Education

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...

In 1867, when Edson White was 18 years old and working at the Adventist type-room in Battle Creek, Michigan, he had a transformative conversation with Mr Bell.

In the book Love Beyond Reason, John Ortberg presents familiar and hidden nuances of a love that emerges revealingly from chapter to chapter, using lived out stories and biblical episodes, as well as familiar illustrations from literature.

In Europe, few people know Gwyneth Paltrow as anything other than an American actress. In the United States, however, her "modern lifestyle" wellness brand called goop is growing her reputation—in a negative way.

"No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books." (Elizabeth Barrett Browning, British poet)

On 29 May 2023, photographer Oleksandr Kuchynskyi filmed a group of children in Kiev fleeing to a shelter during an air raid.

Mel Rees, a contemporary Christian author, observed that “money [...] is life [...] in a tangible form.” He reasoned that life is “an expenditure of time and talent,” while money is “the result of the use of time and talent.”

Roberto Badenas is a Seventh-day Adventist who specialises in Bible studies and is a New Testament teacher, with a theological leadership career that reflects his concern for people.

"The Clifford Goldstein story" is addressed to those who, ever so often, feel the need to read something about experimentation, because it is not about theorising a rebellious young man's search for the path of life, but rather a true-life story.

"Millions of ordinary, psychologically normal people will face an abrupt collision with the future. Citizens of the world's richest and most technologically advanced nations, many of them will find it increasingly painful to keep up with the incessant demand for change that characterises our time." (Alvin Toffler, Future Shock, 1970)

"One Thousand Gifts" describes the beautiful revolt of a soul that does not want to be crippled by what it has lost, but to pierce its own suffering like an arrow springing from the bow of grace, a leitmotif of the whole book.

Fundamentalist movements, extremist and sectarian religious beliefs, manipulations of the mass of believers, conspiracy theories within religious sects, and other such threats, emphasise the need for critical thinking.

After the authorities in different countries announced a relaxation of the restrictions, people started to impatiently waiting for that, maybe even with plans to recover last bits of a confiscated spring.

“Circumstances do not matter when you have a dream.” This seems to be the central message of the stories of those who have succeeded despite unimaginable obstacles. But can dreams still be born in the midst of the struggle for survival, in depravity, and misery? And even if they are born, do they have a chance of survival?

The readers who immerse themselves in the maze of paper and ink, savouring every word, seem to be on the verge of extinction.