Apprentice 2 Jesus

Reading

  • Interesting reading

    I have been hitting some articles and essays over the past few weeks and wanted to pass along the fun, the challenging, and the insane. First, some Mark Twain quotes: Read more

  • Building character

    There are some practices we can install into our lives that build deep character. It’s beyond the quick dopamine hits we get from short videos or quick hits on social media. This is the deeper work we need to rebuild in our lives. A few years ago, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist, Angela Duckworth, got… Read more

  • Top Ten Books of My Reading Year

    Some quick notes from ten books I enjoyed or were impacted by in 2024. This doesn’t have any particular order. Read more

  • The bass note of our lives

    I am working my way through Leif Enger’s newest book, I Cheerfully Refuse. Enger writes beautifully and captures a slow pace I enjoy at times when reading novels. (I am not good at reading fiction so unless there is a race against a bomb going off or the main character is about to be the… Read more

  • The unshakable kingdom

    We fear the apocalypse. We fear “decline” as Americans. We fear “losing our culture.” In general, we fear endings. Somehow we want to live in the dream of always upward in a world that always has the same result: all empires fade. Read more

  • The city of God

    I have been working my way slowly through Christopher Watkins book, Biblical Critical Theory. It is a brilliant work and one I can’t simply “dive into.” It’s been an incredibly slow walk… and I’m not even halfway through. Read more

  • Jesus and the Powers, Part 8

    The final chapters in the book, Jesus and the Powers, are a struggle for me. Chapter 7 is the struggle. Chapter 8 is the summary. The fact of the matter, for Wright and Bird, is that government of some form is necessary. I can’t disagree. For all the shouting people do about corrupt government (on… Read more

  • Jesus and the Powers, Part 7

    There are governments to resist. We wrestle with the need to submit to a point and then how to resist when there are violations of conscience and crossing allegiances, but then there is a need to understand there are things to resist. The how is tricky, and it takes the wisdom and guidance of the… Read more

  • Jesus and the Power, Part 5

    What will you do with your life? The world needs kingdom-minded Christians now more than ever. This is from p. 89 of Jesus and the Powers, and it is a great question I have carried with me for over 30 years. Where does the Spirit want to have me active in the work of the… Read more

  • Jesus and the Powers, Part 4

    In leading a discussion on this book, the first week gave me this observation for our group: they wanted detailed definitions and detailed actions. Here is the “problem” with the book (and, also, with how Jesus leads): no finite details are given. Beautifully, when it comes to “actions,” they readily admit this: Read more