Tag Archives: Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – For Humanity

September 26, 2014 broboinhawaii 1 Comment

The picture painted in the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah is a depiction of realized hope and reconciliation. It is a stirring picture of wholeness:

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,

because the LORD has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor;

he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor,

and the day of vengeance of our God;

to comfort all who mourn;

to grant to those who mourn in Zion—

to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness instead of mourning,

the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;

that they may be called oaks of righteousness,

the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.(1)

The prophet Isaiah outlines God’s plan for restoration: putting into words the hopeful cry of justice and liberty, marking the end of mourning and ashes for a people who were crushed by loss. It was no doubt a passage that sustained the Israelites through hardship and bitter exile. I imagine in Babylon the imagery in this chapter was often longingly on their minds, the promise of God’s comfort and grace treasured words on their lips. I imagine in Jerusalem years later congregations delighted to hear Isaiah 61 proclaimed from the scrolls in worship of a God who heard their cries and brought them home.

Consequently, I imagine faces of utter shock, when after reading these familiar words before a synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus stood up and commented: “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”(2)

According to New Testament scholar Darrell Bock, the Gospel of Luke, where we find this story, has often been the neglected gospel in the life of the Church. Yet more so than any of the other gospel accounts, Luke depicts in detail how a small part of history in a small part of the world reveals the plan of God for the nations far beyond it. Luke writes the story of Christ across the pages of history, but not simply the history of Israel, all of human history. He shows the tension between that which blinds humanity to the work of God and that which points us to our desperate need of God. Luke’s portrait of Jesus shows God acting among the oppressed and downtrodden, the captives and the blind—the very people often thought of as outside of God’s care. As he carefully places the parables and teachings of Christ before his readers, Luke forces us to see that whether we deliberately make a choice to follow him or not, a choice is always made.

At the synagogue visit where Isaiah 61 was read aloud, Jesus reveals himself as the fulfillment of a story set in motion long before his time on earth. His words put both the hearer of that day and the reader of the present in the position of having to make a choice. All of the promises of God stand before humanity in the person of Christ. He is the fulfillment of God’s plan. He brings liberation to the captives. He brings sight to the blind. He binds the brokenhearted. He brings peace—or he does not. In this particular synagogue, the people ran him out of town.

Scottish theologian James Stewart once noted, “Christianity is not for the well-meaning; it is for the desperate.” In Jesus we encounter the creator of all humanity who becomes one of us. He stands embodied before us taking the pain of our captivity and mediating the hope of our release. He comes to bind the broken. His presence is a startling invitation to human wholeness.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Isaiah 61:1-3.

(2) See Luke 4:14-30.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Isn’t Christianity Arrogant?

September 25, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

One of the most common accusations flung at Christians is that they are arrogant. “How can you believe that you’re right and Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims—all the thousands of other religions—are wrong?” Isn’t it the height of arrogance to claim that Jesus is the way to God? A way, possibly. But the way?

This issue haunts many Christians and makes us reluctant to talk about our faith. We don’t want to appear arrogant, bigoted, or intolerant. This pluralistic view of religions thrives very easily in places like Canada or Europe where tolerance is valued above everything else. It’s very easy slip from the true claim—”all people have equal value”—to the false claim that “all ideas have equal merit.” But those are two very different ideas indeed.

Let’s take a brief look at the “all religions are essentially the same” idea. Suppose I say that I’ve just got into literature in a big way. This last year, I’ve read William Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf and Tolkien, but also Harry Potter and The Very Hungry Caterpillar—and I’ve concluded that every author is identical. Would you conclude that: (a) this is the most profound statement on literature you’ve ever heard? Or would you conclude (b) that I don’t have the first clue what I’m talking about? I suggest that you’d probably choose (b). Now, what about the statement “all religions are the same”? Doesn’t it likewise suggest that the person making it hasn’t actually looked into any of them? Because once you do, you realize it’s not that most religions are fundamentally the same with superficial differences but the reverse is the case: most religions have superficial similarities with fundamental differences.

A further problem with the idea that all religions are essentially the same is that it ignores a fundamental truth about reality: ideas have consequences. What you believe matters, because it will effect what you do. To claim that all religions are essentially the same is to say that it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you’re sincere—and this neglects the fact that you can believe something sincerely and be sincerely wrong. Hitler held his beliefs with sincerity—that doesn’t make them true.

However, truth, by its very nature, is exclusive. If it is true, as Christianity claims, that Jesus was crucified, died, and rose from the dead, then it is not true, as Islam claims, that Jesus never died in the first place and that somebody else was killed in his place. Both claims cannot be true. Truth is exclusive.

But just because truth is exclusive, that doesn’t make truth cold and uncaring. Truth for the Christian is personal. The Jesus who said “I am the only way” also said “I am the truth.” In other words, ultimate truth is not a set of propositions but a person. As the Bible says in 2 Timothy 2:12, “I know whom I have believed.” Not what I have believed or experienced but whom. Jesus Christ.

To ask why we think that Jesus Christ is the only way is to miss the point entirely. Jesus does not compete with anybody. Nobody else in history made the claims he did; nobody else in history claimed to be able to deal with the problems of the human heart like he did. Nobody else in history claimed, as he did, to be God with us. To say that we believe Jesus is the only way should have nothing to do with arrogance and everything to do with introducing people to him.

Andy Bannister is a member of the speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Toronto, Canada.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Theology as Doxology

September 24, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

More than six hundred years ago, a young Italian girl sent into a dark world a quiet but reverberating voice. Catherine of Siena lived within a century marked by insecurity and fear, war and economic distress, terrorizing disease, and corruption within the church. Yet, her short life was one marked by a passion for the truth, intense care for humanity, and a fervent life of prayer. Whether administering care at the bedsides of plague victims or writing letters to feuding church leaders, she emphatically declared in word and deed: “The way has been made. It is the doctrine of Christ crucified. Whoever walks along this way…reaches the most perfect light.”(1) Catherine prayed with a similar intensity: “O eternal God, I have nothing to give except what you have given me, so take my heart and squeeze it out over the face of the Bride.”(2) In the frailty of her own life, which was racked with great illness and sorrow, Catherine’s severe desire was that God would take her life as an offering, using her in whatever way to mend the brokenness she saw all around her.

Reading through a book of her collected prayers and letters recently, I was struck by a phrase the editor used to describe her. In Catherine’s prayers, the editor notes, “her theology becomes doxology.”(3) Namely, what Catherine professed to be true about God became in her prayers—and arguably in her life—an expression of praise to God. It struck me as a beautiful notion—what we know of God being something that moves us to sing to God.

But shouldn’t all theology naturally lead us to doxology?

Throughout Christian story and verse we find lives touched by God’s goodness, moved by God’s mercy, transformed by God’s mighty presence. In these souls we find a profound correlation between profession and praise. This was certainly true of the young peasant girl who was used by God to bring into the world the child who would be named Jesus and called ‘God with us.’ In the Gospel of Luke we witness the thoughts of Mary actually erupting into song. In the midst of the uncertainty that must have been running through her mind, she nonetheless praises God for the things she knows to be true, for the promises that have touched her life, and the very character of the one to whom she sings:

My soul glorifies the Lord

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has been mindful

of the humble state of his servant.

From now on all generations will call me blessed,

for the Almighty One has done great things for me—

holy is his name.

God’s mercy extends to those who fear him,

from generation to generation.

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm…

He has helped his servant Israel,

remembering to be merciful

to Abraham and his descendants forever,

even as he said to our fathers (Luke 1:46-55).

Mary’s theology is intertwined in her doxology: God is a God who has acted in history and is present today. God is one who keeps promises and has indeed promised great things. Holy is the name of the one who sends us this child.

When we come to know the God of heaven, when we see the reach of the one who longs to gather us, when we glimpse the goodness of the Son, his human hand in our lives, his giving of the gift of the Spirit, we find we have been given a song. There becomes within us a need to praise God as creatures in our very createdness, to sing of all that we see and all that we know because of this Creator who wants to be known.

What do you know about God? What have you seen of God’s character and known of God’s goodness? Might your theology become a song worth singing. In your knowledge of God and in your knowing of Christ, might you find in word and deed, in prayer and song, your life a doxology to the goodness of a Creator who wants to be known.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Mary O’Driscoll, Ed., Catherine of Siena (New City Press: Hype Park, NY, 1993), 13.

(2) Ibid., 11.

(3) Ibid., ii.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – The Paradox of Choice

September 23, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

On a recent visit to my local grocery superstore it hit me. I was standing in an aisle with over thirty types of orange juice and I couldn’t make up my mind about which kind I should buy; pulp-free or extra-pulp? Added vitamin D plus calcium or anti-oxidant plus? No sugar or low-sugar? Low-acid or heart-healthy and fiber-rich? How did we end up with this many varieties of orange juice?

