For thirty years, Charles Spurgeon faithfully proclaimed the gospel at London’s New Park Street Church. Though quite capable of literary allusion and rhetorical flourish, Spurgeon explained that the heart of effective teaching is simplicity and love for one’s subject. In this passage from “The Mustard Seed: A Sermon for the Sabbath-School Teacher,” he talks of the gospel, but the principles apply to teaching in general.

  The United States has long illustrated the truth of Proverbs 14:34, which says that “righteousness exalts a nation.” Though far from perfect, America historically has upheld biblical standards of justice and liberty, and consequently enjoyed God’s blessing. A contributing factor to the nation’s virtue doubtless has been the devotion of its presidents to the Bible, recounted by Tevi Troy in a February 13 Wall Street Journal article.1 Spanning four centuries, occupants of the Oval Office have shared a unique love for Scripture—even those who exhibited prominent moral flaws or were not committed followers of Jesus. Consider the following:

  The young television newscaster was dashed when he discovered that the camera had malfunctioned in the freezing cold. Here was his golden opportunity to make a name for himself; CBS news was waiting for the footage, which was to be broadcast around the nation. Scrambling to recover, the journalist asked the preacher they had been filming to repeat his spontaneous prayer, but he refused, saying, “Wouldn’t be honest.”

  Before accepting law as his vocation, John Adams, America’s second president, undertook pre-ministerial studies. His wife, Abigail, was a minister’s daughter, born into a distinguished line of New England Puritan pastors. Both were well tutored in Scripture, and their letters to one another were full of biblical references.

  In 1816, Harvard University published a circular letter in response to enquiries about admissions standards for ministry students. Candidates for admission, it said, “must be thoroughly acquainted with the grammar of the Latin and Greek languages” and “be able properly to construe and parse any portion” of the Greek New Testament.1 Fast forward to the year 2000, when it was only “recommended” that candidates for admission to Harvard Divinity School have an “elementary” knowledge of one ancient or modern language. To graduate with a master of divinity, the main graduate degree typically sought by pastors, a student needed only […]

  In 1219, in the midst of the Fifth Crusade, Saint Francis of Assisi crossed unarmed into the enemy camp in order to preach the gospel to Sultan al-Kamil, the Muslim ruler of Egypt and Saladin’s nephew. In his hagiographic account of this incident, Bonaventure relates the following:

  22 You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. 23 If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, 24 and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless. Exodus 22:22-24 (ESV)

  Albert Einstein became famous when he formulated his theory of special relativity at the age of 26, while he was working as a clerk at the Swiss Patent Office in Berne. When the very secular institutions in which he trusted demonstrated no will to resist the evils of Hitler’s advance, Einstein was struck by the moral clarity of the Church.1

  One of the ethical violations that led to charges against South Korean cloning researcher Hwang Woo-Suk was that he used female lab assistants as egg donors.1 Embryonic stem-cell research requires cloned human embryos. Embryos are fertilized eggs. So, Professor Hwang threw moral considerations to the wind and used his own assistants as research tools. In fact, increasing numbers of women around the world are being solicited for their eggs for the purposes of medical experimentation. The problems with egg donation for reproductive purposes are sufficiently strong to avoid the practice, but what about egg donation for research? Are there […]

  8 And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ 9 And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. 10 Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. 11 And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, 12 saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne […]