President Obama’s speech yesterday at the University of Notre Dame, together with the decision of Chief Justice David Souter to retire from the Supreme Court, will heat up the abortion issue this week. Followers of Christ will once again find ourselves in the middle of a debate that will test our wisdom. It will test […]
One of our goals at RBC (the publishers of Our Daily Bread) is to attach authority to no more or no less than the necessary implications of the Bible. I don’t find that easy to do. Seems so hard to avoid reading more into the Bible than out of it (by treating possible implications as […]
In my last post I said that I find it interesting that Job shows up in the time of Abraham, apparently outside of Israel, with such Jesus-like social conscience. Find a similar description of an ideal woman that comes from a time when men were expected to rule their homes, and when daughters and wives […]
The lengthy discussion that followed my weekend post on “The Bible and Marital Submission” shows what a difficult problem this is for those of us who share a deep and conservative commitment to the Bible as the Word of God. I posted on the subject again because I’ve seen how often churchmen claim and misuse […]
Since our last discussion on men and women I’ve spent a lot more time thinking, studying, talking to co-workers, and trying to make progress with a problem that I believe creates confusion among ourselves and misunderstanding in those who are not yet followers of Christ. I realize that by coming back to the subject of […]
Whether the issue is stem cell research, health care, or the economy, my hunch is that more than a few of us are getting our own talking points by listening to those who make a living attacking rather than listening to, or trying to find common ground with, their political opponents. Is it possible that […]
As a follow-up to our discussion about interpreting and applying the Bible to a changing world, let’s look at the way the church has re-focused its view of the Bible and slavery. Looking back, we now see the inhumane and horrendous nature of the abduction-and-racially-based slave trade supported by many church members for a significant […]
Economic crisis is the setting of the story of Ruth in the Old Testament. A famine in Israel, during the difficult, dark days of the Judges, prompted a Jewish family to leave their home in Bethlehem and move to the land of Moab. Ironically, Bethlehem means “house of bread”. These were extreme times. To make […]
In the studio today, our Discover the Word conversations focused on the laws of Moses that required land owners to leave some of their harvest for the poor and the stranger (Lev 19:9-10; Deut 24:19-22). Those laws help to explain why Ruth, a Moabite woman was allowed to gather stalks of barley left by harvesters […]
On a recent 40th anniversary trip to the West Coast my wife, Di, and I saw one of the most amazing sights. Just north of San Simeon on the Pacific Coast we caught these pictures of an elephant seal birthing and breeding colony. Couldn’t believe the sights and sounds. All ages of males fighting in […]
