Christian Living on Heroes

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The Difference Between Heroes and Saints

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It turns out the Christian story is a good story in which to learn to fail. As the ethicist Samuel Wells has written, some stories feature heroes and some stories feature saints and the difference bet...

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Heroes on this Earth

Author

Philip Rhinelander

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If ever mortal men found a real hero on this earth, those men were the disciples. They, indeed, were hero-worshippers. Then think of the horrid shock and shame which overwhelmed them at the Cross. It ...

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Author

Heinz Kohut

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Almost all heroic individuals face grave crises while they are still on the road to reaching the ultimate decision that they will remain faithful to their selves, whatever the cost.

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A Saint Like Us

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

Acts 16:30-33, Romans 8:38-39, Hebrews 7:25, John 5:24, John 15:6-8, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Ephesians 6:18, Jeremiah 33:3, Psalm 86:3, John 15:1-10

For the most part, when we think of saints or heroes of the faith, we think of people who are altogether different than we are. They seem to embody a quality of communion with God that is impossible f...

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Skutniks and Samaritans

Author

Mia Levetan

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Scripture

Luke 10:36-37, 1 John 3:18, Hebrews 13:16, Proverbs 14:31, Matthew 22:39

If you have ever watched the President of the United States deliver the State of the Union Address in recent years, you know that at some point in his speech, he will point to the balcony and introduc...

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Scripture Filled with Non-Heroic Figures

Author

Eugene H. Peterson

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Scripture

Genesis 12:1-13, Genesis 27:35, Exodus 2:12, 2 Samuel 11:, Matthew 26:74

One of the first things that strikes us about the men and women in Scripture is that they were disappointingly non- heroic. We do not find splendid moral examples. We do not find impeccably virtuous m...

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Author

Dallas Willard

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Scripture

Isaiah 40:31, Philippians 4:13, Joshua 1:9, Hebrews 12:1-2, 2 Timothy 1:7, Ephesians 6:10-11

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...

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Author

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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The future of modern society depends much more on the quiet heroism of the very few who are inspired by God. These few will greatly enjoy the divine inspiration and will be prepared to stand for the d...

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The Everyday Virtue of Courage

Author

Stanley Hauerwas

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Scripture

Joshua 1:6-9, Isaiah 41:10, Ephesians 6:10-18, Matthew 10:28-31, Psalm 56:3-4, 2 Corinthians 4:8-12

In this short excerpt written by the Christian Ethicist Stanley Hauerwas to his godson, he pontificates on the topic of courage: Usually courage is identified with dramatic and heroic acts. Though I...

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Author

C. S. Lewis

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Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter, but darker.

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Changing Portraits

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Scripture

Philippians 2:3-4, Matthew 23:11-12, Galatians 5:13, 1 Corinthians 10:24

Writer Philip Yancey notes that toward the end of his life, Albert Einstein removed the portraits of two scientists–Newton and Maxwell–from his wall. He replaced those with portraits of Gandhi and Sch...

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Changing Your Mind

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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If you really want to change, it starts with your story. If you want to change the story of your life, you need to change the stories in your mind. So what story do you want to live? Do you want to ex...

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"The Batman Effect" The Power of Identity

Author

Ryan Bundrick

Scripture

Romans 13:14, Colossians 3:9-10, Ephesians 4:22-24, Hebrews 12:2, Colossians 2:6

A group of researchers sought to study the nuances of self-control. They conducted a study with a few dozen kindergarten students and gave them a painfully boring, repetitive task designed to test how...

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Only the Penitent Man Shall Pass

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

1 Peter 5:6, Luke 18:13-14, James 4:10, Acts 3:19, Matthew 3:8

With the recent release of a new installment in the Indiana Jones movie series, our family decided to re-watch the original trilogy (I like to act as though Kingdom of the Crystal Skull never existe...

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Sticking With One Another

Author

Thomas G. Long

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Scripture

2 Corinthians 1:3-7, Deuteronomy 31:8, Psalm 23:4, Galatians 6:2, Philippians 2:7-8, Romans 12:15, John 15:13

Robert Wuthnow told a story about a man named Jack Casey, who worked as a member of an ambulance rescue squad. When he was a child, Jack had oral surgery - five teeth pulled. The little guy was terrif...

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A Prayer for Those Who Govern

ALL SINGING: (America the Beautiful, first verse) O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grac...

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Author

Augustine of Hippo

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God of our life, there are days when the burdens we carry chafe our shoulders and weigh us down; when the road seems dreary and endless, the skies grey and threatening; when our lives have no music in...

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Deus ex machina

Author

Casey Clark

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 5:1-11

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 ...

