church history on Light

One time a little boy and his father got to tour Europe. During their journey, they visited a magnificent cathedral, where the boy found himself captivated by the vibrant stained glass windows. He cou...

Jesus, You name us Beloved, Blessed Son, Daughter Sibling, Heir Help us remember You name us Child of the King Redeemed, Forgiven Saved by grace through faith Help us remember You name us Ligh...

The Cave One of the most famous passages in Plato's Republic is his "Allegory of the Cave," which is found at the beginning of book seven . Socrates imagines the human condition al...

Imagine you are an alien who earned your interstellar passport and decided to spend a day on planet Earth. Suppose you picked a small town somewhere in the United States. Maybe you wouldn’t be surpris...

We taste Thee, O Thou Living bread, And long to feast upon Thee still: We drink of Thee, the Fountainhead And thirst our souls from Thee to fill.

Prayer should be brief, frequent, and intense.

Once, when the famous missionary, Dr. David Livingstone, was in Africa, he wrote home to England requesting more workers. In reply, he received this message: We would like to send more workers to y...

Lord, there is no seedling in the thicket that does not call you its maker. And I, too, come knowing that whatever the quality of my life is, it is thou, O God, who stamped your purpose on my soul. So...

​​The Lord called the Magi by a star; He called the fishermen by fish; He called the tax collector at the money table. He lowered Himself to each, that He might raise all to salvation.

One common mistake is assuming that everyone else finds faith easy, while we alone struggle. Yet there is comfort in recognizing that we are not alone in our pursuit of Christ in the midst of a broken...

Have you heard the acronym “K. I. S. S”? It stands for “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” Paul doesn’t exactly call the Corinthians stupid (in 1 Cor. 15), though elsewhere Paul sounds tempted to do so, when ...

Brother Lawrence, a 16th-century Carmelite monk, spent his days scrubbing pots and mending shoes. Largely uneducated, he filled his free time writing letters and notes that, after his death, friends g...

When Johann Sebastian Bach sought to convey the heart of Christian truth through music, he chose the Mass as his foundation. His B Minor Mass begins with a heartfelt plea from the full chorus and orch...

The Creed was the focused, worshipful expression of people whose lives had been totally transformed by the Bible and by the risen Jesus Christ. The Creed’s words are not windows with the shutters pull...

Yet for all that, God, for the salvation of them that were in error, endured to be served by these things, whereby those without were used to serve devils; only He slightly altered them; that He might...

Man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.

In a way, the Reformation began in one monk's overwhelming guilt. Martin Luther was riddled with guilt and filled with anxiety because he could see that he could not live up to God's standard ...

The early Christian writers used some stunning expressions of delight and gratitude when they mentioned Jesus’s death. Think of Paul saying, “He loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20), or “The ...

A Joyful Easter Proclamation John Chrysostom (344-407) was the Bishop of Constantinople and is remembered as a Doctor of the Church. He was a renowned preacher (his name, Chrysostomos means "...

It is quite enough that you have sinned. Now let go of it. Don’t let your despondency lead to an even greater offence. The Lord says, ‘I do not wish the death of the sinner, but rather that he repent ...

After the fall of our first parents, boundaries were something to push past, to transgress. It’s worth pausing to note how we use the word transgression for “sin.”  With its Latin roots, “across” and ...

Amy Carmichael was a passionate missionary to India. She gave her life for the sake of those who had suffered the consequences of an unyielding caste system. She also had her suffering, due to physica...

In George Bernard Shaw’s play about Joan of Arc , as Joan faces her execution by burning, she addresses those in power who have condemned her: “I will now go to the common people and find comfort in ...

Season 3, episode 21 of Bluey (an episode called “Tina”) opens with Bandit telling his daughter Bluey to put her plate in the dishwasher. When Bluey pushes back and asks why, Bandit replies, “Be...

Love Loving the Word of God is a great pursuit, but it’s not always easy. Like most love relationships, there are inevitable highs and lows. And as teachers of the Bible, many of us walk a delicate...

I cannot submit my faith either to the pope or to the council, because it is as clear as noonday that they have fallen into error and even into glaring inconsistency with themselves. If, then, I am no...

Every person in Scripture lived out a personal story incarnated by an even greater story about God, life, and the world. That story came from the politics, theology, and culture ingrained in their mem...

William Barclay tells the story of Hugh Latimer, one of England’s great preachers and leaders of the English reformation (16th cent.), eventually a martyr for that cause. On an occasion when Latimer w...

A magistrate regards someone as a criminal and punishes him if he catches him among thieves, even though the man has never committed anything evil or worthy of death. Christ was not only found among s...

The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.