Dr Paul Allen

  On Oct 25, 2011  The Herald Tribune  announced a mysterious discovery. The body of one, Ego Leonard, was found washed up on Siesta Key Beach, Florida. He wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t alive either. Ego Leonard was an 8ft tall, 100lb. fiberglass Lego man. The local who found the giant figurine, Jeff Hindman, reported his encounter to the authorities, who then attempted in vain to solve the enigma of Ego Leonard’s provenance. Hindman ended up selling it on e-Bay. Incidentally, two similar creations washed up on the shores of Holland in 2007, and England in 2008. Those drifters also went unclaimed. The Lego company flatly disavowed these mutations of their iconic inch-high Minifigures. What makes Lego so marvelous is that each piece is fungible, and can plug into any structure made from Lego building blocks. This allows each brick to add a vital contribution to the creative Lego-scape they augment. However, the giant versions floating in the ocean are not only creepy, they are utterly usel

Many Bible readers are familiar with the plague in Egypt at the time of the Exodus (Exod 7:14–12:32)—water turning to blood and infestations of frogs, lice, flies, locusts, and the like. With coronavirus on everyone’s mind, questions abound of whether the word “pandemic” appears in the Bible, too. The short answer is no—“pandemic” is not in the Bible. However, the words “plague” and “pestilence” are (no less than 122 times) and often reference individuals or nations1afflicted with a terrible illness.2 One Hebrew word often used is maggephah, which can mean slaughter (of battle), plague, pestilence (divine judgment), or a fatal blow, though there are other related words: neḡaʿ (Heb.)      →    plague, disease, stroke (metaphorical of disease) makkah (Heb.)   →    blow, wound, slaughter, plague, pestilence deber (Heb.)      →    pestilence, plague, murrain, cattle disease/plague mastix (Gr.)       →    a whip, scourge, plague (a calamity, misfortune) plēgē (Gr.)         →    a blow, str

HENRY CLOUD ON HOW TO STOP TAKING FAILURE PERSONALLY, HOW TO PREVENT BURNOUT AND BECOME HEALTHIER IN THE MIDST OF A YEAR LIKE 2020, AND HOW TO CHANGE YOUR THINKING FOR THE BETTER 3 INSIGHTS FROM HENRY 1. Focus on controlling what you can control In normal conditions, we often try to control things—people, circumstances, outcomes, etc. In this unusual time, life can feel especially out of control. When you lose control and you have fewer choices, your brain hits a shutdown mode, and it goes into a known place called learned helplessness. You start to think, “There’s nothing I can do.” That’s why people feel lethargic or can get into a daze. So, Henry says to focus on controlling what you can control. So, what can you control? You can control yourself. Henry compares it to driving a car. If you’re driving in a snowstorm or rainstorm, that might make the car seem less controllable. The things you have control over are the steering wheel, the brakes, and the gas. And it might

The Coronavirus has taken us all by surprise. January and February seem like a lifetime ago, and who could have predicted then how drastically our world would change in just a matter of weeks? We are in the midst of national lockdown ; we’re doing our best at sheltering in place; we’re facing a significant economic collapse as a result of it; those of us who are Christians are mourning the loss of in-person church gatherings; and many of us are dealing with the sickness and/or death of friends, family, and neighbours. And the question that I think is on everybody’s mind to one degree or another, at some point or another, is: Why? Why is this happening? What lessons are we supposed to learn from this? What is God saying to us by shutting down the entire world with this Coronavirus? So to answer that question, particularly addressing those readers who do not yet believe in Christ, you who have not placed your trust in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus for your righte

Practising hospitality when we could be killed by (or kill) a person standing a few feet away boggles the mind and wearies the soul. Psalm 150:6 declares, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!” But we live in a world where the very act of breathing is dangerous. Christians must look to God—and his glory—more than we look to the physical danger around us. As John Calvin writes: God expects a very different kind of practical wisdom from us [Christians], namely that we should meditate on his judgments in a time of adversity and on his goodness in delivering us from danger. For surely it is not by mere chance that a person falls into the hands of enemies or robbers; neither is it by chance that a person is rescued from them. But what we must constantly keep in mind is that all afflictions are God’s rod, and therefore there is no remedy for them other than God’s grace. Precautions, medical interventions, and vaccines have value, but our ultimate hope is not in any of