To the people of ancient Israel, God’s house was an image that shaped the way they saw everything. In the minds of ancient Israelites, the house of God was the center of the world. As strange as this might sound to our ears, to their ears, the modern notion of the separation between heaven and earth would have seemed strange and wrong. God’s was a house reaching from the heavens to the liminal, tangible places on earth where God caused his name to be remembered. God’s house was seen in experiences like Jacob’s: “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”(1) It was experienced in the tabernacle that once moved among them as pilgrims, and later in their pilgrimages to the temple. Ever-expanding their vision of God’s house, altars were built over the places where God had appeared to them, marking the reach of its walls. Though at times as prodigals, their longing for home was a part of their identity as children of the house of God: “One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.”(2) In the imagination of the Israelite, the house of God as it reached from heaven to earth was occupied by the Creator. As the people of God, they had been invited inside and they longed to remain. They longed for the healing embrace of home.

As with any group with a clear vision of inside and outside, belonging and not belonging, the Israelite’s understanding of the house of God could have easily become the very rationale for excluding foreigners, neighbors, and outsiders. Yet not long after God had called the people of Israel his own, God instructed them very specifically on the treatment of such people: “Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt.”(3) “The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.”(4) The house of God was to be a house of hospitality, for such a spirit reflected the very God within it: “For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt.”(5) Called to ever-remember their own status as foreigners, the people who were invited into the care of God’s house were to become a sign of that care themselves.

Continue reading Ravi Zacharias Ministry – At Home →

To say I was looking forward to watching my team play was an understatement. My excitement was heightened by the fact that the value of the tickets I possessed far outweighed what I had actually paid for them. The high demand and difficulty in obtaining them meant they were worth much more financially than the purchase price. They were also of personal value, as this was to be our oldest son’s first game, to mark his tenth birthday, and I have only ever been a handful of times in my life myself. Lastly, the game had taken on a much greater historical significance, as my club appeared to be on the brink of winning the league for the first time in 30 years, and there was even the possibility that the championship might be clinched at the match we were going to. Everything seemed perfectly poised. Everything, that is, until the world suddenly changed…

COVID-19 has wreaked havoc across the globe and has caused some of the richest and most technologically advanced nations to grind to a halt. Sporting fixtures were of course one casualty of the chaos, prompting the coach of my team to reflect that the game was simply the “most important of the least important things.”

This succinct reflection perfectly captures the way in which the on-going tragedy has put everything else into perspective. It has given us all pause for thought about how we spend our time and what we consider valuable in normal life. Has the crisis caused you to think about or re-evaluate what or who is important in your life?

Continue reading Ravi Zacharias Ministry – The Most Important of the Least Important Things →

In the January 2, 2015 issue of Science magazine, I read a troubling article. Two researchers—one a cancer geneticist and the other a biostatistician—found that approximately two-thirds of all cancers are the result of “biological bad luck.”(1) The ‘bad luck’ they describe is simply the random genetic mutations that happen as a result of healthy cells dividing. Utilizing a statistical model to analyze historical literature on cancer, they examined the rates of cell division in 31 types of bodily tissue. Focusing specifically on stem cells—the specialized population of cells within each organ tissue that provide replacements when cells wear out—they found that the higher the rate of stem-cell division the more increased the risk of cancer. The reason why? Dividing cells must make copies of their DNA. The more they divide (over time), the higher the risk that errors in the copying process could set off the uncontrolled growth that leads to cancer.(2)

These findings are troubling because they create doubt as to whether preventative controls matter at all in the fight against cancer. They are troubling especially as I thought of all those who have come face to face with the “randomness” of cancer. They are more than just statistics; they are family members, friends, and colleagues who struggle with this often-deadly disease. Confidence erodes in any sense of control over one’s safety and health in light of findings like these.

As I read studies like this, or simply look out on the world around me, it is sometimes difficult not to collapse under the weight of what appears to be random catastrophic events. Mistaken identity, for example, was the “reason” a classmate and dear friend of my brother was murdered, not two-weeks into his new marriage. Working as an urban missionary, he was murdered at the front door of a home in which he was coming to share the Christian faith. Those inside mistook him for someone who had done harm to them in the past. In another seemingly random event, two wilderness experts/enthusiasts river-rafting in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge awoke to find a grizzly bear in their campsite. Though they were armed with a rifle and other necessary protection, they were mauled and killed by the bear. They startled the bear as they emerged in the morning to prepare some breakfast. Apparently, being in the wrong place at the wrong time can get one killed. But the ‘wrong’ place often seems to be as arbitrary as a roll of the dice. Now as I write this, a microorganism has spread around the globe and erased all notions of being in the ‘right’ place.

Continue reading Ravi Zacharias Ministry – The Myth of Safety →