life on planet earth on Lineage

Think how intertwined sex is with the very reality of human existence. You simply would not exist without the sexual union of your parents . . . and their parents . . . and their parents . . . and the...

Is your last name Smith, Miller, Cooper, or Baker? Many surnames have their origin in the trades that your ancestors were identified with. Today, especially with the rise of the “gig economy,” people ...

New Testament Mountains Like the Old Testament, the New Testament has plenty of references to mountains.  There’s the Sermon on the Mount, obviously.  Jesus often went onto hills or mountains to pray...

People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all themselves. But in fact they are invariably the benefici...

What Is “Generosity”? The modern English word “generosity” derives from the Latin word generōsus, which means “of noble birth.” That Latin word was passed down to English through the Old French word g...

We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, bu...

Lifelong family friends own more than a thousand acres of land deep in Southern Mississippi, which they refer to as “the estate.” There isn’t a holiday get-together that passes without the family meet...

If we see more and further than they, it is not because of our own clear eyes or tall bodies, but because we are raised on high by their gigantic stature.

Someone might say of a son, ‘He’s a chip off the old block; he’s the spitting image of his father.’ That is not to say he is identical, but he does bear the family likeness. You can see his father in ...

Heavenly Father, you are faithful, even when we are not. We look to the examples of our parents, and they often fall short. We, too, fall short when we consider the legacy we pass on to our children, ...

It’s an argument that may never be fully resolved, but scientific research has shown what most of us probably already suspected: there is some truth to both perspectives. One study focused on factors ...

Only one life, ’twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.

Father of heirs and orphans, Salvation of saint and sinner, Draw near and forgive us. Forgive us for clinging to law more than grace. Forgive us for choosing slavery when you offer us adoption. Forgi...

A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.

Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming sp...

Leader: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. People: Jesus was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him not one t...

In Christ there is no East or West, In Christ no South or North; But one great family of love Throughout the whole wide earth. In Christ shall true hearts everywhere Their high communion find; H...

“What’s past is prologue.”

H.G. Wells, himself an atheist, makes this point about the nature of greatness as it relates to Jesus: A historian like myself, who doesn’t even call himself a Christian, finds the picture centering...

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you a...

When I was a child, my father brought home a twelve-year-old boy named Roger, whose parents had died from a drug overdose. There was no one to care for Roger, so my folks decided they would raise him ...

Cross-bearing is the long lesson of our mortal life. It is a part of God’s salvation, called sanctification. It is a lesson set before us every moment of every day.” “If life were an art lesson…we cou...

My father was an artist. He had a black leather sketchbook filled with cartoons and doodles. As a boy I was enthralled by his drawings and wondered how I could learn to draw like him. I began by traci...

The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.

Most historical characters worth studying are so because they held mindsets that formed significant variations on the parent worldview.

What’s in a name? The history of the human race is in names. Our objective friends do not understand that, since they move in a world of objects which can be counted and numbered. They reduce the grea...

May you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, that you may walk worthily of the Lord, to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work ...

The concept of humanity’s being divisible into different races has no scientific validity. This has always been the case, even before the advent of rapid global travel enabled the further mixing of pe...

We all came from dust and to dust we shall return. Even the greatest and the richest people of this generation will be soon forgotten. Let us focus completely on God almighty.

Real development is not leaving things behind, as on a road, but drawing life from them as from a root.