“Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.” Acts 10:34-35, NIV As human beings, we can come to understand our relationship to God in terms of familiar bonds. We can … Continue reading –>
We humans are a funny bunch. We love to talk about fairness and justice and everybody getting what they deserve – just as long as we get to decide just what that means. Jonah is a prime example. God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh and tell the folks there that if they don’t make some … Continue reading –>
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to … Continue reading –>
Do you remember the Charlie Brown Halloween special? Linus, Lucy’s little brother, spends the entire program going on about the Great Pumpkin. He tells everybody he meets about how the Great Pumpkin will appear. He even convinces Charlie Brown’s little sister Sally to wait in the pumpkin patch with him, while all the other kids … Continue reading –>
Several years ago, when we were all much younger, I was taking my older son, KC to his first cello lesson with a new teacher. I think he was in the third grade, and my younger son, Justin, was in second grade. If this hadn’t been the first lesson with this teacher, I would have … Continue reading –>
Do you remember that old circus trick? The performer would have about five sticks standing up straight and he’d put a plate on the end of each of the sticks and start it spinning so that the centrifugal force would hold the plate up and on the end of the stick. As long as the … Continue reading –>
The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?” Genesis 3:1 NLT Twenty-nine years later, there are still some things I remember from my Composition … Continue reading –>
In the late 1860s in the United States, shortly after the Civil War, which abolished slavery, a former slave owner is loading sacks of vegetables onto his wagon near the town square. Across the street he sees his former slave and yells out to him, “Get over here and load these bags onto my wagon … Continue reading –>
Dominos is a game played around the world, but I have found lately that it is not played the same way around the world. I was raised in Oklahoma, where my grandmother taught me how to play, by playing off the ends as well as the sides, so that you are going in four different … Continue reading –>
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.” – Galileo Science: What is science? What does it take to be a … Continue reading –>
Once upon a time, the world happened, possibly with the help of some Higher Being. Finally, men and women came along. They began to worship the Higher Being and to tell and to write down stories about It (the Higher Being). In some of the stories, the Higher Being was called God. One of the … Continue reading –>
I love to think of those first days in Heaven. I try to imagine the wonder of seeing my Bible heroes visiting with people of every age. It will be so exciting to have the opportunity to go back over our earthly experiences with our guardian angels. That’s all going to be amazing and, I … Continue reading –>
“ ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying; and there shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away’ ” ( Revelation 21:4, NKJV). As I read the key verse in this week’s SS lesson, I pause and ask … Continue reading –>
There is a song I remember singing a hundred years ago, when I was a teenager. It went something like this, “I owed a debt I could not pay. He paid a debt He did not owe.” Beautiful song, but not exactly theologically correct if you want to get technical. And no, I do not … Continue reading –>
“I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.” 1 Corinthians 5:9-10, NIV The problem of how the church should relate to … Continue reading –>