“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.” -Henry David Thoreau When I was a boy one of the Bible stories that I was the most fascinated with was also one that I found the most disturbing. It was the story of King David bringing the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem. The Ark had been captured by enemies of Israel, the Philistines years earlier. Because the Ark was known as the located presence of... Read more

One of the most surprising parts of the Bible for people who are reading it for the first time, is how often the words Glory and Suffering show up in the same breath. Obviously, it’s common sense that those two words don’t belong together. Glory involves power and resources that we use to avoid suffering, suffering involves weakness and death and misery. We know that there’s no glory in suffering, and so we do everything we can to avoid suffering. And more... Read more

But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. -St. Paul I remember when I stopped believing in God. It was right around the time I started to figure God out. I had been going to seminary for quite a while, and ignoring all my professors’ warnings I began to become more and more prideful about what I knew, and started to look down on all those other stupid people who didn’t quite “get it.” Christianity became for me a system, the Bible became a textbook,... Read more

One of the conversations I have at least once a week, is with a minister thinking about leaving their church to go to a new church. I always refer them to Wade Hodges ebooks. Wade is the preaching minster at the Preston Road Church of Christ and for this blog series he adapted the following from his ebook: Before You Go: A Few Sneaky-Good Questions Every Minister Should Answer Before Moving to a New Church. Last week he talked about when the right... Read more

If you missed yesterday’s post then please go back and read this first. It’s a brief history of racism in the Bible, and how Jesus’ ministry was consistently addressing it and dismantling it. But that’s not the end of the story. After Jesus is killed and raised from the dead, there’s another Jewish leader. A guy named Paul, who was basically operating as a Jewish terrorist in his day, is hell bent on stopping this budding new Christian movement, that is,... Read more

One of the questions I get asked often is by young ministers who are thinking of leaving their current church for greener pastures. I always refer them to Wade Hodges ebooks. Wade is the preaching minster at the Preston Road Church of Christ and for this blog series he adapted the following from his ebook When To Leave: How To Know It’s Time To Move On (Before You Stay Way Too Long)  Meet Wade: How I Stayed Way Too Long (Twice) Once upon... Read more