It doesn’t just hit me at the grocery store, of course, but at the food court in the mall, or in the sporting goods store, or the electronics store, or while on the internet shopping. The abundance of choices overwhelms me and I cannot decide what to choose. More often than I care to admit, once I do decide, I am less satisfied with what I choose. In the back of my mind swirl all the other options that I could have chosen. Did I make the right decision? The question plagues me and in the process steals all of the joy of having made a choice in the first place.

Author and psychologist Barry Schwartz says it this way:

“All of this choice has two effects, two negative effects on people. One effect, paradoxically, is that it produces paralysis, rather than liberation. With so many options to choose from, people find it very difficult to choose at all. The second effect is that even if we manage to overcome the paralysis and make a choice, we end up less satisfied with the result of the choice than we would be if we had fewer options to choose from.”(1)

It is not hard to understand that the more options there are, the easier it is to regret anything that is disappointing about the option that you chose. Schwartz suggests that this is because the multiplicity of choice heightens our expectations. When there are not as many options human expectation is mediated. But when there are endless options, our expectations become heightened. The more heightened the expectation the more inevitable the disappointment.(2) Perhaps this is why many travelers to poorer nations are surprised to find so much more happiness and contentment among people who have so little.

I bought my low-pulp, high fiber orange juice, but I couldn’t help but be underwhelmed by it. Why? Even though all the varieties of orange juice enabled me to ‘do better’ with regards to tailoring an orange juice to my needs, all of the options elevated my expectations not only about the number of varieties I should be able to choose from, but also how ‘good’ the varieties should be in terms of what they included in their ingredients, or in how they were produced. I remember the days when there might have been differing brands of orange juice, but very little difference between them.

This, as Schwartz terms it, is the “paradox of choice.”(3) In Western industrialized nations it is as natural as breathing in air to assume that maximizing the welfare of citizens comes through maximizing individual freedom. The reason for this is both that freedom is in and of itself good, valuable, worthwhile, and essential to being human. If people have freedom, then we can act on our own to do the things that will maximize our welfare, and no one has to decide on our behalf. The way to maximize freedom is to maximize choice.

No one would deny that freedom is essential to the flourishing of human societies. But when freedom of choice becomes equivalent to defining ourselves as consumers more than as citizens or as neighbors, what becomes of community and society? And what becomes of our identity as human beings?

These were pressing questions for the earliest Christian communities. The apostle Paul raised this issue as he wrote to the Christians at Corinth. In discussing matters of personal freedom he exhorted these early Christians that “all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify. Let no one seek his or her own good, but that of his or her neighbor….Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (I Corinthians 10:23, 24, 31). In his letter to the Galatian Christians, Paul applies the gift of freedom to a sense of corporate responsibility: “You were called to freedom; only do not turn your freedom into and opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Galatians 3:13-14).

Paul’s definition of freedom for love and service seems to fly in the face of understanding freedom as doing whatever one wants to do, individually. Paul’s understanding calls into question an identity defined by mindless consumption as well. “I choose, therefore I am” is the default of many in the modern world. But for those who seek to follow Paul’s admonition, exercising choice is not simply the unchecked, unthinking, and often self-centered understanding of consumerism that occupies many Western societies and systems. The paradox of choice need not simply be the resultant ‘buyer’s remorse’ or unmet expectations once we have chosen. Instead, the paradox of choice might be choosing to serve others and not simply the individualistic pursuit of self-interest. Rightly understood, freedom for choice is grounded in love for the sake of one another.

Margaret Manning Shull is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Bellingham, Washington.

(1) Barry Schwartz, “The Paradox of Choice,” TEDGlobal, July 2005.

(2) Ibid.

(3) Ibid.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – The Suffering One

September 22, 2014 broboinhawaii 1 Comment

“The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary… The Lord has opened my ears, and I have not been rebellious; I have not drawn back,” writes the prophet Isaiah.

The words of Isaiah 50 are full of intense language of compassion and obedience, suffering and humility. Isaiah describes a deeply mysterious and suffering servant in a confronting passage of Scripture that is hard to take in and harder to ignore. How are we to take the descriptive words of servant-like humility that note, “I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting” (Isaiah 50:6). What are we to do with this servant who suffers to sustain the weary?

Isaiah was equipped and willing to do the work of a prophet, to stand between God and humanity with difficult words as his only buffer. His words are political, poetic, and prophetic, enduring well beyond his life, reverberating in creative ways unknown even to the one called. In this chapter, Isaiah gives us the song of a Servant. He speaks of intense faithfulness in the midst of unjust opposition and steadfast obedience to God in the midst of extreme suffering. Isaiah speaks words that Christians believe are abundantly verified in Jesus Christ.

Almost 700 years after Isaiah’s words were uttered, Jesus came with a message to sustain the weary, teaching as one with an instructed tongue, speaking as one with authority, and indeed, living as one who had set his face “like a flint” upon the will of God the Father. He suffered in utter humility; he offered mercy to his tormentors and forgiveness to those who simply looked on (Luke 4:31-36, Isaiah 50:5,7). Isaiah likely spoke well beyond his own understanding, but he nonetheless asks his hearers to decide what we will do with this suffering one.

The Gospel of Luke describes a time when Jesus and the disciples go about the land teaching and preaching and ministering to the crowds, yet avoiding Jerusalem because of those who were plotting to kill him. And then almost as abruptly as their ministry began to spread, Luke recalls a deliberate change in direction. He writes that Jesus “steadfastly and determinedly set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). Knowing what waited for him there, knowing the cross in the horizon, Jesus set his face as a flint toward his own agony. Exactly as was prophesied 700 years earlier, Jesus voluntarily and determinedly gave his back to those who would beat him, his face to those who would spit and mock, and his very life to present the jarringly redemptive mercy of God.

Can we still think that God does not care for us? Can we still think that the heart of the matter is what you and I will do with God? Perhaps in the light of this mysterious human Servant, the question becomes not “What will I do with Jesus Christ?” but “What will he do for us?” Or better still, What has he already done?

The altogether human Son of God invites a weary and burdened humanity to come and receive rest from him. “Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” The one who became one of us and was destroyed by suffering stands and mediates the life-changing, life-giving presence of God. Jesus takes us as we are—broken lives, clouded visions, weary hearts—and invites us to abide in all that he is, in all that is enduring, in all that is truly human. He remains the mysterious, suffering, captivating servant of God… in whose presence we are both undone and made new.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Shine Like Stars

September 19, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

I recall with clarity a night when my wife and I were on vacation in California. We had spent the day hiking in the mountains and in the afternoon had descended to explore the mysterious and ancient landscape of Mono Lake, one of the oldest lakes in North America. Pinned to the information board by the parking lot was a sign advertising a talk by a park ranger that very evening: “Stars over Mono Lake.” And so it was. That evening we found ourselves lying on the ancient sands, looking up at a night sky in which a million points of light glowed with an intensity I’d never seen before. The air was cold and clear, the hauntingly beautiful desert silence broken only by the occasional howl of a lonely coyote, cry of an insomniac gull, or call for help of a distant and woefully lost tourist.

But it was the sky that really struck me. I’d never seen it so beautiful before. In the city where we live, light pollution drowns out the splendor of the stars. Lights do punctuate the Toronto night, but they tend to be of the red-amber-green-red variety. What I was seeing, lying on those freezing sands at Mono Lake, was the spectacular sight of the night sky in all its glory. It was, for me, God’s handiwork writ large as a myriad of stars lay twinkling above me. I was awestruck and listened with fascination at the park ranger’s talk on the stars above, in particular the various constellations that slowly wheeled in front of us: the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia, Orion, Aquarius.

And as I looked up, I was reminded of a biblical passage about stars, one that is meant to be descriptive of Christians. The apostle Paul is speaking to the Philippian believers about the kind of community their association with Jesus compels them to be: “Therefore, my dear friends… do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life.”(1)

When I heard that passage again a few months later, my mind was immediately cast back to that night at Mono Lake and to the journey of the constellations and patterns that generations of people have seen before me. Understanding these constellations brought the night sky alive and told stories whose characters are bedecked in the very stars. And this got me thinking about the metaphor Paul uses. What does it mean to shine like stars in the Christian story? What does it mean for a person to burn brightly against the inky blackness of night? And particularly, as Christians around the world remember the account of the magi—the astrologers who followed a star that eventually stopped over the place where the young Jesus lay—is the same story being told in expectancy, hope, and light today?

