Prodigal sons and abiding sons | How to help children stay close to God

“Children cannot live according to God’s ways if they do not know God’s Words.” This is a truth in which Christian parents can ground their efforts to help their children build their faith in God, in order to later avoid the path of prodigal sons.

Three times the world nearly ended

Many doomsayers have “cried wolf” when it comes to the end of the world. Does that mean it’s not going to happen at all?

The love that whittles all my fears away

In a psalm that is worth reading on our coldest mornings and in our darkest nights, King David asked some rhetorical questions—“Whom shall I fear? Of whom shall I be afraid?”— questions which our contemporaries would not dare to answer.

Return to meaning

"To feel that you have meaning is to feel immortal," psychology professor and author Clay Routledge wrote in 2014. Is this the only kind of immortality we will ever have?

The meaning of life

I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. – John 14:6

What did Jesus think about Himself?

Jesus Christ is certainly the most fascinating and controversial person in human history, if we look at how He has been understood throughout the history of Christian thought. But how did Jesus understand Himself?

COVID-19: What have we learned about ourselves?

Courage is not the opposite of fear, nor of caution. True courage is what you do right in the midst of fear.

The conditions for courage (I)

Motto: "Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision." (Winston Churchill)

Rest and leisure: no one excuses distraction anymore

Nearly four millennia after the stone ratification of the law on weekly rest, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) reiterates the right of every person to rest and leisure.[1]

COVID-19: The pandemic that transforms us into different people

In Europe, one in twenty people suffer from depression, and one in four will experience depression during their lifetime. In the United States, major depressive disorder affects about five percent of the population.

Community, connection, church

Recently, my wife and I got hooked on a TV show. We’d wait in anticipation for the latest episode each week. The show was Old people’s home for 4-year-olds. The basic premise? Take a class of cheeky, energetic, curious four-year-olds (some of who lacked a filter) and have them spend a significant amount of time with the elderly residents of an aged-care facility.

Clash of sexual cultures (II)

Jessica was 19 when she had to tell her parents, both practicing Christians, that she was pregnant. That moment generated a real earthquake in the young woman’s family who, together with her boyfriend at the time, had been strongly involved in the purity movement, an ideology that promotes sexual abstinence until marriage, for religious reasons.

Antipapism: realism or paranoia? (I)

In late 2015, famed neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who was running for the Republican presidential nomination, became the target of scrutiny and innuendo from some in the media, who used the moment to turn his religious identity on its head. Ben Carson is a Seventh-day Adventist, and people wanted to know how Adventism influences his thinking. Carson lost the election race, but won a...

The portrait of Jesus (II): Jesus, the Lord and King

The Holy Scriptures call Jesus “the Lord”, that is, the Master. This was a respectful title used by slaves towards their masters in Antiquity. This is how subordinates addressed their superiors: children and their fathers; siblings, and their older siblings—or even a younger sibling who holds a high position.

The future and prophecy

Much of the Bible was written by prophets, so it is full of prophetic revelation. Most of these revelations are about mysteries of the past and present that we would not otherwise have access to.