Jim Novell

I begin with three (somewhat) interesting facts. Fact 1: 17.5 million Americans spend 16.5 billion dollars on cosmetic (plastic) surgery each year.  Fact 2: 2.75 million Americans have cosmetic dental surgery each year.  Fact 3:  382 Billion dollars a year is spent annually in the world on cosmetics, make-up as it is most commonly referred

No cartoon scared me more as a child than Walt Disney’s adaptation of Washington Irving’s short story, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”.  The main character is Ichabod Crane, a school master who had a strong belief in the supernatural, including the legend of a headless horseman. Ichabod begins courting a wealthy heiress but has a

Why did God_____ (you fill in the blank)?  This is a question typically asked by both those of us trying to understand God’s actions in the Bible that we find disturbing or perplexing, such as why He commanded King Saul to wipe out all the tribe of the Amalekites including infants and children (1 Samuel

It would have been rare in ancient times, or even today, to have a king or ruler of a nation proclaiming the greatness, the goodness and the glory of another.  In our fallen condition, we tend to have very high thoughts/opinions of ourselves and very low thoughts of those in authority, particularly of God, whom

One of my favorite movies is a fictional Revolutionary War film, The Patriot.  It stars Mel Gibson as Captain Benjamin Martin, a veteran war hero of the French and Indian War. He is now a civilian, and a member of the South Carolina General Assembly that is debating support for the Continental Army to go

Well, election 2020 is over. After much anxiety, mean spirited debate, uncertainty, and fear mongering, in the midst of a global pandemic, we appear to have elected a new president of the United States.  However, there remains much rancor and animosity over the results, which would have been the case no matter who won and

The proclamation of the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven (Luke 4:43), and Himself as its King (John 18:36-37), was central to Jesus’ mission and ministry on earth. His teaching was designed to show men and women that they were outside of this Kingdom, living in opposition to it and thus under God’s

In John 18:28-37, we have the account of Jesus, after suffering through a sham trial by the Jewish leaders and convicted falsely of blasphemy, being turned over to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, for execution.  Since Rome will not execute Him on the basis of that charge, they trump up the charge to the capital

I explained in a previous post, that the sovereignty of God is the Biblical teaching that all things that occur in the universe, our world and in our individual lives, are under God’s absolute rule and control, and that nothing happens in these domains apart from God ultimately permitting or ordaining that it occur. I

I noted in my previous post regarding the Biblical doctrine of the sovereignty of God, that despite being one of the major themes found in the Bible, it is an immensely challenging and controversial doctrine, being opposed and denied by both professing Christians and non-Christians alike.  I commented however that I found it to be