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Christianity is not an “add on” in my life
For what we need more than goods is God; more than a living is life. Even though we build with our own hands a new world, if we find not God, our lives still are voids darkened by the lurking shadows of our own selfishness and echoing to the whimperings of children who won’t admit they are lost. — Clarence…
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We want the transactional Jesus
One of my favorite gospel passages is John 6. Over the years, the depth of Jesus’s words sinks a little more into my heart. This is a place Jesus gets to the heart of what it means to follow him. This is one of those places where Jesus works intentionally to shrink the crowd. He has chased almost all of…
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Three key verses to identify my life
The more I read through the Bible, the more I want to strip down all the periphery we have made Christianity and come to its essentials. I have loved Paul and his writing more and more over the decades of walking with Christ. There is a vision he truly saw beyond his time that I have found compelling. There have…
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The deepest connection
My reading is currently in Galatians. The reading in Galatians 2 again highlights what I’ve been drawn to in my overall Scripture reading: what IS and what is NOT included in “being a follower of Christ.”
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Take me to the alley
My wife and I were talking with some friends recently and music came up. Jazz was a prominent topic and our friends started throwing out names. I began looking them up and playing them on Spotify. One that came up in the context of religion and spiritually and jazz was Gregory Porter. This song was named and we listened to…
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Who was the neighbor
As I make my way through the end of the year in the daily readings, I am struck over and over by what IS in the Gospel and by what is NOT. The parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 strikes that chord yet again. What is it to have eternal life? It is to love God and love…
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Get out of the way
As I go through 1 Timothy 3 again, there are a couple of quick notes: I am working on making a case for women in ministry that show Paul is TRUE to calling for women IN ministry. It’s something I’ve always held to, but I want to use “THE” passage men often use to withhold ministry from women to demonstrate…
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REPARATIONS!
Just say the word and our white conservative evangelical minds explode. So, here is an entire podcast episode to avoid. The money quote: “Fox News is the biggest purveyor of critical theory.”
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The image bearers and a broken creation
We are reading through Lisa Sharon Harper’s excellent book The Very Good Gospel in a small group at our church for Lent. It is a powerful book focusing on the broken relationships we see all around and the longing to restore shalom in the world. One example: When we deprive people of the ability to exercise dominion (agency) and then…
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Living in the gospel wrecks your daily schedule
Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mark 10:46-47) The way of…
Category: Gospel
