Real (Not Ideal) Church

Thirty-three years ago, Pam and I were newly engaged and getting ready for our June wedding when the warnings started coming in. Warnings about marriage. The warnings were disguised as wisdom from those who had successfully navigated the matrimonial waters for many, many years, but they were warnings...

Church Being

When is the church “the church”? That may sound like a silly, nonsensical question, but work with me here. There are some who like to talk about “The Church” by which they mean the some total of any and all Christians anywhere in the world. I get the concept, and it’s a...

The End of Creation

To believe in God is to believe that life is going somewhere. It is to believe that the universe is part of a grand narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. And by “end” I don’t mean “the point after which there is nothing,” as in the end of a movie or end of a book. Rather, I mean “end” as in purpose,...

Savoring Scripture

A few years ago author Eugene Peterson (The Message translation, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction) gave an interview in which he discussed how he learned to read Scripture contemplatively. “In high school I was very much involved in poetry.  You cannot read a poem quickly.  There’s too...

Inside Repentance

If you think about it, Jesus could be horribly inconsistent in the way that he treated people. On the one hand, he could treat people with such grace and kindness that it almost seemed as if he was cavalier about their sin, enjoying dinner fellowship with cheating, traitorous tax collectors and letting...

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