My Spiritual Journey– Heading towards Bethlehem
Mental Winter
MENTAL WINTER Mental winter Very cold Thoughts are frozen Seeming old. Can’t get started Can’t break free Breaking ice Is breaking me. No warm feelings No warm thoughts Always fishing Nothing caught. Stuck in neutral Stuck in place Hardly moving From this space. Inspiration Dead and gone No new notions Woebegone When’s this ending Did I go wrong Always singing The same old song? I’m left wondering What’s the point? Why’s my brain… Read more
An Unconventional God– Part Twenty Five (Das Ende)
BEN: In some ways it does not matter whether we call the dramatic work of God in the OT the work of the spirit or living presence of Yahweh, or the work of what later believers called the Holy Spirit. Either way, it was God who empowered the miracles, inspired the prophets etc. And I think it is important that we NOT read back into the OT later Christian theology about the Holy Spirit, because that does a disservice to… Read more
An Unconventional God– Part Twenty Four
BEN: Have you read Clayton Croy’s excellent book on Mark 16.8 not being the original ending of Mark’s Gospel, the end being mutilated, but that perhaps we can parse it out from Mt. 28, omitting the guards at the tomb story, and referring to an appearance to the women in Jerusalem and one to various disciples in Galilee. This is based on the observation that Matthew follows Mark quite closely, including 95% of his Gospel with a 52% verbatim rate…. Read more
An Unconventional God— Part Twenty Three
BEN: I like your saying on p. 166 about the all things the Advocate will guide the disciples into. The ‘all things’ is not a blank check about anything in the future in general. And the focus will be on explaining the climax of the Christ event in the immediate future— Jesus’ death and res. The Holy Spirit becomes the holy reminder of what Jesus has said and done. We are talking about inspired remembrance not a bunch of new… Read more
An Unconventional God– Part Twenty Two
BEN: A fellow John Wesley Fellow, Beth Sheppard did her dissertation on the forensic rhetoric of the Fourth Gospel, including the term parakletos which she shows in this case to refer to a legal advocate or counselor who is preoccupied with the truth, and nothing but the truth about Jesus and salvation. I doubt that the usage in the Farewell discourses varies from these meanings, and it certainly comports with the Synoptic idea that when the disciples are brought on… Read more
The Mystery of Christmas
13 years ago in 2006 I was involved in the CBS production of ‘The Mystery of Christmas’ filmed in the lands of the Bible— Here’s the original trailer…..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7XjRlBX1S8 Not long before this Peter Gomes’ bestseller, ‘The Good Book’ came out with a chapter entitled ‘The Bible and Mystery’ He opens his discussion with the following remark—‘Mystery is not an argument for the existence of God; mystery is an experience of the existence of God.’ (p. 327). Now Gomes is not… Read more
Suffering and the Christian
Reflection on 2 Cor. 12.7-10 where Paul asks God two remove his thorn in the flesh, and God says no, my power is made perfect in your weakness, my grace is sufficient for you, Peter Gomes in the ‘Good Book’ says this… “We learn first that the thorn is sent to Paul in the form of a messenger from Satan. The source of his trouble, whatever it is, is not God. The moral of the affliction, however is that… Read more
