One of the more fascinating sections of the book is Cosmas’ account of when the flat-earthers and the round-earthers met in Alexandria for a debate. Each side presented arguments, counter-arguments, and even conducted experiments. Evidently Cosmas believed his side won. He reported to his mentor, “And it is the truth I speak, O most God-beloved Father, through the power of Christ they went away dumbfounded and sadly crestfallen, having been put to shame by our exposure of their fictions.”

We can put this kind of media event into perspective by noting that each such unearthing of non-canonical ancient Christian texts receives publicity in direct proportion to attention being given to particular controversial issues in the contemporary world.

Then he told me something that concerned me as his pastor. Mark said that he wished that he could be like his dad when it came to death. He explained that shortly before his death, his father had accepted Christ through the influence of a friend and had told Mark he was not scared to die. Mark said, “To be honest, Barry, I’m concerned about facing death.”

Privacy and solitude has just about vanished from our world and the strange thing is that we seem to love that fact. Moronic tweeting about routine daily activities, the constant rattle of texts, planes full of people who can barely wait for the wheels to touchdown before they need to switch on their iPhones: it is surely strange that the idea of being alone with one's thoughts for even a moment has now become something which seems to terrify people or at least be most undesirable

I do think the Gospel Coalition’s rallying behind complementarianism is troubling. It resembles the version of Calvinism that traffics among the young and restless — lots of talk of divine sovereignty, not so much about limited atonement. After all, that biblical teaching and those Reformed creeds can sound reactionary to modern ears and we don’t ever want to sound extreme

Keep pedaling, son, despite your fears. I know all the bumps in the road, and, although you falter and even wipe out, my grace surrounds you to the end.

First, does the physical harm to the contestants challenge Christian teachings on stewardship of the body, and are acts which defile the image of God permissible? Second, he worries about "the moral harm to the spectators," and about what the celebration of violence with intention to do harm to "the other" does. Third, the pagan cultural rituals back then competed with Christian rites.

The first is that Islam is a religio-cultural-political package. There is no ultimate distinction in Islam between the sacred and the secular, and thus none between mosque and state. All of life is understood as a matter of submission to Allah

Children have a natural disposition to see the natural world as having purpose. Research has shown that children have a strong inclination to see design in the world around them, but they are left wondering who did it. They also know design doesn't arise through random chance or mechanistic processes. In fact, children (and adults) automatically look for a person behind purpose or design

"Christians divorce at roughly the same rate as the world!" It's one of the most quoted stats by Christian leaders today. And it's perhaps one of the most inaccurate.