Well, there are, of course, many different types of stars, but the hope I take from that starry evening centers around a few vivid memories. To begin with, constellations are made up of stars which, on their own, would be but one small, glowing dot in the darkness, but together form a bigger picture; together, they tell a more powerful story. Nobody has heard of the star “Merak,” for instance, but everyone has heard of the constellation it is a part of: the “Big Dipper” or the “Plough,” one of the most famous formations in the sky. Together, stars in constellations tell a story greater than their individual parts, and how true this is of people as well. It’s best not to judge a religion by the testimony of one bold but fleeting light. Rather, the constellation of millions through the centuries, the example of believers young and old, across tribes and nations, the witness of those who first beheld the events of Jesus of Nazareth—these are the stars that light the universe with something to ponder.

Moreover, constellations don’t stand still. They move. In particular, they rotate, slowly wheeling around a singular fixed point in the night sky—the “North” or “Pole” Star. Significantly, Christians together tell the story of hope in darkness when their axis is God alone—not an issue or a common interest—but the person of Christ who was born, died, and raised. The expectant Christian story continues to be told, as it was to the magi long ago, when the Christ child is the fixed point, our north star, our pole star, when it is he who determines how we move and turn.

Many years ago Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “If it is I who determine where God is to be found, then I shall always find a God who corresponds to me in some way, who is obliging, who is connected with my own nature. But if God determines where he is to be found, then it will be in a place which is not immediately pleasing to my nature and which is not at all congenial to me. This place is the Cross of Christ. And whoever would find him must go to the foot of the Cross, as the Sermon on the Mount commands.”(2)

To sailors and navigators, before the invention of GPS, the North Star was crucial; by orientating oneself to it, you could find your way home through the wildest seas. Likewise, it is Christ’s story that makes the collective light of Christianity shine brightly amidst the darkness. It is Jesus himself, around which everything turns, who is heaven’s bright sun, whose radiance glows brighter than the brightest star, so much so that the new heavens and the new earth need neither sun nor moon. The splendor of this sight is worth beholding indeed.

Andy Bannister is a member of the speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Toronto, Canada.

(1) Philippians 2:12-16.

(2) Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010), 137.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – SHINE LIKE STARS

September 18, 2014 broboinhawaii 1 Comment

Andy Bannister is a member of the speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Toronto, Canada.

(1) Philippians 2:12-16.

(2) Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010), 137.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Beyond Scars

September 17, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

I have always found it immeasurably comforting that Jesus gave Simon the name “Cephas,” or Peter, before Cephas had done much of anything. Before Peter had even determined to follow Jesus, let alone serve him or love him as the Christ, before Peter had muttered his denials of knowing Jesus or had one of his moments of blurted insight, before Jesus had reason to call Peter “Satan,” Jesus called him the “Rock.”(1)

What does this say? First, it says a great deal about who Jesus is. He is willing to vouch for us. Before you even know what you stand for, he is willing to stand up for you. And second, it reminds us that we are more than the sum of our blunders and failings, as well as our victories and our bright spots. As the apostle Paul wrote to the Romans: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Before we had a chance to prove ourselves, before we had a chance to fall on our faces or say something fairly smart, Christ knew that he would die to show us the reach of his love. And he did.

Still, Peter is the disciple that makes many of us feel okay about ourselves. He is a loud statement to the hopeless, to the skeptic, to the guilt-ridden that God can take our doubt, our regret, the hopelessness of our past or our present, and create something solid by giving us the Son. In Peter we find that pains of regret and faithlessness may leave a permanent mark, but that even scars can be reminders of the living hope we profess. Or as Peter calls it, “the Word that will not wither.”(2)

Even so, when we look at our own moments of faithlessness or foolishness, those marks of humiliation, the bitter sting of missed and lost opportunities, it is hard to see much beyond regret and remorse, even if we were once told that Jesus had forgiven us. Can there be more to see in the weight of our past, the glimpses of guilty motives, disappointments, and poor behavior? The testimony of Peter himself is that yes, very definitely, there is.

Peter’s passion for Christ was no doubt shaped by the pain and humiliation of denying him. “If we are faithless, God remains faithful, for God cannot deny Himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). Scars indeed have a way of reminding us that we are alive, participating in this fragile thing called life. Some of my own remind me that I am not an island, that I need people, that I desperately need a savior, that I need God in all that I face. Still others remind me that I am healed or being healed. But even Peter’s most indelible marks were nothing beside the mark of the risen Christ upon his life.

When Jesus appeared to the gathered, frightened disciples after the horror of the cross, he said to them, “See my hands and my feet, that it is me. Touch me and see” (Luke 24:39). The disciples had gathered together to discuss the rumors some had heard that Christ was alive and out of the grave, risen from the cruel death they had witnessed just days earlier. They were disoriented and afraid, and Jesus told them to look at his hands and feet, which had been pierced. And to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side.”(3) To his closest friends, Jesus said, “Look at my scars, see that it is me. Recognize me by my scars; they will point you to God.”

Far beyond any scar we might bear, the wounds of Christ point us to one who touches our disfigured world with his own humanity. He was crushed for our iniquities. By his stripes we are healed. No doubt, it was this piercing reality of Jesus bearing the scars of human failure, carrying our pain, and taking our shame, that Peter bore in mind as he dynamically instructed any who would listen: “Throw all your anxieties upon him, because he cares about you!”(4) For Peter, of all people, knew this well.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) John 1:42.

(2) See 1 Peter 24-25.

(3) John 20:27.

(4) 1 Peter 5:7.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi – A Different Healing

September 16, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Why Won’t God Heal Amputees? is a popular website and one-time viral YouTube video. The basic premise of the content is that God doesn’t answer prayer since God has never healed an amputee, and by extension doesn’t heal every person of every infirmity. God, therefore, does not really exist.
While there are obvious false assumptions made about God, prayer, and healing (how does one know that in the whole world God has not healed an amputee, for starters) many who do pray for healing often fail to experience it in the way they expect. Healing rarely parallels a conventional or traditional sense of that word. Loved ones die of cancer, friends are killed in car accidents, economic catastrophe befalls even the most frugal, and people in much of the developing world die from diseases long cured in the West. Beyond the realm of physical healing, many experience emotional and psychological trauma that leave open and festering wounds. Or, there are those perpetual personality ticks and quirks that seem beyond the reach of the supernatural. Given all of this contrary experience, what does it mean to receive healing, and should one hold out hope that healing can come in this world? Specifically, for those who pray, and for those who believe that God does heal, how might the persistence of wounds—psychological, emotional and physical—be understood?
In a recent New York Times article, Marcia Mount Shoop writes of her horrific rape as a fifteen year-old girl.(1) A descendant of three generations of ministers, she ran to the safest place she knew—the church. Yet as she stood amid the congregants singing hymns and reciting creeds, she felt no relief. Even her favorite verse from Romans—”And we know that in all things God works for good with those who love him”—sounded hollow and brought little comfort. How could she ever be healed of this horrific act of violence perpetrated against her will?
Once at home, alone with the secret of her rape, Marcia Shoop found something that enabled her to survive. “I felt Jesus so close,” she recalled in an interview. “It wasn’t the same Jesus I experienced at church. It was this tiny, audible whisper that said, ‘I know what happened. I understand.’ And it kept me alive, that frayed little thread.” (2)
The hope that Jesus was physically close to her in her pain led Ms. Shoop to become a minister herself more than a quarter century after her horrific rape. It also led her to more deeply connect her body with her soul and mind. This reconnection of the body with soul and with mind is where she experienced what she would call “healing.” God was with her in the living, breathing, physical reality of Jesus who likewise continued to bear the wounds of his own crucifixion and torture after the gospel writers testify to him having been raised from the dead.
The Gospel of John records the risen Jesus as inviting Thomas to “reach your finger and see my hands; and reach your hand, and put it into my side.”(3) Jesus was not a disembodied spirit without flesh and blood as a result of his resurrection from the dead. He was a body, and a body that was wounded. Even the resurrection did not take away his bodily scars! This reality can bring great hope to those who follow Jesus and to those who wonder about how they might find healing at all. For healing did not equate a lack of wounding, or physical perfection—being untouched by the sorrow and suffering of a world gone horribly wrong—even for Jesus.
For Ms. Shoop, healing didn’t mean the total erasure of the pain and horror of her rape, as difficult as it was to bear that wound. But it meant that she encountered the wounded God in the person of Jesus who continued to bear the scars and wounds of his crucifixion. As she recalled, “What happened to me wasn’t “for the good,” referring again to her favorite passage in Romans. But God took the garbage, the stench [of that horrible event] and gently, tenderly, indignantly wove it into this moment of redemption. What a gift.”(4)
Healing is not a gift that comes instantly, nor does it always look like what we expect. It is often a slow, painful journey through the void and desolation of suffering. It will not erase our wounds. Yet, the promise of resurrection, of new life that comes even with wounded hands and sides, offers another picture of healing where being an ‘amputee’ might be honored and redeemed.
Margaret Manning Shull is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Bellingham, Washington.
(1) Samuel G. Freedman, “A Rape Survivor Now Ministers Body and Soul,” The New York Times Online, June 29, 2012, accessed June 29, 2012.
(2) Ibid.
(3) John 20:27.
(4) Samuel G. Freedman, “A Rape Survivor Now Ministers Body and Soul,” The New York Times Online, June 29, 2012, accessed June 29, 2012.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi – Transforming Questions

