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I’m constantly amazed at how much we resist grace. Not in receiving grace, though there is some of that. There are some people whose guilt is so great that they just can’t handle grace, seemingly thinking that it would feel much better if they could somehow earn forgiveness. That would make them worthy of...
A couple of years ago I was making a guitar with zebrawood for the back and sides. Zebrawood is an African hardwood with bold tan and brown stripes, and it was my first time working with it. The guitar was a cutaway, which is tricky because it requires the wood to be bent into some pretty severe curves. My...
Whenever I write or speak about grace, forgiveness, and the dangers of judgmentalism I invariably get some pushback from some who think that I’m going easy on sin. Some of this is from people who seem to genuinely feel that grace itself is too easy on sin. I think this reflects a fundamental...
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...
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...
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...
Grace is Hard Work
Forgetting Faith in Formulas
Love, Grace, and Reproof
Creation Care: A Biblical Mandate
Real (Not Ideal) Church
Church Being
Welcome!
I am a lifelong student of the Bible, and have been a pastor for over twenty-five years. My desire through this blog is to help people see things in the intersection of Scripture and real life that they might have missed. The careless handling of the Bible is causing a lot of problems in our churches and our culture--and is literally turning people away from the church, and, sometimes, God. I hope to treat Scripture with the respect it deserves, and, even if you don't agree with what I say, give you some insight.
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