
Last year I got to experience Hume Lake for the first time as a counselor. I was blown away at their focus on Jesus and emphasis on connecting students back to the local Church. You can read about my experience here. This post is dedicated to sharing what Jesus did in the lives of my…

Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. The story of the prodigal son has inspired hope in countless individuals as they have processed their religious experience. Most sermons have incorporated the passage to be primarily directed at Non-Christians, the lost, the unsaved. Some…

I work for a major insurance company known nationwide and which can be found in all states… and no, it is not Nationwide or Allstate. I started working for this company just over eight years ago. I started out in a call center taking calls for our auto insurance policy holders. People called in for…

People who know me or are even acquainted with me know that I worry—a lot—about almost everything. I become anxious over minor, insignificant matters. I overthink things. I often feel like things “just won’t work out” the way I hoped. Lots of people might be able to relate to this as they struggle with anxiety…

Adam Kolman Marshak. The Many Faces of Herod the Great. Eerdmans, 2015. 400 pgs. $35 (Paperback). ISBN 978-0-8028-6605-9. In The Many Faces of Herod the Great, Adam Kolman Marshak offers a fresh and compelling historiographical account of one of the more misunderstood figures in antiquity. While he agrees that Herod does, at times, play the…

Owens, Mark D. As It Was in the Beginning: An Intertextual Analysis of New Creation in Galatians, 2 Corinthians, and Ephesians. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2015. Paperback. 241 pages. Retail: $29.00. ISBN: 9781498202404 In As It Was in the Beginning, Mark D. Owens compares “new creation” concepts in Galatians, 2 Corinthians, and Ephesians through an intertextual…

QUEEN “Thou know’st tis common, all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity” HAMLET Ay, madam, it is common. Hamlet, Act I, Scene II As Hamlet reflects upon the death of his father, he mourns the brevity of life and the painful triviality of death. We too feel this as we survey what…

Returning from the mailbox, you flip through the stack that is your recent prize. You begin the important task of separating the pertinent letters from the ones that will be quickly discarded without even being read. Postcards and invitations in one stack, ads in another; bills, the things you wish you could throw away, on…

Walton, John H. and D. Brent Sandy. The Lost World of Scripture: Ancient Literary Culture and Biblical Authority. Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2013. 320 pgs. $17. Paperback. 978-0-8308-4032-8. In this book about the different understandings of “text” in the ancient and modern worlds, Walton and Sandy suggest that modern readers of the Bible can benefit…