The only path to a lasting freedom for the people of Gaza

News broke over the weekend that Israel is calling up tens of thousands of reservists as it prepares to continue its latest push into Gaza. The stated hope is to pressure Hamas into renewed negotiations to return the fifty-nine remaining hostages, with the clear message that their opportunity to do so is running out before IDF forces go in to get them.

In Gaza, there are signs of an uprising by civilians against Hamas. While not yet in significant numbers—and Hamas has been public in their persecutions of those who have spoken out—it’s happening.

I know the Gaza area quite well, and even used to take groups to tour around it.

More than 3000 years ago, Gaza was a large and important city. Its importance stemmed from its location on the “Via Maris,” which connected the southern empire in Egypt with the northeastern and eastern empires (Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria). It served the spice traders on their journey from the east to Europe and back.

Gaza is also a prominent area in the Bible, with both the Old and New Testaments mentioning it.

The region appears 22 times in the Old Testament, such as in Judges 1:18, where it describes how “Judah also captured Gaza with its territory, and Ashkelon with its territory, and Ekron with its territory.” The story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8:26 also takes place in this region: “Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.”

My time in Gaza

An archaeological construction from the Byzantine period (5th century BC) was discovered by the Egyptians who ruled the Strip in 1965, when they wanted to build a casino there. Hebrew names in the mosaic, an image of King David perched on a harp, and the direction of prayer facing Jerusalem are all evidence of an ancient synagogue.

But for as much history as we find in Gaza, I wouldn’t recommend visiting anytime soon. Much of it looked terrible even before the war devastated the region, and that is still the case today.

For years, I did my army duty in the Gaza area, mainly at the border between Israel and Egypt. The border is divided by a tall fence with army positions on both sides.

When we signed a peace agreement with Egypt, both sides were very generous to each other: “You take Rafah,” we said to the Egyptians. “No, no, you can take it,” the Egyptians answered. Ultimately, the Palestinian city of Rafah was divided in the middle, and this remains true to this day.

In my Army base, we had the keys to the Palestinian mayor’s house in Rafah. He frequently needed our protection from his own people. I never understood what the mayor did, considering the sewage ran in the streets while garbage and terrible smells penetrated everything. It was the “ best” way to lose weight, as it was impossible to erase the smell for two months.

That said, it’s difficult to understand Gaza’s current state without knowing a bit more about its history.

How Gaza became what it is today

In Israel’s 1948 war for independence, we were attacked by five Arab countries. After the war, the Gaza Strip remained under Egyptian control. 250,000 Palestinians fled to Gaza, where the existing population was 80,000. To house everyone, Egypt built refugee camps for the new population.

After the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel gained control of Gaza among other areas.

The area remained under Israeli control until 2005, when Israel evacuated the Gaza Strip completely. It was the end of a process that began with the Oslo Agreement, where the Gaza Strip became a Palestinian autonomous area.

Today, the population of Gaza is about 1.9 million, 1.3 million (68 percent) of whom are considered refugees. That is an incredibly high number, and so many remain due primarily to the work of a UN organization called UNRWA.

The following description is taken word by word from the official page of this UN organization:

UNRWA is unique in terms of its long-standing commitment to one group of refugees. It has contributed to the welfare and human development of four generations of Palestinian refugees, defined as “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period June 1, 1946, to May 15, 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 War.”

The “unique” way in which the UNRWA has “contributed” to the state of Gaza has resulted in one of the biggest failures I can think of.

Palestinians are the only people to retain refugee status generation after generation as a result of United Nations support. It made them completely passive.

A combination of UN support and the thought that “Allah will provide” makes it difficult to see how they will ever move beyond their challenging situation. That said, a good first step would be to stop enabling 5.9 million Palestinians to live as refugees.

I do not see a way for the people of Gaza to escape domination by Hamas unless they take responsibility for their lives. As plans are made to rebuild Gaza, working to ensure that its people can—and must—try to move beyond their refugee status is a crucial step in ensuring that the region can have a chance at sustainable peace going forward.

Do your part

We Jews were refugees more times than I can count across our history, but we always fought to move on. We did everything to improve our lives and to have a better future.

Scripture teaches that God is omnipresent, meaning He exists everywhere and at all times. This belief is central to the Jewish understanding of God’s nature, as expressed in prayers like the Shema, which affirms God’s unity and universality. However, Judaism also emphasizes human responsibility and free will in shaping one’s life.

Judaism encourages trust in God while actively engaging in efforts to improve oneself and the world, reflecting a balance between divine presence and human initiative.

I don’t know how to solve the Gaza problem, but I do know that the situation there will never really improve until the human initiative to take responsibility for that improvement is valued by the people living there.

And the same is true in our lives as well. Sitting back and waiting on God to make us better will never result in the kind of transformation the Lord longs to create in us. He has blessed us to have a part in that growth.

