Categories
Writings

Both of Me in There at the Same Time

07-Mar-21 Psalm 27 Third Sunday in Lent This psalm is very nearly divided right down the middle. It is a psalm that expresses deep confidence in God and in God’s ways, but it is also a psalm that admits, quite boldly, that not all is well all the time. Sometimes things go horribly wrong. David […]

Categories
Gospels

Our Lady of the Window

28-Feb-21 John 4:1-4 Second Sunday in Lent There had to have been a committee. That’s just the way Baptists work. There must have been lots of samples to look over, and there must have been some difficult choices to make. And maybe some strong opinions one way or another, and maybe even an argument or […]

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Gospels

A Fumbling Pharisee

21-Feb-21 John 3:1-17 One of the characteristic flaws of the human species is our inability to communicate with one another. The art of communication is something that very few of us have mastered. Too often we think that we have heard something, and we respond to it without actually having listened to it. This happens […]

Categories
Torah

The Fruit of Disobedience

14-Feb-21 Genesis 3:1-7 “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made.” And thus begins the saddest tale in all of human history, because this crafty serpent is the reason that you and I find it difficult to be faithful and obedient to God. This serpent, a […]

Categories
Epistles

A Lamp Shining in a Dark Place

07-Feb-21 II Peter 1:16-21 “Religion, and the transformed attitudes and behaviors that accompany it, has been irrelevant in our culture for decades.” I wonder if that sounds familiar to anybody? Is somebody thinking to themselves right now, “I read that someplace not too long ago, now where did I see it?” Well, if it rings […]

Categories
Gospels

Light has Dawned

31-Jan-21 Matthew 4:12-17 Matthew assumes that his readers know all about why John the Baptist had been arrested and put in prison, and so he doesn’t tell us that story until chapter fourteen. Unfortunately for John, in addition to being a baptizer, he was also a hellfire and damnation prophet. And it turns out that […]

Categories
Gospels

Here’s Mud in Your Eye

17-Jan-21 John 9:1-41 I am slowly acclimating myself to the world of the computer. My wife tells me that it is relatively safe to ask the computer a question. Until just a few weeks ago, I used to ask her to look up stuff for me. It wasn’t that long ago that I asked her […]

Categories
Epistles

God is Faithful

03-Jan-21 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 God is faithful. God is always faithful. People, on the other hand, are not always faithful. Sometimes people are never faithful. People are, well, human. People sometimes have ideas and opinions that overrule what God has to say. And they will hold to those opinions and ideas as if God did […]

Categories
Epistles

Setting the Past Behind Us

27-Dec-20 Galatians 4:1-11 It is no secret that the Apostle Paul, and the followers of Jesus in the churches of the province of Galatia did not get along. Oh, I suppose that they got along, but it was rather poorly, that they did so. At the beginning of chapter three, the apostle calls his his […]

Categories
Gospels

Christmas Eve 2020

“And she gave birth to her first born son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the Inn.” Those are some of the most familiar words in all of the Scriptures. They are simple, straight forward words, and the absolutely remarkable […]