If fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom and Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, then knowledge, true knowledge, is the wisdom of acknowledging the truth. Perhaps one of the saddest statements in all the Bible is about Jannes and Jambres. (Who?) Yeah, I know. They’re mentioned only once (2 Timothy […]
John 14:1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.” Don’t you love that? You can almost hear the gentle, yet authoritative, voice of Jesus as He reassured His disciples then and His Word ministers that same wisdom to His disciples today. Watch the nightly news (or worse 24/7 […]
Part of the ongoing debate in the public square that is never mentioned is that we do not have the complete picture, only a part: selective stories, fragments of information from our slice of social interaction and media consumption. We only have partial information about many things about which only God knows the complete story […]
Ratchet. Ratchet. Ratchet. You can almost hear the tension rising, the volume increasing, the angst manifesting, the anger boiling, and the politics becoming more and more and more divisive. This is not from God. And yet, you’d never know that given the talk of Christians—well-educated, high-profile, nationally-known pastors, and political figures disguised as men of […]
While the Simple Truth is that God doesn’t need to be invited into an event to show up, I believe God likes it when we invite His presence. It’s not required for an omnipresent God, after all, He’s already there if He wants to be, but it is desired by Him and bears fruit for […]
He and I couldn’t have been more different, but we found middle ground at a gas station’s grassy parkway somewhere in Georgia. He was traveling south from Shakopee, MN and I was traveling north from Florida. He had ear piercings and multiple tattoos, spiked hair, and was wearing a Bad Wolves shirt as he got […]
One final look at the Sabbath. There are people in the assembly, the church, the synagogue in need of healing. Who among us is completely whole and without any brokenness all the time? Jesus never layered an expectation of perfection upon people who gathered to worship. They could come just as they are and learn […]
For the pastor, theologian, or Bible teacher who reads about Sabbath, our challenge is double: reading Scripture is not only dependence upon God, but it’s work. We cannot read the Bible as our nighttime reading for relaxation and meditation without it turning our minds back on. (Barbara, maybe it’s just you…) OK, maybe it is […]
On this Memorial Day weekend, I wish to remind all of us that freedoms in the United States of America were bought and paid for with the blood and lives of fellow Americans. These heroes made the ultimate sacrifice of love, after all “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his […]
The Sabbath can be an interesting thing: how a body can be at rest but a mind anything but restful. Can it legitimately be called a Sabbath if your mind is working overtime? Don’t ask me. I am a thinker and a planner. My mind weighs alternatives and builds cases. I even do it in […]
