I think I should have given up Oldies music for Lent or maybe home improvements. I’ve been listening to Oldies while painting walls and recalling days past. As I heard the song by David Gates (of Bread fame) entitled “Everything I Own,” I was thinking how appropriate it would be for today’s devotional. When it […]
How does one make sense of suffering? I have a few planks in my theological platform. One is the Image of God. One is His sovereignty. One of them is the perfect sacrifice of the perfect God-Man, Jesus Christ. One is my hopeless condition as a sinner. One is the absolute truth of God’s Word. […]
Vader: No, I am your father! Luke: No! No! That’s not true. That’s impossible! Iconic dialogue from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, it is often quoted as “Luke, I am your father!” because the plot’s twist was so meme-able, not to mention memorable. Even so, it fails to capture the suspense we encountered when the sequel film […]
Humans sin. Do animals? (I’ll wait while you react.) * * * Yes, you’re right: theologians do think about strange things. How many angels dance on the head of a pin? If a tree falls in the woods and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make any sound? What […]
Service Order for 9:00 AM Sunday, February 24, 2013 Nemmers Family Chapel at Advocate Condell Welcome–Barbara Shafer, Christ Church Highland Park Worship in Song Scripture Reading: Psalm 84:1 For the director of music. According to gittith. Of the Sons of Korah. A psalm. How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD Almighty! 2 My soul […]
When my children were little I enjoyed reading to them the Berenstain Bears book, Inside Outside Upside Down. In the story Brother Bear gets inside a box that gets brought outside, turned upside down and put on a truck to go to town. It was perfect for teaching spatial concepts. The Jewish people of Paul’s […]
All analogies fall apart when pressed. With that caveat out of the way, I’d like to offer an analogy for today’s passage: Space Maintainers. They’re necessary to avoid space invaders (not this kind). * * * Baby teeth lost prematurely may require a child’s receiving a metal space maintainer to save the space. We have baby teeth […]
Just in case I start to think that I’m better than the average bear, Scripture pushes its way through my crowd of self-serving thoughts—gathered around me like adoring fans—and God’s Word reminds me that I have no real cause for self-indulgent self-esteem. There is no one righteous, not even one.” (Romans 3:10) Hmmm. Could we […]
How can you tell the difference between rights and privileges? Which did the Jewish people of Jesus’ day have: rights, privileges, or both? First for the Jew, then for the Gentile was a repeated theme in the passage from yesterday, First for the Jew was a right by the Covenant promises. God covenanted with Israel, […]
I’ve been going down Memory Lane for a while now. Do you remember the TV show To Tell the Truth? There were three contestants (one contestant being the guest described who had to tell the truth), but the other two were imposters and could tell things that were not true in order to convince the celebrity […]
