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Journey With Me to Ephesus
This month I take you on a photographic tour of Ephesus. The city of Ephesus was the capital of the Roman province of Asia (Asia Minor, modern Turkey). It was an important political, educational, and commercial center as it was the gateway to Asia. It was a strategic military location and the hub for caravan travel. Ephesus was also known for the temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (Acts 19:35). (To learn more about Artemis, please see the blogs linked below.) As it was such an important commercial center and located on the coast of the Aegean Sea, it was an affluent city. Its markets would…
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Paul and His Subversive Passage on the Family
In the first half of the Book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul lays out the Christian’s new identity in Christ. In the second half, he provides the “so what,” or the ramifications. As he outlines what Spirit-filled living looks like (Eph. 5:18ff), he envisions a community in which people show Christ’s love by serving one another. And one of the places where such service happens is in the household—where in his day he would have found spouses, kids, and slaves under one roof. People living in the first century under Roman rule would have been familiar with instructions for respectable families known as “household codes.” These codes outlined the ideal…
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Toddler Tantrums and Our Sin Nature
I have heard the adage time and time again:"You don't have to teach a baby to sin." As a mom of three small children, I quickly learned that this couldn't be truer! The cherub-faced cuteness began to wear off when my daughter started acting on her inclination to hit. Hitting was her preferred method of expression. This heavy-handed little girl wielded her back-hand with the power to smite anyone who stood in opposition to her! So I had to roll up my sleeves and dive into the dirty work of behavioral modification with a two a year old. A major source of irritation in her world, like most toddlers,…
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What Did the Philosophers Know and When Did They Know it? Part 2
Jesus told Pilate, “For this reason I was born, and for this reason I came into the world – to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37). “Therefore see to it that the light in you is not darkness” – Jesus (Luke 11:35). While skimming a book I’d previously read entitled “The Great Philosophers: From Socrates to Foucault”, a quick summary of influential philosophers, I was sometimes struck by the darkness and futility of their ideas. Yet I was open to seeing truths that might be found within the shadows so to speak. I gleaned what truthful ideas I could from…
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What Did the Philosophers Know and When Did They Know it? Part 1
“I should be much more afraid of being mistaken and then finding out that Christianity is true than of being mistaken in believing it to be true” (Blaise Pascal).[1] While revisiting a book entitled “The Great Philosophers: From Socrates to Foucault”, a short synopsis of many of the best known philosophers, I was struck by thoughts of meaninglessness. For thousands of years philosophers have been discussing questions like, “How do we know what we know?” “How can we know anything?” “How do we know we exist?” etc. What futility it is not to believe in God and to disbelieve in the possibility of life after death, to believe everyone eventually…
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The Burden of Shame
If anyone should have been burdened by shame—the feeling that at the core of his being, he was inherently flawed and unworthy of love—it would have been the Apostle Paul. His crimes weren’t minor. He zealously persecuted Christians and personally condemned and participated in the deaths of many (see his story in Galatians 1:11-24). If I were Paul, I don’t think I could have ever forgiven myself for my crimes. I imagine that I would lay awake at night for hours, struggling to fall asleep as the scenes of brave Christians dying for their faith, replayed in my mind. I would find it hard to smile at children and their…
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Review: In the Footsteps of St. Paul with David Suchet
David Suchet, a British TV actor best known for his role as Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot, received a 1991 British Academy Television Award (BAFTA) nomination. As an actor he travels a lot, and one day he picked up a Bible in a hotel-room drawer. He read the letter of St. Paul to the Romans, and in the interview below he talks about that experience, which led to a life-long interest in and respect for the apostle: One result of his reading the Book of Romans is that Suchet set out on a personal journey around the Mediterranean to uncover the story of the man he has longed to…
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5 Ways to Encourage Gratitude in Your Family
Johnny Henry Jowett, a well-known pastor from the late 1800’s, said: “Life without thankfulness is devoid of love and passion. Hope without thankfulness is lacking in fine perception. Faith without thankfulness lacks strength and fortitude. Every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road.” I’ve never doubted the importance of gratitude. Many studies done in recent years back this up. Wall Street Journal, for example, referenced a study done among teens showing that those with higher amounts of gratitude also had higher grades, less depression, less envy, and a healthier outlook on life. Yet, sometimes I’ve failed to see the full value. Even worse are those…
