When my wife, Becky, got pregnant the first time we read everything we could about what was happening in the womb during each month of the pregnancy. But as we approached her due date, we were especially looking for signs of her going into labor: her water breaking and/or the pains of contractions. It’s sort of funny now looking back on it, but none of the three births worked themselves out in textbook fashion. In Matthew 24:8, Jesus compares the signs of the end of the age to birth pangs. However, I think many people over the course of the last two thousand years have misread these signs, just as we misread the signs of birth, when we were new to the whole parenting thing. The key verse in Matthew 24 is verse 34. Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” Jesus gives us several signs of the end of the age in this passage. But I don’t think he is talking about the end of world history as many h...
When I was in seminary, I received the following letter from a Christian friend who had, at one time, served in youth ministry and who later went on to become a lawyer. I had written to my friend, referring to him as St. Dave. This was Dave’s response… Will— I had to chuckle when I got your letter in that you entitled me a saint! You and I both know that that is far from the truth. I’ve always considered myself quite the opposite—fighting at least once (usually much more) every day from falling beyond the reach of even God’s mighty arms of love That letter illustrates for me a misconception that I think many people have. That misconception is that saints are the extraordinary Christians, the ones with more righteousness than the rest of us. According to my friend’s line of thinking… clergy are saints, seminary students are saints, people in stained glass windows are saints… but not the rest of us. Paul thought otherwise. Paul insists that we are a...