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Faith. The word is common, but the concept is largely unexamined. Just as most individuals would describe themselves as a “spiritual person,” so it’s not likely to get challenged if you say, “you gotta have faith.” Or, “don’t stop believing.” But what does it mean? Is faith a steel rod that runs through your back…
My God, by grace I am beginning to see, that whatever good there is in honor and joy the one who gives and may withdraw them is better; that blessedness is not so much in receiving good from you but in being a bold display of your glory and virtue; that it is an amazing…
If a past experience is having a controlling, or undo influence in our lives–we need to get over it! It might be something happy, and now we’re constantly trying to live up to it. It could be something horrible, and now we’re constantly trying to live it down. Even if you could change it, you…
I read today the article posted at KETV.com: “Omaha Minister Organizes Effort To Welcome Gays to Church.” The tagline of the article is “Clergy Proclamation: Being Gay Not a Sin.” I hoped that someone had found a voice to say: “We welcome everyone. Being gay is not an unpardonable sin.” I was disappointed. Rev. Erick…
Commentator Frederick Godet described the Epistle to the Romans as “the cathedral of the Christian faith.” That imagery has stuck with me as I have been meditating on the message of Romans. It is truly a cathedral. Everywhere you look your eye is met with intricacy, beauty and majesty. But I’ve imagined a particular cathedral,…
The story of Moses found in Exodus is great reading just for the story line. Think of Moses as the original Rocky: the rise from obscurity to larger-than-life hero with shoulders wide enough to carry the burdens and aspirations of his people. But Moses has inspired much more than early morning runs in gray hooded…
en-cour-age-ment \in-’ker-ij-ment\ n 1: something that almost everybody wants but few know how to give It’s more than a sympathy card. What the Bible envisions for church communities is an atmosphere that: urges admonishes exhorts cheers inspires charges and yes, comforts. Encouragement is a multi-dimensional ministry to keep us all moving forward “so that (we)…
From the PBS special “The Blues”: On a lonely night in 1903, W.C. Handy, the African American leader of a dance orchestra, got stuck waiting for a train in the hamlet of Tutwiler, Mississippi. With hours to kill and nowhere else to go, Handy fell asleep on a hard wooden bench at the empty depot.…
The beatitudes form the first portion of what has been called “The Sermon on the Mount.” There is probably no speech, no discourse, no sermon that has gotten more attention in all of history. It’s beauty, and it’s power are unparalleled. Jesus’ words deserve as much art as exposition. They are from another world–perhaps that is why this chanting of them in Russian is such a moving expression.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think God was awfully bored. After all, He’s heard it all before. Even I get tired of same ol’, same ‘ol. Same top 40 playing over and over on the radio. Same lunch routine. New movies–with the same old plot. Things that happen to us only occasionally seem to…
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