pastor: I praise You, O Lord; teac...