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How Testimony is Power in the Bible
What makes the testimony of the disciples so believable in the days after the resurrection of Jesus is that their experience of God left them transformed. In the three days preceding Christ’s rising from the dead, the eleven sat cowering in their homes, sure of their imminent arrest. A little over a month later, and they were proclaiming Christ’s resurrection from the streets of Jerusalem in tongues they did not know. Thousands of Jews came to know their Messiah through the power of their testimony. And their testimony had power because it was not merely intellectual assent but transformative body, soul, and spirit. We live in a world that values…
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How to Love Your Enemies: No Faking Allowed
One of the biggest surprises that adult life has brought me is the fact that I have enemies. I’m not talking about the devil or even people who find me annoying. I am talking about bona fide enemies who actively wish me harm or who for reasons of their own, hate me. Another surprise that adult life brought my way is how easy it is to hate them back. Hatred is a bleak desert of an emotion. And it pretty much always leads to despair. After all, no life springs forth from the kind of hatred one feels towards someone similarly inclined towards oneself. And because we know that we…
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Four Keys to Contentment: This Present Life
Contentment is a radical choice these days. Our culture is consumer-based which means that the world continually reminds us of what we do not have. We follow wealthy celebrities in part to experience wealth vicariously. We almost always believe we could handle it better than the shallow but beautiful people who live out their private moments in front of a camera. Contentment is not merely radical these days; it is immoral. If we are not constantly striving to be more, have more, and have a greater impact, then we are copping out. The rat race is a moral imperative for many. I see so many couples working so hard to…