Miscalculating God
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.” (Job 38:4) Business blogger Anton Roundy asks his readers to consider miscalculations. If you’re going somewhere and you’re off course by just one degree, after one foot, you’ll miss your target by 0.2 inches. No big deal, right? After 100 yards, […]
Spiritual Snowflakes
“The Lord asked, “Is it right for you to be angry?” (Jonah 4:4) Ever get mad at God? There are several issues going on in Jonah’s life at this moment (we’ll discuss them Sunday), but one of the issues is entitlement: the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment. Jonah had […]
Where Are You?
“Can you fathom the depths of God or discover the limits of the Almighty?” (Job 11:7, HCSB) If you had ten minutes in heaven with God, what would you ask him? About his nature? About his creation? About history? I’m sure you’d ask him something, because it is our nature to be curious. We get […]
Fire from Heaven?
“When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” (Luke 9:54) I’ve got to be honest with you: This is sometimes my default response when things don’t go my way. In this passage, a village refused Jesus entrance. They rejected […]
Streams of Living Water
“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” (John 7:38) I believe it was Shakespeare who made famous the phrase “too much of a good thing.” In ancient history, Greek explorers discovered a great lake in the Arabah wilderness. They named it Thalassa Thanatos, or […]
Pages of Presence
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) The other day a self-declared humanist/atheist friend tagged me in a Facebook post about the “errors” in the Bible. Rather than battle him with memes and GIFs, I offered to buy him coffee and discuss the […]
Family of Light
“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.” (Ephesians 5:8) We live in a dark, dark world…and it is getting darker. What does it mean, then, to live as children of light? Does it mean we use our social media pulpits to condemn sin and […]
DIY Religion
“Then Micah said to him, “Live with me and be my father and priest, and I’ll give you ten shekels of silver a year, your clothes and your food.”” (Judges 17:10) This week in our nice little stroll through the book of Judges, we’ll meet Micah. He’s like a lot of American Christians. He loves […]
God’s Crowbar
“(His parents did not know that this [Samson marrying a Philistine] was from the Lord, who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines; for at that time they were ruling over Israel.)” (Judges 14:4) Samson, Samson, Samson, smh. This guy is a real piece of work. Still, God used him. The author of Judges […]
Finish the Race
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.” (1 Corinthians 9:24) Super Bowl XXVII and the Dallas Cowboy are beating the Buffalo Bills as the game winds down. Buffalo fumbles the ball on the Dallas […]
God’s Team
“…But may they who love you be like the sun when it rises in its strength.” Then the land had peace forty years. (Judges 5:31).” That’s the “happily ever after” ending of our message this week from Judges 4-5. But don’t let that little happy ending fool you. It was a hard-fought peace. I always […]
10 Shekels and a Shirt
“In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.“ (Judges 17:6, NIV) It is a refrain that is repeated over and over in the book of Judges. As we study it together in church, several of you are reading ahead and have mentioned how frustrating it is…things keep spiraling downward and […]
