Who's Open-Minded?

This from Craig Keener: "Signs [of a miraculous nature] were accorded high evidential value in antiquity. That the modern Western educated elite tends to denigrate them is more a commentary on our culture than theirs; most cultures in the world today (virtually all cultures not influenced by deistic rationalism or atheistic Marxism) accept diverse forms of supernatural activity. Thus those who reject miracles merely on the basis of philosophical a prioris may do so as ethnocentric dogmatists rather than as genuinely open-minded intellectuals."

Taking the Costly Road

"...following Jesus is costly. The costs of not following, however, are eternal." (Craig S. Keener)

Putting Christ first in our lives may cost us misunderstandings with friends and the loss of relationships with them over those misunderstandings.

Putting Christ first may mean loss of social acceptability, the loss of jobs or income.

It may, sometimes, even cost us our earthly lives, as many Christians over the past one-hundred years or so have found. (More Christians were martyred for their faith in the twentieth century than in the previous nineteen centuries combined.)

But, by the grace of God given in Christ, may we learn to say with the apostle Paul: "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18).