Category: Culture

Diet, exercise, and Christian service

Diet, exercise, and Christian service

Diet and exercise are hot topics today. Many of the best-selling books and highest profile online companies are those who offer help either with what we eat or how we move. Yet Christians don’t often think of the connection between diet and exercise and our faith. There are two extreme positions here that we need …

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Watch out for weeds

Watch out for weeds

Weeds have been dominating my garden lately. I have all kinds of beautiful plants I would like to see flourish, yet the things that are most successful are the weeds. You don’t need to put in any effort for weeds to grow. They just happen. And if you don’t do anything about them, the garden …

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Information, knowledge and wisdom

Information, knowledge and wisdom

Information, knowledge and wisdom are all different things. I know that sometimes people use these words interchangeably, but they are distinct. We live in an information age with torrents of information being delivered to us every day. Yet not much of that information actually settles in our brains to become knowledge, something we know. And …

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Marriage is not the goal of the Christian life

Marriage is not the goal of the Christian life

When people get married, you often see a familiar pattern emerging. Instead of spending time with their friends as they used to do, all of their time is now devoted to their spouse. They stop going to parties and their previously-large social circle begins to shrink. It is this phenomenon that the Skyhooks sang about …

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Do not awaken love until it so desires

Do not awaken love until it so desires

Song of Songs is a love song, and it has a chorus. While metaphors are occasionally re-used through the Song, there is only one verse that is repeated, and that verse is repeated three times with only minor variations (in 2:7, 3:5 and 8:4): I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or …

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The now and not yet in Song of Songs

The now and not yet in Song of Songs

Song of Songs tells the story of a passionate relationship between a man and a woman. They long to be together. They dream of one another’s company and the future they might have together. In that context, the man comes to the woman’s house in chapter 2. She is living with her mother and he …

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Our love might be blind, but Jesus’ love is not

Our love might be blind, but Jesus’ love is not

When you are early on in a romantic relationship, everything about the one you love is fantastic. You cannot find a flaw. They appear perfect to you in every way. Their laugh, their mannerisms, their jokes, everything is just ideal in your eyes. This is what it meant by the phrase “love is blind”. Driven …

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