When something has gone wrong, justice needs to be done and seen to be done. Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement examines exactly this same dynamic. The central character, Bryony Tallis, makes a grave mista...
Prussian king Frederick the Great was once touring a Berlin prison. The prisoners fell on their knees before him to proclaim their innocence—except for one man, who remained silent. Frederick called t...
Ephesians 2:8-9, Galatians 3:24, Romans 8:3-4, Acts 9:1-19, Matthew 5:17
The law is harsh and cannot help us to receive forgiveness. In Craddock Stories, a collection of outstanding stories by Fred Craddock, is the following account with one who could understand law, but ...
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...
In I Was Wrong, televangelist Jim Bakker describes the terrible depression he went through while in prison in the 1990s for fraud and conspiracy. During one of his lowest moments, he received an encou...
Lord Jesus, who came to liberate the captives, remember the prisoners, we pray, those locked up in jails. …Release from the prisons of their own making all those who struggle with habits that bind t...
Locked into captivity by an airplane seat, a kindly disposition of keeping a friend company, or a telephone connection, we become ex officio confessors to those with troubled consciences and traces, o...
Genuine confession and repentance can be costly, as I have discovered in dealing with offenders. Take the case of the young man in the Washington area, deeply involved with his church and solidly conv...
As soon as we know that we are wrong, we aren’t wrong anymore, since to recognize a belief as false is to stop believing it. Thus we can only say “I was wrong.” Call it the Heisenberg Uncertainty Prin...
On April 14, 1999, 32-year-old Alan Rashid stood in a Cardiff, Wales’ courtroom. He was charged with the crime of threatening to kill. Just as the foreman of the jury read the verdict, a throat-cleari...
It was on November 28, 1965, that fighter pilot Howard Rutledge’s plane was shot down right into the hands of the North Vietnam Army. Quickly he was shuttled to the “Heartbreak Hotel,” one of the noto...
In June 2024, I (A. J.) had the opportunity to visit the Oregon State Correctional Institution in Salem, Oregon, to meet with a group of inmates who had read one of my recent books. The experience was...
Luke 15:11-32, Acts 16:22-26, Genesis 39:41, 1 Peter 4:16, Psalm 34:18, Romans 5:3-5, 2 Corinthians 12:9
I spent a considerable amount of time with a guy I’ll call Martin. As a brand-new follower of Christ, Martin felt guilty for having previously embezzled a lot of money from his employer. After discuss...
Years ago, visiting one of the London prisons, I heard a statement made by one of the prisoners that impressed me very much. He said to me, ‘You do not know what a relief it is to be found out.’ We di...
2 Timothy 3:16-17, Romans 15:4, Isaiah 55:11, Hebrews 4:12-13, 2 Peter 1:19-21, Matthew 4:4, Matthew 24:35, Isaiah 41:8-10, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Psalm 46:, Genesis 37:12-36, 1 Samuel 19:, 1 Samuel 20:, 2 Corinthians 11:23-30, 2 Corinthians 4:17, Acts 21:27-36
For seven years, Terry Anderson was held as a hostage of Shiite Muslim fundamentalists. The former reporter for the Associated Press had been taken captive and held as a political prisoner, and for se...
Liu Chi Kung, who placed second to Van Cliburn in the 1948 Tchaikovsky competition, was imprisoned a year later during the Cultural Revolution in China. During the entire seven years he was held, he w...
Sometimes God takes our greatest failures and turns them into our greatest successes. Charles “Chuck” Colson had risen the ladder of national political success at breakneck speed. After a tour in the ...
I want you to know, brothers [and sisters], that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest th...
William Shakespeare’s Othello is able to capture the heart of what it means to experience slander, or to have one “bear false witness’ perhaps better than any other: Who steals my purse steals trash;...
The ideas of right and wrong among the Hebrews are forensic ideas; that is, the Hebrew always thinks of the right and the wrong as if they were to be settled before a judge. Righteousness is to the He...
Daniel 6:16-23, Jeremiah 29:4-7, Genesis 39:20-23, Acts 16:25-34, Matthew 5:10-12 , Psalm 23:4
On Christmas Eve in Tehran, house-church pastor Farshid Fatah and his family were awakened to the frightening sounds of the Iranian security police pounding at their door. After the police searched hi...
This difference between possession and enjoyment is well illustrated in the story of Louis Delcourt. He was a young French soldier during the First World War who overstayed his leave and, fearing disg...
Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of anyone. For no one can judge a criminal until he recognizes that he is just such a criminal as the man standing before him, and that he perhaps is m...
For so long as we remain cooped up in this prison of our body, traces of sin will dwell in us; but if we faithfully hold fast to the promise given us by God in baptism, they shall not dominate or rule...
In their excellent book on reconciliation, Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice share the true story of Billy Neal Moore, who would both find Jesus in prison and ultimately find his victim’s parents to b...
O God our Father, whose Son forgave his enemies while he was suffering shame and death: Strengthen those who suffer for the sake of conscience; when they are accused, save them from speaking in hate; ...
“You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why?" "I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it...