relationships on Bias

Lamin Sanneh, the African theologian who would be pivotal in the development of missional theology, was raised in an orthodox Muslim household in Gambia. He found himself drawn to Christianity after e...

Assumptions are the termites of relationships.

Some years ago, the syndicated newspaper columnist Sidney J. Harris shared an interesting anecdote from one of his friends. Each evening, this friend would stop at the same newsstand to buy a newspape...

Countless mistakes in marriage, parenting, ministry, and other relationships are failures to balance grace and truth. Sometimes we neglect both. Often we choose one over the other.

Yes, we should treat everyone right, but treating everyone right doesn’t mean we treat everyone the same. Jesus didn’t. Relating to people properly should not be confused with treating them equally.

The key for successful personal relationships and ministry is to understand and accept others as having a viewpoint as worthy of consideration as our own.

Wrong ideas about God make it impossible for us to function in relationship with one another.

Treat a man as he appears to be, and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be.

John's Only Question While Peter sucks up all the oxygen in the room with loads of questions, John only gets one direct question to Jesus recorded in the Gospels. In the passage immediately pre...

The greatest temptation of our time is impatience, in its full original meaning: refusal to wait, undergo, suffer. We seem unwilling to pay the price of living with our fellows in creative and profoun...

If you’ve ever watched a war movie, or a film that takes place in the military, you’re likely to have encountered a specific scene, in which a subordinate will have something to tell a senior officer ...

John's Only Question While Peter sucks up all the oxygen in the room with loads of questions, John only gets one direct question to Jesus recorded in the Gospels. In the passage immediately pre...

God’s vision for his people is not for the elimination of ethnicity to form a colorblind uniformity of sanctified blandness. Instead God sees the creation of a community of different cultures united b...

I have always wanted to be me without making it difficult for you to be you.

“Association breeds assimilation.” In other words, there is no such thing as a casual relationship. All relationships are consequential. They are catalytic. They push us forward or hold us back. They ...

Arnold “Red” Auerbach was one of the winningest coaches in NBA history. He won 9 championships as coach of the Boston Celtics and was named NBA Coach of the Year in 1965 and NBA Executive Coach of the...

To become peacemakers, then, we must begin with ourselves. We must ask ourselves, “Why do I make cutting remarks to another person? Why do I make demeaning remarks about them?” We must also ask oursel...

One of the ways we punish ourselves for not being more or better or thinner or stronger is by trying to squeeze ourselves—force ourselves, even—into all kinds of ill-fitting relationships. With other ...

In Jurassic Park, Jeff Goldblum taught us that life finds a way, but for me, so does awkwardness.

While exploring an experience of deep guilt and shame with her spiritual director, the author of Madeleine L’Engle, wrote One time I was talking to Canon Tallis, who is my spiritual director as we...

For purposes of practicality and relatability, this series considers the Sea of Galilee to be a lake and classifies other fresh or mostly fresh water locations together under the same banner. The poin...

The last 80 years of American politics have unfortunately seen a dramatic increase in political polarization. One reporter likened the relationship between Republicans and Democrats to the famous Shak...

[I] try to get into their world a little bit [by listening to hip-hop], because if they’re only adapting to you and you’re not adapting to them in some way, I don’t think you’ve developed a relationsh...

Trust is sweet. It is better than gold. Trust is always a gift of the heart, and therefore it just may be the most precious thing in life, next to love. Trust between two people is so valuable and pre...

Lucy says to Charlie Brown: ‘You know what the whole trouble with you is, Charlie Brown?’ ‘No; and I don’t want to know! Leave me alone!’ ‘The whole trouble with you is you won’t listen to w...

Generous One You entrust us with the goodness Of your faith and field Yet We grasp We scheme Deliver us from wickedness We reject We harm Deliver us from wickedness We murder We seize what ...

Problems in relationship occur because each person is concentrating on what is missing in the other person.

Our current cultural moment makes rich, life-giving friendships like the one David and Jonathan shared a challenge. We are connected like never before, yet isolated and lonely like never before. MIT p...

I think it is interesting that God designed people to need other people. We see those cigarette advertisements with the rugged cowboy riding around alone on a horse, and we think that is strength, whe...

Context I had a Bible professor in college who liked to say, “All Scripture is cultural!” He didn’t mean that the truth of who God is changes in different cultures. What he meant was that our God ch...