Authority issues are hard to avoid and easy to confuse. According to the Gospels, when Jesus taught his disciples to pray “Give us … forgive us … lead us… deliver us…” he gave us verbs in the imperative mood. When he prayed from his cross, “Father forgive them they don’t know what they are doing”, […]
We call where we are staying— our place. Paul likened us to Bedouin-backpackers. He made a distinction between us and our address (2Cor 5:1). Another way this gets tricky is when we try to work out what Paul meant when he said, that when he did wrong—in his place, it wasn’t really him, but sin “living in […]
“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” Here Paul seems to give us a loose quote of prophets who saw that God has unimaginable plans for humanity (1Cor 2:9) (Isa 64:3-4). Yet even Isaiah and others could not conceive of […]
Childlikeness renews wonder that childishness reasons away. But if that’s the case, it may not be readily apparent in the the Apostle Paul’s often quoted, “When I was a child, I spoke, thought, and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.” What is clear is that, whatever Paul meant […]
Sometimes understatement says the most. The other day, I was reading an author who caught my attention with just a few words. He said, “If God is anything like a father, and… if I am anything like his child… then…” Since then, I’ve found no end to ways of adding to that one thought. May the most important if/then […]
