Can the authority God gives be misused? The question may seem, at best, like a no-brainer. How else can we explain corruption of power or the evil things people do in the name of God? But I’m increasingly convinced that it’s important to carefully weigh the difference between God-given authority, strength, power, and freedom. Here […]
A friend gave me a smile the other day by reminding me that a dog says, You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, you love me, You must be God. But, A cat says: You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, you love me, I must be God. Later googled the […]
Today, Bethany is a little Arab neighborhood that lies behind an Israeli security wall, on the eastern slope of Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives. On a recent visit, I had a chance to meet this man who was selling a refreshing pomegranate drink. As it turns out, he lives within a hundred miles from my house […]
In the last couple of posts we’ve been thinking together about the relationship between what Paul says about Christ “being made wisdom for us” (1Cor 1:30) and the description of wisdom James gave us when he wrote, The wisdom that comes from above first of all pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield (deferential), full of […]
We’ve been thinking together about how Jesus is not only wisdom personified (1Cor 1:30), but also our best reason to pursue more of what it means to live wisely in him rather than less (James 3:13-17). While trying to flesh out the thought that James is actually telling us how to find and recognize the […]
Solomon put a high value on wisdom. According to him nothing that we desire can compare with it (Prov 3:13-15). But then came Paul. He wrote that God made Christ to be wisdom for us (1Cor 1:30). Since wisdom is the ability to use knowledge to reach a desired goal, Paul seems to be saying […]
Have you ever noticed that when our Lord teaches us to pray, he doesn’t begin with our need of forgiveness? Isn’t it our inclination to try to resolve our sense of unworthiness as we begin our prayers? Why do you think Jesus would encourage us to begin our prayers thinking about: Desiring the honor of […]
Most things seem to begin and end with a desire for something that will either enslave, liberate, degrade, or ennoble. Maybe that’s why our Teacher leads us into a garden called desire and shows us how to cultivate a longing for: The honor of our Father’s name The will of the Father to be done […]
In the crossfire of desire against desire, we live with the opposing longings of spirit and flesh. (Gal 5:17). Sometimes the choice between the two seems clear. Sometimes I get so confused that I find myself needing to go back to a reference point for what is real (rather than what I’m imagining). One of […]
How much of life can be explained by what we long for? How much of who we are is defined by our desire? What if we spent time, together, thinking about the story that the Bible and life, as we know it, tells about what we hunger and thirst for? What wonderful and wretched things […]
