Marc Arseneault

What did you learn today? I don't know about you, but any day I learn something new is a very good day! And the best part is, you're never too old to learn new things.

Over the past several months, the nation of Syria—especially its capital, Damascus—has come to the forefront of the news. For many of us, “Syria” is just another name of another place in the Middle East that is going through upheaval. So, what can we learn if we look more closely at conflict in Syria, its place in history and what the Bible says about it?

Recently, I was struck hard by the news that a member of my congregation is going through the trial of sickness. Many people around us are affected by cancer, diabetes, heart problems—name it, it is there. It seems that almost everybody is affected, either directly or through a family member or close friend who is suffering. How should we be responding?

Hundreds of millions around the world looked on with wonder when Catherine Middleton and Prince William became husband and wife in a grand ceremony in London, England last April 29. What a wonderful fairy tale of love, pageantry and royal glamour! But was it just a spectacle? Or did the royal wedding point toward something important to Christians today?

A long time ago, a powerful ancient Egyptian ruler came to witness the power of a Being that was foreign to him. A voice said to this mighty Pharaoh, “Now if I had stretched out My hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, then you would have been cut off from the earth. But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth” (Exodus 9:15–16).