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The week from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday must have been an emotional rollercoaster for the disciples, Jesus’ friends and family, and Jesus himself. Together they experienced the triumphant celebration of Palm Sunday, the poignant fellowship of the Last Supper, the deep despair of the cross, and the amazing joy of the resurrection. In Ezekiel 37:1-14, Ezekiel has a vision that takes him on a similar journey from a place of deep despair to a place of incredible hope.

Superman is dead… I don’t know when it occurred, I don’t remember the moment that I realized I was mortal. What I do know is this feeling of Fear lurks around every corner like never before. Perhaps it began with a serious car accident I experienced in late 2012 – an accident I walked away from uninjured but my beloved Ford truck was declared DOA. Or maybe it was the diagnosis of medical condition that I did not fret, but soon began to hear random stories of people with the same condition dying of cancer at too young of an age. Perhaps it is the uncertain future of my young adult children, or… The list could continue for all us.

I’ve read a few blogs recently that suggest the idea of a women's ministry in a church is somehow passé. I beg to differ. Instead, I want to say that every church will always need a women’s ministry. Let’s talk about why that is. In this first article, I want to address the biblical basis for a women’s ministry in every church. And then, in the second article we’ll think about women’s ministry historically and why it is still needed today in our egalitarian society.

There was a woman I know who fell in love and married a man from another culture, another religion, different ways very foreign to her known life. Her husband’s father had died before she met him, so she entered this single parent family wholeheartedly and her mother-in-law taught her a new way of living and loving where their house became a home and she felt she belonged.This was so true that when her husband died ten years into their marriage, she made a commitment to her mother-in-law.

Christians desire guidance for how to integrate their God life with their work life—especially those in the business sector. “Whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31, NIV). Listed below are three insightful perspectives on this issue. The first two frameworks overlap in some ways, but they also bring out distinctive contributions, and offer particular guidance to help close the Sunday-Monday gap. Some may tend to compartmentalize work life as a second class necessity, and that the real action of Christian living takes place within the church facilities. We want to bring our whole life under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, on Sunday and the rest of the week.

Everyone knows we should pray more than we do, that prayer is really important, and that any hero of the faith has had prayer as a massive ingredient of their life. Even Jesus had to pray. After reading through Donald Bloesch’s The Struggle of Prayer, I have noticed five barriers to prayer in my life, and some ways of tunneling through or around them.

So we eat. We are dependent on many and ultimately God for the grace of our continued diets. We say grace at mealtimes in recognition of that dependence. For all that, many of us don’t consider that theology has much to do with meals and eating.

Of course, if you are going to use a lens of food and hospitality to teach theology, you’d better be ready to feed your students. The beginning of semester means a marathon Welsh cake baking session in the Draycott home. In our January intensive Interterm, I get to welcome the whole class to our home for a session of teaching. In regular semester the larger classes don’t allow this. But hospitality then becomes an experiential learning project for the students. Throughout the semester, in groups they will have eaten a meal together and deliberately fasted and prayed together.

I teach my Theology II undergraduate survey course through the lens of a theology of food and hospitality. Over a few posts I’ll share a number of elements that constitute the overall logic of the class. First, here, I share the formal shape of the class and how I see it fitting with our key concerns as a university. I shall later comment on my textbook choices and other resources that explore the theme. Also to come will be an account of how I frame what the task of theology is for my students through this lens, along with the measure of what I think can be achieved in a class.

The Fox is Herod Antipas. Jesus says so. If you don’t believe me, look at Luke 13:32. But what does this arrogant, sensual, and power-hungry tyrant say?

In this audio recording, Dr. Cardoza uses 1 Thessalonians 2 to discuss eight biblical characteristics of disciplers. "Discipling people is one of the most fundamentally important things we can do as Christians. The great commission tells us to make disciples; the New Testament is replete - especially in the gospels and acts - with examples of discipling..."

The Christian calendar marks the observance of various feasts and celebrations throughout the year. January 6 is the day on which the Christian church celebrates Epiphany. The Season of Epiphany then extends until the day before Ash Wednesday. Epiphany means manifestation or appearance. It is a time in which the church focuses on the divine presence as manifested in Jesus Christ in New Testament times and the implications of that manifestation for today. The season is an occasion to contemplate the unfolding of the revelation of God’s presence on earth through his son, Jesus Christ. It is a time to watch and wait as the mystery and glory of the presence of God in our midst is unveiled. What will it look like for God to walk among us? How will Jesus manifest God to the watching world?

In an ideal world, all Christians would maintain three types of spiritual relationships as they walked through life. (Disclaimer: There have only been a couple times in my own life when I have had all three going at once, but this is still an ideal worth aiming for.)

El nacimiento de Jesús cambió al mundo. La navidad es, sin duda alguna, el acontecimiento más importante en la historia de la humanidad y, por lo tanto, la mayor celebración de cada año. El Dios creador del universo se hizo hombre y habitó entre nosotros. Dios no está lejos ni es distante sino que a través de Jesús su presencia es real y personal. De hecho, el milagro de la navidad se resume con la palabra “Emanuel” que significa apropiadamente “Dios con nosotros.”

