The price of change
Living in times of great social transformation is both a privilege and a challenge. In this interview, Dr Ella Simmons reveals what her childhood and youth were like during the American civil rights movement. In that turmoil, she also discovered the church she came to love and serve with dignity and courage.
Living Biblically?
Many Christians say they take the Bible literally. They regularly spend time reading this Book they believe to be inspired by God and seek to understand how to apply it to their lives.
Be sad, better
I consider myself a fairly honest person. But when someone asks that innocent question, “How are you?” I’m often tempted to twist the truth.
How to love hard-to-love parents
How much do we know about love? Enough to understand that love is not an obligation—we cannot love by force, nor be loved in this way.
31 days of Christmas
I love Christmas, and opening Nathan Brown’s book, Advent: Hearing the Good News in the Story of Jesus’ Birth, reading each page, is like opening a carefully wrapped Christmas present, undoing the gift card attached with ribbon and bow, folding back the bright cellophane wrapping and lifting the lid off a curious little box containing the Gift itself. The gift in this case...
Is the hero better than his God?
Its nomination for six Academy Awards and winning in two categories [1] confirmed the feeling of the public that they were dealing with a very good movie, in every way.
The casino inside your phone
In the February 2023 issue of Signs of the Times, I wrote an article titled Gambling’s Dark Underbelly. Here in Australia, gambling is a multi-billion-dollar industry with a few very rich winners and millions of losers. In the article I concluded that “Gambling in any form is designed to bleed you for as long as you’re willing to bleed, with no regard for...
The lamb that was slain for me
"The fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" (Genesis 22:7).
Until love do us part
We see it in movies, read it in modern children’s stories, and hear it in romantic songs: love is the most beautiful, most desirable, and most precious asset of humanity. Many argue that if there is anything that can save the world from itself, it is love. But how is it that love itself has led to profound systemic issues, by dissolving the...
The false dilemma: Are there really only two choices?
The false dilemma fallacy presents an issue as if there are only two ways to solve it—often, two opposite ways—when, in fact, there are more ways than that. The conflict between the two ways presented is also false.
Relics: The miracle of faith or its illusion?
October 13, 1247. In the Westminster Cathedral in London, the crowd was eagerly awaiting the revelation of a great mystery.
The foolishness of the message of the cross
“God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
Teenagers and religion
In A History of Young People in the West, Giovanni Levi and Jean-Claude Schmitt posit that, in the West, adolescence is first and foremost a social-cultural construction, and therefore a cultural product. They considered it at most subsidiarily as a stage in the physiological process of growing up.
How (and why) to read through the Bible every year
More than a collection of information, beyond its role as a guide, the Bible is where we have a redemptive encounter with the One who holds the keys to eternal life.
Avicii: true stories
With his hands clasped on the barbell, the superstar stares blankly and tells his personal trainer that his body needs time to adjust because he has been suffering from anxiety for a long time. Because of this, his body does not differentiate between cardio and panic. Two years later, on April 20th, 2018, the lifeless body of the famous DJ Avicii was found...


























