Of course, neither our President nor any nation’s leader is the same as the Davidic king envisioned here, but the Davidic king can be seen as a template of kingship — with due adjustments for our world, and with all respect to our Canadians who have some of their official statements embedded in this Psalm. Kris and I are on Cape Cod with family, almost within earshot and eyeshot of the famous tea party that gave plenty of colonialists a... Read more

Declaration of Independence When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be... Read more

Whether you like Greg Boyd’s proposal for reading what the Bible says about God in passages of violence or not, you are almost certainly using the same method of Bible reading. There are, in the end, only two basic methods of Bible reading: Read the Bible with the historical critical method. Read the Bible with the theological interpretation of Scripture method. There are combinations of the two — most do combine the two somehow — but one of the two... Read more

Source: Two years ago, Officer Jody Thompson was pulling into the parking lot at the Poteau Police Department in Oklahoma to drop off his partner when he overheard a dispatch about a case of physical child abuse. Thompson wasn’t on duty at the time, but he responded to the call and offered assistance. Before he joined the department 16 years ago, Thompson was an investigator for the district attorney’s office, where he handled dozens of abuse cases. “I’ve investigated child... Read more

Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. BCP Read more

From Science Daily: In a new article published in the journal Trends in Neurosciences, University of Arizona researchers suggest that the link between exercise and the brain is a product of our evolutionary history and our past as hunter-gatherers. UA anthropologist David Raichlen and UA psychologist Gene Alexander, who together run a research program on exercise and the brain, propose an “adaptive capacity model” for understanding, from an evolutionary neuroscience perspective, how physical activity impacts brain structure and function. Their... Read more

The Pastor as Shepherd, by John Frye With deep pastoral insight Dennis R. Edwards simplifies the answer to the hurting cries of people who walk into our churches. The answer is “God cares” (203). We are reviewing Dr. Edwards’ The Story of God Bible Commentary: 1 Peter. As a pastor, I was eager to get to Dennis’s comments on 1 Peter 5:1-11. I was not disappointed. I wrote a book, Jesus the Pastor: Leading Others in the Character and Power... Read more

We’ve now come to the end of Psalm 119, the taw section. Like much of the psalm, there is an interchange between pleading with God for deliverance and publicly confessing the psalmist’s commitment to God. In this section, that commitment shows up as praise. In 119:169-171 we read of the plea: May my cry come before you, O Lord; give me understanding according to your word. May my supplication come before you; deliver me according to your promise. This very... Read more