"This class will be graded on a curve." During my time as a student, these were the eight most beautiful words in the English language. It didn't...
Righteousness on a Curve: When Better Isn’t Good Enough
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Sabbath Thoughts
These posts are the heart and soul of the blog—food for though on God’s Sabbath day.
Salt in Your Coffee (and Other Tests of Character)
In Turkey, when the family of a prospective groom meets with the family of a prospective bride, the bride-to-be often prepares traditional Turkish...
Filling the Emptiness: 3 Steps for Beating Sins That Won’t Leave
Emptiness is a poor long-term solution. Nature won't stand for it. The air around you isn't empty, for the record. It's chock-full of molecules...
Do You Want to Be Made Well?
The pool of Bethesda was a magnet for the sick and the infirm of Jerusalem. A great and pitiful multitude lay sprawled out across its five covered...
Sighing and Crying
…and the Lord said to him, "Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh...
Your Final Hours
In 24 hours, you will be dead. No loopholes. No exceptions. No way around it. This time tomorrow, you will breathe your final breath and that will...
You Can Have Any Opinion You Like, As Long as It’s One of Ours
If there's one thing we love doing, it's promoting tolerance. I say "we," but I guess what I mean is "the recurring sentiment pervading Western...
Under the Surface
Chris Hemsworth is a hypocrite. You might recognize the 31-year-old actor from his role as the superhero Thor in Marvel's cinematic universe. Three...
The Privilege of Footwashing
Without the footwashing ceremony, the Passover service would require almost no interaction with our fellow Church members. It would be an intensely...
Lost in the Undertow
It rarely starts with something big. David was just standing on a rooftop. Achan was just following orders. Eve was just hungry. Everyone "was just"...
Learning to Walk
Finally slipping back into consciousness, my uncooperative eyelids grudgingly yielded two slits through which my listlessly wandering eyeballs...
A Different Kind of Treasure
The sheer amount of stuff two people can accumulate in a few years is just flabbergasting. I know this because my wife and I have been married for...
The Heart of the Matter
"Brilliant military strategist" are three words that have never been used to describe me, primarily because they would be a great big whopping lie....
Scars
So I have this really ugly scar sitting on the knuckle of my left ring finger. Like most scars, I acquired it unintentionally. A few years ago, I...
Boulderdash (or, “Lessons I Learned From the Giant Foam Rocks Hurtling Toward My Face”)
There are three big reasons I go to the Winter Family Weekend: the seminars, the fellowship, and the Fun Fair. I go for the seminars because they...
Prefacing the Ten: “Sh’ma Yis’ra’eil”
The curious thing about the Ten Commandments is that they don't begin with a commandment. They begin with these words: "I am the Lord your God, who...
A Good Second Impression
I make a terrible first impression. Not on purpose, mind you. I always give it my best shot, but the deck just isn't stacked in my favor. I'm an...
The Ten Commandments: God’s Guide to Relationships
The Ten Commandments. It's hard to even write those words without thinking of Cecil B. DeMille's re-imagining of the timeless Biblical account. Even...