There is no whitewashing of evil within the biblical family. The sheer fact that it is recorded, that of all the events in these people’s lives, these were chosen to be chiseled into the stone of the church’s remembrance, tells us something.

He may be a good sport about it, smile for the camera, congratulate the better man, but secretly he hates the loss and covets another chance at victory.

I believe, however, that lurking behind every reason we don't forgive is one fundamental impulse: the desire, real or perceived, to control the offender.

The reason is much simpler than that: to learn to pray, you must first die. The language of prayer is taught in the school of death.

O such is the crumbling fortress of the god of this world, but how it entices our flesh! For it looks like a house of candy to the Hansels and Gretels who wander through this world.

Like the patriarch, Jacob, who after his wedding night, awoke to the wrong wife in his bed, I too one day opened my eyes to find that the Rachel with whom I had fallen in love, for whom I'd labored long years, was not the one beside me as the sun rose.

What is most remarkable about this tale is not how clever it is, but that the original storyteller was just as greedy as the three fictional young men were.

But this dying world is still the world of our living God, who graces us with tokens of a final renewal. As leaf subsides to leaf, and frost to snow, and snow to ice, there comes a day when the gold of nature sprouts anew.

The place where God appears or dwells ceases to be common ground; it becomes holy. Dust, rocks, vegetation, wood, metals, everything roundabout soaks in his sacredness.

Why would God reject from Cain what he later accepted from and mandated of his people? So as far as the material itself, neither Cain’s nor Abel’s offering was superior.

Their tongue is our shield, for the weapon of angels is the word of their Lord. Revelation 12 says Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon and his angels. And how did they overcome him? By the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

Yes, He knows all—not only the sins you remember and are ashamed of, but also those you have forgotten and even those you never knew you committed.