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The Case of Courage

Author

G. K. Chesterton

Keywords

Courage

Scripture

Joshua 1:6-9, Isaiah 41:10, Ephesians 6:10-18, Matthew 10:28-31, Psalm 56:3-4, 2 Corinthians 4:8-12

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...

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The Unmerited Gift of Grace

Author

Randy Alcorn

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Scripture

Romans 5:6, Luke 23:39-43, Titus 3:5, Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 5:6-8

If you’re not stunned by the thought of grace, then you aren’t grasping what grace offers you, or what it cost Jesus. In 1987, eighteen-month-old “Baby Jessica” fell twenty-two feet into a Texas well....

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Subtraction Stew and Fulfillment: The Phantom Tollbooth

Author

Ryan Bundrick

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Scripture

John 6:26-27, John 6:35, Isaiah 55:1-2, Jeremiah 2:12-13, Proverbs 27:20, Amos 8:11

In The Phantom Tollbooth , there is a special kind of food called “subtraction stew.” Produced by a mathemagician, this stew makes you hungrier after you’ve eaten it. Our three main characters don’t ...

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A Fool Vs A Fool for Christ

Author

Os Guinness

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Scripture

1 Corinthians 1:18, 1 Corinthians 4:10, Acts 26:24-25, Romans 1:21, Proverbs 1:7

The first type of fool in the Bible is the character that might be called the fool proper. Folly in a fallen world is obviously partly relativistic, and we are always wise to say, “Says who?” Differen...

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The Terrible Darkness of Mother Teresa

Author

Mother Teresa

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Scripture

1 Kings 19:1-18, Job 3:1-26, 30:20-23, 42:1-6, Numbers 11:10-17, Matthew 26:36-46, 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Psalm 13:1-6

Many of us assume that our spiritual heroes do not have to experience the same inner-wrestling that we do. Mother Teresa, beloved across the world is one such figure we might “assume” didn’t have to d...

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Doubting Saved My Faith

Author

Travis Dickinson

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Scripture

Psalm 34:4, Hebrews 11:1, John 20:27, Matthew 14:31, James 1:5-6, Mark 9:24

Many Christians are terrified of doubting their faith. We avoid questions and challenges in favor of keeping things comfortable and familiar. We worry that if we open ourselves up to the possibility o...

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Emotions are Divine: Why Pastors Need Biblical Permission to Feel

Author

David Lamb

Keywords

Scripture

John 11:35, Psalm 5:5, Psalm 6:1, Psalm 78:58, Psalm 78:40, Psalm 18:19, Psalm 25:6, Psalm 5:7, Exodus 20:5, Exodus 22:23, Isaiah 15:5, Luke 15:null, Genesis 23:2, Genesis 42:24, 1 Samuel 1:10, 2 Samuel 1:11-12, 2 Kings 8:11-12, 2 Kings 22:18-20, Mark 14:72, John 20:11, Acts 20:37, Revelation 5:4

When the Professor Weeps: A Personal Story About ten years ago, I was teaching a course on the psalms for my seminary students in the midst of a personal health crisis. It wasn’t in my notes, but I ...

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Claiming Your Identity as a Saint

Author

Addison D. Bevere

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If you’re anything like me, when you hear the word saint, you probably think of anybody but yourself. We picture stained glass windows depicting Peter, Paul, or Mary. We think of modern-day heroes lik...

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A Triumphal Procession

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Zechariah 9:9, Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:8-11, Luke 19:36-44, John 12:16-19, Revelation 19:11-16

Two thousand years ago, triumphal processions were massively popular. It was, in all likelihood, the only chance most people would have to see the leaders and heroes of the day. For the Romans they t...

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Sam’s Encouragement

Author

Jake Meador

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In the final pages of his great epic The Lord of the Rings, J.R R. Tolkien writes of his heroes, Sam and Frodo, and their desperate quest to reach the cursed Mount Doom to cast the ring of power, a de...

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Author

Phillip Yancey

Keywords

Scripture

2 Corinthians 12:9, John 4:1-26, Jonah 1:4, Luke 19:1-10, Hosea 1:3, Acts 9:1-19

I have come to know a God who has a soft spot for rebels, who recruits people like the adulterer David, the whiner Jeremiah, the traitor Peter, and the human-rights abuser Saul of Tarsus. I have come ...

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Author

G. K. Chesterton

Keywords

Scripture

John 19:38-42, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 6:4, Acts 2:24, Colossians 2:12, Isaiah 53:9, Luke 24:6-7

They took the body down from the cross and one of the few rich men among the first Christians obtained permission to bury it in a rock tomb in his garden the Romans setting a military guard lest there...

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