September 15, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

When I consider the person and experience of Job, I am always struck that his story is in some sense a part of our own. Though few have known the intensity of Job’s affliction, many have known the urgency and agony of loaded questions aimed at the heavens. Religious or otherwise, seldom can one fail to recall a time marked by such restlessness, a yearning for answers amidst hopelessness, confusion, or lament. For many, it is the tender age of adolescence; for others it is the inquisitive years of college, the emptiness of a midlife crisis, or, like Job, the impenetrable fog of tragedy.
Sitting in the dust and ashes of my own confusion, like Job, a thousand questions once seemed to define my journey. And also like Job, I discovered that the sort of peace that transcends understanding is not at all a matter of dumbing down the questions or forgetting them and the lament they harbor altogether. Often, rather, a disruption in the interrogation comes with an unexpected exchange of seats and in the form of a question from God. For me, as for Job, it was: Who are you?
If the whole story of Scripture is held together as one, at heart is the convicting jolt that the journey to honestly knowing God cannot exist apart from the journey of honestly knowing one’s self. I remembering praying fervently that God would just show me what I needed to know: Lord, show me who you are so that I can learn to see You. I also distinctly remember the thought occurring to me that maybe God really did know me better than I knew myself. It was as if God responded: Let me show you who you are so that you might learn to see Me. After all, as C.S. Lewis once asked, “How can we see God until we have faces?”(1)
In one of his books from the Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis describes the great Aslan tearing the costume off the child in front of him. The child writhes in pain from the razor sharp claws that feel as though they pierce his very being. With mounting intensity, Aslan rips away layer after layer, until the child is absolutely certain he will die from the agony. But when it is all over and every last layer has been removed, the child delights in the freedom, never before realizing the extra weight of the costume that he carried.
The end of Job’s story holds a similar transformation. As the once-questioning Job finds himself completely powerless to respond to God’s own stifling questions, he seems to see a part of himself for the first time. But not in terms of condemnation as some conclude. Job indeed sees the façade and the masks he has spoken behind, the partial veil that covered his eyes even as he questioned in anger and agony. But he also sees in mystery and reverence the one who stands before him. And it is this vision that moves him to admit he may have spoken out of turn. This is not the image of a child who has finally given up the exasperating fight with the parent who simply spoke louder. “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,” says Job, “things too wonderful for me to know.” It is a child not repenting for his lament or his questions, but realizing that God is God and that this somehow, mysteriously, transforms both the questions… and questioner.
Job’s agonizing story is not our own, and yet there are parts of his questioning, lamenting posture before God that offers a sense of human solidarity and the disrupting hope of a restorative God in the fragile midst of that humanity. After all of the suffering and death early in the book, at the end of the book, Job has seven more sons and three more daughters. Old Testament professor Ellen Davis makes the important note that this is not a “replacement” of the children Job lost, as if that were even a possibility. Rather, she suggests that the “clearest expression of the renewal of Job’s mind” is “his willingness to have more children.”(2) Job knows all too well the realities of loss and human fragility. And yet, he pours himself again into the lives of fragile, mortal children. Davis powerfully concludes: “This book is not about justifying God’s actions; it is about Job’s transformation. It is useless to ask how much (or how little) it costs God to give more children. The real question is how much it costs Job to become a father again. How can he open himself again to the terrible vulnerability of loving those whom he cannot protect against suffering and untimely death?”(3)
Job’s story does not give us a direct answer to that question. And yet, the two images of Job that come at either end of his story hint at the sort of transformation only a creative God could achieve, a God whose love can arise even from the whirlwind of a thousand questions.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) C.S. Lewis, Till We have Faces, question taken from book’s title and theme.
(2) Ellen Davis, Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), 141.
(3) Ibid., 142.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zachrious – THINK AGAIN – DEEP QUESTIONS

September 13, 2014 broboinhawaii 1 Comment

We are living in an era when apologetics is indispensable, but at the same time, we need a Christian apologetic that is not merely heard—it must also be seen. The field of apologetics deals with the hard questions posed to the Christian faith. Having had deep questions myself, I listen carefully to the questions raised. I always bear in mind that behind every question is a questioner. The convergence of intellectual and existential struggles drives a person to a brutal honesty in the questions they have.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is beautiful and true, yet oftentimes one will ask, “How can it be true that there is only one way?” Odd, isn’t it, that we don’t ask the same questions of the laws of nature or of any assertion that lays claim to truth. We are discomfited by the fact that truth, by definition, is exclusive. That is what truth claims are at their core. To make an assertion is to deny its opposite. Rather than complain that there is only one way, shouldn’t we be delighted that there is one way?
The question really is, how do we really know this is the truth?
Whether Hitler or Hugh Hefner, religious or irreligious, everyone has a worldview. A worldview basically offers answers to four necessary questions: origin, meaning, morality, and destiny. In turn, these answers must be correspondingly true on particular questions and, as a whole, all answers put together must be coherent.
Taking it a step further, the three tests for truth must be applied to any worldview: logical consistency, empirical adequacy, and experiential relevance. When submitted to these tests, the Christian message is utterly unique and meets the demand for truth.
Consider the empirical test of the person, teaching, and work of Jesus Christ. A look at human history shows why he was who he claimed to be and why millions follow him today. A comparison of Jesus’s teachings with any other claimant to divine or prophetic status quickly shows the profound differences in their claims and demonstrations. In fact, none except Jesus even claimed to be the divine Savior. His offer of grace and forgiveness by being the perfect sacrifice of our offense is profoundly unique.
I position the sequence of fact and deduction in the following way: Love is the supreme ethic. Where there is the possibility of love, there must be the reality of free will. Where there is the reality of free will, there will inevitably be the possibility of sin. Where there is sin, there is the need for a Savior. Where there is a Savior, there is the hope for redemption. Only in the Judeo-Christian worldview does this sequence find its total expression and answer. The story from sin to redemption is only in the gospel with the ultimate provision of a loving God.
But the question can be pushed back further. Does this not all assume that there is a God? Yes, it does, and there are four stages in the argument. The first is that no matter how we section physical concrete reality, we end up with a quantity that cannot explain its own existence. If all material quantities cannot explain their own existence, the only possibility for self-explanation would be something that is non-material.
Secondly, wherever we see intelligibility, we find intelligence behind it. Thirdly, we intuitively know that our moral reasoning points to a moral framework within the universe. The very fact that the problem of evil is raised either by people or about people intimates that human beings have intrinsic worth. Fourthly, the human experience in history and personal encounter sustains the reality of the supernatural.
There you have it. Who is God? He is the nonphysical, intelligent, moral first cause, who has given us intrinsic worth and who we can know by personal experience.
The verification of what Jesus taught and described and did make belief in Him a very rationally tenable and an existentially fulfilling reality. From cosmology to history to human experience, the Christian faith presents explanatory power in a way no other worldview does. Our faith and trust in Christ is reasonably grounded and experientially sustained.
I often put it this way: God has put enough into this world to make faith in Him a most reasonable thing. But He has left enough out to make it impossible to live by sheer reason alone. Faith and reason must always work together in that plausible blend.
Many of you may be familiar with my own story. I was born to Indian parents and raised in India. My ancestors were priests from the highest caste of Hinduism in India’s Deep South. But that was several generations ago. I came to Christ after a life of protracted failure and unable to face the consequences, sought to end it all. It was on a bed of suicide that a Bible was brought to me and in a cry of desperation, I invited Jesus Christ into my life. It was a prayer, a plea, a commitment, and a hope.
That was fifty years ago. I hardly knew what lay ahead of me, except that I was safe in Christ’s hands. Now as the years have gone by and in 2014 we celebrate thirty years of ministry at RZIM, I marvel at the grace and protection of God and the doors he has opened for our team. And more and more, I am convinced that Jesus Christ alone uniquely answers the deepest questions of our hearts and minds.

