Draconian. That seems to be one of the new words du jour as governmental stay-at-home orders only get stricter. Michigan, my state, has even made national news for having some of the strictest restrictions in the nation. Here, all gatherings, public and private, are banned until May 1. Certain stores are even prohibited from selling certain items. The laws are […]
Be very careful, then, how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Ephesians 5:15-16 Most of us have a considerable amount of extra time during the lockdowns that are active in much of the world. A few of us introverts (like me) who can be creative in figuring […]
The United States of America has a very polarized climate nowadays. From both sides of the political aisle, we don’t have a lot in common. On nearly every issue imaginable, conservatives and liberals can find something to disagree on. Through all the battles, though, there’s one value that everyone agrees is among the highest of human goods, and most of […]
Of all the people Jesus encountered during his life on earth, the people he always reserved his harshest criticism for was the hypocrites. Pretty much everyone who’s ever opened a New Testament knows how Jesus felt about hypocrites. Even most people who don’t know the Bible know how Jesus felt about hypocrites. And the biggest hypocrites of all were the […]
In the middle of the 19th century, my great-great-great-grandfather Phil came to the United States from the country of Ireland. Today, Ireland is a well-off European nation. But if you’re familiar with Irish history, you may know that the middle of the 19th century was one of the worst times Ireland has ever known. The Great Famine (or the Potato […]
Last Sunday, I preached in church about repentance and what it really means. It’s a big expansion on my first blog post. In the absence of posting much over the break, I figured I’d post the manuscript from my sermon. My hope is that we who claim the name of Christ can learn not just to change the way we […]
Last month around this time was the International Day for the Persecuted Church. One of my first posts was on that very topic. My pastor preached in church that morning using a book called The Insanity of God. It was full of stories about people who, under the threat of persecution and death, did absolutely insane things, completely disregarding their […]
Turn the other cheek. It’s one of the most well-known sayings of Jesus. Just about everyone has heard it; just about everyone has used it. But do we really understand what it means? It definitely shocked Jesus’ hearers. They lived in a war-weary land that was plagued by violence. In the last century alone, they’d suffered under the rule of […]
Sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell. Those are the traditional five senses with which God has endowed us so that we can perceive the realities of the physical world. (It’s now thought that there are considerably more than five; we can include temperature, pressure, balance, proprioception, pain, hunger/thirst, oxygenation, and as many as ten more.) These senses are essential to optimal […]
We’ve all experienced it as children: We find ourselves in a situation where we’re tempted to do something we know we shouldn’t do, but we really want to do it. We justified and reasoned and convinced ourselves that it was okay to do it anyway, but we stopped short for one reason: We knew that if we got caught, we’d […]
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