All Articles: Page 4

I want to tell you about a 17-year-old girl named Alycia whose life you’ve changed. She sent me the following text: “I’ve been to countless retreats, revivals, and conferences, but never before have I experienced such an impactful shift in perspective. The ARISE Intensive made God, the Bible, and the...

My mom is one of those off-the-grid, homesteading types. She has a garden, a root cellar, and even a composting toilet that utilizes sawdust, which actually isn’t as weird as you’d think. Unless, of course, you get sawdust in your underwear. Then it’s definitely weird. When my siblings and I...

It was a hot, muggy day in the Kenge territory of the southwestern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) when Yanvu Joseph saw a tent flapping in the breeze. Maybe he overheard people talking about the tent in one of the six villages he oversees as chief and wanted to see...

What if I said this to you? “You should dead drift an olive wooly bugger, with just a touch of swing, right through the gut and watch for a flashy, butter-colored take.” Or this? “Take the gaston with the thumb-catch on the left, gas pedal your right hard on the...

Can you think of a friend who seems to stand out from the rest? Perhaps it’s because he or she does things a little bit differently from others, or has experienced life uniquely, and because of this, offers unique perspectives?  In the Bible, John’s Gospel stands out from the other...

“If you love me, keep my commands” (NIV). “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (ESV).  Above are two versions of John 14:15 that, despite interpreting the same verse, present different messages. One issues a command, “keep my commands.” The other could be a command, but it could...

“I’d been drinking and I was involved in an accident where a life was lost,” Edgar’s voice is somber but clear. It’s hard to picture Edgar and his wife, Nicole, living prodigal lives, both isolated in the chaos of heavy substance abuse and feeling like the end of their marriage...

Words are the building blocks with which we construct sentences in order to convey ideas, form perceptions, ascribe meaning, and tell stories. We are linguistic creatures because we are creatures made in the divine image. God employed words to create the universe: "By the word of the Lord the heavens...

Have you ever seen something almost every day of your life, hardly noticing it until you see it in a new light and start appreciating it more? This seems to happen to me more now that I have kids—they have a way of bringing new curiosity to the seemingly mundane....

“Tuli pa Nkondo ya Yesu. Pioneer, tigwile nchito. Yesu commander watu, Bible chipolopolo.” Translated from Zambian Chichewa: “We are in a battle for Jesus. Pioneers, let us do the work. Jesus is our commander, the Bible our bullet.” Thirty-six Bible workers sang these words in deep battle cries. The ballad...

“When I first arrived, I thought, ‘This is the worst decision I’ve ever made!’” At 23, my oldest sister, Becky, enlisted in the army and soon found herself in hot, sticky Fort Jackson, South Carolina, for basic training. However, she quickly realized she wasn’t physically ready for bootcamp. She could...

In his excellent book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, Eugene Peterson writes, “All the wisdom and strength of the ancient world were in Mesopotamia and Egypt…Mesopotamian power and Egyptian wisdom were strength and intelligence divorced from God, put to the wrong ends, and producing all the wrong results.”...