StephenBarkley.com

I’ve been saved thousands of times. I know this because of a nightly routine I followed for years as a kid. Each night, just before I’d fall asleep, I would remember some of the sinful things I did that day. Afraid that everyone would be raptured while I was asleep and that I would wake [...]

I’m sure you’ve heard one. They like to stand at busy intersections to make themselves heard. They display a morbid fascination with the fate of the unrepentant, as viewed through the lens of people like Dante. These self-appointed prophets only seem to be happy with the negative. Rob Bell did a good job interpreting them [...]

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, and ladies: all theology is but a matter of emphasis.” These words were repeated often by John Stephenson, my Christology and Soteriology professor back in Bible College. The more I study, the more I find those words to be true. Take Jesus’ nature as an example. If you swing the pendulum of belief [...]

Lies have an awkward way of snowballing. Most begin simply. Did you eat those chocolate chip cookies we were saving for dessert tonight? No. Then you need more lies to cover up the first one. That’s funny—it looks like you’ve got chocolate smeared around your mouth. It’s not chocolate, it’s . . . um . [...]

Ryan, my 15 month old son, was trying to eat his favourite addiction (Cheerios) on the front step the other day. His left hand held a spare set of keys that he’s decided to take everywhere. His right hand was clutching a bright blue ‘nail’ from his Little Tike’s Work Bench. He was squatting down [...]

We hear the accusation, “hypocrite!” thrown around often today. Since this is an election year in the United States, all the political news pundits have the term at the ready. We all know that nothing takes the wind out of a successful campaign like a good exposure of hypocrisy. Oddly enough, the word hypocrisy didn’t [...]

Have you ever heard Death Cab For Cutie’s “Marching Bands of Manhattan”? It’s a fantastic song that breaks typical songwriting convention. Most pop songs start with a verse, then build to a chorus. The musicians pull back for a second verse, only to build back up for another chorus before going all out on a [...]

Let’s start with a couple definitions from my favourite online dictionary: Ninjawords (it’s fast like a ninja): Happiness: joy, the emotion of being happy; good luck; good fortune; prosperity Joy: the feeling of happiness, extreme cheerfulness; an activity etc. which causes this feeling Here’s what my big Canadian Oxford Dictionary has to say about it: [...]

I jumped on the whole social-networking bandwagon far too late. I spent what seemed like an eternity deleting annoying email messages from people who wanted to be my Facebook friend. How juvenile. I felt like I was back in elementary school. Then one day my wife Donna took the plunge. It was a life-saver for [...]

I was driving my late-model Neon down the right lane of a busy four-lane street in Brampton a few years ago. The air-conditioner had broken down a year earlier, so I had the windows rolled down. Traffic was moving at an aggravating pace. Rush hour. I pulled up alongside a gas station with a driver [...]