The Italian Village That Called the Protestants for Help Roman Catholic Bishop Pio Bagnoli couldn’t possibly have imagined the consequences of his decision when, in 1930, he removed a priest from his parish. Fr. Bernardino Mastroianni had been in…
My bookshelf is lined with prayer journals covering the years of my life beginning with childhood. Rereading them brings both joy and heartache, but most of all an overwhelming sense that I have had the privilege to bow my knees…
Two of some of the biggest questions that many Christians ask relate to prayer. On one hand, Christians want to know how they should pray. On the other hand, they want to know what they should be praying for. According…
You are a pastor in a small city. You’ve known your barber for almost twenty years. One day while he trims he asks for help in prayer. He, like many others, struggles in that area. So, you decide to go…
What is prayer? Prayer is talking to God.[i] A solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship.[ii] Prayer is spiritual communication between man and God, a two-way relationship in which man should…
In the early days of his Christian walk, someone said, “I just don’t seem to have time to pray!” A mentor responded in a gentle tone with a stubborn and convicting principle: “you make time for your priorities.” Yet, the…
How little we appreciate the privilege and blessing of prayer. That we, sinful mortals as we are, should have access to God beggars belief. That he should even consider us, let alone countenance our requests is astounding. Yet he calls…
Bian Yunbo – A Poet for the Unknown Christian When, in 1943, Japanese soldiers occupied a rural area of the province of Hebei, China, eighteen-year-old Bian Yunbo walked over six hundred miles south-east to Yang County, where a high…
“In the Last Days of Narnia, far up to the west.” This is how C.S. Lewis begins the end of The Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle. I reread this book last year, right in the middle of the pandemic…
To understand anger and its peaceful Biblical therapies, we make use of the Puritan John Downame’s book, The Cure of Unjust Anger.[1] Downame focuses on Ephesians 4:26 to frame his discussion: Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the…
