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The Clarity of Death
“It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart” (Ecclesiastes 7:2). My father died recently. He was always sharp, quick with a pun or a play on words, an accountant by trade who worked until he was seventy-seven years old. He was a student of the Bible for almost sixty years. He did a lot of reading, writing, and “sparring” (personal debating) over the years, quoting folks like Barnhouse and Spurgeon in the process. But dementia overtook him these last few years. He could no longer…
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God’s Big Story
I cannot start watching a movie, reading a book, or hearing a news story from the middle or end. I’m confused about who the people are and what’s going on. It’s impossible to grasp the meaning of the climax with zero information about the beginning and middle. The Bible is the same way. Knowing the story of Jesus doesn’t make nearly as much sense without understanding the bigger story. I have been taught to begin sharing the gospel with the fact that all are sinners—but how did that happen? And how does Jesus’s life and death help us understand the horrendous evil and darkness in the world? In Joshua Chatraw's article…
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Part V: The Lord of the Scroll – The Re-Birth of the King!
At Calvary, it is a little after 3:00 PM, with the Jewish day being over at approximately 7:30 PM. In Paradise, the believing thief recalled what Jesus had said to him while on the cross – “Today” (i.e., before 7:30 PM Luke 23:43). He would join him in Paradise. How can this be since Jesus is in the Abyss? But then again, he thought, while his eyes darted back to the Abyss, Jesus never lies… And Jesus said to him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43 NET) Those in Paradise stared intently at the entrance to the Abyss. The entrance was…
