Just to lay my cards on the table: whenever the New Testament references the calling of believers, it is always a reference to our salvation or its fruits in our lives, what theologians have termed the effectual call of God[i].…
How I love a good walk! There is something wonderful about heading out for a stroll on a cool, fall day. Tying up the tennis shoes; pulling on the sweatshirt. This day was made for walking! Scripture speaks of one’s…
Jaroslav Jan Vajda – Singing the Language of Today’s Hearts While shaving in front of his bathroom mirror, Jaroslav Jan Vajda, then editor of the former Lutheran magazine This Day, wondered how to fill a blank page for an…
Advent season has begun. Pastors all around the world are desperately looking for texts and angles on the theme that will enable them to bring fresh light on the light of the ancient story that I known so well, yet…
Ann Griffiths and Her Sea of Wonders “O to spend my life in a sea of wonders!”[1] Ann wrote in one of her poems. And her life, spent in a Welsh farm in the small village of Dolwar-Fach, was…
Scipione Lentolo – A Firm Hand in Unstable Times John Calvin didn’t have a good opinion of Italians. Basing his judgment on the scholars he had met, he thought they were too skeptical, too eager to get embroiled…
One of the great sites of Jerusalem is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Archaeologists have confidence that this sprawling church is located near the spot of Jesus’ crucifixion. Jesus likely was buried and therefore emerged from the tomb either…
“May you live in interesting times” is an English expression that purports to be a translation of a traditional Chinese curse. While seemingly a blessing, the expression is normally used ironically; life is better in “uninteresting times” of peace and…
Georgi Vins and the Christian Resistance to Soviet Religious Persecution On April 26, 1979, 50-year-old Georgi Petrovich Vins was woken up in his cell in the labor camp where he had been serving sentence for four years. He was asked…
William Shedd and the Genocide of Assyrian Christians William Ambrose Shedd was born January 24, 1865, in the mountain village of Seir, near Urmia, in today’s Northwestern Iran, near Turkey. About one quarter of the population at that time was…
