Creation Care: A Biblical Mandate

At each stage of creation in Genesis 1, God likes what he has created. He declares that the world is good. When it’s all done, he declares that the creation is very good. And then something goes very wrong. First the humans decide that they don’t want to be what God created them to be—humans. They want to...

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...

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