As our Bible study group began focusing on the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, I felt pretty smug. After all, I didn't worship more than one God, steal, commit adultery or murder, lie about my neighbors, or plot to cheat them out of what was rightfully theirs. But one evening we came to the command to honor our father and mother (v. 12). Against my will, I thought of my mother, who'd passed away ten ...

Psychologists have found an intriguing way to study what it is that we really like and dislike. It's called "affective priming." They print a word over a bouncing dot on a computer screen. If people's response is positive, they push any key with their left hand; if negative—any key with their right.

Too discover our deeper responses, researchers will use subliminal stimulation. They'll print ...

Several workplace-related studies in 2008 suggest that the majority of working Americans aren't all that fond of who they work with.

• When asked if a colleague has ever tried to make them look bad, 50 percent of respondents said yes; 48 percent said no; 2 percent said they didn't know.
  
  
• When asked to identify which causes more stress at work—co-workers or workload—51 percent of respondents said co-workers, while 49 percent said workload.
  
  

English author H. G. Wells, famous for science fiction novels like The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds, once wrote a short story called "The Country of the Blind." It's about an inaccessible, luxurious valley in Ecuador where, due to a strange disease, everyone is blind. After 15 generations of this blindness there was no recollection of sight or color or the outside world ...

I once had the great privilege of traveling to Cuba to teach on worship in a little seminary in Havana and to preach in some house churches. Cuba? Yes, Cuba.

My father went with me on the trip. Our family is from Florida, and in the weeks leading up to the trip, we talked about my parents' memories of weeks of dread during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. We knew we were walking into a history of ...

Girls, according to a 2006 Clemson University study, are nearly twice as likely to bully or be bullied electronically than boys [bullying by way of personal websites, e-mail, text messaging, or cell phone calls]; another long-term study shows girls are responsible for 61 percent of reported in-person bullying incidents.

Making matters worse, physical violence, once the domain of boys, has thoroughly ...

Recently, Jana and I weathered one of the most stressful weeks in our marriage. I'd spent the previous two weeks traveling for business, and that week I had some presentations to make to clients. It was also the week that Jana moved her mother into a retirement community. I couldn't help with the move because of my work commitments, plus I had to spend time watching the kids while she got her mom ...

A 2005 study from researchers at Ohio State University showed that marital arguments can have a significant effect on the physical health of each spouse.

The study looked at 42 couples, all of which had been married for at least 12 years, during two clinical visits conducted two months apart. At the beginning of each visit, the researchers used a small suction device to inflict blisters on the arms ...

Beyond the Gates of Splendor is a documentary film that tells the true story of five American missionaries: Jim Elliot, Pete Fleming, Ed McCully, Nate Saint, and Roger Youderian, who in January 1956 were speared to death in the jungles of Ecuador by the Auca Indians, an isolated tribe known as the Waodani.

At first, the missionaries found acceptance among the Auca, but eventually they experienced their ...

In his book The Kingdom of God Is a Party, Tony Campolo relates an experience he had late one night in Hawaii.

Up a side street I found a little place that was still open. I went in, took a seat on one of the stools at the counter, and waited to be served. This was one of those sleazy places that deserves the name, "greasy spoon." I did not even touch the menu. I was afraid that if I opened the thing ...