• Fred's Blog

    Give Anyway

    If you caught Sixty Minutes this week you had a glimpse into the crushing plight of Christians in Iraq specifically and the Middle East in general. The Christian population in Iraq has been reduced from 1.5 million to less than 300,000—through slaughter, forced migration, conversion under duress and fear. More than 125,000 Christians have fled to Kurdistan and are huddled there in refugee camps. The entire Christian population of Mosul has disappeared and, according to a priest interviewed by CBS reporter Lara Logan, the intent of ISIS is to completely eradicate the Christians: “To wipe them out. To be nothing. No place left that bears the name of Christian or…

  • Bible Studies

    Acts 1:1-12

    1. I’m not sure why we have so little recorded about the forty days Jesus had with the disciples between his resurrection and the beginning of Acts.  I cannot imagine what the questions must have been or what it meant to have time with a man who had been dead but was now alive again.  It looks like he would come and go periodically and while he was with them he would speak about the kingdom of God.  I wonder if he continued to use parables or if he was more direct like he was with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus?  Whatever the case, it was clear…

  • Talks

    Cardus Magazine Book Review: The Opposite of Spoiled

    Book Review: The Opposite of Spoiled by Ron Lieber. HarperCollins, 2015. 320pp.           We all have a voice in our head that talks about money. For some it’s the haunting voice in D.H. Lawrence’s story “The Rocking-Horse Winner”—the voice saying: “There must be more money! There must be more money!” The children hear it when the elaborate and splendid toys came at Christmas while their parents struggled unsuccessfully to maintain their expensive lifestyle. The voice was an inaudible but palpable anxiety about money and always needing more. The title of Lawrence’s story comes from the horse on which their young son, Paul, rocks madly while hearing…

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  • Fred's Blog

    Labor Pains

    At 19, I took a summer job in a canning factory. For nine hours every day, I stood on hard concrete beside a press stamping out thousands of tin can lids. My job was to inspect the seals, stack them in a metal tube, bag them, put 24 bags in a box, and shove the box down a chute. The constant din of the machinery made any conversation with each other impossible. This was long before the Walkman or iPod so we were left alone with our thoughts for hours at a time. During the 15-minute breaks, the talk was about family or sports — the stuff of everyday life.…

  • Bible Studies

    The Reunion and Reform

    1. These are the final chapters in the story of Nehemiah and the restoration of Jerusalem after the return from Exile.  You’ll remember from the first lesson that Nehemiah heard about the plight of the returned exiles when his brother returned from a trip to Jerusalem.  First, he wept, then he prayed and fasted for days before doing anything.  He evaluated his capacity (cupbearer to the king) and then waited for four months before doing anything at all except pray.  He grew increasingly committed and it became obvious to people around him. After four months he recruited a partner (the king) who had resources.  Then, for five years he prepared…