A few years back, when I was working on a small book on prayer, I found my way to the Eastern Orthodox standard prayer book. I began to use it with the goal of using it every day for a month, which I did. Two things struck me about the Orthodox prayer book: its wonderful Trinitarian language and, second, its obsession with confession of sins. Some may think “obsession” is too strong. Still … At the core of the Eastern... Read more
Nightline and ABC news are doing a series on the Ten Commandments, one of which is the Third Commandment from Exodus 20:7, which reads: You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold guiltless anyone who takes his name in vain. The severity of the language that YHWH will not hold the person guiltless who takes the Name in vain deserves explanation. I grew up in American fundamentalism and this commandment was a biggie... Read more
This is getting fun: RJS posts about Dorothy Sayers book and PW, another regular writer here at Jesus Creed, responds … or I should say that RJS’s post generated a reflection by PW. As the spouse of a pastor, I have often been in discussion with my pastor/husband about this very subject. And, we have recently discussed the fact that he allows me into his head quite often. In fact, there are times when I will frankly explain to him: when... Read more
This little guy got his name, well, … you read it, but we’d like to hear where you got your nickname… WLS-Ch. 7 morning news anchor Judy Hsu gave birth this morning to a baby boy as she and her husband rushed to the hospital on the inbound Eisenhower Expressway, the station reported. “We were heading down the Eisenhower,” Hsu said during the station’s 11 a.m. news broadcast. “At a pretty fast speed.” “I said, ‘Do you need to pull over?’... Read more
Luke ties off the end of chp 12 with subtle words, but words that indicate that God is in charge and God’s mission will move forward — even if it means death of God’s special servants, like James, and corrupt leaders who opposed God’s mission. Here are Luke’s words: Acts 12:24 But the word of God continued to increase and spread. 25 When Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission, they returned from Jerusalem, taking with them John, also called... Read more
Here is the question for today – Do you read books by or about women? Intentionally? This is the third and last in a series of posts centered around a short volume Are Women Human? containing two essays by Dorothy Sayers. Today I am going to give a couple of quotes from Sayers’ essays, make an observation, a suggestion, and open a conversation. From the essay “The Human-Not-Quite-Human” (page numbers from the 1981 printing of “Are Women Human?”) The first... Read more
John Franke, in his new and exciting book Manifold Witness: The Plurality of Truth (Living Theology) is mapping the plural nature of truth in the Christian faith. His concern in chp 4 is how the diversity of the past and the present impact the church today — the local church — your local church. He begins by sketching the idea that God’s intent is to form a community and the community of today only partially realizes that eschatological community. These... Read more
Those who preach books of the Bible eventually find their way to 1 John; those who preach a lectionary always find their way to 1 John, and there are some fantastic commentaries on the Epistles of John, beginning with: Surely the most complete, if not also at times speculative, commentary is that of Raymond E. Brown, The Epistles of John (The Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries) . A new and useful commentary, with a sensitivity to early Christian identity is Judith... Read more
What holds Acts 12 together is as much Herod as it is the mission of God — in fact, the chp is about God’s mission in spite of Herod Agrippa I. Herod’s a creep, a brutal despot who puts people to death for gospeling and then puts people to death even when God liberates people — he is blind to what God is doing, as many despots are. (Perhaps I should say “all” despots are blind to the mission of... Read more
Today’s post promises to be “profitic.” 🙂 We are exploring the concept of profit. What is profit? What is its role in business and the economy? Unlike most economies of the past, most of us earn income by engaging in a narrow range of work that contributes to the production of goods and services. We use our income in exchange for goods and services others provide. Exchange is central to market economies. But let’s look closely at the nature exchange. ... Read more
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