The wisdom that comes from above
“If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them” (James 4:17). Yet Jesus asks, “Do you want to get well?” This question highlights that good cannot be done just any way or against a person’s will. Jesus shows that human will must be respected before God’s power can address sickness.
Paradise seen from the outside
In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures – Psalm 104:24
The source of motivation
Motivation is more than simply having the desire to wake up each morning with enthusiasm and a zest for life.
My mechanism of resilience
When I was four years old, my younger brother was born. My parents focused on my brother and spent less time with me. It was only 40 years later that I discovered how this had affected me.
The young man who brought us the mirror
In the case of the well-known tension between the church and the younger generation, only one conclusion is possible. It’s not hard to figure out what we’re missing, it’s just hard to accept—on both sides.
Cringeworthy!
When a visitor walks into your church, what will they see? What will they hear? How will they feel?
How can I know God as He is, rather than as I imagine Him to be?
To know God is an aspiration inherent in the rational being who recognises His existence.
How I came to believe
I was a pagan as a child. Not by choice, but as a consequence of lacking any access to the Word of God. In the 1980s Romania, catechizing an Orthodox child (whose parents were members of the Communist Party) was a highly unlikely event Pavlik Morozov’s myth, the hero-child that denounced his own father, generated caution.
Does the Old Testament speak about Jesus or someone else?
The book of the Acts of the Apostles presents an encounter, supernaturally mediated by God, between Philip, one of the seven deacons, and an Ethiopian dignitary. When the Christian missionary met him, the Ethiopian eunuch was reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah, one of the many Messianic prophecies, and asked Philip a question we often ignore: “Tell me, please, who is...
The hopeless generation
I talked to Pastor Nicu Butoi about the role that religion could play in treating depression and hopelessness, at the end of a series of evangelistic presentations he gave to a full-house before the pandemic.
We are more than we can easily explain
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?
Don’t come back…
If we were to make an assessment of today's Christianity, which kind of sacrifice would we notice more frequently—the kind offered by Cain or by Abel? Cain offered a sacrifice from the fruits of the earth, and Abel from the sheep of his flock. While Abel’s sacrifice was pleasing to God, Cain’s sacrifice was rejected. From the very beginning, God has expressed His...
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.
Instant regrets, memory wipes & free will
Have you ever done something you immediately regret? Perhaps you’ve let your emotions get the better of you, lost control and said something particularly harsh to a friend in the heat of a moment—you wish you could take the words back the moment they left your lips.
The Good Place: great questions, medium answers
In the opening scene of The Good Place, celestial being Michael (Ted Danson) explains that most world religions and philosophies get their respective understandings of the afterlife only about five per cent right.


























