God does not seem impressed by size or power or wealth. Faith is what he wants, and the heroes who emerge are heroes of faith, not strength or wealth.

It's easy to fall into the trap of feeling like you've heard everything before and that you have nothing left to learn.

Whoever desires to remain faithful to Jesus must communicate faith as he did, not by compelling assent but by presenting it as a true answer to basic thirst. Rather than looking back nostalgically on a time when Christians wielded more power, I suggest another approach: that we regard ourselves as subversives operating within the broader culture.

Doubt always coexists with faith, for in the presence of certainty who would need faith at all?

Unless we love natural goods - sex, alcohol, food, money, success, power - in the way God intended, we become their slaves, as any addict can attest.

There is but one true Giver in the universe; all else are debtors.

The problem of pain meets its match in the scandal of grace.