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Connecting Scripture with Real Life
How Did You Spend Your Holy Saturday?
The disaster of our own Good Friday and the despair of our own Holy Saturday will one day be undone. In the mess that life often throws at us, we can have a firm confidence, that our disaster will not have the last word. God will. No matter how much life might hurt right now, God will make all things new.
Crying out to a Hidden, Mysterious God
We don’t get to know God’s mind. If we look at the cross, we can know that God loved us enough to suffer terribly in our place. When we end a prayer with ”in Jesus’ name,” we are pointing to the mystery of all that God has done for us. As humans, we want to know it all. We don’t and must surrender to the One who does.
Book review: Forty Days of Decrease by Alicia Britt Chole
“Approaching a fresh endeavor can be both energizing and stressful. New is inspiring. New is enlightening. And new is, oddly enough, a reminder of what is now old. When fresh beginnings are stalked by the memories of stale endings, a sickly substance can steal our strength: regret. Regret empties anticipation, flattens dreams, and suffocates hope, because regret is a form of self-punishment. Whereas hindsight helps us learn from the past, regret beats us up with the past.”
Is God a Therapist or Vending Machine?
God is Not a Human Construct There are some ideas out there in popular Christian books, music, sermons, and more that God is a Divine therapist and a cosmic vending machine. What does that mean? Divine Therapist? The Bible promises peace to the one whose mind is set...
Imitating Mary’s Obedience to Her Calling
God called Mary to an Important Task Artistic Impression of Jesus' Mother It’s possible to read the story of Jesus’ virginal conception in Luke 1 and Matthew 1 and see Mary as a passive participant, but that would be wrong. If we look closely at what Gabriel has to...
Welcome Back
Greetings, Everyone! I've been gone for a while. I retired last May and began packing to move and looking for a place to retire to. I've been working for over eighteen months translating, Luke, Acts, and Romans for the New Tyndale Version. That has kept me busy almost...
Like the One who called you is holy…
No, I don’t mean that! I’m not going to preach against binging on Netflix or wearing yoga paints everywhere, or Internet addiction. That’s the opposite of what I want to do in this longish post. In 1 Peter 1:15, Peter calls his audience to be holy in all their way of...
Living Out God’s Poetry
We are God's poetry In Ephesians 2:10, Paul says that We are God’s workmanship Created in Christ Jesus for good works Which God prepared beforehand In order that we may walk in them The word for workmanship is poiema, from which we get the word poet. Good poetry is...
Doing God’s Will?
What’s God’s Will for your life? We all want to know God’s will for our lives. Figuring that out, if there is something specific that God wants me to do, is often difficult. Scripture tells us some specific things that we can do and know that we are doing God’s will....
What Do We Delight in?
What Do We Delight in? “Delight yourself in the LORD” (Psalm 37:4a) There are many enjoyable things in life; lots of things to delight in. For me, these include holding my wife, teaching about Scripture, taking a long bike ride on good roads, having coffee with...
