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In our culture, most humor is based on joke telling, verbal ambiguities, and physical comedy. Jewish humor often employed witty hyperbole—clever, startling, over-the-top statements—to get a laugh. Though some comedians today do this and we laugh, when we see Jesus use the technique in the Gospels, we usually don’t get it.

We won’t all, in this life, meet someone whose story will suddenly shed light on God’s purpose in our loved one’s suffering or death. But I think most of us will have that very experience one day on the New Earth.

We do have sorrow. This world is full of things that make God sad, but He simultaneously has a happiness that is based in and flows out of Himself. So I think we need to not look at sorrow and happiness as opposites that cannot co-exist. They can and do co-exist.

Francis Chan writes, "Death is not an easy thing to meditate on, but the wise person will think about death often."

John G. Paton (1824-1907) served as a missionary in the South Pacific’s New Hebrides islands. As a successful young Scottish preacher, Paton determined to leave Glasgow to minister to this unreached people group. But most of his Christian friends urged him to do something more sensible with his life.

God will use persecution, as He always has, to thereby strengthen His church and extend the Gospel message, not destroy it. Persecution in America will probably never be as extreme as it has been in countless places throughout church history and as it is around the world today.

Shouldn’t we embrace the true biblical teaching of the resurrection and the New Earth and let ourselves and our children be excited about them? First, because it’s true, but with the added plus that it’s wonderful, so much better than we could ever have imagined!

At the heart of Randy Alcorn’s book Happiness is the simple belief that Christians, having a direct relationship with the source of all happiness, should be happy. Here are 27 Christian quotes on happiness, which Alcorn uses to compliment his comprehensive study of happiness in Scripture:

I googled “define joy,” and the first result was this dictionary definition: “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness.” This definition harmonizes with other dictionaries and ordinary conversations, yet it contradicts countless Christian books and sermons. The church’s misguided distinction between joy and happiness has twisted the words.

When people ask, and they often do, I always describe myself as Reformed in theology.

Whether you suffer from specific phobias, a chronic fear of harm or death to yourself or loved ones, or any other fear, here are some suggestions for handling them.

WORLD reports that "Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law an 'anti-terror' package that includes measures eviscerating religious freedom. The new law requires government permits to preach and teach the gospel, and restricts evangelism essentially to registered church building sites."

One of my deepest concerns is to see men, young men in particular, who have become increasingly content with doing little in life, sometimes resulting in their wives becoming their caregiver and provider and, effectively, the sole parent of their children.

Our problems center on our failure to recognize 1) who God is and 2) who we are… humans made in God’s image, yet marred, broken, separated from God, and hell-bound because of our sin.