“Not all terrorism is equal” by David Rothkopf: Puts the Boston Marathon attack in a global perspective. “The same day as the Boston Marathon attack, scores of ordinary people were killed in coordinated terror bombings across Iraq. On Saturday, an earthquake rocked Sichuan province in China, injuring at least 11,000 people and producing a death toll that at this writing was approaching 200. On Sunday alone the violence that tears daily at Syria left more than 500 people dead, most in a single town.”

“Evangelizing with Open Ears” by J. D. Greear: Urges Christians to avoid the unnatural, off-putting question “If you were to die tonight, would you go to heaven?” and suggests alternative spiritual conversation starters.

How to make our prayer requests more biblical by David Powlison: “The Bible’s prayers are rarely about health, travel mercies, finances, doing well on a test, finding a job, or the salvation of unsaved relatives. . . . The driving focus of biblical prayer asks God to show himself, asks that we will know him, asks that we will love others.”

“An Eastern Orthodox Defense of Gay Marriage” by David J. Dunn: This article is two years old and yet it is still timely, and it raises a valid point. “Enlisting the state to protect ‘the sanctity of marriage’ is a mistake. Such efforts demonstrate a fundamental—even idolatrous—misunderstanding of the meaning of ‘holy matrimony,’ effectively denying Christ by vesting the state with divine authority.”

“Falling Plates” by Howard Crutsinger and John Strong: An artistic short that sums up the story line of the Bible in four minutes, using a series of metaphoric images. (See below.)