Again, you have heard that it was said to our ancestors, You must not break your oath, but you must keep your oaths to the Lord. But I tell you, don’t take an oath at all: either by heaven, because it is God’s throne; or by the earth, because it is His footstool; or by…

“It was also said, Whoever divorces his wife must give her a written notice of divorce. But I tell you, everyone who divorces his wife, except in a case of sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 5:31-32) Divorce is a huge and painful issue; I’m…

Note from Rachel: This week’s post is a roundabout examination of some of Jesus’s most challenging teachings. It’s a long one but I felt it needed to stay in one piece. Here we go … Jesus can be slippery, so that when his words seem most stark, most black-and-white, perhaps they are not stark but…

It was the hardest season of my life, and I had not yet figured out the reason for it. One thing I was absolutely sure of: it was not—it could not be—God’s will. My spiritual life had followed a powerful trajectory. My faith was born in a Christian home, and though I was very young,…

Fire Words The 19th-century poet Thomas Gray defined literature as “Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.” A more prosaic definition might say that literature is a work of letters that explores the human condition, that endures because it puts form to something we all feel. Thomas Gray’s definition made me think of a poem…