Blaming Foreigners is not New. Or True.

It was the foreigners, they said. They’re to blame. At the time of Jesus the Jews had been blaming foreigners for their own idolatry, and they had been doing it for over four hundred years. So long that it was just accepted wisdom. It’s a familiar narrative, derived for the most part from the Chronicler’s...

Getting Past Perfect

A couple of years ago I surprised Pam by taking her to one of those do-it-yourself painting studios. This particular session was “Paint Your Pet” I had emailed them a couple of pictures of our beagle Kobi, which they sketched in pencil on a canvas. The instructors showed us how to mix the acrylic paints to...

Good and Evil and the Untrained Eye

In Matthew 13 Jesus tells a parable about a man with a wheat field. During the night, some guy with a really, really bad attitude snuck in and sowed some weeds among the wheat. Which is interesting because weeds are the kind of things that don’t need sowing. They just appear. But these aren’t ordinary...

Our Treatment of Outsiders Can Put Us in Some Strange Company

“Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt,” the Israelites were enjoined. “Therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.” (Deuteronomy 5:15) Thus Moses instructed the people of Israel. Remember. Remember what it was like to be a slave. Remember when every day was the...

If Jesus Gives Eternal Life But You Refuse to Live It, Have You Really Received It?

What do you mean when you say you are a Christian? In a Christian-majority country like ours, people mean different things when they claim the Christian label. At the lowest, most basic level, you claim being a Christian because you aren’t Muslim, Jewish or Hindu. But it also means that you aren’t an...

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