The imaginary World of Mirror, Where everything meets in reverse-- The one-way window to nowhere-- Compels my entrance--but first Break the spell of the fairy That dusted that world with a glow, And grasp that the world in the mirror But fulfills the reality we know-- The enchantment of having an entrance On the right instead of the left-- Of going this way down the hallway To breakfast instead of to bed. The world o

Introduction I remember once kneeling at the feet of my father and praying as I tried to clip his toenails. With his third-stage Parkinson's disease, he was not able to do things like this for himself, and with the muscle weakness in my hands from Lyme disease, I was afraid of cutting him since he bled so easily. The pain of my mother's heart failure and precarious recuperation weighed down both of us, and I could almost hear my father's lonely sobbing still echoing from t

Introduction It has often been joked that those looking for a perfect church will render it imperfect the moment they set foot in it. Without a doubt, any church is made up of imperfect people, and if we can't accept this, we will no longer have a church. While some consider it their sacred duty to size everyone up and boot out all the people who have problems, others see this type of compulsive "sorting" as the danger in teaching sound doctrine. They think--and understa

Begin with the Facts Any honest study of a text from God's Word must begin with the facts. A command of the facts must include a careful examination of the words used in the text, not only in a reliable translation but in the original languages. The facts of the text must then be placed in their proper context --not only the circumstances surrounding the composition of the text but also the intended audience and the author. In the strictest sense, all of Scripture is w

A Revelation to Behold As a partial repost of A New Year's Revelation, it seems fitting to reorient our vision this sacred season to Christ Himself as we embark on a study of the Book of Revelation. With all those who "love His appearing" (2 Timothy 4:8), we yearn for His Second Coming to begin Christ's earthly reign as He restores all of Creation. We do not believe with the postmillennialists that we ourselves will usher in Christ's reign. Nor do we see conclusive eviden

Reclaiming Fact from Fiction If ever there were a time to exercise the discipline and devotion due to God's Word, it is now in these days of popular obsession with the Rapture, the Tribulation, and the Second Coming of Christ. When--with the help of the Holy Spirit and an obedient heart--we apply to the biblical text those reading strategies that separate fact from fiction, we will see that the Book of Revelation is not a riddle but exactly what it says: a revelation. Alt

Glimpsing Eternal Glory Arriving at Book V of the Psalms is like reaching the top of a mountain, only to discover a whole new mountain range beyond this summit. With Zion at last in view, we nevertheless realize that we are not yet home: this magnificent new height of victory is but the prelude to eternity. With renewed humility, we look down to realize that we would have dropped to our death in this breathtaking climb, had the Lord not given us feet like hinds' feet and

The Lord, Our Dwelling Place Anyone who loves Psalm 23 is going to love Book IV of the Psalms. Comprising  Psalms 90-106 , Book IV shows Israel emerging from the valley of the shadow of death to dwell instead under the Shadow of the Almighty. Those who witnessed the catastrophic destruction of Solomon's Temple as seen in Book III are now brought back to the words of Moses in Psalm 90, believed to be the oldest Psalm in the Bible: "LORD, thou hast been our dwelling place

Notre Dame guarding the Seine River Introduction Would you and I be willing to take part in a building project that would never be finished in our lifetime? Notre Dame de Paris, the most famous and iconic Gothic cathedral in the world, took over 200 years to build and yet faced the threat of total destruction in 2019 from a fire that took 15 hours to quench. We cannot assume that saving this cathedral would have been a priority even two hundred years ago. On the contrar

It was April 15, 2019. Some last-minute tax-filers might have had their thoughts fixated on finishing their returns. But most of the world was watching in horror and grief as Notre Dame Cathedral was burning. I remember where I was standing in Doris Henderson Newcomers School in Greensboro, North Carolina, when my teacher-friend Vanessa told me in her endearing Australian accent that Notre Dame Cathedral was on fire. I looked at her dumbfounded as chills of disbelief an