Sep 16 2016
2

Is Jesus Really a Friend to Women?

By | Women | No Comments

I received this question recently: If Jesus was so “for” women, why in Luke 14:25–27, when addressing the crowd (which obviously had women in it), did he basically exclude them or communicate they were not worth considering or addressing when he said “wife” and not “husband”?

Great question. First, let’s look at the text in question: Luke 14:25–27:

“Now large crowds were accompanying Jesus, and turning to them he said,  ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.  Whoever does not carry his own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple . . . .”

The person who wrote the question wonders why Jesus, when speaking of the cost of following him, exhorts husbands to hate wives, but does not tell wives to …

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Sep 02 2016
2

Life Is Hard, but God Is Good

By | Arts, Books, Infertility, Life In The Body | 4 Comments

In the past two months, I have buried my father and walked my daughter through open-heart surgery. The “windsock in her heart,” as her surgeon described it, that had blood flowing the wrong way, was apparently congenital, but we didn’t discover it till this past July. She is still in the hospital, but she made it great through surgery on Tuesday. So now, in my great relief, I have some time to reflect on the whirlwind that has been my life for the past two months.

My overwhelming sense is that I’ve been covered in the love of God. The Almighty works with precise timing that may not always thrill us in the moment (surgery the day before my first day of classes!?), but in retrospect is always perfect, and designed for our greatest good. That my father died during the summer meant Oregon was beautiful (such beauty heals me), …

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Aug 20 2016
1

A Lesson from the Olympics

By | Life In The Body | No Comments

My Engage blog post this week:

Mo Farah, 33, said he thought his Rio 2016 Olympics “dream was over.” This member of the Great Britain team was defending champ (London, 2012) of the 10,000m event, and he had every reason to believe he could win it again—until he tripped on his training partner and fell on the track.

But rather than give up, Farah did something remarkable. He jumped back to his feet. And he didn’t just prove he could get up and make it to the finish line. No—he took off and ran for 16 more laps and pressed on to won the gold!

The apostle Paul uses a running metaphor for the Christian faith in his letter to the Philippians: “Do everything without grumbling or arguing . . . though you live in a crooked and perverse society, in which you shine as lights in the world.” How? …

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