There is a moment in the story of the Chilean mining disaster of 2010 that is almost impossible to forget. Thirty-three men were buried 2,300 feet underground after the San Jose copper mine collapsed around them. For seventeen days, the world held its breath. Then a drill probe broke through the rock, and a small note came back to the surface: "We are well in the shelter, the 33."From that moment ...  Read More

There is a question that cuts straight to the heart of who we are and what we truly believe. It is simple, direct, and impossible to answer without revealing something deep about ourselves. Jesus asked it twice in the same passage of Scripture, to two very different people, and the contrast between their answers may be one of the most instructive moments in all of the Gospels.The question is this:...  Read More

There is a strange paradox at the heart of the Christian life. The most important thing you will ever do — entering the kingdom of God — is at the same time the easiest thing imaginable and the hardest thing in the world. Not one or the other. Both, simultaneously. And until you feel the full weight of that tension, you may not truly understand what Jesus is saying in one of the most searching pas...  Read More

There is a scene from the television show "The Office" that is both hilarious and painfully revealing. The bumbling boss, Michael Scott, has accumulated enormous debt he cannot possibly repay. When a coworker offhandedly suggests he simply declare bankruptcy, Michael takes the advice at face value. He walks out into the middle of the office and announces at the top of his lungs, "I declare bankrup...  Read More

There is a passage in Mark 9 that most people assume they understand before they have really sat with it. On the surface, it reads like a radical call to self-denial — cut off your hand, tear out your eye, throw a millstone around your neck. Harsh, vivid, arresting language. But if you stop there, you have missed the deeper current running beneath every verse.This passage is about Christians getti...  Read More

There is a question worth sitting with for a moment before reading any further. When Jesus tells His disciples in Mark 9:35 that whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all, what do you instinctively think He means?Most of us, if we are honest, land somewhere in the neighborhood of philanthropy. We think of giving generously, volunteering our time, meeting the needs of the poo...  Read More