The image of a lamb doesn’t evoke feelings of confidence or strength. Sports fans will never hear an announcer say, “Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together to welcome the mighty Fighting Lambs!...
The farmers in the old prairie days used to prepare for a winter storm by putting up a rope between the house and the barn. They did this because they knew that in a swirling blizzard, even a brief di...
Christianity is without doubt the earthiest of all religions. Unlike most other religions, it doesn’t call you out of the physical, out of the body, or out of the world. Rather it tells you that God e...
Psalm 2:10-11, John 18:36, Matthew 5:13-16, Jeremiah 29:7, Micah 6:8, 1 Samuel 15:22
We can’t separate what we believe in the political arena from who we are in Christ and what obedience to God demands...That said, not every tenet of Christianity should become the law of the state. We...
Summary The Text: 1 Peter 3:13-22 In the first chapter of this letter, Peter sets out the reason for writing. He affirms the eternal state of the believer: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lo...
In this short excerpt, Father Roderick Strange speaks to those who want to write off the church. It is written primarily to a Roman Catholic audience, but it relates quite well to Protestants as well:...
Today, unlike almost any other earlier period, the money and the strong educational institutions of Christianity are in one part of the world, while a majority of the active believers are located else...
Too Busy for God? American work culture is all-pervasive. For many members of your congregation, it can be a real fight to get actual time off—and cell phones and the internet has made it possible to...
Christianity is almost the only one of the great religions which thoroughly approves of the body—which believes that matter is good, that God Himself once took on a human body, that some kind of body ...
That which distinguishes Christianity has not been stolen. For what makes Christianity absolutely distinct is the identity of our God. Which God we worship: that is the article of faith that stands be...
The current context of cultural and religious pluralism magnifies this development. After the disintegration of Christendom-a historical topical apparatus that gave cultural pride of place to Christia...
John 14:6, Philippians 3:8, Ephesians 2:13, 1 John 1:3, John 10:10, Hebrews 1:3, Colossians 1:15-17
Christianity at its core is not about subscription to a theological system or the authority of a sacred text or ethical perspectives, although they are all important. Christianity at its core is about...
Christianity is distinct from all other religions because it is a message of grace. Jesus Christ is the supreme revelation of God's grace. Salvation is by grace, and grace governs and empowers Chr...
Whether we like it or not, the moment we confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, that is, from the time we become a Christian, we are at the same time a member of the Christian church … Our membe...
American Christianity is a story of perpetual upheavals in churches and individual lives. Starting with the extraordinary conversion experience, our lives are motivated by a constant expectation for t...
John 14:6, Matthew 22:37-38, Matthew 4:18-19, 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, Luke 10:40-42, John 10:11
Christianity is not a collection of truths to be believed, of laws to be obeyed. Christianity is a person, one who loved us so much, one who calls for our love. Christianity is Christ.
James 1:27, Isaiah 1:17, Psalm 68:5, Matthew 25:34-40, 1 Timothy 5:3-4, Zechariah 7:9-10, Matthew 12:48-50, Romans 8:14-17, Luke 4:18, Acts 4:34-35, James 2:15-16
Christianity revitalized life in Greco-Roman cities by providing new norms and new kinds of social relationships able to cope with many urgent urban problems. To cities filled with the homeless and im...
To those who only know it outwardly, Christianity seems desperately intricate. In reality, taken in its main lines, it contains an extremely simple and astonishingly bold solution of the world. In the...
Matthew 2:1-4, Luke 15:3-7, John 8:1-11, Luke 19:10, John 1:16, Revelation 22:17
During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith. They began eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? O...
Most people today imagine that the point of Christianity is “to go to heaven when you die.” That’s what most believers believe. It’s what most unbelievers unbelieve. It’s certainly what journalists, b...
In this short excerpt, the abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass describes the tension between faith in Christ and faith in a form of Christianity willing to enslave an entire race of peopl...
John 10:6, John 17:21, 1 Corinthians 3:11, 1 Corinthians 1:10-13, Revelation 7:10
Before he was a household name, C. S. Lewis was a hardened atheist. From his teens to his early thirties, he vocalized many of the objections to Christianity that animate doubt in our age. After his s...
Of true Christianity is not the truth of God, then the richest vintage that ever the world saw and the noblest wine of which it ever drank did grow up a thorn.
Titus 3:5, Hebrews 7:25, Romans 5:8, John 3:17, 1 John 4:14, 1 Timothy 1:15, Luke 19:10
Christianity is a rescue religion. It declares that God has taken the initiative in Jesus Christ to rescue us from our sins. This is the main theme of the Bible. You are to give him the name Jesus, be...
True Christianity is a fight. . . .There is a vast quantity of religion current in the world which is not true, genuine Christianity. It passes muster; it satisfies sleepy consciences; but it is not g...
Romans 12:2, Galatians 6:1, Proverbs 9:10, James 1:4, Isaiah 61:3
Think of an ancient icon of Christ. Imagine that a thousand-year-old Christ Pantocrator painted on a wooden panel is discovered in some forgotten monastery. The image of Christ is there, but it’s cove...
Far too many people, especially within evangelicalism, think that the individual is all that matters, and that the corporate dimension is a distraction or diversion. Of course Christianity is deeply p...
Genesis 12:1–3, Exodus 3:1–12, Isaiah 53:, Matthew 22:15–22 , John 4:1–42 , Acts 17:16–34
The world of Jesus was not the Old Testament Hebrew world. Like the United States now, Israel was multicultural, including a combination of Aramaic, Greek, and Roman influences. The people looked Jewi...