Mark Sandor

Last Friday, North and South Korea announced a peace summit to end their 65-year conflict. While no battles have been fought in decades, an actual peace treaty to end the Korean War has never been signed. North Korea has been a rogue state since the 1950s and has recently worked defiantly to develop nuclear weapons and the rocket power to deliver them. A successful peace treaty could stabilize a region that has lived in the shadow of nuclear exchange for years.

On Wednesday, December 6, 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the United States would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and would be moving its embassy to that city. For most of Israel’s recent history, nations have located their embassies in Tel Aviv, which, as Israel’s second largest city after Jerusalem, is the nation’s financial and technological hub. Israel has insisted that Jerusalem is its capital, but many nations choose to use Tel Aviv as a safer place to base their embassies.

When you hear of prophecy, it immediately makes you think of the future. Those of us who believe the Bible is the inspired word of God often look towards the prophecies of God’s future intervention in world affairs to take heart in a troubled world. Reviewing scriptures about the return of Jesus Christ (Revelation 7), the resurrection of the saints (1 Corinthians 15), and the establishment of God’s peaceful kingdom on earth (Isaiah 2) is an encouraging study about the real hope for mankind.

Like most boys born in the last few decades, my sons love Star Wars. Each new movie is greeted with enthusiasm, and Rogue One is no exception. As a fan of the movies myself, I usually look forward to sharing this cultural experience with them. Nevertheless, Rogue One gave me some pause as the reviews described it being a darker story and more focused on war than on the more traditional coming-of-age narrative that Star Wars usually focuses on. I decided first to go view the movie with my wife, in part to see if it would be appropriate for our children.

Some sports analysts might have “found religion” this baseball season. The Chicago Cubs, against their century-long tradition of incompetence, played incredible baseball. They were the best team in Major League Baseball during the regular season and capped it all off with a thrilling win in game seven of the World Series. Have the Four Horsemen been unleashed? Is the Cubs’ World Series Championship a sign of the end of the world?