There is a story told in the Gospel of John about a time when Jesus fed a crowd of several thousand people with just a few loaves of bread and a couple of small fish. Amazingly, even after everyone had eaten their fill, there were twelve large baskets of leftovers.Continue reading
“Jesus wept” (John 11:35). This has been called the shortest verse in the Bible, and yet it is one of the most profound. In these two short words, the nature of Jesus is captured in a beautiful and profound way. He is both God and human.
Jesus’ dear friend, Lazarus, had died. Weeping is how Jesus responded when he arrived in the town of Bethany and encountered the heartbreaking scene.Continue reading
God often suffers from an image problem in our modern world. The image of God that many people have is a sour-faced angry heartless monster looking forward to the day when he gets to dangle our wretched souls over the fires of hell and then cut the string, laughing as we descend into the abyss of eternal torment.Continue reading
There was a news story a number of years ago about a woman, who received a letter from her deceased husband, sent 56 years earlier, but never delivered to her. It had been sent to her while he was serving in the military during World War II. She excitedly opened the letter with trembling hands and tears welling up in her eyes, anticipating a love letter from her dear husband from so many years ago. But when she opened the letter a wave of disappointment swept over her. All that was inside of the envelope was a blank postcard with a stamp on it. Her husband had been an avid stamp collector. He had apparently mailed the postcard to her to have the stamp added to his collection.Continue reading
I saw an advertisement in a local newspaper the other day for a certain church with a slogan that read, “A Church of Search, Not Certainty.” I thought that slogan captured well the prevailing attitude and belief in our culture. We live in an age when the search for truth has become the goal, rather than the finding of truth. We are told that searching is good, but finding is bad. Can you think of an area in real life where that kind of credo would ever be acceptable? Imagine, for example, that principle being used by people who are searching for a lost child in the woods. “We are going to search for the child, but make sure we never find her.” The idea is ridiculous.Continue reading
It is often said that there is no such thing as absolute truth. There is no truth that applies universally to all of us. Truth is an individual thing. Each person has their own truth. Each person must pursue and discover their own truth.Continue reading
Where did evil come from? That is a good question. And my answer may surprise you. Love created the possibility for evil to exist, namely God’s love. Evil would not exist if God had not given some of his creatures the freedom to choose between loving him and turning away from him.Continue reading
There may not be another word in the English language that carries more negative connotations than the word “religion.” When people hear the word, they immediately bristle. There have been centuries of abuse and cruelty done in the name of religion. The earliest days of human history record such atrocities as human sacrifice and mutilation all for some religious belief. Modern days have not improved on this trend very much.Continue reading
This is another blog re-post from “back in the day,” as part of looking back, celebrating Touchstone’s ten-year anniversary. This is a reflection I shared after our first Christmas program at the church.Continue reading
The following is another re-post from the blog I was using in the days leading up to the opening of the church to keep people informed of our progress. This entry captures the heart behind Touchstone.Continue reading
