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...

What Makes Something Sacred?

1st in the series, “Religion, Rites & Rituals” First Baptist Church, Frederick, Maryland, July 17, 2016 “I’m interested in God, but not religion.” It’s a phrase we hear over and over again, but what does it even mean? Is religion simply something we created? A tool for controlling and dividing? Some...

Tamar and Being Caught in Adultery

There is a story in the Bible about a woman who is caught having illicit sexual relations outside of marriage. The charge is undeniable, the guilt unquestionable, and the penalty indisputable: death. And thus she is condemned. But in an odd and surprising twist, her accuser and the man with whom the...

Jesus Ain’t No Snake-on-a-Stick

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. In Numbers 21 God has just helped the Israelites defeat a Canaanite king. They are heading to the Promised Land, and they start complaining about the food. “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water,...

“You Won’t Die”: Was the Serpent Right?

In Genesis 3, the Man and the Woman eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, even though they had been warned that “in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (Genesis 2:17). That’s a pretty specific warning. It specifies 1) what they are and aren’t supposed to do; 2) what will happen if they...

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