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Bible Truth or Tradition: Is Jesus God according to Mark 2:1-12?

At the beginning of his sermon, the pastor said “if someone could come away from this passage (Mark 2:1-12) and somehow believe that Jesus is not God in the flesh or God incarnate, there is something else holding them back. There is something else affecting them because this passage is so, so powerful and so clear.” Wow! The first thing that is very clear is “God in the flesh” and “God incarnate” are phrases that are not found in the Bible. The words “incarnate” and “incarnation” never appear in the Bible. According to “Bible Gateway,” the Latin term ...

Futures Files

European Heat Sears Crops Record breaking European heat and severe drought across Europe have wiped out nearly 9 million metric tons of grain, causing more than $2 billion in farm losses. France is seeing its worst outlook in 50 years with massive corn losses while Germany and other western areas report stunted cob growth and shrinking kernel size. The drought in Spain, Italy and Greece has affected olives, threatening olive oil volumes and pushing up prices. Hog Prices Head to Fall Hog prices took out last week’s low, tumbling to the lowest price in two months. A decline in Mexican ...

2026 school safety tips

As summer begins to wind down, our community is preparing for another exciting school year. In doing so, the Marshalltown Police Department’s top priority is ensuring that every student, parent, and teacher returns to school in a safe, secure, and conducive-to-learning environment. As our ...

EMPTY NEST

Curt Turns 78, Life is Great! An orange sunrise, to rival the Buck Full Moon, greeted me on Tuesday, July 28, like the Signal Corps sending a message, “It's Curt's birthday, he's 78 and feels great, dang straight!” I knew it was going to be a spectacular day when I saw a finch at our window feeder feeding his or hers two baby finches thistle seed. I didn't know finches could do that, and took it as a good omen of the day to come: feeding new life. The two fledglings fluttered their wings and opened their tiny beaks in anticipation of the nourishment to come. So cute, a blessing of ...

Making my bed isn’t about productivity, it’s about kindness

While visiting my mom, my son asked, "Why do I have to make my bed at Grandma's house?" I smoothed the quilt over the mattress and answered without thinking, "Because Grandma likes it neat and she deserves a nice space." My response surprised me. What did being tidy have to do with ...

Ask Augustine

Since doctrine divides, why do you emphasize doctrine so much in your columns? Shouldn’t peace and unity be paramount? The axiom of our day is the expression “doctrine divides,” and, indeed that is true. Doctrine does have a tendency to divide, but it does not seem to divide as much within liberal churches and among liberal theologians as it does within the more conservative churches and among the more conservative theologians. I suspect that the reason for this is because the more liberal a church or a theologian is, the more able they are to tolerate a wide variety of doctrines ...