When Solomon became king, he inherited an Israel at the height of its power and wealth. Solomon’s father, David, had spent decades fighting numerous wars to carve out territory for himself and fighting off rivals. David’s legacy of violence permeated his whole family, and his heirs fought over who would inherit royal power. Early on …
In his 1965 masterpiece, DUNE, Frank Hebert imagines a desert world in which water is the most precious substance and life is a constant struggle to survive. The indigenous inhabitants of this world, the Fremen, are a people totally adapted to scarcity. They are a people accustomed to hard decisions and brutal efficiency for the …
One of the core teachings of the Quaker movement is that Christ is inwardly present in all times and all places. In seventeenth-century England, when holiness was restricted the tightly controlled religious rituals of an elite clergy, Friends made the bold claim that the real presence of Jesus was not to be found in the …
The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches. – …
My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. – James 1:2-4 There is a simple lesson that I …
The truth about myself is often hard to see. It is easy to overlook my own brokenness precisely because it is such a part of who I am. I have grown accustomed to it. The log in my own eye seems normal, which makes it far easier to play doctor to others than to examine …
The days are growing very short now, as we get closer to Christmas. The day that Christians celebrate the birth of our Savior is nearly the shortest day of the year for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. We choose the darkest day to remember how the True Light came into the world to …