Peter Ustinov, the British actor, director, and playwright, once received an indignant letter from the headmaster of his son’s school. The letter complained that his son frequently disrupted lessons b...
Intertwined Narratives Jesus’ encounters with Jairus’ daughter and the bleeding woman are sandwiched together with the intention that the two narratives would unlock and help to interpret the other....
Intertwined Narratives Jesus’ encounters with Jairus’ daughter and the bleeding woman are sandwiched together with the intention that the two narratives would unlock and help to interpret the other....
Have you ever seen the movie The Sixth Sense ? Okay, I’ve actually seen only a few clips…but the movie has so permeated popular culture that even people who haven’t seen it know about the twist endin...
The BuzzFeed-style quiz is taking over the internet, serving up answers to questions no one is asking. What Star Wars character are you? What restaurant trend describes your personality? Which Hogwart...
Proverbs 16:9, Psalm 37:23-24, Isaiah 30:21, Luke 16:10, Matthew 6:34, Ecclesiastes 9:11
The pioneering work of Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky has been popularized in recent years by the gamut of notable thinkers, including Malcolm Gladwell (Blink) and, in this cas...
The simple truth of our being gets lost in the metanarratives we spin. We become the fictions we live. Consequently, our way of being in the world is so false and unnatural that our presence is thorou...
Ephesians 5:1-2, Philippians 2:12-13, 2 Corinthians 3:18, 1 Corinthians 11:1, 1 Peter 2:21-23, John 13:15
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...
It’s hard to know how people select a course in life…the big choices we make are practically random. The big choices we make are practically random. The small choices probably tell us more about who w...
Luke 2:6-7, Isaiah 9:6, Philippians 2:6-7, Luke 4:18-19, Mark 4:35-41, Colossians 1:15-17, Hebrews 1:3
‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’, Such a dainty, fragile child, But the one we know is bold and strong We can hear that in your dying song, Little boy, little boy. ‘Just a boy of flesh and b...
We know the excitement of getting a present - we love to unwrap it to see what is inside. So it is with our children they are gifts we unwrap for years as we discover the unique characters God has mad...
I’ve come to think understanding personality is like holding a good map. That map can’t take you anywhere. It doesn’t change your location; you’re still right where you were before. But the map’s purp...
In her book Confessions of a Beginning Theologian , Elouise Renich Fraser discusses how crucial it has been to listen to her body throughout her personal and theological growth. My body, once...
I am among the minority of people who are hardwired (genetic science now demonstrates this) to loathe cilantro. I can’t stand it. I call it the adolescent of herbs: notice me, notice me, NOTICE ME! To...
If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living...
Compared to our personality traits, character traits are more malleable. Our personalities can only be managed (or tamed, some might say). Our characters can be shaped, although this isn’t easy and ha...
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...
Each one of us is called to live the truth of our unrepeatable uniqueness. We are not meant to model ourselves after others, however wonderful they may be. A delightful Jewish parable makes this point...
The first and best illustration of the effect upon personality of death is found in Jesus Christ. After his reappearance from the grave, he is unaltered in character, tone of thought, and fundamental ...
1 Corinthians 1:25, Matthew 16:24-25, Luke 10:33-36, Mark 12:41-43, Matthew 5:38-39
If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party. The world says, mind your own business, and Jesus says, there is no such thing as your own business. The w...
In this short excerpt, the scholar and Anglican clergyman N.T. Wright discusses the famous “weight of glory” passage in 2 Cornthians 4:17: For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an ...
Genesis 16:, 2 Samuel 9:, Jonah 3:4 , Luke 7:36-50, Matthew 9:9-13 , Psalm 146:7-9
In his book Breaking the Rules , Fil Anderson talks about the scandalous reputation of Jesus: He breaks all social etiquette in relating to people. He acknowledges no barriers or human divisions....
In our postmodern culture which is TV dominated, image sensitive, and morally vacuous, personality is everything and character is increasingly irrelevant.
Current research indicates that personality traits are hardwired; they’re largely hereditary and remain relatively constant throughout our lives.1 If we’re outgoing or reserved, energetic or subdued, ...