Our Daily Bread — Think Of Them No More
Isaiah 43:22-28
I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins. —Isaiah 43:25
My early years as a believer in Christ were laden with foreboding. I had the impression that when Jesus comes back, all my sins will be portrayed on a giant screen for everyone to see.
I know now that God chooses not to remember against me a single one of my transgressions. Every sin has been buried in the deepest sea, never to be exhumed and examined again.
Amy Carmichael wrote, “A day or two ago I was thinking rather sadly of the past—so many sins and failures and lapses of every kind. I was reading Isaiah 43, and in verse 24 I saw myself: ‘You have wearied me with your iniquities.’ And then for the first time I noticed that there is no space between verse 24 and verse 25: ‘I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins.’”
Indeed, when our Lord comes back He will “bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise will come from God” (1 Cor. 4:5). On that day our works will be tried and we may suffer loss, but we will not be judged for sin (3:11-15). God will see what Christ has done for us. He “will not remember [our] sins.” —David Roper
Where no far-reaching tide with its powerful sweep
May stir the dark waves of forgetfulness deep,
I have buried them there where no mortal can see!
I’ve cast all thy sins in the depths of the sea. —Anon.
When God saves us, our sins are forgiven forever.
Bible in a year: Proverbs 16-18; 2 Corinthians 6
Insight
God’s people had been unfaithful and had stubbornly refused to repent and return to God (Isa. 43:22-24). Yet despite their sins and guilt, God in His mercy said He would forgive them (v.25), even though they were undeserving of His favor (v.26). From the time of “your first father and your mediators”—perhaps referring to Abraham and other covenantal leaders such as Moses—they were all sinners (v.27). Although their sins would be forgiven, they would still face the consequences of their actions and be disciplined through the exile (v.28).

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – The Sounds of Hope

September 12, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Not long ago, I was listening to a collection of interviews and commentaries on the subject of spirituality in the West. Some of those interviewed were authors of best-selling books on various topics of religion and spirituality; others were interviewed simply as passersby on the street. “Who is God?” the interviewers asked repeatedly. “What does it mean to be a spiritual person?” The answers were as diverse as the notes in a concerto, but the composition was at best one of chaos and contradiction, perhaps more accurately described as a “symphony” in which everyone is encouraged to play privately, but in the same place, at the same time, the sounds or noise of their own choosing. I came to the end and could only sigh: “How can anyone muddle through such a racket?”

The current state and practice of popular spirituality in West at times brings to mind words spoken by the prophet Jeremiah. It is a “discipline of delusion” to chase after spiritually as if it were a matter of preference and not a matter pertaining to what is real. “They are altogether stupid and foolish,” writes Jeremiah, “In their discipline of delusion—their idol is wood” (10:8).

Millions and millions of people confess to believe in God, to know God, to consider God in some way. But does our confession of God in these moments pertain to what is real or true? Can the starting point of such knowledge begin anywhere else? In the book of Romans, Paul writes of those who follow God not as God but as something less—something corrupted at their own hands—and so end up chasing darkness. He writes, “For even though they knew God… they became futile in their speculations… They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator.”(1)

Who is it we say that we know? Do our speculations lead us astray or lead us closer to the truth of God? Are they the sort of speculations we can hold before scenes of life and death? The apostle Paul describes the God he knows as one “who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were” (Romans 4:17). This is not his way of relegating our knowledge of God as something important only for the next life. On the contrary, the apostle wants us to see the resounding hope of a God who can hold life and death in a way that our delusional speculations of God cannot.

Death indeed has a way of questioning our knowledge of God. In death we are reminded—or startled to the memory—of God’s status in life. Is it sovereignty or simply therapeutic? We are reminded similarly of life’s most significant answers. Why do I believe this? Who is this I say I believe in and what does that mean? In the midst of such questions we are alert to the richest sounds of belief: Do I believe because I have encountered the goodness of God or because I want God to bring me good things? “God is convenient,” or “God wants me to be happy” are very different songs than “God has come near” or “God has become one of us.” As good theology is the best answer to life’s crises, death is a plea to the importance of sound hope. In the words of the prophet Isaiah: “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you” (Isaiah 26:3). When life is shaken, when the misleading sounds of our own preferences fall flat, we find that our knowledge of God is either a resounding consolation or a blaring delusion.

I attended an Easter morning service more than a decade ago that continues to resonate in mind. It was held in a cemetery. Surrounded by silent stones, each one marking a life put to rest, with the sting of a loved one’s death still fresh in my mind, we sang:

Lives again our glorious King,

Where, O death, is now thy sting?

Once He died our souls to save,

Where thy victory, O grave?

Soar we now where Christ hath led,

Following our exalted Head,

Made like Him, like Him we rise,

Ours the cross, the grave, the skies.

In the vicarious humanity of the risen Christ, death and is swallowed up in victory for life. Our human mediator has won, and humanity shall win. The resounding consolation of knowing Christ is one that can hold the world in hope and make us long for the kingdom to come.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Last Enemy

September 11, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

In spite of the proverbial certainty of death and taxes, the human psyche has always dreamed of discovering loopholes in whatever mechanisms fix the limits. Yet though it might be possible to cheat on one’s taxes, “cheating death” remains a phrase of wishful-thinking applied to incidences of short-lived victories against our own mortality. Eventually, death honors its ignominious appointment with all of us, calling the bluff of the temptation to believe that we are the masters of our own destiny. But despite the universal, empirical verification of its indiscriminate efficiency, we continue to be constantly surprised whenever death strikes. Only a painfully troubled life can be so thoroughly desensitized against its ugliness as to not experience the throbbing agony of the void it creates within us whenever the earthly journey of a loved one comes to an end.

Such a peculiar reaction to an otherwise commonplace occurrence points strongly to the fact that this world is not our home. As Ecclesiastes 3:11 explains, God has put eternity in our hearts, and therefore the mysterious notion that we are not meant to die is no mere pipe dream: it sounds a clarion call to the eternal destiny of our souls. If the biblical record is accurate, there is no shame or arrogance in pitching our hopes for the future as high as our imaginations will allow. Actually, the danger is that our expectations may be too low, for “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.”(1) Far from being the accidental byproducts of a mindless collocation of atoms, we are indestructible beings whose spiritual radars, amidst much static noise, are attuned to our hearts’ true home.

Trouble begins, however, when we try to squeeze that eternal existence into our earthly lives in a manner that altogether denies our finite natures. We do so whenever we desensitize ourselves against the finality of death through repeated exposure to stage-managed destruction of human life through the media. Or we zealously seek ultimate fulfillment in such traitorous idols as pleasure, material wealth, professional success, power, and other means, without taking into account the fleeting nature of human existence. Or we broach the subject of death only when we have to, and even then we feel the need to couch it in palatable euphemisms. With some of our leading intellectuals assuring us that we have pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps and we therefore have no need for God, the only thing missing from our lives seems to be the tune of “Forever Young” playing in the cosmic background. A visitor from outer space would probably conclude that only the very unlucky ones die, while the rest of us are guaranteed endless thrill-rides through space aboard this green planet.

But such a visitor would promptly be treated to the rude awakening that even the most self-assured of human beings are still in transit. While it is possible to sustain a façade of total control within the confines of material comforts, a functional government, and a reasonable distance from the darker side of human suffering, this opportunity is not equally shared around the globe. It would take a very specialized form of education to believe in the ability of human beings to control their own destiny when hundreds of people are being put to the sword, homes are being razed to the ground, and your neighbors are fleeing for their lives—a scenario my family lived through in Kenya. Unlike their counterparts elsewhere, news anchors in this part of the world rarely preface their gruesome video clips with viewer discretion warnings, and so the good, the bad, and the ugly are all deemed equally fit for public consumption.

Affronted by such an in-your-face, unapologetic reality of human mortality, one finds oneself face to face with a dilemma: why should you devote all of your energy to making a meaningful difference in the world if it is true that everything done under the sun will eventually amount to zero? Once one has come to the conclusion that the emperor has no clothing, what sense does it make to keep up with the pretense? Sadly, some see through the emptiness and choose to end their own lives. From a naturalistic perspective, that seems to be a perfectly consistent step to take.

Yet the Bible grasps this nettle with astounding authority. Not only has God placed a yearning for our true home in our hearts, God has also promised to cloth the perishable with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality through Christ’s own death (1 Corinthians 15:54). In the meantime, the light of the gospel shines an eternal perspective upon our service unto God and humanity, fusing all of our activities with significance. When the call of God has been answered, nothing that is done in obedience to the Father, as the Son himself confirmed in life and death, is ever trivial. Thus even in the face of suffering and death, as a follower of Christ, I neither bury my head in the sand nor grope blindly in total darkness. With faithfulness and joy, I enthusiastically render service to my God,

And when my task on earth is done,

When by thy grace the victory’s won,

Even death’s cold wave I will not flee,

Since God through Jordan leadeth me.(2)

J.M. Njoroge is a member of the speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) 1 Corinthians 2:9.

