As I traveled through a major city in Ohio en route to a hospital visit, my eyes were drawn to a neglected commercial building located on the west side. The bright yellow structure showed the typical signs of abandonment including boarded up windows and entry doors, a testimony to the economic decline of the inner […]
Week 28 Study | The Widow and the Unjust Judge
A deacon’s meeting had gotten out of sorts. Tempers flared, temperatures rose, and words got ugly. One deacon tried to calm the group by saying, “I think we should just stop and pray.” Another deacon said, “Has it come to that?” Why is prayer often a last resort as opposed to a first concern? Prayer […]
Week 28 Application | In Pursuit of the Justice of God
Atheists must contend with hard questions. If God doesn’t exist, how did our complex universe arise from nothing, and how did morality come from amorality? Without God, on what grounds shall we determine what is right or wrong? If we are not created in God’s image and human beings are nothing more than fortuitously evolved […]
Week 28 Mission | Persevering Prayer
In a small community in Germany in 1727, a band of Moravian Christians began a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week prayer vigil that lasted for 100 years. During those years, Moravian men, women, and children prayed without interruption. They claimed as their motto the words from Isaiah 62:6, 7 which references God’s placing of watchmen on the wall. […]
Week 28 Character | What Does God Require?
Etched in our nation’s history is a motto found in the final chapters of the book of Micah. The motto has become a rally cry for religious leaders and politicians who strive to inspire the hearts of the people. It was the rally cry of abolitionists and Quakers as they sought to end slavery. It […]