Above: Martin Luther monument, Dresden, Germany ————-    (…continued) Did Martin Luther find peace with God by becoming a monk?  Not at all. Luther was an intense man, giving himself completely to his studies. What he saw in the church’s teaching and in his own reading of the Bible was an angry, and […]
1663) 500 Years Ago This Week (b) Read More »
John 3:16-17– (Jesus said), “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” ***************************************    Five hundred years ago this week,
1662) 500 Years Ago This Week (a) Read More »
Joan of Arc, as drawn by a soldier in her army ————–       Joan of Arc was born in 1412 in a small town in northeast France. Her parents were very religious, and she grew up close to the church. She loved spending time there, hearing all the old Bible
1614) Joan of Arc Read More »
Adapted from 100 Bible Verses That Changed the World, By William and Randy Peterson, pages 73-4, Revel publishing, 2001. —————————— Â Â Â At age 22 William Penn had everything. Â He was the son of a respected British admiral, had gone to Oxford, had traveled throughout Europe, and was an expert marksman. Â He was also handsome,
1440) A Verse to Build a Life On Read More »
We hear much about Christians, who did nothing while the Holocaust was going on all around them. But not all Christians were passive in the face of this great evil. Rod Gragg’s My Brother’s Keeper: Christians Who Risked All to Protect Jewish Targets of the Nazi Holocaust (2016) details the extraordinary courage of 30 ordinary
1439) “On My Way to Heaven” Read More »
   Have you checked your cell phone lately? Do you have a computer in your home? Do you ever look up anything on the internet, watch television, or listen to the radio? If so, you can thank Samuel Morse (1791-1872; pictured above), the “Father of American Telecommunications,” a Christian man who wanted to make
1438) What Hath God Wrought? Read More »
   Robert Raikes (1735-1811) was a newspaper editor in Gloucester, England.  His editorials often had to do with the problems of the poor children in that city. Popular opinion at the time said it was necessary to keep what was considered the ‘crude and vulgar members’ of society in their proper place; and the
1432) The Ragged Schools Read More »
Above painting: The Death of Socrates, 1787, Jacques-Louis David  (1748-1825) ************************  All of the wisdom of this world is but a tiny raft upon which we must set sail when we leave this earth. If only there was a firmer foundation upon which to sail—perhaps some divine word. –Socrates —————–    This thought is
1431) Socrates, Jesus, and Paul Read More »
   Twenty centuries after the life of Jesus Christ, we take for granted the worth and dignity of every person. This was built into the very fabric of our American society from the beginning. The second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence declares that all people are created equal.     But Jesus was born
1341) Dignity and Humility (part one of two) Read More »
  In the mid-19th century the truth of the Bible was often called into question by scholars who pointed to a lack of archaeological evidence for the Biblical accounts.  In the century and a half since then, there has been extensive archaeological work done in Israel, and there have been hundreds of finds confirming the
1289) An Interesting Toilet Read More »
