Love and Conduct

The story of Christ's disciples suggests that love and admiration are powerful motives for adopting a person's values and ideas. By the same token, ...

Not Enough Study

In an interview, Billy Graham was asked this question: "If you had to live your life over again, what would you do differently?" His answer: ...

You Look Perfect

One day I had a speaking engagement in Florida and I shared a table with three elegant young women. I felt fat, forty, and somewhat futile.

Suddenly and ...

Shortcomings in Lay Education

Our age is one of specialization, and yet, for the most part, lay education programs have taken a generalist direction. Programs designed with study guides ...

Different Strokes for Different Folks

One and the same exhortation does not suit all. For the things that profit some often hurt others; seeing that also for the most part herbs which nourish ...

Preaching with Fire

Audiences will listen to a very poor voice, as long as there's fire in it.

Bridge-Building

Preaching is essentially a bridge-building exercise. It is the exacting task of relating God's Word to our world with an equal degree of faithfulness ...

Acid Test for a Sermon

Here is an acid test for a sermon: Will it hold up if you change the setting from a public to a person-to-person situation? Take away the pulpit, the ...

Tribulation's Lessons

As soon as we know our dependence, our own nothingness, we begin, by dying, to live. In this is our only hope: that knowing our nothingness, we come to ...

Parables: Portals to Another World

Parables are tiny lumps of coal squeezed into diamonds, condensed metaphors that catch the rays of something ultimate and glint it at our lives. Parables ...