Author: Jon Gauger

They say the best actors don't act.  They are simply absorbed into the character they portray.  I had a taste of that during a recent tour of the Herod exhibit at Jerusalem's Israel Museum.   For years, I've had a fascination with Herod the Great.  Many know him only as the king in the Christmas story who executed Bethlehem's baby boys.  And make no mistake—Herod was ruthless, even vicious, toward any perceived threat.   But Herod the Great, for all his evil, was also a great architect, a great builder, a great visionary.   He loved color, beauty and luxury.   …

If holidays had families, Thanksgiving would be the unwanted stepchild.  Thanksgiving lacks the Hallmark beauty of Christmas and the Dick Clark fun of New Year's.  With stern-faced buckle shoed pilgrims as the holiday's heroes, nobody decorates their home with Mayflower lights.  Nor do we take part in Puritan parties.  Thanksgiving doesn't lend itself to much of that, so we don't lend much of ourselves to it.   Thanksgiving really is the overlooked stepchild. Consider the way Thanksgiving is treated at national retail stores: hardly at all. Outnumbered by mountains of Halloween candy and masks, Thanksgiving is lucky to get a small…

A  tuna sandwich and a Coke.  Such an ordinary lunch after such an extraordinary morning.  As I sit at a cafe overlooking Jerusalem, I am pondering an earlier walk down what is known to millions as the Via Dolorosa.  “The way of suffering” is the route Jesus walked through Jerusalem carrying his cross. The thing of it is, the Via Dolorosa today is the way of shopping and dickering and shouting.  The most common form of suffering is sore feet and aching backs.  It's tough to imagine the real Jesus dragging a real cross up and down the hilly path…

Behold: the banana! High in potassium, bananas are great for preserving your eyesight and accelerating bone growth—not to mention warding off kidney cancer. I like bananas…but this humble fruit has always amazed me. If you put any other food item remotely close to a banana… it ends up tasting like…banana! Put a banana in your lunch box next to a ham sandwich…and the ham tastes like banana. So do your potato chips—and your Oreo cookies. Recently, my wife put a left over slice of cinnamon coffee cake next to some bananas for just a few hours. Guess what it tasted…

So I had a conversation today with a new friend from East Africa.  Happened to be Somalian.  As is my habit, I immediately asked him (nicely, mind you) if he was a follower of Mohammed.  When he answered yes, I smiled back saying (boldly, mind you) “Well I am a follower of Jesus.” Very predictably, the conversation turned quickly to the person of Jesus.  He affirmed what every other Muslim I've talked to about Christ affirms—that he was a notable prophet. My friend went to great lengths to be polite—but even greater lengths to assure me that Islam and Christianity…

Have you ever had a natural gas leak in your home or office? Gas leaks can be deadly, you know.  They are invisible, they are poisonous, and left untreated, they can kill with deadly force. It's the same with church cliques. They are invisible, they are poisonous, and left untreated, they can kill with deadly force. The problem is, lots of people claim they can identify a clique at their church…but almost NOBODY would ever admit to being a part of one. So let me offer this three-part exam to help you assess yourself. Number 1: If you have ever…

At first, it struck me as blasphemous—then incredulous. A satirical newspaper, known as the Onion, ran a recent headline as follows: “Christ Reluctantly Enters Area Man’s Heart.” The article went on to profile a fictional mortgage broker—Derek—who supposedly invited Christ to be his Savior. Derek is not a particularly nice man. Not the kind of man that you and I would necessarily choose to have a relationship with. The article quotes Christ as saying, “When a believer reaches out to me with faith in their hearts, I kind of have to reach back, even if it’s Derek.” Now please understand—I…

Houston, we have a problem: adults are not memorizing the Bible. Not like we should, anyway. I don't know about you but I struggle in committing Scripture to memory. When I was a kid, it was much easier to memorize the Bible.  Awana was a great experience. But time is not kind to our brains. Or is it that we adults have allowed too much data clutter on our hard drives? Either way, we don't memorize the Bible—at least not much. I've taken survey after informal survey and the results rarely vary.  “When I was younger I used to memorize…but…

Amid the many small town fall festivals of Illinois, Stillman Valley Days must rank among the finest.  There’s the usual stuff: craft shows, carnival rides and overpriced funnel cakes.  For fans of fireworks, Stillman Valley Days is probably one of the season’s last and best displays in the whole state—which is why we try never to miss. But because Stillman Valley is definitely in farm country, there’s always a display of small gasoline powered implements.  These antique machines are said to have performed important functions on farms of the last century.  Indeed, some of them are more than a hundred…

As society judges people, Orville was one of the most un-cool guys I’ve ever met.   Most of his teeth were missing. And the few that remained poked up at odd angles in a mouth that was often caked with dried saliva.  A sizeable paunch rendered his physique something other than cool.  His few strands of hair were as wiry as they were wild—definitely not cool.   Truthfully, there was little about Orville’s appearance that suggested he was anything other than a country bumpkin. Orville was a farmer all his life and I didn’t know much about the man—apart from his appearance—until…