Some of today’s lesson text deals with animal sacrifices to God, a practice we (hopefully) no longer do.
Naming Our Demons
August 22, 2023 by
In the ancient world, people believed that knowing a person’s name gave them a degree of power over that person. You might use your knowledge of someone’s name to give the person a blessing or place a curse on him or her.
Crossroads: Our Burdens
July 3, 2023 by
When I was a kid, we went to Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home. It was also a farm, and you could carry water, rake, hoe, and do other chores to see a bit of what it was like for the slaves who lived on the farm.
Formations 04.30.2023: When Our Work Is Done
April 23, 2023 by
This week’s lesson shows us the church from a different angle. Revelation 7 gives us a vision of the “church triumphant,” worshiping God in heaven once their earthly work is done.
Meditations on Luke: Forcing Our Way In
October 19, 2022 by
It would be hard to count the gallons of ink that have been spilled over the years trying to interpret verse 16. For one thing, the wording in the original Greek is terse and difficult to translate into an English equivalent. Beyond that, the phrase deals in imagery that is awkward and feels out of place.
Formations 05.22.2022: Our Adoption
May 15, 2022 by
A solid foundation of trust and security is essential to healthy child development. Research indicates that the first three years of life are the most fertile for building this foundation.
Formations 05.15.2022: Doing Our Part
May 8, 2022 by
Nearly 200 years ago, Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard famously suggested that the institutional church has misunderstood what happens during worship. On the analogy of the theater, he says, we assume that the clergy on the platform are the performers.
Formations 01.16.2022: Our God Reigns!
January 9, 2022 by
Just a couple of days into the new year, a friend posted this on social media: “I have no faith left in humans to do anything but serve themselves.”
Meditations on Luke: Our Given Identities
December 7, 2021 by
When my wife was pregnant with each of our daughters, we felt a degree of stress in coming up with names for them. For one thing, we didn’t want to offend anyone in our families of origin. Use names from only one side of the family and you may alienate folks on the other.
Connections 10.10.2021: Sympathizing with Our Weaknesses
October 3, 2021 by
When I was in middle school, I came across Psalm 127:2 for the first time. Amongst other things, the verse says that God “grants sleep to those he loves” (NIV). I didn’t take that well.
Formations 05.30.2021: Using Our Gifts
May 23, 2021 by
Every single person—created by God in the image of God—is exceptionally unique. There is no other creature who is uniquely me or uniquely you.
Formations 05.02.2021: Our Demon-Haunted World
April 25, 2021 by
We modern Americans have outgrown belief in demons. To borrow a phrase from physicist Carl Sagan, we no longer inhabit a “demon-haunted world.” We no longer have room in our worldviews for invisible forces of chaos.
Connections 11.15.2020: Using Our Gifts
November 8, 2020 by
Jesus’ parable about the talents inspires us to use our gifts from God to serve the Christian cause and help others. And that’s important.
Praying During a Pandemic: Out of Our Hands
May 13, 2020 by
My hands are clean. I promise that I didn’t do this. I prayed for a slower pace, for the closing down of my private warehouse that manufactures speed.
Connections 10.27.2019: Too Good for Our Own Good
October 20, 2019 by
If you are of my generation, you probably know the song “Spirit in the Sky.” You may know it even if you aren’t of my generation. It’s been used in lots of movies, television shows, and commercials.
Connections 09.08.2019: Grace Greater than our Self-Evaluation
September 1, 2019 by
God goes to a lot of trouble to make sure we know about God’s grace and mercy. In this week’s lesson text, God sends the prophet Jeremiah to watch a potter at work.
Faith Postures: Noticing Our (God-repaired) Selves
February 6, 2019 by
Sometimes I mistakenly read the Bible like a Jane Austen book. Life seems so simple in Pride and Prejudice or in Sense and Sensibility; the good people are good, the bad people are bad, and everyone knows who is who.
Connections 12.16.2018: The Lord Is in Our Midst!
December 9, 2018 by
How’s your Advent going? By this point, about a week before Christmas, many of us usually feel weary. We haven’t had time to wait for Christ because we’ve been so busy with the trappings of this season—decorating, planning meals, attending parties, cleaning house for guests, preparing for family gatherings, and more.
Formations 12.02.2018: Remembering Our Roots
November 25, 2018 by
For many Chamorus, the indigenous people of Guam, genealogical research has proven to be a powerful tool for connecting to their roots. As Chloe Babauta writes, historically there hasn’t been a lot of information on genealogy on Guam. People would know they were related, but would not know how.
Formations 08.05.2018: Our Daily Bread
July 29, 2018 by
Studs Terkel, in the early seventies, interviewed a number of workers ranging from farmworkers to baseball players, proofreaders to gravediggers, actors to hair stylists. From these laborers, Terkel observed a twofold purpose in human labor. “It is,” he says, “about a search… for daily meaning as well as daily bread.”
Connections 01.07.2018: God’s Words, Our Words
December 31, 2017 by
The first words God speaks in the first words of the Bible are creative ones: “Let there be light.” “And,” the narrator reports, “there was light.” God speaks. Something happens. And so it goes through all the days of creation.