Analysis

How can we correctly interpret Bible prophecy? What safety criteria can we use to avoid falling into the trap of hasty and erroneous interpretations?

What does it take to be the best? Most people will tell you it’s a combination of hard work and talent. Ask Australian high jumper Nicola McDermott, however, and you’ll quickly realise it’s a mental thing. It’s absolute belief that you can achieve whatever you set your mind to.

“Mister Watson, come here, I want to see you.” With this message, Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant, Thomas Watson, launched the telephone. The door had opened to distant, personal and instant contact.

Not many years ago, in Romania, the internet was perceived by a large share of middle-aged and older adults as an innovation primarily for the young—a space where they played games and communicated electronically.

In a dilapidated shack in Nairobi, a young woman makes her confession to the BBC reporter eager to hear her story: “I don’t know why God allows some people to be poor while others are rich.”

When we help someone without expecting anything in return, we often forget both the recipient and the gift. But God does not forget, and fulfils—at just the right time—the promise found in the verse that provides the title of this article. He did the same in my case.

Five hundred years ago, Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral. How are the motives that led to the Reformation viewed today?

The Bible, a prophetic book par excellence, is often misinterpreted. Its prophecies can seem fatalistic, or fear-mongering. But, when understood correctly, Biblical prophecy more than unravels the future—it also provides us with a clearer perspective on the present.

“Life seems short.” A seemingly simple phrase—until it comes from someone celebrating their 117th birthday, who has walked paths that stretch across three different centuries.

When the fear of war overwhelms our thoughts, let us not forget that we are not alone, that God will end our suffering and give us a new and everlasting life.

The possibility of completely rewriting the rules by which we organise our lives has always captured people's imagination. However, such a reorganisation has materialised, at best, in the pages of a philosophical book and has remained, for the most part, a utopia. But there are exceptions, of course.

“God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).

The question of the origin and justification of the recommendation to drink at least eight glasses of water a day was first seriously examined in a scientific publication by Heinz Valtin.

“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.”

The epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch thinks that social distancing will have to continue, in one way or another, hopefully in milder forms and in correlation with other activities. Lipsitch is the author of a study suggesting that social distancing may be necessary, possibly intermittently, until 2022.