thought exercise on Supernatural

The Western world has largely rejected this dimension of evil that the Bible gives us, and as a result, we, like Job’s friends, are always underestimating—and sometimes misdiagnosing—the power of evil...

In comparison to other societies, Americans and other North Atlantic peoples are naturalistic. Non-Western peoples are frequently concerned about the activities of supernatural beings . . . The wide-r...

We are a couple of decades past the vastly popular initial run of the TV show The X-Files, but its themes continue to resonate. In the show, two FBI agents, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, investigate par...

That is, there is no concept of a “natural” world in ancient Near Eastern thinking. The dichotomy between natural and supernatural is a relatively recent one. Deity pervaded the ancient world. Nothin...

The Old Testament portrays the world as it is, no holds barred. In its pages you will find passionate stories of love and hate, blood-chilling stories of rape and dismemberment, matter-of-fact account...

While there are an infinite number of ways for a movie to fall short, a common complaint is if the inciting incident of the drama is solved in a way that comes out of nowhere, even breaking the logic ...

The Old Testament portrays the world as it is, no holds barred. In its pages you will find passionate stories of love and hate, blood-chilling stories of rape and dismemberment, matter-of-fact account...

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), ...

Nine-year-old Leo Tolstoy , convinced God would help him fly, dove headfirst out a third-floor window and had his first major crisis of disappointment with God. Fortunately, Tolstoy survived the cr...

Most women feel as though they give, give, give all day long. We give to ministries, the neighbors, our jobs, and the local PTA. We fill the roles of taxi driver, chef, teacher, and lover. We run to t...

Dr. William Evans, who pastored College Church from 1906–1909, was an unusually accomplished man. He had the entire King James Version of the Bible memorized as well as the New Testament of the Americ...

Have you ever seen the movie The Sixth Sense ? Okay, I’ve actually seen only a few clips…but the movie has so permeated popular culture that even people who haven’t seen it know about the twist endin...

Francis Chan tells the story of Domingo and Irene Garcia: He’s a mechanic. She’s a hairdresser. They have been foster parents to thirty-two children and have adopted sixteen. Domingo and Irene are in...

For us, Jesus instituted two ongoing signs to confirm our confidence in the gospel of his grace, the first of which is baptism. Though simpler and less obviously supernatural than the ten plagues on E...

The Bible has, amazingly—no doubt with supernatural grace—survived its critics. Thirty to sixty million copies are produced annually. The harder tyrants try to eliminate it and skeptics dismiss it, th...

In Jesus’ resurrection we are face to face with the first body made for heaven. Jesus’ resurrection body shows us what our bodies will be like, and therefore what haven will be like. Maybe I need to e...

Because the gospel of Jesus is not an ideology or a philosophy or a methodology or a therapy but a supernatural in-breaking of God into our lives, I am concerned at how many Christians do not bring it...

Some of my favorite heroes have a dual identity: Clark Kent is Superman; Bruce Wayne is Batman; Peter Parker is Spider-Man. The list goes on and on. You and I also have a dual identity, though, unlike...

I (Josh) know a young man named Mark who was on the brink of self-destruction. He partied away his first semester of junior college and was later kicked out of school. He was devastated by his loss an...

You’re not getting the sense that Paul got angelic visits every other day and waited for his dreams, visions of his heart, and supernatural messages written out in the clouds to tell him what to do…Wi...

Roman imprisonments were brutal. There was no concern for prisoner comfort, no plan for meals or for medical care, and no concern for a just and speedy trial. Paul’s imprisonment in Caesarea went on f...

Bear one another’s burdens, the Bible says. It is a lesson about pain that we all can agree on. Some of us will not see pain as a gift; some will always accuse God of being unfair for allowing it. But...

Descents are everywhere. From Hercules and Orpheus venturing into Hades, to Harry Potter following the pipes down into the Chamber of Secrets, to the Sheriff and Joyce Byers frantically searching for ...

Allow me to introduce you to Secular Sam. Secular Sam is very successful. He has a good job, a nice girlfriend, a beautiful apartment, a new car, and excellent health. He’s humorous, intelligent, and ...

Now, in our lifetime, scientists are finding ever newer evidence for what some religious people called presence in the very organizing energy of the universe—from fractals, to holograms, to electro-ma...

In Susanna Clarke’s wonderful fairytale Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, she tells a story about the rediscovery of magic in England in the nineteenth century. In the beginning of the tale, magic has...

I met a man who watches The Lord of the Rings movies every night. When he told me this I pushed back: “Every night?” He said that when he gets off work he goes home, fixes his dinner, turns on the m...

Human spectacle making is like sorcery—an enchantment, a spell, the creation of an image that calls for a response from our inner longings. Idolatry is the original tele-vision, the bringing of a far-...

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, yo...

For all the gifts and abilities that God has given us, we are still his creatures who do not possess the divine control over life. But that limit is rejected in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The ...