As you can see, the blog has had a lovely facelift, thanks to the wonderful talents of my dear friend, Jennifer. I hadn’t updated anything in the nearly 5 years since I first started writing here. It was time for a new look.

I wanted to take a moment to explain the significance of the image used in the header. The painting is “Miranda- The Tempest” by J.W. Waterhouse. The subject of the painting is Miranda from Shakespeare’s play, “The Tempest.” In the painting, Miranda is watching a ship crash on the island where she and her father have been banished.

The significance comes from a parable that I wrote. It was written to express the struggle that many of my friends have experienced when speaking up about the issues facing the church today. Many of them have faced the frustration of having their concerns dismissed or ignored.

This parable is for all of those who seek to be Berean and whose hearts ache for their brothers and sisters in Christ who are suffering under false or weak teaching:

 A woman was on a ship with her family traveling across the Atlantic. One cold night at sea, the woman thought she saw an iceberg. She went quickly to the captain and shared what she saw. The captain assured her that he was familiar with these seas and that they rarely had icebergs. He told her the watchman was good at his job and would let him know if an iceberg appeared.

The woman went away unconvinced and stood to watch and see if she could see the iceberg again. There it was! And closer than before. They were going to hit it. She called out, “Iceberg!”

The captain of the ship chastised her for speaking out. He told her, “You’re disturbing the peace on my ship. Some of the passengers are offended. They think you’re demeaning the watchman.”

The woman apologized for offending the passengers and assured the captain that she meant no offense to the watchman. She was hurt that the captain didn’t take her sighting of an iceberg seriously.

The captain said to the woman,”I see that you’re hurt. We should talk about why you feel that way.”

The woman sighed. She and her husband put life jackets on themselves and their children and prepared a life boat.

Meanwhile, the ship hit an iceberg and sank.

The parable ends on a sad note, but it is my hope that more and more “captains” will listen and heed the warnings and that fewer “ships” will crash.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. Ephesians 4:11-16, ESV