Will you do your part today?

Denison Forum

The power of predictions and the urgency of revival

Warren Buffett is retiring at the end of the year. This is the headline news from his company’s annual shareholders meeting Saturday, but there’s more to know.

According to Forbes, Buffett is worth $168.2 billion. His company, Berkshire Hathaway, ended March 2025 with $347.7 billion on hand. Over the last year, his company’s stock rose 33.9 percent, compared with 12.3 percent for the S&P 500. All that to say, when Buffett discusses the economy, people listen.

Tens of thousands of them, in fact.

At Saturday’s annual meeting in Omaha, people came from around the world to hear the ninety-four-year-old investment guru. He stated that “balanced trade is good for the world” and that “trade should not be a weapon,” but he also urged patience to investors worried about the future. “People have emotions,” Buffett said. “You’ve got to check them at the door when you invest.”

Nothing happening today has changed his long-term optimism about the US. He observed that “we’re always in the process of change” and added, “If I were being born today, I would just keep negotiating in the womb until they said, ‘You could be in the United States.’”

Following this story over the weekend prompted me to reflect on the power predictions have to become reality and the significance of this power for our souls and society.

Why yesterday was Star Wars Day

In case you missed it, Sunday was Star Wars Day (“May the Fourth be with you”), bringing us a host of quotes from the iconic film series. One of the most memorable comes from Return of the Jedi, when Obi-Wan Kenobi famously told Luke Skywalker, “Many of the truths that we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.”

While I disagree strongly with the underlying postmodern claim that there are no absolute truths (which is an absolute truth claim, by the way), Obi-Wan was right: when we act on our perceptions, we thus turn them into reality.

For example, when an investor like Warren Buffett encourages us to have faith in America and we therefore continue to invest in the country, our economy improves and our belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Of course, it helps when the object of our faith is worthy of it. You can sincerely take the wrong road and become lost, or take the wrong medicine and die.

Churches so full they turned people away

Consider Gen Z (adults ages eighteen to twenty-seven), in many ways the future of our society. Many have sincerely placed their faith in secularism, which contributes to their lack of flourishing today. A new study found, as the New York Times reports, that young adults are struggling “not only with happiness, but also with their physical and mental health, their perceptions of their own character, finding meaning in life, the quality of their relationships, and their financial security.”

However, in response to the loneliness epidemic and a loss of trust in the establishment, large numbers of young adults—and young men in particular—are turning to the Savior rather than secularism. In the UK, the number of young men attending church services has increased fivefold, and fourfold for young women. Gen Z adults are the most likely group to report an increase in Bible reading.

This trend is continuing across all demographics. Many churches in Great Britain were so full on Easter Sunday that they had to turn people away. Seventeen thousand people were baptized in France over the Easter weekend.

Once again, we are learning to pray with St. Augustine, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

“You have been set free from sin”

The key to experiencing genuine revival in our souls and our society is making the right spiritual decisions that become reality when we choose them.

In Romans 6, Paul taught that “the death [Jesus] died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God” (v. 10). Consequently, “you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (v. 11). Consider translates a Greek word meaning to “appraise, reckon, believe to be true.”

When we make this determination that we are “dead to sin,” we are empowered to make these choices as well:

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace (vv. 12–14).

We can choose godliness over sin because “you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God” (v. 22a). You have been set free describes a completed action. The consequence of this fact “leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life” (v. 22b).

As St. Augustine observed, because of the Fall we were non posse non peccare, “not able not to sin.” But because of the transforming grace of Christ, we are now posse non peccare, “able not to sin.” The choice is ours.

If we believe Satan’s lie that we are sinners doomed to sin, we make his deception our reality. If we believe God’s assurance that we are “dead to sin” and can choose godliness with the help of God, we make his promise our reality.

There is no sin we must commit. To the contrary, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Paul testified, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). You have the opportunity and ability to choose the same reality today.

“The only reason we don’t have revival”

Imagine the impact on our souls if each of America’s Christians chose to see ourselves as “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” and lived with true godliness by the help of God. Imagine the impact on our broken society. Imagine the revival that would come to our families, churches, and culture.

You can choose this reality for yourself today.

Leonard Ravenhill observed,

“The only reason we don’t have revival is because we are willing to live without it!”

Are you?

Quote for the day:

“Revival will come to us and within us when we really want it, when we pay the price.” —A. W. Tozer

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Denison Forum

What the contrast says about our nation and our souls

Thousands of people took to the streets across America yesterday in May Day protests against the Trump administration. The protests were organized under the banner of the 50501 movement, which stands for “fifty protests, fifty states, one movement,” which seeks to “uphold the Constitution and end executive overreach.” More than a thousand protests were organized in cities and towns across the country.