A couple years back my wife Rolane and I visited ten of our wonderful Midwest Talbot alumni. What a joy to see them all thriving, finding God faithful, and knowing days of effective and challenging ministry. While we were in the area, we took the opportunity to visit my hometown of Hospers, Iowa and spent a little time with my cousins living there. Some of them I hadn’t been with in over 30 years - so long that we all wore nametags to keep from getting confused! While I only spent the first seventeen years of my life on the farm, it played a significant role in who I am today. In going back home, certain impressions left their mark on my mind and heart. Let me elaborate ...

There is nothing like changes in one’s travel plan to reveal how we truly handle change. For myself, traveling with my family is a sacred obsession. I plan months ahead to get the best flights and reserve the “perfect” hotel to accommodate our sightseeing interests. As a family, we read travel books and blogs to find the out-of-the-way restaurants. With an itinerary in hand, we embark on our journey, only to be met with forced changes that were unforeseen. To say the least, I don’t deal with a “change in plans” well, especially when I am on vacation. Changes for me equal stress, hassles, and more work.

Por los tres últimos años, el índice de felicidad planetaria ha dado a conocer los países más felices del mundo de acuerdo a ciertos parámetros. Los resultados sorprendentes de la última edición en el 2012 señalaron que país más feliz del mundo es Costa Rica, en segundo lugar se encuentra Vietnam y en tercero Colombia. Los Estados Unidos se ubicaron en el lugar 104. Este índice de felicidad se basa en tres cosas: 1) Se hace la pregunta la persona, "¿Qué tan feliz es usted?" En una escala del 0-10. 2) Luego se mide la expectativa de vida de las personas de ese país. Finalmente se mide cuanta “tierra” (o recursos ecológicos) necesita la persona en ese país para ser feliz.

For the past several years I have had an autoimmune disease called ITP (Immune Thrombocytopenia) in which the immune system targets the platelets resulting in a low blood platelet count, which can cause spontaneous bruising or bleeding. Earlier this year, my platelet count took a significant jump. Though not in the normal range, it was higher than it had been in over five years. I was very excited and immensely grateful to the Lord and to those who had been praying faithfully for me and my platelets for years. Somehow, verbally expressing my gratitude seemed inadequate and insufficient. What, I wondered, would be an appropriate response? This question prompted me to look at the sacrifice of thanksgiving as outlined in the Old Testament.

Genealogies rarely contain interesting tidbits about our ancestors, especially the more unacceptable ones. But Jesus’ genealogy does. In fact, it even seems to highlight several rather shady characters. And they are women.

My mom passed from this world into the presence of the Lord less than three weeks ago. Since she faced a long journey through early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease (a journey of twenty years from the time the disease was detectable), I am so glad—beyond what you can probably imagine—that my mom is now with the Lord, in a place of rest, and with all her mental faculties restored while she awaits the resurrection and restoration of her body. My dad, sister, brother, and I each spoke at Mom’s memorial service about her genuine love for others and her faith in Christ. I’d like to share with you the last part of what I shared at that service.

I recently completed a manuscript on the book of Judges for Baker’s Teach the Text Commentary Series. It took me about three and a half years to write the short text, and I want to share just a few highlights from what I learned during my study.

I recently watched a disturbing video. A camera caught the head of a certain political organization; we’ll call him Lucius, attempting to convince a packed auditorium about the reality of moral law. Specifically, Lucius appealed to a real moral law above and beyond culture to argue against a right to homosexual marriage. What struck me most was less of what he said and more how he said it. Lucius taunted the crowd relentlessly, hurling insults like hand grenades. People often argue against moral reality by appealing to moral reality (e.g., there can’t be absolutes because look at out how absolutely wrong the crusades and inquisitions were!). But there is an equal and opposite inconsistency, namely, arguing for moral reality while breaking the very morality we are defending (e.g., real morals like ‘love your neighbor’ exist, you ignoramus!). In other words, Lucius’ problem was that he did not argue his worldview as if his worldview were actually true. No matter what he said, the way in which he said it made it seem like morals like love and respect were not to be taken seriously after all. The medium refuted the message.

A few years ago women students at Talbot were invited to a luncheon to listen to a couple of faculty women talk about Wisdom Calls. A student coordinator, Angela Song, sent me these questions in advance and here are the answers I jotted down.

Robert Saucy, distinguished professor of systematic theology at Talbot, just released the new book, Minding the Heart: The Way of Spiritual Transformation. He kindly took some time to answer a few questions about the book.

2013 is the inaugural year of an innovative biblical commentary series edited by John Walton and Mark Straus (published by Baker Books). It’s called Teach the Text because that is what it is about: helping people to teach the biblical text effectively. It combines literary, background and exegetical analysis with theological, pedagogical and homiletical discussion. But it does this in a surprisingly concise and accessible manner.