In 1960, Kirk Douglas starred in a movie titled "Spartacus." In the movie, Spartacus was the leader of a slave revolt during the Roman Republic of the First Century. When the rebel slave army is finally captured, they are asked to identify their leader, Spartacus, for special punishment. The man who would identify Spartacus would be given a pardon. Every surviving man responds by shouting "I'm Spartacus!" As a result, all men are sentenced to death by crucifixion.

Although lupus took her life at the age of thirty-nine, Flannery O'Connor wrote two novels and thirty-two short stories that garnered several awards and honors. She was a Roman Catholic and made no secret about it or apologies for it (“I write the way I do because I am a Catholic”). Due to her illness (and perhaps her personality), she lived an isolated life with her mother on the family farm in Milledgeville, Georgia. She was something of a literary John the Baptist.

A familiar passage from Psalms is 119:105.  "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path."  The psalmist takes delight in the words of God.  But there’s more to the words of God than simply knowing them or hearing about them.  You’ve got to do the law, live by the law, perform the law.  This was Paul’s comments regarding Israel in Romans 2.  In verse 17 the Jews were bragging about their relationship with God.  Verse 18, they knew his will.  In verse 19, they considered themselves guides for the blind.  N.T. Wright says Israel thought they were good simply because they had the law, but they did not keep the law.  That’s why Paul says in Romans 2:24 that “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”  Israel, the Jews, were not keeping the law, even though they knew it and had possession of it.

This year the United States of America celebrates her 250th birthday as a nation. Some have called the founding of the USA an "experiment" because of the uncertainty of whether a democratic republic would endure the test of time (heritage.org). A quarter-millennium is a decent track record for determining the success of an experiment, but that is still young when compared to other civilizations. For example, China and Egypt trace their roots thousands of years before Christ.

Our series on First Things reminds me that occasionally believers may find ourselves checking off a list of church obligations, speaking the vocabulary of the Christian community, returning to the performance of devotion that we may have dutifully practiced for decades – but without the same delight it once gave us. It feels useful in those times to go back – far back – to recall who Christ is.

In his essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr raises the idea that with the deepening influence of the internet on our lives, we risk becoming “pancake people.” By this he means our intake of knowledge is “wide and thin,” as we have such vast repositories of knowledge at our fingertips. However, the temptation will be to skim the surface of all sorts of knowledge, but never to dive deep. Furthermore, the internal spaces we have traditionally relied upon for quietude and self-reflection may be too easily filled with the trivia and noise of the world. What will we become as we lose those quiet spaces of contemplation? Carr wrote his essay in 2008. As we hurtle through 2026, perhaps we’re seeing the consequences Carr suggested we might face.

In the Old Testament, there are a number of laws about purity; and being clean or unclean.  The laws pertain to foods the Israelite could eat, skin infections or sores on the skin, coming in contact with blood, coming in contact with a dead body, mold in a house, and other various situations.  There are a number of reasons for these laws, and I do not have a thorough list for those reasons.  In one of these regulations regarding going to the bathroom in your camp, in Deuteronomy 23:14, the people are told that God walks through the camp, and it must be kept holy.  Otherwise, God will see something unclean and turn away from the camp.  Perhaps one of the reasons for the cleanliness laws is that an uncleanness or something impure will be the reason God leaves the camp.

Long ago, at many times and in may ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. One of these prophets was Isaiah. In Isaiah 6, the prophet has a vision where he receives his commission:

“And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.””

Several years ago, our family vacationed at a state park near Warm Springs, Georgia, where FDR’s Little White House is located. Roosevelt had the house built just before he took office in 1933. He had initially visited the springs almost a decade earlier, like so many others, looking for a cure for the polio that ravaged his body. Although he never found healing, he did experience relief, and the site remained a favorite getaway. He was at Warm Springs when he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in 1945.

In the Lord’s prayer, one of the things Jesus asks for is that God’s kingdom would come, and his will would be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Jesus is asking for God’s kingdom to reign on earth.  As this prayer is a model prayer that we should base our prayers on, then we too should be asking for God’s kingdom to come to reign on earth.  I think it is Jesus’ intention that as we pray this prayer, implied in this request is that WE be the agents through whom the kingdom comes on earth.

Sunday is Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day is an opportunity to offer a special of word of blessing for the mothers who raised us, the wives who raise children with us, the daughters who have provided grandchildren, the foster parents who make a forever difference in the lives of children, and the volunteers in a variety of ways who offer motherly love to children not their own but who come to them for care. Faithful women who biologically, or through adoption, or through volunteerism, choose to invest in the next generation. There is no better example of woman power than women who empower.

