Posts by John Staiger (Page 100)

I had a friend who, when he felt that he needed to regain control of the conversation, used to say: “All generalizations are false.” I just never could bring myself to ask, “Does that include that one?” The wise-guy who came up with that ditty must have been cousin to the guy who said, “Statistics can be right or wrong 50% of the time.” One statistic that has hung around for a while says: “Fifty-eight percent of people have less…

I preached a funeral to an avowed group of agnostics and atheists a few years ago. Since I was close to the deceased, I was not dissuaded from preaching the message I had prepared in order to accommodate the lack of belief in the room. But I wasn’t worried. When I started to recite The Lord’s Prayer, they all joined in as if was the most natural thing to do. When I lead Amazing Grace, they all sang with…amazing grace.…

Northern Arkansas is a beautiful place. In it is a small town named, ‘Fifty-Six.’ Apparently, the founding fathers wanted to call it ‘Newcomb,’ but somebody said, ‘No.’ And since the government had already designated the area the “Fifty-Six School District,” the name stuck. Apart from being on a list of unusual place names, it is also known for its tourist attraction, The Blanchard Springs Caverns, and their large, in percentage terms, population increase in recent years from 163 to 173…

The world has always elevated its opinions to gospel status and reduced The Gospel to that of opinion. Careless Christians react badly to this. They get angry and dismissive toward all dissenters. But the love shown to us by our redeeming Saviour causes us to stop and remember the conditions of our less-than-stellar lives before we came to the cross. Our minds were full of worldly rot and selfish ambition. What moved us was the realization that God doesn’t operate…

(1)What if I forgave all my enemies today? (2)What if I prayed for revival at church? (3)What if I became a missionary? (4)What if I confessed all of my weaknesses? (5)What if I started tithing? (6)What if I finally repented of that one sin? (7)What if I prayed for my government? (8)What if I found my joy? (9)What if I taught a Bible class? (10)What if I took sermon notes? (11)What if I invited someone to church? (12)What if I…

In my youth, when seeking advice from Peter Craig for a passage to use for a Lord’s Supper talk, he directed me to Isaiah 53. I was daunted and perplexed as I read the things that Isaiah had prophesied about Jesus 600 years before Jesus was born. Since then I have tried to get my head around its beauty and unity. I will do my best to consider what one of Isaiah’s readers may have thought as he considered what…

Nehemiah stands as a leadership success story. But to present his reconstruction of Jerusalem’s walls as anything other than Nehemiah’s attempt to restore the glory of God is to misrepresent him and his work. His is the story of passion over vocation. He was Artaxerxes cup-bearer, but his heart was for Jerusalem’s welfare (1:1-2). His emotional reality was: ‘Broken walls—broken heart.’ He wept for Jerusalem’s trouble and disgrace (1:3-4). His prayers were full of praise, confession, and a renewal of God’s…

I once visited a home and was told by the occupant that they had been kidnapped by aliens and experimented upon. The person was absolutely convinced that it had happened to them and spoke of the ordeal at length. Years before, while at Bible College, I met members of a local UFO group. They were interested to know my thoughts on Alien involvement on the formation of the earth and its anthropological development. As requested, I set up a panel of…

When a situation can go ‘either way,’ it doesn’t exactly engender excitement. There’s a sense of foreboding that the good half might be cancelled out by the bad. Jesus was not playing around when he told the Laodicean church that their ‘neither hot nor cold’ status was making him sick (Rev.3:16). Their ‘half in – half out’ theology was not going to be tolerated. But this accusation would have been the furthest thing from their minds, and Jesus’ condemnation a…

You know that gently curving line on the map known as the US-Canadian border? That is known as ‘The 49th Parallel.’ If you extend that line east and west, it cuts through Russia and Northern Europe. Check it out on a ‘flat’ map. There appears to be a massive portion of the earths surface above that line. Understandably so, given that Russia and Canada are the two largest countries in the world. Add Alaska, Greenland, Britain, Scandinavia, and others, and you…