We all pay tribute and follow some individual, group, ideal, or law. It could be a ruler or a boss, a parent, teacher, a religious leader, or a celebrity. It could be a nation or political party. It could even be that we follow ourselves, obeying our narcissistic thirst and being a law to ourselves to a fault. I was reminded of the point on allegiances yesterday as I reflected on the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley’s remarks... Read more

Have you ever been part of a politically and culturally divided church? How do you navigate such divisions where people are literally and figuratively across the aisle from one another in the congregation and their thinking? Do you avoid the issues or seek to engage them? If you engage the issues, how do you go about it? In the video at the close of this blog post, we at New Wine, New Wineskins address these matters. The aim is to... Read more

We can vote politicians in and out of office, but we cannot elect or remove God from the throne. Nor does God fret over opinion polls. The Almighty, the Holy One, is incomparable. No matter what party we align ourselves with on Election Day and beyond, whether the one symbolized by the donkey, the one symbolized by the elephant, or the “elephonkey” in the middle, God sees all of us as grasshoppers, as Isaiah 40 relates. It is important to... Read more

Aristotle claimed that courage is the means between cowardice and temerity or excessive confidence. Great leaders model such courage, and this quality was on display in President Abraham Lincoln’s life. This is my fourth and final post in a series running up to the U.S. Presidential election on the qualities of leadership that President Lincoln modeled. The basis for my reflections results from my reading of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s bestselling Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, winner of... Read more

I am doing a series of blog posts related to leadership as we approach the U.S. Presidential election. This is my third blog post on the qualities of leadership that President Lincoln modeled (refer here and here for the first two posts), as discussed in Doris Kearns Goodwin’s bestselling Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, winner of the Lincoln Prize. One of the qualities that Goodwin highlights was Lincoln’s empathy, which is constitutive of humaneness. There are so... Read more

It’s easy for many people to pass over meals as unimportant and uneventful in our fast food society. One wonders how COVID impacts our sense of communal meals. For some, there is perhaps a sense of wistfulness and for others wariness of communal gatherings involving food. Perhaps both wistfulness and wariness are in play. Certainly, COVID has impacted the way churches engage in Communion from wistfulness to wariness. It’s hard taking Communion over Zoom for those who are really about... Read more

I am doing a series of blog posts related to leadership as we approach the U.S. Presidential election. This is my second blog post on the qualities of leadership that President Lincoln modeled, as discussed in Doris Kearns Goodwin’s bestselling Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, winner of the Lincoln Prize. One of the qualities that Goodwin highlights was Lincoln’s ability to adapt to the various challenges, heartaches, and afflictions he endured. Goodwin writes, Mental health, contemporary psychiatrists... Read more

Politicians take God’s name in vain when they employ it for personal benefit. The same holds true for the rest of us. The third commandment makes clear that God does not take divine name-dropping lightly: “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain” (Exodus 20:7; ESV). The bitter and tragic irony is that even as Moses was up on the mountain to receive the tablets... Read more

As we approach the U.S. Presidential election, I am reflecting on qualities of leadership that President Lincoln modeled. The basis for my reflections result from my reading of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s bestselling Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, winner of the Lincoln Prize. One of the qualities that Goodwin highlights is Lincoln’s magnanimity of spirit. She notes how one of Lincoln’s chief political rivals who became one of his best friends and allies as Lincoln’s Secretary of... Read more

Why did Moses ask God to provide his name at the burning bush scene (See Exodus 3), and what did/does God’s personal name mean? We will address each question in turn, beginning with “Why?” This is the second post in a three-part series on how we approach naming in contemporary culture and God’s name in view of Scripture. Refer here for the first post in this series titled “Don’t Name Drop for Fifteen Minutes of Fame.” Someone’s personal name in... Read more