In the book of 2 Kings, there was a man named Naaman who had leprosy. Naturally he was looking to be cured so when he heard about the prophet, Elisha, in Israel, Naaman went to see him. When he arrived at Elisha’s house, Elisha merely sent out his servant to tell Naaman to go wash seven times in the Jordan River.

Nancy Wilson sang a beautiful song that came out in 1964. She was expressing her love for her lover, telling him the height and depth of it. It is my hope that you take the time to listen to the song before you read the rest of this little essay.

For nearly a century, Teas Nursery occupied five acres of property in the Bellaire section of Houston. The family business began in Indiana in 1843, moved to Texas in 1910, and closed in 2009 with the death of John Teas. 

Teas made quite an impact upon the city. It was not only the first business in the Bellaire district—they were actually brought in by Bellaire developer William Wright Baldwin to landscape and beautify the area as it was being built. They did such a good job that in 1912 they were hired by Rice University (then known as Rice Institute). From there the business took off. Patsy Teas said that over the years the nursery was involved in planting over a million trees in the Houston area.

I’ve been reading a book explaining how the original, ancient readers of the Bible would have understood their world, and thus the messages written to them.  The realm that they lived in was the land (of course), which was set on foundations or pillars that were set in waters.  (They understood the dry ground to be set upon waters.). The land represented a place of order, a place where they could manage things, tame things, and make things work for them.  Think of a farmer who works a field to make it grow food for him.  Conversely, the waters were wild and untamed - a place of chaos.  Imagine our same farmer trying to plow the sea so he could grow food there - it’s not going to happen.  A third region is the mountain.  To the people of that day, the mountain top was the realm of the deity.  They considered their gods to live there.  This was their view of their cosmos - their cosmic view.  In their cosmic view, the mountain tops were the dwelling of gods.  Thus, in the title of this piece, when I talk of the “Cosmic Mountain of God”, I’m talking of God’s dwelling place.

While walking around the neighbor some time ago, I did something I don’t normally do anymore. I stooped down to pick up a penny lying in the street. At least I thought it was a penny. It had been run over by cars so many times that it was hardly recognizable as a viable one cent piece. I took it home and cleaned it up. Using a magnifying glass I could barely make out the corner of the Lincoln Memorial on its reverse side.

Isn’t it interesting how fear can change the perspective of something? There is a Calvin and Hobbes comic where Calvin is climbing up the ladder for a playground slide. And throughout the comic we see Calvin’s perspective that, apparently, the ladder continues going up forever. He climbs way above the landscape, through the clouds, and reaches the top of the slide at the very edge of space. He is an incredible height off of the ground. In the last frame of the comic we see what’s really going on; even though the ground seems far below, Calvin is sitting on the top of a slide that is only about 5 feet tall. How, then, was his view of it that he was miles in the air?

As beings existing in time, we cannot fully fathom the nature of eternity. The Bible gives us tantalizing views of everlasting life with the Father in heaven; likewise, we are warned with torturous visions of hell. Often images of eternal torment come from the lips of Jesus, our good and loving Shepherd. The doctrine of eternal damnation is one that is often challenged, both from those within Christianity and those without. However, taking the Bible at its word would seem to necessitate a belief in eternal condemnation, just as it necessitates belief in eternal life. See, for instance, Matt. 10:28, Matt. 25:41 & 46, John 3:16-18, John 5:28-29, 2 Thess. 1:9, Heb. 6:2, Jude 7, Rev. 14:9-11, Rev. 20:14-15, Rev. 21:8. Besides accepting the truth of these scriptures and what they imply, there are also philosophical and theological reasons that support the idea that hell is indeed a fitting place for those who do not choose to serve the Lord.

A little over eight years ago, when we were living in Alabama, we were getting ready to make a trip to Searcy to see our son and his family. The morning of the day we were leaving, our credit card company texted me saying that our card had been compromised. That’s never good news to hear but especially on a travel day. Still, we had a back-up (debit) card, so off we went.

The highest mountain in Israel is Mount Hermon. It has majestic, snowcapped peaks with an elevation exceeding 9,000 feet. Its Arabic name means "snowy mountain." It has a ski resort which attracts around 300,00 visitors each winter.

It is mentioned over a dozen times in the Old Testament. Some scholars believe Mount Hermon was the site of Jesus’ transfiguration, though none of the Gospel accounts names the place.