Religion

Herbert Thorson Blomstedt has performed in over three thousand concerts with the world's most renowned philharmonic orchestras. He has held several long-term positions as music director of legendary orchestras in Dresden, Leipzig, and San Francisco, and recorded hundreds of works, including the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Bruckner, and Nielsen. He has won two Grammy Awards and received state distinctions in Sweden and Germany....

The stakes are high when it comes to identifying the one to whom we should pray, and we can discover who by answering an apparently simple question: Can we expect prayers to be heard no matter who we address them to?

Any sacrifice is hard to understand from the outside. But it's even harder to understand how sacrifice can be a choice that brings joy to the person making it. The easiest people to include in this category are, of course, mothers. For them, the sacrifices never seem too many or too hard. Even more amazing are those mothers who raise other people's unwanted...

"The fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" (Genesis 22:7).

Faith has brought me not only a sense of God's presence, but also evidence that He is answering our requests. Therefore, the other reasons that made me believe have become stronger.

Trust is the main currency of the age in which we live, and people seem to be changing the directions they invest in faster than in the past. How is our life of faith influenced by how we relate generally to trust?

For some of the witnesses to the crucifixion, the seven sayings of Jesus, spoken while He was nailed to the cross, were filled with meaning. Others downplayed or denied their significance. His words still divide people today. But the statements made by Jesus in those few hours are an important key to understanding His message.

"Lianne struggled with the idea of God," Don DeLillo’s narrator says of one of the characters in his novel, Falling Man. "She was taught to believe that religion makes people compliant. This is the purpose of religion, to return people to a childlike state… . We want to transcend, to pass beyond the limits of safe understanding— and what better way to do...

Suppose I leave the window open then leave home. A stack of banknotes can be seen on the table through the open window. An individual walking down the street notices the opportunity, thinks for a while, but decides to move on. Why would a man who has the opportunity to steal decide not to?

One in seven Christians is a victim of persecution worldwide and one in sixteen Christians dies every day for their faith, according to a report published by the Open Doors organization, revealing that Christian persecution has reached the highest level in the last three decades.

In those times when grief accompanies us and we find ourselves alone in the middle of the night, does God shed tears with us?

“Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20).

A major crisis pushes us to re-evaluate the way we see and do things in the fields of health, finance, and social interaction. But how does this crisis affect our religious practices—especially the most common of these, prayer?

After 25 years in the ministry, during which he never once considered leaving, Pastor Tim Kuperus admits that the last three years have been difficult enough for him to consider a different path.

Norma Nashed has been running the Restore a Child organisation for more than two decades, helping 4,000 children in ten African countries.