• Communion - Featured - Imaginative Prayer - Presence

    You Are What You Eat: Communion Reimagined

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    While in Jerusalem some years ago, we visited the Upper Room.  It had long since been turned into a small chapel, and as we sat on the wooden pews, a tour guide took us through the story of Jesus’ communion with the disciples.  Afterwards, one of the students I was with asked about the authenticity of this site as the actual location of the Upper Room.  The tour guide smiled and then told us about the six other Upper Rooms in the vicinity.  Apparently, an ambitious tourist could go around and partake of the sacrament in seven Upper Rooms in…

  • Featured - Intervention - Rescue

    God’s Miraculous and Timely Intervention

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    I suppose I was prepped to believe that God’s intervention can happen miraculously by a youth spent devouring the books of evangelists.  These men and women of God proved over and over how He can and does aid those who for whatever reason find themselves caught in unforeseen and overwhelming circumstances. For instance, the story of Nora Lam gave me an understanding of God’s care of the widow and orphan. Her story of staying pregnant for nearly a year while she worked in a hard labor camp in Communist China is gripping. Though I did not expect to need rescue,…

  • abuse - abuser - Featured - Human Trafficking - Mary Magdalen - Rahab - Sex trafficking - Tamar

    Human Trafficking and the Bible

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    I remember when Pretty Woman came out in the theaters.  Many loved the romance while others lamented the impossibility much less the improbability of a prostitute and a tycoon falling in love.  Reading reviews, it was my first exposure to the “hooker with a heart of gold” trope.  I remember Saturday Night Live spoofing it with their rendition of a respectable business man falling for a herpes laden, drugged out prostitute.  Some Christians, if I remember correctly, were infuriated by the movie. After all, it seemed to glorify human trafficking.  I was twenty two at the time and thought Richard…