How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith By Diana Butler Bass (reviewed by Peter DeHaan) Diana Butler Bass opens her book, Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith, by admitting that mainline (that is, liberal) Protestantism is in trouble, with declining attendance and a loss of significance. […]
Breaking Through to the Blessed Life By Bruce Wilkinson (reviewed by Peter DeHaan) The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life, is a short work and a compelling read. It is based on a brief, two-verse Biblical account of an obscure ancient man, named Jabez. All that is known of Jabez is recorded […]
One final reflection on the prayer of Jabez. In the scant bio for Jabez, it describes him as a good man, saying he “was more righteous than his brothers.” Righteous is a word that we don’t use too often nowadays, but means to be morally upright. Jabez then was a good, morally upright person. Now, […]
Leaves Be Gone
After Jabez’s short and concise prayer comes encouraging words of confirmation and affirmation.The Bible simply notes that “God granted him what he requested.” How exciting! Although I don’t know the mind of God, I suspect that had Jabez made his requests for selfish reasons, the results may have been different. Indeed this is something to […]
The fifth and final line in Jabez’s prayer is “that I may not cause pain.” At first glance this is an unclear and somewhat wordy request. However, it can be reworded for clarity. To not cause pain, is simply to do good. Here Jabez is reminding himself—as much as he is telling God—that the purpose of […]
The fourth line in Jabez’s prayer is: “that you would keep me from evil” If this request sounds vaguely familiar, there is good reason. In the best known prayer in the Bible, often called “The Lord’s Prayer,” there is the line “deliver us from the evil one.” Just as Jesus taught his followers to pray, […]
After Jabez asks for blessings so that he could be a blessing to others, he then adds: “and enlarge my territory” In Bible times, territory meant power via increased authority, responsibility, and influence. As, such, a request for “more territory” is not a petition for more “stuff,” as much as a metaphor implying greater authority, […]
This year, I’ve noticed a lot of squirrels in my yard—or at least one squirrel many times over. This is a bit strange, as squirrels like oak trees, walnut trees, hickory trees—seemingly any tree with nuts—and I don’t have nutty trees in my yard. I do have Maples and I’ve never seen a squirrel build […]
After dissing my Maple trees on Monday for turning yellow instead of the anticipated shades of orange or red, I realized that yellow is also pretty, even if not what I expected or was used to. So, I snapped a picture yesterday of one with all its glorious yellow hues. It’s a good thing I did, as even […]