Arguing Over What is True Has Divided Jesus’s Church for Centuries I’m a huge advocate of Christian unity, that as Jesus’s followers we should all get along and live in harmony. Denominations and theological perspectives don’t matter; Jesus does. In the book of John Jesus prays that his future followers will play nice with each […]
Pursue Christian Unity The last thing Jesus does before his arrest and execution is to pray. The last part of his prayer is for the unity of his future followers (John 17:20-26). Yet two thousand years later, we still wait for Papa to answer this imperative request from his Son. We are not one, far […]
Our Perspective on What it Means to Follow Jesus Shapes How We Think and Act I’ve met people so fixated on heaven that they squander their time here on earth. Not only do they miss the opportunities before them, but they also offer a negative example to the world of what it means to be […]
Jesus Provides a Simple Solution For Us to Follow When We Face Opposition Recently a friend asked for some assistance at a writers conference, for help in modeling a writer critique process. I and several others were happy to volunteer. We arrived at the session and disbursed ourselves throughout the room, each sitting at a […]
Jesus Condemns Those Who Supersede the Word of God With Their Religious Practices Jesus asks the people, “Why do you break the command of God for the sake of your traditions?” (Matthew 15:3). He goes on to give an example that is culturally relevant to his audience, but which doesn’t connect so much with us […]
As Followers of Jesus We Can Point the Supernaturally Curious to God Premodern people saw everything as spiritual. Though modern thinking attempted to remove the spiritual from our everyday reality, the postmodern view is open to reunite them. For that I am glad. Yet not all that is spiritual is good. Consider all of the […]
It’s Hard to Embrace Those Who are Different from Us but We Should The word sin is an unpopular one in today’s culture. Postmodern thinking rejects moral absolutes and advocates that anything goes. Under an ideal of tolerance, society claims that to label an action as sinful is judgmental, closeminded, and unacceptable. Ironically they become […]
Studying Scripture Teaches Us about Classic Literature and Inform Our Literary Perspective My post “13 Reasons Why I Love the Bible” started out as a top ten list, but I couldn’t stop at a round number. I kept going and couldn’t pare my list down to just ten reasons. And if I had kept thinking […]
Meditate on the True Meaning of Easter as a Christian Holy Day of Ultimate Importance Every Sunday morning for several years I have shared my thoughts about God, the Bible, and the church on this blog. Because Easter always falls on a Sunday, one post a year is usually about Jesus’s resurrection. This year’s reflection […]
What are the Ramifications When We are Kind to the Poor? The book of Proverbs, most of which is written by King Solomon, reels off a list of pithy one-liners. Such is the passage for today’s reading. One that captured my attention is “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord,” (Proverbs 19:17). […]