Articles to educate and encourage.
In today’s reading in Mark, out of chapter 7, the Pharisees try to corner Jesus and his disciples about how their eating practices look a lot like defiling behaviors before the law. But Jesus will not let them take him there. From where does personal defilement come? From what is ingested, or from how...
Read more →When I was between my sophomore and junior years of college, I was happy to be able to participate in a summer missions project. Growing up as a Baptist kid in Southern Baptist churches, it was natural that I continued my denominational association in college. Right across the street from the University of New...
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Yesterday morning, I was grateful to play hooky from church and just enjoy the quiet of a Sunday morning at home. After my chores, I climbed into a chair at the bar table in the back of my kitchen, opened my journal, and then opened Mark Batterson’s book, “In A Pit With A Lion...
Read more →“No man needs sympathy because he has to work, because he has a burden to carry. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” ― Theodore Roosevelt Thinking as I do about meaning and purpose and Biblical answers, I’ve wondered a lot about...
Read more →No doubt this has been done by someone else out there on the web, but I thought that for my perusal- and for my future reference- I’d jot William Strunk’s rules (with E.B.’s additions) about writing from “The Elements of Style” here. I. ELEMENTARY RULES OF USAGE 1. Form the possessive singular of nouns...
Read more →I, like many other people, find at times that I am at a loss on how to have something to say. I write this post today mostly for myself, because I need to hear it repeatedly, but I thought that it might be helpful for one or two of you as well. The mechanics...
Read more →As an armchair psychologist, I am always pretty interested in how to better understand people. I came across a pretty good list today of a number of counseling-related books that I’ve either heard good things about or read, so I thought I would also share it here. Many of these resources are from a...
Read more →At one time a few years back, my mom liked to share the sweet little story she had of one day talking on the phone to my sister’s son when he was young. She was asking him some questions about his life, and after answering a few, I guess he lost interest in the...
Read more →I am sure this has been done many times before, but as I start my career as a basketball coach (for 4th grade boys in a church league, no less) I was reminded there are a lot of lessons a basketball coach can give to us that relate to living a good life. I...
Read more →Sometimes I like to stop and think about David- yeah, that guy in the Bible- because the Good Book says that God really loved David, because David was “a man after God’s own heart.” I try to figure out what that means, what David did to have a heart like God’s, because I’d like...
Read more →It is timely for me that I picked up Steven Pressfield’s book “Turning Pro” recently, and cracked it open this weekend. A quick read, the book totally spoke to me about where I have been of late. In it, Pressfield readdresses some concepts he introduced in “The War of Art,” about work and getting...
Read more →Every year we make ’em. Every year we break ’em. Why do we keep doing this? New Years’ resolutions. Yes, from one angle, they can be a list of goals we expect to not reach. That weight we can’t lose. That instrument we can’t seem to learn. That trip we can never seem to...
Read more →About a half-a-year after my relationsihp with G. failed, I realized I wasn’t faring very well trying to get past her, and so at my sister’s suggestion, I decided to go see a counselor. In one of my sessions with this man, the topic came up that perhaps my issue was not merely all...
Read more →To study Acts in our small group, the book needs to be divided into chunks that can be handled meaningfully from week to week. The following chunk schedule was made with the help of the good ol’ Halley’s Bible Handbook. Week 1 Christ’s Resurrection, Ascension, and the Upper Room Acts 1 Week 2 Pentecost...
Read more →“Never feel self-pity, the most destructive emotion there is. How awful to be caught up in the terrible squirrel cage of self.” ― Millicent Fenwick I am finally admitting to myself that, among others, I have one horrible habit that I recognize I need to get rid of. And it is not my excessive...
Read more →Location in the Bible Following the four gospels that record events in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, Acts is the fifth book of the New Testament, and it chronicles life in the early church after the ascension of Jesus, in the “Apostolic Age”. Title: “The Acts of the Apostles” A. Acts: A...
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