Helen Roseveare, a medical missionary in Africa, was the only doctor in a large hospital. There were constant interruptions and shortages, and she was becoming increasingly impatient and irritable with everyone around her. Finally, one of the African pastors insisted, "Helen, please come with me." He drove Helen to his humble house and told her that she was going to have a retreat—two days of ...

Taylor University is a Christian college in Indiana. Years ago, they were pleased to learn that an African student, Sam, was going to be enrolling in their school. This was before it was commonplace for international students to come to the U.S. to study. He was a bright young man with great promise, and the school felt honored to have him. When he arrived on campus, the President of the University ...

Forgiving the unforgivable is hard. So was the cross: hard words, hard wood, hard nails.

—William S. Stoddard

Thanks to the Hollywood film The Lord of the Rings, a new generation of Americans has been introduced to hobbits. J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional creatures inhabit the Middle Earth and don't care much for adventures. But they are fond of giving gifts. Instead of receiving gifts on their birthday, hobbits have a tradition of giving gifts to other hobbits. Explaining this custom in The Fellowship of the ...

President Theodore Roosevelt adopted as his pet proverb, "Speak softly and carry a big stick." By that he meant that if the U.S. had a strong military, it could work its will among the nations of the world. In 1901, Roosevelt elaborated on his philosophy: "If a man continually blusters,… a big stick will not save him from trouble; and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there ...

Robert Pirsig, in his book, which has become a classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, says that the place to change the world is to begin with one's heart and work outward from there. He was saying we should begin at the center. That's a good way to understand how the Bible uses the term heart. In Hebrew psychology, the heart is the center of the person--the seat of personal will, feeling, ...

Percentage of Americans earning less than $30,000 per year who believe that "the meek shall inherit the earth": 61

Even those who have renounced Christ's way and attack it, in their innermost being still follow Christ's ideals, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardor of their hearts had been able to create a higher idea of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old. When it has been attempted, the result has been only grotesque.