Spring of Hope

"Faith is simple and religion complicates it", says an author. When Jesus taught the disciples about having faith like a mustard seed (Luke 17), he was not saying faith comes in varying quantities, as in small, medium or super-sized. This is how so many religious people have mistakenly taught and understood His words. They teach that if you have a little bit more faith, your problem would be solved, or your sickness would be healed. Jesus is actually teaching about lack of faith and not sizes of faith. To be sure, faith the size of a mustard seed is better than no faith at all. The kind of teaching that one's size of faith was the cause of a disaster or sickness or death has turned many people against the church and God. It produces guilt and people have been hurt by such teachings. We have been raised in a culture that says bigger is better—that size is the truest measure of success. It takes a strong person to resist that trend, especially if he or she is laboring ...

A newspaper reported about a man who showed up in good health after being reported missing more than 25 years earlier. At the time of his disappearance he had been unemployed, addicted, and hopelessly behind in child support payments. So he decided to go into hiding. On his return, however, he discovered that the court records showed he was dead. When the man went to court to reverse the records, the judge rejected his request, citing the statute of limitations that says there is a three year time limit for changing a death record. He is a living man with a death record. In the first three (synoptic) gospels we see the Sadducees who did not believe in resurrection (Matt 22, Mark 12, Luke 20) pose a question to Jesus. A widow marries seven brothers in sequence as each brother dies. They assume that if there is a resurrection, the woman would be guilty of polygamy with seven husbands in heaven. Jesus answers, “ God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are ali...

Dreams begin even before we are born and we continue to dream, usually between two to five times a night until we die. We forget almost all our dreams. Experiences of dreams can be fantastic, pleasant, frightening or revelatory, and reactions to them are diverse. Modern studies help elucidate some of the mechanisms of dreams and do not discount the revelatory nature of dreams ( Journal of Neurology ). Bible contains numerous instances where God speaks to people in dreams as revelatory messages. The Gospel writer Matthew describes Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus having four dreams. The first dream is where an angel telling him not to be afraid of taking Mary as his wife because the son to be born is by the Holy Spirit (1:20). In the second chapter Joseph receives messages in dreams to flee to Egypt with the baby (2:13), then to return to homeland (2:19), and another dream telling him not to go to Judea and he went to Galilee(2:22). By following the dreams as visions from God h...

Samson was from a Jewish family chosen by God, to lead Israel to fight against the Philistines. An angel of God visited his parents who did not have a child for a long time and promised that they would have a son and he would become a very strong man. He should not cut his hair forever because his hair will be the source of his strength. Samson grew up to be a man of super-human strength (Judges 13, 14). He killed a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. At times, he was a mad man. He tied up three hundred foxes tail to tail and set them with fire torches and burned up the enemy’s wheat fields. He murdered thirty men for their clothes. Philistines were very afraid of him. But he sadly fell for a woman’s seduction for a haircut (Judges 16) and lost his superhuman strength. In spite of his weakness and madness, God chose him to fulfill His divine plans. Samson loved riddles. A Riddle is where an uncertain and unexpected answer is key to the riddle. Choosing the appopriate...