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“I told all my friends that Santa isn’t real, but Jesus is!”
When my five-year-old came home with this news, her teacher had already told me (with concern) that she’d been directing other kids to act out the Christmas story. “You’re Mary. You’re Joseph. You’re the angel.” I was torn between admiring her gumption and dreading awkward conversations with other parents!
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Women are mentioned only occasionally in biblical genealogies (as in 1 Chronicles 1:32, 50). Usually these family trees take the form “X [the father] begat Y [the son]” and make no mention of the mother. What sticks out in Matthew’s account of Jesus’ genealogy is that it mentions five women altogether. There must be a reason for this. And why only these women? After all, every man listed had a mother.... continue reading
They say time is relative, and it can certainly seem that way as Christmas approaches. To a busy parent—with presents to wrap, cards to send, meals to prepare, and spare batteries to remember to buy—time seems to fly. There is not enough of it—and there is simply too much to do.... continue reading
I was 18 when I realized my backbone was no longer made for bending. Prior to that, fear had won for so many years. Now I finally pried off the muzzle from over my mouth and confronted my father’s scarceness during one of our sporadic phone calls.... continue reading
It’s the intertwining of the two forces of mind and imagination that, I believe, made C.S. Lewis such a powerful evangelist, not only for me but for countless others. An expert on medieval literature may not seem like the kind of person God would use for widespread evangelistic fruit. But Lewis saw himself as a “translator—one turning Christian doctrine ... into language that unscholarly people would attend to and could understand.”... continue reading
Gladys Aylward was the daughter of Rosina and Thomas Aylward. They lived in north London, where they led a simple but happy life. While Gladys was attending church in her twenties, she felt called to serve God in China. Determined to follow her dream, Gladys enrolled at missionary school. Sadly, she didn’t pass her theology exam and was told that she couldn’t go to China after all.... continue reading
Betty was only seven years old when pilot Charles Lindbergh became the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic. This sparked an interest in airplanes in Betty, which became a real passion when her big brother, Joe, started to take flying lessons. Joe would tell Betty everything he’d learned, and Betty would listen, wishing that one day she too could fly.... continue reading
I want truth on fire. And that is exactly what God wants for me, and for you, as well. After all, didn’t Jesus say that the most important command in the whole universe was that we cultivate a love for God that includes all our heart and all our mind (Mark 12:28-30)?... continue reading
Right now a lot of people are turning away from or changing their beliefs, not based on theology but based on compelling narratives that they’ve heard. Stories are literally shaping the way people think about God and sex and sin and money.... continue reading
Writing about the Bible effectively for children is hard work. Depending on the age, you have to scale the vocabulary, the conceptual ideas being used or articulated and the number of ideas that kids can hold in their heads at any one time. Plus there’s the whole issue of how you handle gore and sex and death—subjects that frequently come up in the Old Testament in particular.
I encountered many cultural and story-telling problems while writing about the strange book of Esther for Esther and the Very Brave Plan.... continue reading
