Good and Truth
Why did Jesus have to die? He gave a clear answer, but it's one that raises questions of its own. Read more
Why did Jesus have to die? He gave a clear answer, but it's one that raises questions of its own. Read more
Science is awesome. But even people who should know better have a tendency to conflate the methods of science with current findings of science, and as a result they place far more faith than is warranted in today's scientific theories. Read more
This past Sunday, I preached on the Second Coming of the Lord – asking “what is the Second Coming, and what does it mean to me?” Give it a listen. This sermon was a tough one – the first draft was double the length it needed to be, so there was a fair amount of painful cutting. I always find it particularly hard to cut Scripture passages; maybe posting these sections here will help assuage the pain a little. The first... Read more
On Sunday I preached about life going on after death – both for the person who has died, and for the people left behind (click here for sermon audio). In the first draft of my sermon I considered building on comments about a passage from 2 Samuel that our head pastor Malcolm had made in his sermon last week; I ended up cutting it because it took too long to frame and the sermon was long already. The passage recounts what King David said when his... Read more
A month or so ago I was trying to put Samuel (one and a half) to bed and he was being a complete goofball: swaying from side to side, dancing in circles, and cycling through all his animal sounds in rapid succession. As I lay there on his bed, my primary thought was, “Ugh – do I have time to go get my phone to film this? It’s too dark anyway. Shoot! This would be PERFECT to share on Facebook.”... Read more
Anne and I have identified a fundamental difference in the way we look at the world – a difference that ends up being behind a significant percentage of our disagreements and arguments. In simplest terms, the difference is this: I tend to look at the world as it is, and Anne tends to look at the world as it ought to be. This isn’t to claim I have any special insight into the way the world works. It’s also not to say... Read more
I’m looking forward to reading Rod Dreher’s upcoming book How Dante Can Save Your Life, about Dreher’s life-changing experience reading Dante’s Divine Comedy. Inspired partly by Dreher’s blogging and partly by conversations I had last year with a congregant back in western Canada, I finally dove into the Divine Comedy a few weeks ago, and I’ve made my way with Dante down through the Inferno and on through to the base of Mount Purgatory. I may pause here at the foot of the mountain for... Read more
On his “Glory to God for All Things” blog last week, Orthodox priest Fr. Stephen Freeman posted on the Orthodox perspective on Jesus’ atonement in contrast to the theory of penal substitution (penal substitution is the theory that Jesus died instead of you to take on the punishment due to you from God for your sins). Fr. Stephen argues that even the passages that seem to directly imply “penal substitution” atonement, or at least some form of “satisfaction theory” (i.e. Jesus died as a substitution in place... Read more
This past Sunday, I preached on doubt. More specifically, I preached on ways to accept and walk with doubt, rather than trying to shove it away. Near the end of the sermon I spoke about the need to walk in trust (rather than trying to force oneself to believe). I was going to use a scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to illustrate the point, but I ended up replacing it with a more everyday example. I’m sure the scene has been overused... Read more
This week I preached on the final chapter of the Book of Amos. From the first draft to the final draft I cut the sermon in half, so there was plenty to choose from for this week’s “Cut from the Sermon” entry, but I was saddest to cut a passage from Arcana Coelestia that I love (mostly because it convicts me every time I read it). In the original sermon I spent more time focusing on the primary sin that Amos... Read more
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