How do you view fiction? Simply as mindless amusement? A waste of time better spent studying Scripture or reading edifying nonfiction? Or do you appreciate excellent fiction for the ways it generates delight and proclaims truth? The biblical Preacher “sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth” (Eccles. 12:10, ESV). […]
It seems everyone has an opinion to publish these days, and with the advent of social media, everyone has a venue for getting it in print. In the past, only material that had made the editorial cut would be circulated more broadly in books or magazines. Blogs and Facebook, however, enable anyone to write anything […]
Glenda Mathes is a familiar name to many readers within the Reformed community. Reformed Fellowship carries her workbook in the Life in Christ curriculum, Not My Own: Discovering God’s Comfort in the Heidelberg Catechism. Reformed Fellowship also publishes Little One Lost: Living with Early Infant Loss, which brings biblical hope from a Reformed perspective to […]
Introduction In response to a query by The Times to a handful of thinkers and writers of the day to the question, “What’s wrong with the world?,” G. K. Chesterton replied with an answer that was as stunning as it was succinct: Dear Sirs, I am. Yours, G. K. Chesterton Any man can tell you […]
Perhaps you’ve received news that was so bad—the death of a friend, the loss of a job, the disruption of a relationship—that it took some time for the news to sink completely into your psyche. Sometimes our minds need time to process the implications of major life changes. Throughout Mark’s Gospel Jesus increasingly explained that […]
The highest concentration of red ink in Mark’s Gospel is found in the thirteenth chapter. This is the last of Jesus’ speeches that Mark records before the Shepherd was struck and the sheep scattered (Mark 14:27). So what topic is important enough to warrant this much attention at this critical point in Jesus’ ministry? Ironically, […]
THERE . . . the Grand Jesus Hebrews centers on the grand Jesus. Here’s its message: No one, nothing compares with Jesus. No angel. No priest. No action hero. No other being shares the being and the glory of this Jesus who is God. No one is so wonderfully Son of Man as Jesus. No […]
On July 22, 2015, I began my journey from the relative quiet of Grand Rapids, Michigan, to the bustling city of Kinshasa, Congo. As a representative of our international ecumenical committee (CECCA), I was invited to travel to West Africa to attend the second-ever synod of the United Reformed Church of the Congo (URCC). Because […]
What Is Christmas? Christmas is a holiday widely celebrated each December. One dictionary defines it as “the annual commemoration by Christians of the birth of Jesus Christ on Dec 25.”1 This is the definition that many people know today. Many think that Jesus was born on December 25. As one Christmas song indicates, “Mary’s boy […]
And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoiced in God my Savior.” Luke 1:46–47 As the lights of the Christmas season begin to fill the countryside, we do well to remember the promises that God has given to us. The first is the promise of life, and the second is the […]