redemption

Hmm. What to write about. This opportunity does not arise very often, so the topics pile up like trucks on the turnpike on a snowy day. There is only time and room for one topic. Not only that; this piece lands in the midst of the most drastic cultural upheaval in the country’s history, and the...

Ellen Ranyard and Her Team of Bible Women In 1826, 16-year-old Ellen Henrietta White and her family attended a Bible meeting about 14 miles east of her London home. There, she met a girl her age, Elizabeth Saunders, who seemed disconsolate at the departure of her best friend. Deeply concerned,...

The Women Who Helped Chrysostom Some time ago, I wrote about Olympias, a widow of noble birth who became one of John Chrysostom’s greatest supporters. But she was not alone. She lived in a community of women near the Great Church in Constantinople – in fact, only a wall separated their home from...

You would not know it from a vantage point on one of the many docks dotting the shoreline of Lake Murray, but this manmade reservoir is uniquely massive. The so-called “Jewel of South Carolina” has a surface area of 50,000 acres, over 650 miles of shoreline, and retains about 763 billion gallons of...

Forgetfulness is a natural sign of aging, but the opposite is true for the Christian. If a believer forgets God's wonderful work of salvation, it is a sure sign that he is not maturing in his faith but is drifting away from it (Heb. 2:1). However, singing is one proven antidote to both spiritual...

Wandering eyes are bad harbinger in Scripture. From the opening chapters of Genesis, when Eve looked at the tree and saw that it was good for food and “a delight to the eyes,” humanity’s false reliance on sight is a consistent theme. From Lot to David, whenever an individual sees that something...

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” –...

“So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” – Romans 8:12-13 We come now to one of those verses where a mere 1500 words cannot...

“So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.” – Romans 8:12 Paul’s general argument so far has been to delineate between what is essentially the only two kinds of people there are in this fallen world: those who are in the flesh (i.e., unbelievers, in Adam,...

What do we do when suffering breaks into our lives like an unwelcome intruder, when a diagnosis comes at an inconvenient time, when we feel disillusioned and full of despair? Where do we turn when we are scared, sad, and sobered at the fragility of our lives or the lives of our loved ones? This...