(2) From the 1862 hymn, He Leadeth Me, by Joseph Gilmore.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Questions of Power

September 10, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

A story told in the Hebrew scriptures offers a dramatic interplay of manipulation and honor, kings and kingdoms, power and powerlessness. It is the story more commonly known as “Daniel and the Lion’s Den.” But this title, accurate though it is in terms of the dramatic climax, actually misses the main actors entirely. Ultimately, the story is a depiction of power and weakness at play in two very different kingdoms and communities. On one side stands Darius, the mighty king and ruler of the people and nations, powerful sovereign of the powerful majority. On the other side is the God of Daniel, king of a community in exile, the ruler of a minority people whose city lies in ruins. The question of sovereignty seems as though it has already been answered quite definitively.

Most of us are not familiar with the devastating encounter of the powerlessness of exile and the forcible display of the powers that created it. Nonetheless, every aspect of our lives is touched by issues of power and weakness. The question of control and power is common to our relationships, communities, politics, business, education, and religion. Unfortunately, our common experience of the struggle is not to say we are well or healthily adjusted to it, far from it. Of course, it is easiest for those who actually hold any given power to be the most unaware of the dynamics of powerlessness upon others. For others, the struggle to be in control, to challenge authority, to make a name for ourselves, is largely thought of as a dynamic that is outgrown with adulthood. So in the face of authority issues, we say things like, “Teenagers will be teenagers!” Or we diagnose the battle to be in control as “middle child syndrome” or “terrible twos,” all the while failing to see our own struggle with similar dynamics. Still for others, questions of power involve wondering if they will ever have a voice, if anyone with power is listening or if they have been forgotten and silenced indefinitely. Admittedly, to be conscious of the struggle is far better than being complacent about the question of power in general.

The story told in Daniel 6 begins significantly with a king who is for all practical purposes very much in control. Daniel, a Hebrew slave in exile, is found by king Darius to be distinguished in a way the king believes he can make use of and Daniel is given a position of authority in the kingdom for the sake of the king. But as the story moves forward, we see king Darius played like a pawn and Daniel is found guilty by the law of the land. To his utter dismay, king Darius finds himself bound by the law that his own lips decreed. Darius is the most powerful king in the world, and yet he is powerless beside his own decree, powerless to save his trusted servant. Whether Darius himself sees the irony in his power and position, we are left to wonder.

Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel once noted that faith depends on what we do with our ultimate embarrassments. We are the greatest miracle on earth and do not see it; we search for sovereignty in things unsovereign and regard as ultimate what is not ultimate. We live in the shadow of a sovereign Creator, and we go on playing king and queen like we are in control anyway. In the face of injustice, with Jerusalem in ruins, the silenced Daniel nonetheless becomes a herald of God’s sovereignty, though control appeared to be so clearly in other hands. And to the exhilaration of Darius, Daniel emerges from the lion’s den unharmed, saved by the only one who could save him.

The story ends with the proclamation of a new decree by king Darius, the mighty one with power and a voice, here writing to “all peoples and nations of every language throughout the whole world” of a greater power:

“May you have abundant prosperity! I make a decree, that in all my royal dominion people should tremble and fear before the God of Daniel:

For he is the living God,

enduring for ever.

His kingdom shall never be destroyed,

and his dominion has no end.”(1)

The act of God in the lion’s den is indeed a plot that shows God as faithful and just, aware of the plight of the weak and silenced. But the act of God in the eyes of the mighty king Darius, who has recognized the superior might of a greater Sovereign, is perhaps the true sign and wonder. At the heart of the Christian religion is a God able to wield what is foolish to disrupt the wise, what is weak to disrupt the strong. At the crux of every question of power and weakness, sovereignty and control, is the Son of God who “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness, and being found in human form.”(2) The throne of our hearts will not remain empty; the question of sovereignty must be answered.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Daniel 6:25-27.

(2) Philippians 2:7.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Translation

September 9, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Most of us recognize that there are forces at work in our world that make communicating more akin to communicating across cultures—even within our home countries. Twitter, texting and other forms of modern short-hand must be learned just as one would learn a new language. TTYL, LOL, and other combinations of letters are indiscernible to the tweeting and texting uninitiated.

In a similar way, trying to find ways to talk about matters of faith often feels like trying to cross a broken bridge. Even more than that, anyone who claims to present a clear language of faith speaks into a cacophony of spiritual and cultural languages. Is it any wonder, then, that blank stares are the all too often response to the particulars of the unique vocabulary of faith?

And yet, those who speak what seems to them a clear message are also informed and shaped by their own cultures. Speech embodies a whole world of language, experience, and ways of understanding that experience, which in turn shapes the way in which individuals speak about their faith.

There are, therefore, particular difficulties inherent in translation from within one’s own culture. An ancient Chinese proverb highlights this difficult task: “If you want a definition of water, don’t ask a fish.”(1) In other words, on what platform does one stand in order to speak into one’s own culture? We are products of the very culture into which we seek to communicate, and we can never completely stand outside our own culture. We are, in the words of the proverb, like fish trying to define water.

Notably, Christians affirm that the heart of the gospel message transcends culture and language, just as surely as it was originally proclaimed within a particular culture and language. After all, the good news of the gospel is about “the Word made flesh.” Missiologist Lesslie Newbigin explains the dialogical nature of the gospel as a product of culture and yet as a trans-cultural communication when he suggests: “Every statement of the gospel in words is conditioned by the culture of which those words are part, and every style of life that claims to embody the truth of the gospel is a culturally conditioned style of life. There can never be a culture-free gospel. Yet the gospel, which is from the beginning to the end embodied in culturally conditioned forms, calls into question all cultures, including the one in which it was originally embodied.”(2)

Newbigin uses the conversion and transformation of Saul into the apostle Paul as a case in point. His trial before King Agrippa, as recorded in Acts 26, illuminates this cultural dialogue. As Paul shares the story of his conversion with King Agrippa, he speaks the language of the Empire, Greek, and not his native Hebrew. Yet earlier, when he was blinded by “a light from heaven, brighter than the sun” and he heard a voice from heaven, it was not in the predominant Greek language. Paul tells Agrippa: “I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’” Paul then asked who was speaking to him, and the voice answered, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.” Newbigin suggests that this passage provides a means by which we can understand the challenges and the opportunities for gospel communication and translation from within a given culture.(3)

First, just as Paul hears the as yet unnamed voice from heaven in his native tongue, the “voice” of the gospel must be offered in the language of the culture into which it is spoken. As such, those who bear witness to it must communicate in a way in which it can truly be heard. The message must embody that which is understood and experienced in a particular culture.

Truly communicating the gospel, however, means it will also call into question the way of understanding that is inherent in one’s own cultural language. Saul truly believed his actions against the Christians were in keeping with the God-ordained desire to preserve and protect Jewish identity and purity of belief. Yet, the voice from heaven revealed that this devotion of Saul was a form of persecution against the very God he claimed to serve. The messengers must always be willing to re-think their message lest they find they are actually working against its intention.

Finally, while Christians must be diligent to clearly translate and communicate the gospel, conversion is the work of God. No human persuasion, no lofty speculation ever accomplishes the work of conversion. This is God’s work alone accomplished by the Holy Spirit, and those who bear witness in multiple cultural contexts can depend on the work of the Spirit to accomplish what God desires. “[I]n the mysterious providence of God, a word spoken comes with the kind of power of the word that was spoken to Saul on the road to Damascus…it causes the hearer to stop, turn around, and go in a new direction, to accept Jesus as Lord, Guide, and Savior.”(4)

The communication of the gospel into every culture is filled with challenges and opportunities. Without the work of careful translation, Christians can sound as if they are babbling in a foreign tongue. On the other hand, they may immerse themselves so much in cultural study and experience that they only seek “relevance” and lose the prophetic power of gospel proclamation. Indeed, as culture-bound people, there is always a risk of proclaiming a version of the gospel that is more cultural than Christian. Those who proclaim the Christian message must always be willing to hear the radical call to conversion in their own proclamations. Yet, making room in these proclamations for the transformational work of the Spirit, there is hope that the unique message of God’s deliverance in Christ will not be lost either on the one who hears or the one who speaks.

Margaret Manning Shull is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Bellingham, Washington.

