verse4today: Let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God (II Cor 7:1).
Posted on 2010-09-03 via Twitter
I came across The Marks of God's Children by a sixteen-century Dutch Calvinist pastor named Jean Taffin, who wrote during a season of persecution upon Protestant Christians in that part of the world now known as the Netherlands. This book, which reads like a pastor's manual, offers encouragement to believers wrestling with the tough questions of the faith: Why suffering? Where is God in all this? Why hasn't God answered my prayers? How can I be assured that … Read More …
From time to time, I come across writings that prompt fear about preaching, like Jeremiah's words to the prophets kicking around Jerusalem: "I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message; I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied" (Jeremiah 23:21). Then, in words which suggest things haven't changed much over the last 2,500 years, the Lord says through Jeremiah, "I have heard what the preachers say who speak in my name. They say … Read More …
A friend recently pointed me to The Holy Longing: The Search For A Christian Spirituality by Ronald Rolheiser, a contemporary Roman Catholic author who writes for those followers of Jesus who struggle with following Jesus. In this book, Rolheiser, among other things, writes about the current struggle with spirituality, as well as some of its essentials. In the process, he pens a chapter entitled "A Spirituality of Eccesiology." In this chapter, he speaks to my situation as the pastor of … Read More …
Can't seem to get past what seems to be a contradiction between the desire of many pastors to count the number of worshipers each Sunday (coupled with the requirement by many denominational agencies to report attendance) and the story of King David counting his army. In I Chronicles 20:1 we read, "Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. So David said to Joab. the commander of the tropps, 'Go and count … Read More …
H2O: At some time in your academic training you learned that H2O may appear in three different forms: water, ice, or vapor. You also learned that it can only appear in one form at a time; that H2O cannot simultaneously be both ice and water. You also learned that the three aspects of H2O share essential attributes, like hydrogen and oxygen, but also hold distinguishable characteristics that allow us to identify one form of H2O as water and another as ice. THE CHURCH: In the New … Read More …