There is a tiresome joke among Christians about patience that goes like this: “I don’t want to pray for patience, because by golly, God will send me all sorts of circumstances to try it!” Ha Ha. What’s not so funny is that, deep down, many people actually believe this, reflecting their impression of a marionette…

I have just spent the last hour cleaning off my desk. To my left is a pile of papers that, if they were dollar bills, would buy me a weekend trip to Hawaii. And that’s just envelopes and circulars: the stuff with identifiable information on it is burning in woodstove hell. Such is reality in…

One of the problems of formal, prescriptive Bible studies is that, frequently, they mooooooooooove soooooooooooo slooooooooooowly through the Scriptures, focusing on one or two verses at a time and haranguing the poor words until they collapse, exhausted, and pant out, “That’s all I’ve got to say. Honestly. Please read the next sentence.” And while some…

Apostasy is nothing new in Christianity. Two thousand years ago Jesus warned that false prophets “come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” (Matthew 7: 15) Given that we, the people of God, are frequently referred to as sheep, the term “sheep’s clothing” imparts the disquieting concept that these false prophets will inveigle their way into the…

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