As every savvy marketer knows, sensationalism sells books and attracts a television audience. The National Geographic Channel can therefore expect a host of viewers for its special program "The Gospel of Judas" set to show tonight (Sunday, April 9, 2006). "One of the most significant biblical finds of the last century," hypes the producer's website, "-- a lost gospel that could challenge what is believed about the story of Judas and his betrayal of Jesus." The TV special follows the translated publication three days earlier of the so-called Gospel of Judas, a codex (bound like a book rather … [Read more...]
SPIRITUAL GIFTS SEMINAR
March 2006 -- Great joy, human brokenness and divine renewal marked our seminar on gifts of the Holy Spirit last weekend in Searcy, Arkansas. Sponsored by Covenant Fellowship Church (CFC) and hosted on Saturday by First United Methodist Church (FUMC), both of Searcy, the seminar included two teaching sessions followed by a question-and-answer session on Saturday morning and a healing prayer service on Saturday evening. Attendees came from CFC and FUMC, Churches of Christ and other area churches plus visitors from other towns including several guests from Tennessee. It was a pleasure to meet … [Read more...]
LIFE NOW AND FOREVER
This final week of 2004 has seen what is perhaps the largest natural disaster in the world's history, following an earthquake under the Indian Ocean more than 740 miles long and having the force of a million atomic bombs. The quake, which jolted the earth's rotation, spawned monster waves called tsunamis which swept across the Indian Ocean, killing (says the Associated Press) more than 44,000 people in eleven countries from Thailand to Somalia. Human life is fragile and precious, in the big picture and in our individual cases. Immortality is Christ's accomplishment and the Christian's hope. … [Read more...]
PLEASANT IN ARKANSAS
Nov. 2004 -- Pleasant Street Church of Christ was the venue and the weekend just ended matched well the name. It was pleasant for the natural surroundings in Springdale, Arkansas, a family-oriented city of 58,000 adjacent to Fayetteville (home of University of Arkansas) near both Oklahoma and Missouri. It was especially pleasant for the loving church family hosting the Saturday seminar on "Surprises from a Study of Hell" and for the hospitality of minister Larry Branum and his wife Reba. The giant yellow oak in front of the church building and the 50-foot tall pecan tree in the parsonage … [Read more...]
BILL LOVE — ASLEEP IN JESUS
Bill Love, known to many gracEmail subscribers around the world, died peacefully in his bed on Friday, April 30, 2004, following about two weeks of hospitalization and hospice care at home. Bill was preaching minister at the Bering Drive Church of Christ in Houston, Texas from 1974-1996 where he was my family's preacher and dear friend from 1982 onward. Bill suffered a stroke in 1998 that left him paralyzed on one side and unable to speak or to write. He also suffered for many years from congestive heart failure. Despite these infirmities, Bill set a valiant example of courage and faith, … [Read more...]
THE DRAGON SLAYER: A REVIEW
I have just read twice and highlighted The Dragon Slayer: Reflections On the Saving of the World (2004, privately published, 202 pages, paper), the latest book from my eloquent friend Jim McGuiggan of Northern Ireland. As usual, McGuiggan devotes his considerable mind and poignant pen to the profound realities that matter most, this time the atonement for sin which Jesus Christ accomplished once for all. For centuries the Irish have been noted as gifted story-tellers and McGuiggan maintains the Hibernian reputation, as seen in this passage reminiscent of Brennan Manning: "We built a wall that … [Read more...]
GLAD FOR GOD’S GRACE
August 2003 -- I write this in the Birmingham airport, waiting several hours for a plane stalled in the Northeast by inclement weather. Outside, the North Alabama skies also are dark and stormy, lightning flashing, peals of thunder reverberating across the heavens. But no thunderstorm can dampen the joy I feel following a full weekend with Disciples Fellowship in this city of rolling hills, luxuriant foliage and stately tree-lined streets. Like Barnabas at ancient Antioch, I have witnessed the grace of God and I am glad (Acts 11:23). This new community of believers began only months ago as … [Read more...]
BOMBING BAGHDAD’S BABIES
A gracEmail reader in Romania writes that U.S. sanctions against Iraq have led to the starvation of about one million innocent citizens. "What have they done to us?" he asks. "Should we punish them because of their dictator? If we do, the same will happen to us. We reap what we sow. 'Suffer the little Iraqi children to come unto me and kill them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven' (my unauthorized version)." * * * In the Old Testament, the land we identify as Iraq was known as Mesopotamia. Ur of the Chaldees was there, and perhaps the Garden of Eden. This land also contained Babylonia … [Read more...]
SHOWERS IN THE DESERT
September 2002 -- It doesn't rain often in Phoenix, Arizona, but the desert city received some downpours this past Saturday, as well as reminders in lightning and thunder of power greater than our own. The physical phenomena were fitting accompaniments to our seminar at Tatum Boulevard Church of Christ, in which we looked afresh at Scripture teaching concerning God's presence with us, his guidance for us and his voice to us today -- in Scripture and (always measured by Scripture) by his Spirit to our hearts. The Bible often uses the wind as a symbol of God's Spirit ("spirit" and "wind" are … [Read more...]
REUNION AND RENEWAL
July 2002 -- It is late Sunday night and I have just returned home to Houston from a weekend of very special blessing in Athens, Alabama where I grew up and where my ancestors had lived since about 1805. The occasion was the 40th year reunion on Saturday night of the Athens Bible School graduating class of 1962. All 17 members of our class are still living and 13 were present for this occasion, plus several others who were part of our class somewhere along the way. Four decades have sobered our foolishness, whitened our hair, produced a host of grandchildren and at least one … [Read more...]
