background from psalm 136

In love . What does that even mean?  “Love” is a junk drawer we dump all sorts of ideas into, just because we don’t have anywhere else to put them.  I “love” God, and I “love” fish tacos. See ...

In the second century before Christ the great rival to Roman power in the Mediterranean world was Carthage, the Phoenician city-state located on the north African coast. It had been founded in 822 B.C...

In the Old Testament, God is often praised for his kindness. There is a beautiful word in Hebrew— hesed —which is so rich in meaning that it gets translated in many ways. Very often it is translat...

Charles Fulton Oursler Sr. (1893–1952) was an American journalist, playwright, editor, and writer. Like many Southerners of means, he was cared for as a boy by a nurse who had been born into slavery. ...

Let’s say I interviewed ten people, asking each the same question—“Do you trust God?”—and each answered, “Yes, I trust God,” but nine of the ten actually did not trust him. How would I find out which ...

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it...