“It’s very stressful in China — sometimes I was working 128 hours a week for my auditing company,” Ms. Chen said in her Beijing apartment a few hours before leaving. “And it will be easier raising my children as Christians abroad. It is more free in Australia.”

We are thankful to hear of many desiring to help. It is reasonable to anticipate opportunities for teams or individuals to help both on Long Island and in the Toms River area. Thank you for your patience in allowing us the time required to coordinate this response effort and to allow the first responders to finish their work of making conditions safe for us to enter.

We might have to wait until Heaven to learn of Reformation heroes from Columbia, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Japan, and India, but we can be sure that wherever God is growing His church, He is also raising up gifted men and women to proclaim the riches of God’s grace in Christ. It is helpful to look back on the European Reformation and thank God for it. Let’s make sure we don’t idealize it or think that it was a one-time occurrence–the same sorts of things are happening right now.

Everyone has an eschatology. The believer, the atheist, the agnostic, the Hindu—everyone has to give an account for how evil is going to be dealt with. The question isn’t whether people have an eschatology, but whether it is a compelling and coherent eschatology

“What if the academic work force were made up primarily of two types of faculty members? One, a small proportion of tenure-track professors—those who earn doctoral degrees, do research, train graduate students, teach advanced seminars, and help administrators run the university. And two, a larger portion of full-time instructors…who teach undergraduates, help advise them, keep up with developments in the field by reading and attending conferences, but do no research.”

Follow Closely and Learn from the Apostles’ Examples in Acts. Luke’s account of the early Apostolic ministry is hugely important. It’s the only substantial account of Apostolic sermons in which Christ is explicitly preached from the Old Testament. Here are three examples:

The cards are attractive and will appeal to those of a Reformed or scholastic bent. I can envision them being used in homeschools and Christian schools in the junior high to high school level, or even younger than that. They will spur more research into the various figures, but I’m not so sure they’ll actually be traded. Since you get the set, there’s nothing to trade for. Unless teachers use them as rewards and then, the trading would ensue!

It is precisely this possibility that makes Moral Minority not only a stirring account of recent American history, but also a necessary tool for understanding our global Christian moment. Buy it, read it, debate it, disagree with it, but do not ignore it.

Spouses, children and the congregation itself may know before you do. God may be speaking through the people around you. Take the community of faith seriously. We make these decisions as interrelated parts of the church, as expressed through a church. Discernment is one of the gifts we offer one another in this body. Discreetly explore the spiritual direction available to you through this local body of Christ wherein you serve.

As a policy choice, California’s “three-strikes” measure has been a disaster. No one understood this better and sounded the alarm more clearly than Chuck Colson and Justice Fellowship, the criminal justice reform ministry he founded. In the months leading up to the ballot initiative, he warned anyone who would listen that measures like this one would do far more harm than good.