Paul takes much of the first chapter of Romans to articulate the trouble: it’s a big trouble and deeply troubling. It has caused all of us all kinds of trouble. …
This last Sunday of the year and next Sunday, we will be hearing some hard things: hard to hear, perhaps hard to accept. The starting point is this: why is…
One of the big Jewish holy days is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement: the day above all others for seeking God’s forgiveness for the failure to live as God…
Around seventy years ago, a psychiatrist named Murray Bowen began to articulate a theory of how emotions operate in family systems. Bowen noted, as our own experience shows, that when…
Though Luke is a Gentile, a Christian, and one of Paul’s key helpers, and, as such, probably not very concerned with the details of Jewish law, he nonetheless is careful…
“Of what terrible things is the human heart the source! From self flow impurity, dishonesty, wickedness, knavery, deceit, lust, haughtiness, blasphemy, senselessness, and everything that is evil. These things are…
No one gets to Jesus in just the same way. Am I going to tell Jesus, “Lord, that’s not how I’d do it”? If people bring someone to Jesus in…
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Those are funeral words, graveside words, goodbye words. I’ve baptized many, marking them with water. Today, I mark you with ashes. Nothing in Scripture…
Jesus came to call people to follow, to believe and follow: only believe, just follow. If they weren’t sure whether they believed, Jesus told them to follow and see. “Trust…
It must have been around 1980 or so. I was sitting in a theater watching a movie and eating Jujyfruits—turns out they’re still making those. I noticed an ad on…