Hey y’all! I just finished my fancy pants appearance on Moody Radio’s Up For Debate. (That I told you about yesterday which you would know if you had been paying attention. See the things you miss when you’re not paying attention?) Anyways, I will get the link to the show up just as soon as it’s available. Almost immediately after the show was done, I got a comment from a listener which addresses a concern I really would have liked to address on the show, but obviously, we co

Yesterday, a Christian friend put a quote from a famous pastor up on facebook which ended with this little gem: You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate. Which is what we like to tell ourselves, but it’s not true. Jesus even told us a story to show that it’s not true. You know, the story of the good Samaritan. That story is Jesus telling us that sometimes we do have to compromise our convictions in order to be compassionate. You see, we read the story and

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve long wondered what it says about God that we live in a world of predator and prey. Sometimes it helps to be reminded that even in this world of predator and prey God’s more gentle, compassionate nature can be observed as well: A brave baboon attempted to make a run for it. Unfortunately, a lioness caught it. As the baboon died, the photographers noticed a baby baboon slowly disengaging itself from its underside. They held their breath as the in

I have often observed how hard it can be for people – and often particularly God’s people – to get past the sin and ugliness and abrasiveness of people to see the image bearing man or woman God created them to be.  I think that “a failure of imagination” is probably just the right accounting of the problem.  When I was growing up my mom used to look at someone who had fallen on the way of life and say, “there but for the grace of God go I.”  I don’t know if it was a habit or