Commentary

If you think the world has gone crazy or off the deep end, you are not alone. In their book, Future Shock, Alvin and Heidi Toffler described the effect of rapid change on the human psyche. Toffler proposed that an accelerated rate of technological and social change leaves people disconnected, stressed, and disoriented. But, is that the whole reason? To be sure,...

We grow accustomed to our surroundings, like the proverbial frog in the pot of water—where the temperature is gradually increased until the unwitting creature boils alive. We tend to become hardened in outlook as we see before us a continual stream of expediency and wrong. These days, it can be difficult to keep a tender, sensitive heart.

When tragedy suddenly strikes a home or family, a city or a nation, the people directly affected experience any number of emotions, including unbridled sadness, hurt, loss, emptiness and grief. When the sharp edge of shock and piercing point of pain are slightly numbed by emotional fatigue, it is not abnormal for anger and resentment to enter people’s hearts....

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?