Throughout July we’re taking an in-depth look at Proverbs, the Bible’s one-of-a-kind book about our never-ending need for wisdom. Odysseus, the hero of Homer’s epic poem Odyssey, had to fight his way past innumerable obstacles to return home after the battle of Troy. One of the most daunting was the Island of the Sirens. Its resident half-bird, half-female creatures were… Read more »
Throughout July we’re taking an in-depth look at Proverbs, the Bible’s one-of-a-kind book about our never-ending need for wisdom. Author Ben Patterson describes an experience that has been common to many Westerners, especially missionaries, when they arrive at the edge of dense Amazon rain forests and ask for directions. “I have a compass, a map, and some coordinates,” they will… Read more »
Throughout July we’re taking an in-depth look at Proverbs, the Bible’s one-of-a-kind book about our never-ending need for wisdom. Lots of notable things come in threes. There are three primary colors, three Newtonian laws of motion, and three persons in the Trinity. Baseball hitters get three strikes, basketball players shoot three-pointers, and hockey players in search of hat tricks dream… Read more »
Throughout July we’re taking an in-depth look at Proverbs, the Bible’s one-of-a-kind book about our never-ending need for wisdom. Lexia Campbell is a young mission worker who grew up in the congregation I served. She was on an overseas trip when she learned that her father had taken his own life. The ache and the yearning that she had… Read more »
Throughout July we’re taking an in-depth look at Proverbs, the Bible’s one-of-a-kind book about our never-ending need for wisdom. “The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel…” With those opening words, the reader of the book of Proverbs is immediately transported to the Golden Age of ancient Israel. Things were never better for God’s people than about a… Read more »
Throughout July we’re taking an in-depth look at Proverbs, the Bible’s one-of-a-kind book about our never-ending need for wisdom. A lot of smart people do really dumb things. A fairly large slice of any day’s headlines – what we call “news” – turns out to be a recitation of the missteps, miscalculations, and mistakes of people who probably should have… Read more »
Nursing homes can be dreadful places. Dr. Bill Thomas describes what he calls the Three Plagues of nursing home existence: boredom, loneliness, and helplessness. And that was before the extraordinary levels of isolation imposed by the pandemic. When Thomas arrived in 1991 at the Chase Memorial Nursing Home in the hamlet of New Berlin, New York, Thomas decided he would… Read more »
The notion that people can “train fleas” is just an urban legend, right? Every now and then, however, urban legends turn out to be true – and it just so happens that one of the smallest entities that might lurk in our carpets can be taught a fascinating trick. There are more than 2,500 species of this tiny, wingless insect. … Read more »
Two weeks ago, after a moderate earthquake shook the small towns and farms of southern Illinois, geologists reminded us that the Midwest is an active seismic zone. Even though we’re used to thinking that the upcoming Big One will feature swaying skyscrapers in Los Angeles or San Francisco, it’s just as likely that Memphis or St. Louis will be the… Read more »
Church is one of the best places in the world to hide. No, not from vampires, werewolves, and the walking dead. That’s Hollywood stuff. Church is where people can avoid faith and avoid God by becoming religious. Churches are often filled with respectable people, or people who are doing their utmost to look respectable. And it was the respectable people… Read more »
