I have a bad cold, thanks to my offspring, and am suffering the indignity of a plugged ear. What? What’s that you say? You’re sorry for me? Oh, you don’t care? It doesn’t matter, I Can’t Hear You! I have to turn all the way around and put my good ear up against whoever is shouting at me, in order to try to understand what sort of greeting theirs might be. Anyway, in all the hoopla of coming home and... Read more
This Sunday’s sermon was all about the resurrection. It had to be, since we’ve finally made it out of I Corinthians 14 and into 15. I spent the first portion of the sermon time thinking, “Really God, I believe in the resurrection, so, um, can we move on?” Just like, if thinking for a really long time about the place of tongues in the church doesn’t interest you at all, you might find chapter 14 tedious, or if wondering about... Read more
One Looks like seven quick takes is seven years old this month. The Internet must be growing up, by now, into something sophisticated and mature. Certainly quick takes has aided in that hope and dream. Can’t remember the first time I linked up but I have loved the form, over the years–the concentrated effort to say seven whole things before 8:30 in the morning, each thought considered and completed. It is the antidote to never being able to speak out... Read more
Home safely, by the grace and mercy of God, and about to leap up and drive all over town collecting the children. Hope they’ll be happy to see me, and not cry for several minutes like the dog did when we walked in the door. He kept on howling and bawling so that I had to hold him even while trying to remove my contacts. When I finally collapsed my harried brow onto my pillow, he pressed himself against me... Read more
Today we will turn our steps back towards home, preparing our hearts and minds to receive back our children into the bosom of familial comfort (sorry–two solid days of church has rather formalized my sarcasm). Also, Matt is officially a whole year older. What a great gift it will be for him to gather back his multitudinous offspring and sacrificially care for them on this great day. Well, or tomorrow because we get in really late. Matt is so old... Read more
We’ve had this spot of air travel so as to be able to be under some excellent bible teaching, sitting slumped in a church pew as the word of God is deftly exposited. I say slumped because I’m awfully tired and worn out by the vagaries of life and travel and trying to keep all the balls whizzing through the air at the same time, at least the important ones. But as I carry on my juggling act of keeping... Read more
Happen to have engaged in a spot of air travel, which I don’t often have the chance to enjoy, so thought I would channel my inner pilgrim/TCK/Mark Steyn and, in no particular order, catalogue all my recurring and basically unmoved observations about the modern circumstance of Flight, because really, I notice all these things every time, and they never cease to delight and amuse me. The charm of flying, for me, is that it distills and clarifies the intermediate space... Read more
[Still haven’t sorted out my ability to put in links. Need to generally go through and figure out all the technology in my life. But part two was yesterday and part one the day before that. The backwards arrow is probably right above these words, if you want to see where I left off.] It seems to me, from my backwater vantage point, that the culture as a whole has made a thoughtless trade resulting in a basic, if catastrophic,... Read more
I’m embroiled once more in that portion of Exodus–the fashioning of the Ark and the Tent and the Clothes. The yards of purple and gold and fine twined linen, the pomegranates, the bells, the heavy weight of jewels. Every time I pass through this section of the scripture I realize how little I know God. So much of my, and I think other people’s, conception of God is packaged up neatly by What Is Practical, by What Works. Surely God... Read more
Yesterday I said a couple of things about the task of the preacher and failed to properly link Matt’s sermon on I Corinthians 14:34 where Paul most insensitively commands all women everywhere to be silent in church. I commend the sermon to you, and encourage all Christians everywhere to try to work out the difficulties in this text. What are we to do about Paul commanding women to keep their heads covered when they prophesy in chapter 11, and then,... Read more
Preventing Grace
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