(1) Cited in Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 21.

(2) Ibid., 4.

(3) Ibid., 5.

(4) Ibid., 7-8.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Two Thrones

September 8, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

In the beneficial book How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart note that “every individual Old Testament narrative is at least a part of the greater narrative of Israel’s history in the world, which in turn is a part of the ultimate narrative of God’s creation and his redemption of it.”(1)

The story told in Daniel 6 is one such narrative. Daniel sets a definite rhythm to the story, carefully dancing between the stories written on the hearts of his listeners and his own story, presenting a reality for all to see and hear.

In the beginning we find a peaceful kingdom and a king in control. Daniel, we are told, a Hebrew foreigner and a slave in exile, is found by King Darius to be distinguished above all other men, set apart from the others. With these words, Daniel meaningfully hints of another story—a story his listeners knew well. Choosing Israel, God set his people apart from all the nations, claiming them as his own. Daniel tells the story written on every heart of every person listening. And it is a story that speaks volumes to a people in exile, removed from all of it: “You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation… And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people”(2)

Yet quickly the story moves from the picturesque image of a king very much in control, to a telling picture of human frailty. Daniel is trapped by manipulative lawmakers and sentenced to be thrown into the lions’ den, while King Darius finds himself bound by his own law, ineffective in his own kingdom, and powerless to save his distinguished Daniel.

It is in the midst of this self-realization that the king speaks directly to Daniel for the first time in the story. Quite significantly, Darius’ words are not about himself or Daniel or his accusers, but Daniel’s God. “May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!” proclaims the king. The storyteller is careful to make a point of this indeed, for however dimly, Darius of the nations has exercised faith in the God of Israel. Guilt-ridden and unable to sleep, Darius is well aware that his sense of sovereignty as king was little more than the sovereignty one has over the hunger of a lion. Daniel is in hands beyond his dominion. With incredible transparency, King Darius sees for the first time his desperate need for a King greater than himself. Here, it is the events taking place in the heart of Darius that above all show the greatest hint and the greatest hope in the entire narrative. As the prophet Isaiah has written, “Thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, but also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite’” (Isaiah 57:15). One is left to wonder whether it is king Darius who is most in need of the Spirit’s reviving or Daniel who is left for the night in a den of lions.

At first light, Darius runs quickly to the lions’ den. Finding Daniel alive, the king proclaims a hymn of wonder at the God who rules in high and holy places, in dark dens and in restless hearts.

As the narrative comes to an end, we find the king of the nations, bowing in reverence before the God of Daniel. For those listening, it is simultaneously a proclamation of the history of Israel touched again by the hand of God. Far-reaching implications exist for all. For King Darius it is first and foremost the realization that God is, that God not only exists but is the King most high, and that Daniel is distinguished above others because his God is distinguished above all. For those in exile it is the real hope that God is never far off, but intimately ruling the kingdom, faithfully reigning in heaven and earth, though appearances might suggest otherwise. And for those of us listening hundreds of years later, it is the stirring sounds of God alive and actively at work in creation, stretching holy hands to reach the most unlikely of places and the lowest of hearts with the resounding promise which Christ makes our own, “I will be your God and you shall be my people.”

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981), 80.

(2) Exodus 19:6, Leviticus 26:12.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Beyond ‘If’

September 5, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

I remember a time when it seemed quite obvious to me that God was what I wanted. I thought I understood what Pascal meant by a God-shaped vacuum in my life and Saint Augustine’s insistence that hearts are restless until they rest in God. But what I was fairly certain I had grasped cognitively, I knew I had not grasped practically. The hole seemed only partially filled and my heart did not seem at all at rest. I wanted to want God. I knew it was God that I ultimately wanted, and yet I was sickened with the suspicion that I had not found God fully because I didn’t want God enough. And so I wrestled: Do I really believe? Fully trust in Christ? Hope in the cross? Am I sorry enough for my sins? Am I seeking with all my heart? How can I make myself want God more?

But who can navigate through such a mess of ifs and conditions? If I work harder, if I trust more fully, if I repent more somberly or seek more fervently, then I might find the holy God of faith. Still for others, the conditions we set before a relationship with God are a matter of hiding: if God really knew me, if I stop running, if I sat before God without this mask, God wouldn’t want anything to do with me.

But in our mess of conditions, it is often the simplest thing that escapes us. For at the heart of the Christian pursuit of God is the game-changing promise of God as human.

And I am most confronted about the ‘ifs and thens’ I needlessly carry, when I am sitting before the ‘ifs and thens’ of those who knew him best. The apostle Peter writes: “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” (1 Peter 2:2-3). Peter’s words put forth a shining thought: If you don’t want God, then why are you so anxious to want to want God? But if you have indeed tasted that the Lord is good, then why wouldn’t you want more? Could it not be that this longing is in and of itself an assurance of God’s presence? If you have tasted the goodness of God in anyway, then hunger for the one who spoke and walked and died and lives, as if a baby crying for milk; for God is near.

The disciple who knew first hand his own disappointing reactions before God here exhorts us to move beyond ‘ifs’ when it comes to Christ. Let us not prefer our pain, or drag our feet, or self-examine ourselves to sickness. For Christ is one of us, mediating on our behalf. If you have even slightly tasted the goodness of the Lord, then like newborn infants, yearn for this one who nourishes, thirst for God’s living, human Son.

In reality, I believe that my want for God was a real one. And in fact God was nearer than I realized, as life often goes. I believe our longing itself is something of answer to our restlessness, though it is one that will not be fully known until we are fully in his presence. In any case, and perhaps most importantly, God has found us.

When Jesus stood at the well beside the woman of Samaria, the conversation was about water but the words were about life, though she didn’t realize it at first.(1) Shocked that he, a Jew without a cup, would request a drink from her, a Samaritan with a past, she asked if he knew what he was doing. For surely, she must have reasoned, if he really knew her, he would not want anything to do with her. Pointedly, Jesus responded not by validating her ‘ifs’ but by replacing the subject of the sentence with himself. “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” Putting down her water jar, and her struggle, she ran home with the excitement of a child and told everyone about the one who found her at the well.

We are like children discovered by one of our own.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) See John 4.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – The Cross or the Cookie Jar

September 4, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

As a young man growing up in Scotland, like many others, I was exposed to Christianity and the symbol of the cross. It was a point of confusion, a mystery at best, and at worst, an object of scorn and disgust. I did not know what it meant or why religious people thought it important, but I knew I wanted nothing to do with it.

Alister McGrath, Professor of theology, ministry, and education at King’s College, London, writes: “Just as God has humbled himself in making himself known ‘in the humility and shame of the cross,’ we must humble ourselves if we are to encounter him. We must humble ourselves by being prepared to be told where to look to find God, rather than trusting in our own insights and speculative abilities. In effect, we are forced to turn our eyes from contemplation of where we would like to see God revealed, and to turn them instead upon a place which is not of our choosing, but which is given to us.”(1)

In other words, nothing in history, experience, or knowledge can prepare the world for God’s means of drawing near. At the cross, something we are not expecting is revealed, something scandalous unveiled, something we could never have articulated or asked for is given to us. Philip Yancey, the renowned author, offers more on this: “Here at the cross is the man who loves his enemies, the man whose righteousness is greater than that of the Pharisees, who being rich became poor, who gives his robe to those who take his cloak, who prays for those who deceitfully use him. The cross is not a detour or a hurdle on the way to Kingdom, nor is it even the way to the Kingdom; it is the Kingdom come.”(2)

Christian or not, I think many of us have significantly distorted ideas about the purpose and meaning of the cross. When many people think of “sin” or the human condition before God, what comes to mind is perhaps something like the image of a child caught with his hands in the cookie jar. Such an image might well be understood as disobedience or maybe even naughtiness, but is it really that important? It is certainly not bad enough to justify extreme reactions. As a result of such a metaphor, our moral reflections on sin tend to foster incredulity or disgust. The response seems totally out of proportion to the offense.

But let us shift the metaphor. Supposing one day you go for a routine medical examination, and they discover you have a deadly virus. You did not do anything. You were not necessarily responsible, but you were exposed, and infected. You feel the injustice of it all, you are afraid, you are angry, but most of all, you are seriously sick. You are dying and you need help.

Whatever the cross and the gospel are about, it is not a slap on the hands for kids refusing to heed the rules of the cookie jar. It is not mere advice to get you to clean up your life and morals. It is not mere ideas to inform you about what it takes to be nice. It is restoration and recreation, a physician’s mediation; it is about human flourishing and discovering life.

