Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 , Genesis 2:18, 1 Samuel 18:1-4, Mark 8:36, Philippians 2:3-4, Psalm 133:1
Read any study on human satisfaction and you will see the paramount role of relationships with others. And yet, so many of us readily exchange friendship and community for success and achievement, onl...
1 Kings 20:40, Matthew 6:34, Romans 7:19, Romans 8:11-14
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...
When my daughter Hope was little, I told her a bedtime story every night. I read her the usual books— Goodnight Moon and Winnie-the-Pooh —but her favorite stories were the “made-up ones.” Th...
We have never lived enough. Our experience is, without fiction, too confined and too parochial. Literature extends it, making us reflect and feel about what might otherwise be too distant for feeling....
After I graduated from seminary, I stopped reading the Bible. It’s been said that for all the gain that comes from dissecting a frog, all the hands-on knowledge one amasses from cutting out the organs...
"Rub Some Bible" on It? My wife Gem and I were discussing a podcast she’d heard in which the host talked about quoting the Bible “for those who feel the need for that sort of authority.” ...
Unless we form the habit of going to the Bible in bright moments as well as in trouble, we cannot fully respond to its consolations because we lack equilibrium between light and darkness.
An Unhurried Practice: Reading Scripture Slowly One of the disciplines that has been an important part of my spiritual journey over the years is reading and reflecting on Scripture. In recent years,...
A little girl from Minneapolis reunited with her family after Sunday school looked upset. “I’m not going back!” she declared assertively. Surprised, her mother asked, “Why not?” The girl frowned and r...
When the great theologian Jürgen Moltmann was sixteen years old in 1943, he was drafted into the German army and was soon captured by the Allied forces. He wound up in a prisoner of war camp in Scotla...
In Book Eight of Confessions , St. Augustine recounts how, in a state of deep inner turmoil, he “heard from a nearby house a voice, as of a boy or girl, I know not which, chanting repeatedly, ‘Ta...
Story is the primary way in which the revelation of God is given to us. The Holy Spirit’s literary genre of choice is story. Story isn’t a simple or naive form of speech from which we graduate to the ...
Does reading the Bible really change us? Does it have the ability, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to shape and form our characters? That's what The Center for Bible Engagement wanted to fin...
Karl Barth (1886-1968), the famous Swiss theologian, once wrote that all human sin finds its roots in three basic human problems. He included pride (hubris), dishonesty and slothfulness in his list of...
My brother, who attended a Bible College during a smart-alecky phase in his life, enjoyed shocking groups of believers by sharing his “life verse.” After listening to others quote pious phrases from P...
Genesis 22:1-14, Exodus 14:21-31, Micah 6:6-8, Matthew 22:36-40 , James 1:22-25, Psalm 119:105
Søren Kierkegaard offers two suggestions for the reader who tackles difficult portions of the Bible. First, read it like a love letter, he says. As you struggle with language, culture, and other barri...
The people God used to record his words were themselves uncommonly moved by them. They said the Word of God is honey in my mouth (Ezekiel 3:3) spiritual food for the hungry (Job 23:12) dwel...
Genesis 22:1-19, Exodus 32:1-35, Ecclesiastes 1:1-18, Matthew 20:1-16 , John 6:53-66, Psalm 73:1-28
Thomas Merton’s words about the Bible in general apply to the Old Testament in particular: There is, in a word, nothing comfortable about the Bible — until we manage to get so used to it that we ...
Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains o...
With the exception of some of the Proverbs, the Bible does not contain isolated sayings. I should be wary about dipping into it at random and extracting individual verses without any regard for their ...
Researchers used data on 3,635 people over 50 participating in a larger health study who had answered questions about reading. The scientists divided the sample into three groups: those who read no b...