A Mother's Day Tribute To Linda Feala-Deegan
by Anthony Deegan
Let me tell you the inspirational story of my mother, Linda Feala-Deegan, and of her Lord. I've waited years to tell it here, wanting to tell it perfectly, but time is too short and so today is the day. I invite you to take a moment and listen with me as I share all of what God has done. My mom didn't grow up extremely religious, going to church for a season here and there as a child. She was gentle and quiet, very introverted. Everyone always thought highly of her and loved her for being down to earth, not dramatic, not a problem maker. Yet even at a young age, she struggled greatly with depression and feeling isolated, carrying this on into adulthood and the rest of her life. She also had no self-confidence, and wasn't a fan of confrontation. As such, she ended up getting into a marriage in which she felt mentally distressed. I can’t speak much to it because we weren’t there, and she didn’t speak of it often. Either way it didn't last too many years before divorce, and that's when she met my father.
By Roland Clarke
This riveting and thought-provoking piece sheds fresh perspective on a Christian belief that has been fiercely opposed by Muslims for 1400 years. Like every good mystery, this story traces a series of clues spanning the entire Bible and concludes with 1 Timothy 3:16:
“Without question, this is the great mystery of our faith: Christ was revealed in a human body and vindicated by the Spirit. He was seen by angels and announced to the nations. He was believed in throughout the world and taken to heaven in glory.”
It's no secret that God loves every human being he created, so it shouldn't be surprising that he wants us to love him in return. What better way to encourage us to seek him than to reveal himself little by little so that we come to know him more and more. God said, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” He uses prophecies and proverbs, parables and paradoxes, riddles and sayings of the wise to keep us engaged, intrigued and invested on the journey of discovering how magnificent and delightful he is. As it is written, “The one thing I ask of the Lord—the thing I seek most—is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, delighting in the Lord’s perfections.” So then, “Let us press on to know him.”
by Wissam Al-Aethawi, World Traveler and Author of "Been There"
Greece is a country that boasts of its Christian culture today—even though many of its tourists would tell you that the country, as a whole, does not act like it. Near the very beginning of its constitution, you can read “The prevailing religion in Greece is that of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ,” making Greece more rigid about its national religion than most of its Muslim neighbors.
And yet, being Greek, at one time, used to be the antithesis of being a believer in the God of Abraham. Jewish people religiously resisted Hellenization, which was a synonym for degeneracy and immorality. The whole nonbelieving world was called “Greek” at some point, as in “Jews and Greeks.”
So what was the turning point?
Although Paul would often introduce Jesus to his audience as the fulfillment of God’s promises in the scriptures and the conclusion to the history of Israel, the apostle knew very well that his Athenian audience was neither familiar with the Old Testament nor did they care about Israel. In Acts 17, Paul was speaking to an audience of mostly philosophers who had believed in the necessity of the existence of the Higher Power, or higher powers, for centuries. Paul shared that belief—except that he said that only one God has actually proven to exist. That God, according to Paul, “commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all BY RAISING HIM FROM THE DEAD.” Acts 17:30-31.
The Athenian audience was not enthusiastic about the newly discovered One God; nevertheless, the resurrection of Jesus—which we are commemorating this season—would soon turn Athens, and the rest of the world, upside down.
How the Bible Self-Testifies to its own Divine Origins
Although there are multiple human authors of Hebrew scripture1 (the Torah+Tanakh, or Old Testament) they are secondary to God. Only humans write, so everything that ever has been written was penned by human authors. This includes all the books of the Bible (Tanakh + New Testament), the Talmud, the Hindu Vedas, the Bhagavad Gita, the Qur’an, and every other purported holy book. According to its own witness, the primary author of biblical Scripture is always God himself. In its multiple genres, all the scriptures of the Tanakh are regarded within itself as divine revelation and recorded as Holy Scripture, the LORD’s words and thoughts.
[1] …as there must surely also be for the Qur’an.
Wissam Al-Aethawi's Review of Scott Cherry's New Book, "The Reason of Job"
Get the book here: The Reason of Job on Amazon.com
قد تكون لغة الكتاب (نموذج المسيح) عسرة الهضم على المبتدئين, الا ان الكتاب يوفر كل المعلومات اللازمة لفهم اطروحته. يجادل المؤلف ان قصة ايوب هي نموذج المسيح, وان هذا النموذج يتكرر على طول الكتاب المقدس وعرضه. والنموذج هو نمط متكرر يمكن تمييزه مرئيا او سمعيا او خياليا. وايوب هو نموذج من نوع (النزول للصعود) لانه ينحدر الى وادي الياس ليخرج منه بافضل حال. يتولى سكوت مهمة طرح حجته في رحلة تاخذك للكتب السماوية والادب والثقافات المعاصرة ومحاوراته مع اصدقائه, والكتاب مساهمة ثرية للمكتبة المسيحية وقد يكون بركة شخصية للقارئ.
وسام العيثاوي, الخدمة العربية المسيحية
In his new book, The Reason of Job, Scott Cherry has assumed the monumental task of building his argument in a journey that takes the reader through scriptures, literature, pop culture as well as real-life conversations with his friends. This book is a rich contribution to the world library and can be a real blessing to the reader, Christian, Muslim, or other.
–Wissam Al-Aethawi, Arabic Christian Ministry, Dearborn, Michigan
Get the book here: The Reason of Job on Amazon.com