Like the US, Israel has seen large anti-government protests in recent years—first against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial reforms and then to demand the release of all remaining hostages in Gaza. This past March, more than one hundred thousand people turned out at such protests.

But there is a key difference between the two nations, one that reveals a principle vital to our future and the flourishing of our souls.

“Trump’s Single Stroke of Brilliance”

Columnist David Brooks, a longtime critic of Donald Trump, wrote a recent New York Times article surprisingly titled, “Trump’s Single Stroke of Brilliance.” His column is as critical of the president as we would expect. However, Brooks credits the administration for its energy: “It is flooding the zone, firing on all cylinders, moving rapidly on all fronts at once. It is operating at a tremendous tempo, taking the initiative in one sphere after another.”

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In his view, those opposed to Mr. Trump need to match his “clarity of purpose” with a “one-sentence mission statement” and a clear strategy for implementing it.

By contrast, historian Gil Troy writes in Jewish News Service that by the start of their May 1 Independence Day, “Israelis will have been bonding culturally, patriotically, and existentially for eighteen intense days already.” I have been in Israel on this day many times over the years. It is deeply moving to see Israeli flags decorating the nation’s balconies and cars. Families gather at beaches, parks, and other spots for picnics, concerts, and parades celebrating the nation, its history, and its future.

Troy notes that 96 percent of Israeli Jews participated in the Passover seder on April 12; some 71 percent avoided bread throughout Passover week. On April 24, the country stood in place for two minutes at 10 a.m. as sirens sounded for Yom Hashoah—Holocaust Remembrance Day—memorializing six million Jews murdered by the Nazis. Then came Wednesday’s Memorial Day, when Israelis honored their war dead and terrorism victims.

On these memorial days, as Troy notes, “regular television programming stops. Cafes, restaurants, theaters, and sports arenas close. Millions light memorial candles.”

Troy reminds us that these annual observances reflect biblical rhythms and are intended “to consecrate, to commemorate, to connect.” They “personalized, popularized, and democratized—and thereby immortalized—ideas, values, and historical events.”

Everything Israelis observed across these weeks centered on their national mission: “to live as a free people in our homeland, the land of Zion.”

What is our national mission?

If you ask five Americans to define our national mission and strategy for fulfilling it, how many answers do you think you’d hear?

What would be your answer to the question?

For America’s Founders, our mission is to advance the “self-evident” truth “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Our strategy fulfills this mission: “To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the government.”

Like Israel’s recent memorials and celebrations, America’s founding mission and strategy are derived from biblical principles. Our mission protects and promotes the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness “endowed by [our] Creator.” Our strategy creates a government by consent of the governed, reflecting the sanctity of all life as created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).

In both cases, the Founders were adamant that our flourishing depends on the blessing and providence of our Lord. For example, as Dr. Ryan Denison noted in his Daily Article yesterday, the National Day of Prayer observed by many across the country has its antecedents in a congressional appeal in 1775 for the colonies to join in “a Day of public Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer” for God’s blessing on their revolution for independence.

The modern state of Israel has not lost sight of its founding mission and strategy across its seventy-seven years of existence.

As America approaches our 250^th anniversary, have we?

How to find “rest for your souls”

America’s Founders could conceive of such a biblical mission and strategy because America’s first “Great Awakening” unified the colonies, elevated the humanity of all people (including African slaves), and inspired Americans to deep repentance and personal godliness.

How can you and I experience and catalyze such an awakening for the sake of our nation and our souls?

In Matthew 11, Jesus invites us,

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (vv. 28–30).

In Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus. Become like him. Do as he did, pastor and author John Mark Comer notes that the “yoke” was a Hebrew idiom used by a rabbi for “his set of teachings, his way of reading Scripture, his take on how to thrive as a human being in God’s good world.” To “take my yoke upon you” means to live holistically by Jesus’ teaching as our life mission. To “learn” from him is the strategy by which we fulfill this mission as we seek his guidance in every dimension of our lives.

When we do this, we discover that our Lord is “gentle and lowly in heart,” meaning that he is kind and humble, wanting only our best in every dimension of our lives. The more we live by his word and will, the more we find “rest for [our] souls,” a peace that transcends all circumstances. This is because Jesus’ yoke is “easy,” a word meaning to be useful and best for us, while the “burden” or work he intends for us is “easy to bear” in his power and purpose.

So I’ll close by asking:

• When last did you consciously and intentionally choose Jesus’ “yoke” and no other?
• When last did you determine to live by his word and will alone?
• When last did you seek his help in wearing his yoke and bearing his burden?
• When last did you find “rest for your soul”?

Why not today?

Quote for the day:

“The command of Jesus is hard, unutterably hard, for those who try to resist it. But for those who willingly submit, the yoke is easy, and the burden is light.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

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Denison Forum