The cross may seem an extreme and offensive measure to the problem of sin and death and sickness—but what if it is the very cure that is needed? McGrath describes our options at the cross of Christ. “Either God is not present at all in this situation, or else God is present in a remarkable and paradoxical way. To affirm that God is indeed present in this situation is to close the door to one way of thinking about God and to open the way to another—for the cross marks the end of a particularwayof thinking about God.”(3) Shockingly, thoroughly, scandalously, the cross depicts a God who throws himself upon sin and sickness to bring the hope of rescue miraculously near.

Some find it shocking, some overwhelming, some almost too good to be true. It is, however, for all.

Stuart McAllister is regional director for the Americas at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Alister McGrath, The Mystery of the Cross, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988), 104.

(2) Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 196.

(3) Alister McGrath, The Mystery of the Cross, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988), 103.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Telling Limitation

September 3, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

A few years ago Forbes magazine published a special edition issue dedicated entirely to a theme they boldly called “the biggest concern of our age.” The articles began with the blunt assertion that “we’ve beaten or at least stymied most of humanity’s monsters: disease, climate, geography, and memory. But time still defeats us. Lately its victories seem more complete than ever. Those timesaving inventions of the last half-century have somehow turned on us. We now hold cell phone meetings in traffic jams, and ’24/7′ has become the most terrifying phrase in modern life.”(1) Certainly, among other things, this statement is a telling look at some of our modern assumptions. Particularly fascinating is the categorizing of time as a monster. Time is limiting, after all, and the greatest modern monster of all seems to be to find ourselves limited in any way.

I was reminded again of this article and its fearful expressions of limitation while reading something in the book of Psalms. Like the candid passage above, the psalms are also known for their sincere expressions of troubling ailments and enemies. And yet the gigantic differences in narrative are not only fascinating but helpful in challenging some of the modern assumptions embedded in our telling and embodying of the human story. It is easy to be nudged along by progress and convenience such that we find “humanity’s monsters” to be the problems that need correcting—and not humanity itself. But what if it is not limitation that ails us?

Significantly, the psalmist presents his list of the various monsters that limit and block his way before the God he seeks. “Be merciful to me, O Lord,” writes the psalmist, “for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief” (Psalm 31:9). Standing before one who is limitless, the psalmist casts limitation in a wholly different light. The writer powerfully concludes, “But I trust in you, O Lord, I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in your hands… Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love.” Fixed upon trustworthy hands that hold fleeting days, the psalmist recognizes that, like time itself, all that limits and weakens us will also eventually fade—but God’s unfailing love will not. Limitation certainly brings the psalmist to God, but it is not what ultimately ails him.

Like the ground and grammar of the psalmist, the Christian perception of weakness and limitation is also held beside the unfailing love of God, but a God who has been given a face, a body, and a human story in the person of Christ. In his letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul speaks of something he calls the “thorn in his flesh.” No doubt a striking expression of limitation, scholars have debated for centuries what this thorn might have been—a physical ailment, a burdensome opponent, a disability of some sort. No one can be sure. But what is certain is that Paul was a uniquely significant influence in spite of this limiting thorn. He writes, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But God said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” “Therefore,” continues Paul, “I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:8-10).

It is a countercultural narrative to be sure. Yet what God has done through hardship, through limitation, even through seeming failure, is a restorative, re-forming story of the grace and authority, mercy and care of the victorious one the weak can proclaim.

What is in the time you hold before you this very moment? Do you see limits and fear? Or could you see, as Paul saw, limitations and impossibilities made approachable in the flesh of one who came near? Even in our weakness, maybe because of our weakness, God can accomplish far more than seems available. No one hoped for a weak Messiah. No one would have asked for a suffering servant where a military leader was needed. No one thought the death of Jesus could be the catalyst for any sort of reordering grace. The defeat of Jesus as a display of power still seems a foolish story to tell. But the love of God is jarringly given in the broken gift of the Son. And the human Christ’s defeat is also boldly the human Christ’s victory. And so it is also ours: the story in which the last are made first, the broken made beautiful, and the weak made strong in the power and the life of the Spirit.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Forbes, special edition, 2000, emphasis mine.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – I Shut My Eyes to See

September 2, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

“I shut my eyes in order to see,” said French painter, sculptor, and artist Paul Gauguin. As a little girl, though completely unaware of this insightful quote on imagination, I lived this maxim. Nothing was more exhilarating to me than closing my eyes in order to imagine far away exotic lands, a handsome prince, or a deep enough hole that would take me straight to China!

In fact, like many, imagination fueled my young heart and mind. After reading C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, I would walk into dark closets filled with warm winter coats fully expecting to be transported like the Pevensie children into foreign and wonderful land. Charlotte’s Web took me to a farm where I could talk to my dog, like Fern talked to Wilbur, or to the spiders that hung from intricate webs in my garage. Pictures on the wall came to life and danced before me; ordinary objects became extraordinary tools enabling me to defeat all those imaginary giants and inspiring me toward powerful possibilities fueled by vivid imagination.

Sadly, as happens to many adults, my imagination has changed. I don’t often view my closet as a doorway to unseen worlds, nor do I pretend that my dogs understand one word of my verbal affection towards them. Pictures don’t come to life, and I no longer pretend my garden rake or broom is a secret weapon against fantastical foes. Often, I feel that my imagination has become nothing more than wishful thinking. Rather than thinking creatively about the life I’ve been given, I daydream about what my life might be like if… I lived in Holland, for example, or could backpack across Europe, or lived on a kibbutz, or was a famous actress, or a world-renowned tennis player, or any number of alternative lives to the one I currently occupy.

Sadly, the imagination so vital in my youth doesn’t usually infuse my life with creative possibility, but rather leads me only to wonder if the grass is greener on the other side. Mid-life regrets reduce imagination to restlessness and shrivel creative thinking to nothing more than unsettled daydreams. Rather than allowing my imagination to be animated by living into God’s creative power, I allow it to be tethered to worldly dreams of more, or better, or simply other.

The psalmist was not in a mid-life imaginative crisis when he penned Psalm 90. Nevertheless, this psalm attributed to Moses, was a prayer to the God who can redeem imagination for our one life to live. Perhaps Moses wrote this psalm after an endless day of complaint from wilderness-weary Israelites. Perhaps it was written with regret that his violent outburst against the rock would bar him from entry into the Promised Land. Whatever event prompted its writing, it is a song sung in a minor key, with regret so great he feels consumed by God’s anger and dismayed by God’s wrath.

Whether prompted by deep regret, disillusionment, or a simple admitting of reality, Moses reflects on the brevity of life. He compares it to the grass “which sprouts anew. In the morning, it flourishes; toward evening it fades, and withers away.” Indeed, he concedes that “a thousand years in God’s sight are like yesterday when it passes by, or as a watch in the night.” Before we know it, our lives are past, and what do we have to show for them? Have we lived creatively? Have we used our imagination to infuse our fleeting, one-and-only lives to bring forth offerings of beauty and blessing?

Imagination, like any other gift, has the potential for good or for ill. It has power to fill my one and only life with creative possibility, or it has the potential to become nothing more than wishful thinking. As the psalmist suggests, our lives can be full of creative possibility when we desire hearts that seek to live wisely, live joyfully, and live gladly before the Lord, the God of infinite imagination and creativity.

Imagination built upon a foundation of gratitude invites us to live our lives with hope and with possibility to imagine great things for our God-given lives. “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard….all that God has prepared for those who love him” (Isaiah 64:4; 65:17). Can you imagine it?

In light of our transience, we have the choice to live creatively and imaginatively or wishfully longing for another life. We can choose to dwell in the presence of the God of infinite imagination for what our lives can be or we can choose to waste our time peering over to the other side. Yet we only have one life to live: “So teach us to number our days, that we may present to you a heart of wisdom….that we may sing for joy and be glad all of our days….and confirm the work of our hands.”(1)

Margaret Manning Shull is a member of the writing and speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Bellingham, Washington.

(1) Psalm 90:12, 14b, 15a, 17.

DAILY DEVOTIONS, NEWS AND INFORMATION

Tag Archives: Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – For Humanity

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Isn’t Christianity Arrogant?

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Theology as Doxology

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – The Paradox of Choice

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – The Suffering One

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Shine Like Stars

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – SHINE LIKE STARS

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Beyond Scars

Ravi – A Different Healing

Ravi – Transforming Questions

Ravi Zachrious – THINK AGAIN – DEEP QUESTIONS

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – The Sounds of Hope

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Last Enemy

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Questions of Power

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Translation

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Two Thrones

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Beyond ‘If’

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – The Cross or the Cookie Jar

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Telling Limitation

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – I Shut My Eyes to See

Scriptures, Lessons, News and Links to help you survive.