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The Common English Bible and “Human One”
I have the Common English Bible with Apocrypha on my Nook and use it for reading when I don’t have my NIV with me. It’s a good way for me to test the readability of the text. I am also slipping the CEB from time to time in our public readings at our worship services. The renderings are refreshing and…
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Meaningless! Meaningless!
I am journeying through the Old Testament in my morning reading and currently find myself in Ecclesiastes. Finding myself in this book in a current climate of my home state arguing stupidly over a budget crisis and the nation bickering over extreme ideologies to the right and left, this book takes on new meaning. If you see the poor oppressed…
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Beward the Naked Man Who Ends Up in a Church Testimony
It is rare that “testimony time” in church goes weird. It can be a lot of other things, but “weird” isn’t usually a descriptor. I started telling the story in yesterday’s post of my top two strange testimonies. My all-time top one just stayed weird. Number two, which happened this past weekend, ended up fine. My all-time top testimony in…
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Testimonies in Church
We have a small church and people like to hear what God is doing in the lives of other people. When I hear something good in a smaller conversation, I’ll usually try to give an opportunity for that testimony to be told in church. Such was the case yesterday. One of our members had a breakthrough in getting a job…
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Dallas Willard Paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer
Based on what Dallas taught in The Divine Conspiracy on the Lord’s Prayer, he wrote this paraphrase: Dear Father always near us, may your name be treasured and loved, may your rule be completed in us — may your will be done here on earth in just the way it is done in heaven. Give us today the things we…
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Lord, I’m a Wimp
Dallas Willard’s book The Divine Conspiracy walks us through the Sermon on the Mount. I have been posting from time to time this summer on his book as I work my way through it again. I want to understand more fully the cost of discipleship. The section he has on the Lord’s Prayer is helpful. This last part is great.…
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Of All Things Google… and other technology nightmares
After feeling left out of the earliest adopter stage of Google Plus, I am now IN. Of course, I have no idea what that means. I’m still waiting on that Google Wave thing to take off, too. One question posed by Brian at Near Emmuas was if Google really beefed up Blogger, who would go to it, or go back?…
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I am Becoming More Liberal
That just has to be the explanation. I am becoming more liberal! Why else would I NOT like the NIV 1984 but rave about the TNIV and the NIV 2011? What was I thinking? (It certainly couldn’t have been that the TNIV and the NIV 2011 were actually better translations! Certainly not!) The Southern Baptists have called for a “ban”…
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The Lord’s Prayer — “Forgive us our trespasses”
Dallas Willard’s thoughts on this particular part of the prayer get right to the point: Today even many Christian read and say “forgive us our trespasses” as “give me a break.” In the typically late-twentieth century manner, this saves the ego and its egotism. “I am not a sinner, I just need a break!” But no, I need more than…
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The Essence of Christianity — Orthodox Style
The interview in Christianity Today with Bishop Kallistos Ware is an interesting read. Here is the bishop’s take (in a Q&A format) on the essence of Christianity: If I were to meet you on a train and ask you, “What is the center of the Christian message?,” how would you succinctly put that? I would answer, “I believe in a…
