Raphael's "Transfiguration" Yesterday, I was in a discussion with some of my fellow UTC students about the last chapter of C. S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters .  In the last letter, "the patient" dies in the London blitz.  At this man's death, the veil between the seen and the unseen worlds was removed.  He saw Wormwood, the demon who had been tempting, and he also saw the angels the Lord had sent to bring him home into his presence.   This lead us to talk a bit about the reality and presence of angels in our lives.  One person mentioned Paul's statements about our warring in the heavenly places.  I noted that the heavenly places are not spatial, hierarchical areas that are geographically above us.  Rather, we live and move and have our being in them.  It is true that there must be locales in the unseen realms, for there are multitudes of finite beings who live there (angels, souls of saints, Jesus of Nazareth), and in order to interact with...

Follow this link to my latest post for the blog page of the C. S. Lewis Foundation - a meditation on fairy tales, friendship, and the supernatural. http://www.cslewis.org/blog/fairy-tales-that-come-true/

If we do not maintain free speech in our society, we forfeit the ability to freely make disciples in our culture.

Here's an interesting excerpt from an article about reasons behind the War Between the States.  Sound familiar?  Just change "Republican" to "Democrat" or vice versa.   "5. Republican willingness to protect terrorists. The John Brown terrorists who escaped to the North were incarcerated. The states with Republican governors refused to extradite them [for prosecution in Virginia] and let them go. The South looked upon this as a preview of what they could expect from a Republican president. When John Brown seized Harpers Ferry, Democratic President Buchanan sent in the Marines. The Southern leaders asked if they could expect the same from a Republican president? The answer was no." [source:  https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/why-the-civil-war-wasnt-about-slavery/  ]

We are taking turns teaching through Ephesians for our church Sunday School this summer.  This is my first turn.  I provide an overview of the epistle up to this point, explain why Paul has interrupted himself as he was going to write another prayer, and then focus on an important application.

Greetings. I just read a news article where someone locally made the statement that our highschool and college students can understand the injustices of our society, so why cannot the grownups? Well, first of all - contrary to her accusation - there happen to be grownups who are aware of social injustices and actually have been addressing them for some time - this person and her young friends just don't have enough history in their background to realize that. Or perhaps they don't socialize with enough grownups to realize it. However, the main response is simple: Grownups have more sense than to let their kids decide what is best for our society.

II Kings 7:3 And there were four leprous men at the entering in of the gate: and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die? 4 If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die. If I do nothing, nothing will happen. If I do something and it is not right, God will shut the door. If I act, and the door is open, then God's will is done. So, imitating these lepers, I get up to do XYZ that is at hand, and whatever other good I may do. I will watch God work. Why not? The next steps will become evident as I act.