No Other Gods
“You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exo. 20:3) John Calvin once said, “The human heart is a factory of idols. Every one of us is, from his mother’s womb, an expert in inventing idols.” We can turn even good things, like a child or a spouse or a job, into something that has […]
Salvation in Jesus
When most of us in church talk about salvation, our discussion begins with a test…a test of morality. We ask certain questions of ourselves and sooner or later, even the most upright citizen answers incorrectly. Miss just one question and we fail. The penalty for failure is, of course, hell. Our ticket has been punched. […]
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 […]
Slaves to Sin
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do (Romans 7:14–15). The Bible ties together the ideas of sin and slavery throughout its pages […]
The Three “I’s”
“Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.” (Psalm 100:3, NIV) In school they taught us the importance of the three R’s: reading, riting, and ‘rithmatic (maybe they should spend more time on the one S!). In our […]
God-Shaped Holes
““My people have committed a compound sin: they’ve walked out on me, the fountain of fresh flowing waters, and then dug cisterns— cisterns that leak, cisterns that are no better than sieves. “ (Jeremiah 2:13, The Message) Blaise Pascal famously said that we humans were created with a God-shaped hole in our souls. This longing/desire […]
