I lectured at the Bethlehem Bible College for several years, and for my youth ministry courses, I required students to make several visits to the YMCA Rehabilitation Center in Beit Sahour, where they spent time with Muslim young men who had been shot or tortured by the Israeli military.

We highly recommend this TED talk by Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store. In it, he talks about the importance and positive impact of dialogue, even when the beliefs and values of both parties differ. Fantastic for peacemakers, and applicable to all kinds of relationships.

Jesus Christ Himself made it abundantly clear that it is futile to speculate on when the end times might occur. So what role does Dispensationalism play in the aforementioned evangelical tendency to resist religious plurality in American society, if any?

Many followers of Jesus like to reference Jeremiah 29:7 and the Biblical example of “seeking the peace of the city,” but this concept can often be abstract. This often leads people to ask, “How can I seek the peace of my city? I’m just a normal person without much influence.”One way that you can have an impact on local and international peace is by focusing on the arrival city in your area.

Mediation refers to third-party-peacemaking. The ideal of Scripture is that the two parties in conflict work it out between themselves -- cooperative resolution. But often, people in conflict need help. So they turn to a trusted third party to aid them in resolving their dispute.

With tears in his eyes, my friend and colleague Thomas Davis said to a group of Muslims, “Peacemaking is about friendship.” I think Thomas is right. 

What does it mean to be an evangelical peacemaker? For many this is an oxymoron. How can you be a true peacemaker and at the same time be a faithful evangelical? I get criticisms from both Muslims and Christians about this. Some Muslims accuse us of doing peacemaking only as a means to evangelize. Some Christians believe that peacemaking without evangelizing is meaningless. 

Here are the top ten books I’ve read in 2011. It was painful whittling the list down to only ten books, but hopefully this will give you some books to read as part of your New Year’s resolution if you haven’t read them yet. 

In my series on Biblical Holism I have defined the gospel as Old Testament promises of good news fulfilled in Jesus. This good news was fulfilled in Jesus and demonstrated by Jesus when he healed the sick, fed the hungry, or forgave sinners.