living the Gospel in an everyday world
“Matter matters to God. It’s what the sacraments teach: bread and wine and water and oil and hands matter to God.” That’s one of the better quotes in this beautiful video on the fact that matter and flesh matter to God, and why that should matter to us. Other great lines include “God cares about…
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It’s Boxing Day. Does that mean we get to punch each other out if we didn’t get the Christmas gift we’d hoped to receive? Or is it the day for putting away the boxes that held the Christmas gifts? Or is it another shopping day? Or? The day after Christmas, December 26th, is a public…
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Waiting. We’re not very good at that anymore. Maybe we never were. But in this instant-everything modern age, we get frustrated if we have to wait for any length of time. Just the other day, I complained to my wife about a package I’d ordered from Amazon that hadn’t arrived yet. After all, it had…
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Repent. For many of us, that’s a rather nasty little word. It conjures images of fire-and-brimstone preachers holding their thick, black Bibles over their heads with one hand while pointing the other menacingly at the shell-shocked crowd and yelling: Repent, ye depraved sinners bound for the depths of hell. Repent before the fires of heaven…
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After the first verse of Genesis 1, the Spirit disappears. He hovered over the face of the waters and then vanished. Or did he? In the last post, I argued that even though the Bible doesn’t specifically mention the Spirit in the rest of Genesis 1-2, he’s there. And missing the Spirit in those chapters means…
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When God created the heavens and the earth, the Spirit of God was “hovering over the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:2). So, right at the very beginning of the story, we find the Spirit. Even without knowing anything else about the Spirit, then, you can figure out that it’s probably rather important. After all,…
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Once we have been properly oriented to God with “Our Father in heaven,” we move into the first half of the prayer. The focus here is on God. If I could revert back to my frequent illustration of hiking; it is easy when you start your hike to ask God for things for yourself. Did…
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Every couple has those issues that you just don’t see eye to eye on. Most are relatively minor, those times when you’re happy to let the differences lie. Others, though, are too important. You can’t just agree to disagree. Too much is at stake. This is one of those. And it comes up every year.…
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What does a church need from her pastor(s)? I propose every church needs pastoral leadership that exhibits the three-fold office of Christ: prophet, priest, and king. I gave an overview of this in my last post. In this post, let’s take a deeper look at the prophetic role. What does a prophet do? To put…
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I’m a big fan of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. But one thing always confused me. Why did he call the last book The Return of the King? If you’ve read the book or seen the movie, you know that the title refers to the fact that the kingdom of Gondor has been without…
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