Is modern Israel the heir of the promises and covenant God made with ancient Israel?
This is the second installment in the 1517 articles series, “What Makes a Saint?”
This story is not meant for six-year-olds, but it is meant for us, though we should hardly handle it.

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For most of us, waiting on God is not funny at all. It makes us wonder if he cares. If he has forgotten us. In our darkest hours, many even wonder if the atheists are right, if our prayers are nothing more than sick words vomited into an empty heaven.
We believers are those who have been called out for a special healing mission in the world because we’ve caught a glimpse of the heavenly city.
My best teacher, the instructor who taught me more theology than any other, has been the devil.
His face was gaunt and his eyes had a haunted look to them as he strode into the office. He resembled a man beaten down, a wreck of an individual who looked disheveled and worn out.
I can experience almost every aspect of church from the comfort of my own bed. I can prop up my pillow, open my laptop, and enter my very own cyber sanctuary.
No wonder that when young people grow up in a law-saturated, grace-dry church, they leave the faith by droves for all they’ve heard their whole life is a life they can never live up to.
I have found that Gandalf’s words above ring true, not only in Middle-earth, but in our world as well.
I once heard a grad school professor say that America really is a polytheistic nation since so many people believe in so many different gods.
What about the question, “Are you a Christian?” Does this one belong to that second category, where we must explore our hearts, test our actions, focus inside ourselves to get to the right answer?
The lighting is fluorescent, the music is loud and heavy. There is a table in the corner with bottles of iodine, rubbing alcohol, and a biohazard container full of used needles.
Bloody, bruised, and burnt out—our friends, family members, and coworkers are walking out of churches, giving up on God’s family, and at the same time giving up on the message that the Church has been entrusted with.
She had obviously heard about Jesus previously, maybe even from off-handed comments or even rumors. Her daughter was sick so she sought the gossiped-about Jesus as he was leaving for Tyre and Sidon.