Author: Rubel Shelly

Conversion is not signing on to a list of rules. It is giving your heart, mind, and body to Jesus. It is more akin to getting married than signing a bank note.

Are you losing your footing in life? Do you fear the news about the world around you?

The best way for the church to get clear about our mission in the world is to study the life of Jesus. Our goal is to be in our corporate life the continuation of who Jesus was in his personal life.

When we educate people nowadays, we tend to focus on competencies. When a university builds its business department, for example, it makes strategic hires in accounting, management, marketing, and human resources.

Santa is still strong this time of year. So are Rudolph, Prancer, and the other reindeer. Frosty is good. I’ve even seen larger-than-life replicas of The Grinch of Whoville. But it seems increasingly difficult to find shepherds and angels.

The first duty of a leader is personal integrity. Whether in politics, athletics, business, education, or family, who the person is counts for more than what she does. His title, fame, or salary can never compensate for a lack of character.

The really good coaches are smart cookies. Forget the “dumb jock” jokes, and pay attention to their ability to motivate – and focus on what matters.

“Religion is as religion does – all the rest is talk,” wrote Irving Greenberg. A Jewish theologian, Greenberg had the Holocaust in view with his statement. It was not enough to say a prayer for Jews in the time of Hitler. It didn’t help to feel sad or to wish that someone would come to the aid of people being murdered. It was a time that called for very specific and practical behaviors.

A report from the Pew Research Center offers some interesting insights about how men and woman see ourselves. The topic surveyed among more than 2,250 adults was weight. Says the report: “People tend to see the weight problem of the nation as a whole as being greater than the weight problems of their friends and acquaintances.” They might also have added “or themselves.”

The term – mentor – is enjoying widespread popularity these days. There are various disciplines in which mentoring is actively encouraged – including business, education, and spiritual life. If you are over 40 and have experienced any degree of success in your field, you have had the experience of having one or more persons new to that domain ask you to be his or her mentor.

Perhaps the most common idea about forgiveness is the tendency to link it with forgetting. To grant that “forgive and forget” go together as an alliteration is not to admit they go together in the moral act of forgiving someone.

One can make a good case that the biblical directive about eye-for-eye justice is among the most misunderstood – and misused – texts in Scripture…and maybe not in the way you think!

The single greatest challenge to faith is the reality of human suffering.

If the world was created by a good and loving God, why is life so hard? Why do good people get cancer or lose their jobs? Why are babies born deformed or starve to death? Why are news reports consumed with horrible accounts of deadly earthquakes and terrorist attacks? Why? Why? Why?

What is your typical reaction to the nightly news?

“I never watch it,” someone says. “It’s just too depressing!” Granted. There are negative stories practically every evening. Stories about blood and gore tend to get prominent placement. What’s the newsroom creed? If it bleeds, it leads?

Our culture tends to view work as a curse. One should try to avoid it whenever possible. When it can’t be avoided, one should do only what is agreed to by contract in the job description. After all, one works only because it is obligatory to making money; so rear your kids to think in terms of careers that are the quickest and surest ways to get rich.