There has been a lot of emphasis in recent decades on the importance of building one’s legacy, both in society at large and in the church. Just this week someone told me the sermon at their church last Sunday was about building their legacy. To be sure, there…
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Most Christians are familiar with the scene when Jesus is baptized and the Spirit descends “like a dove” and rests upon Him. What is being communicated by the presence of this dove in the scene? Why is the Spirit appearing as a dove? And when Jesus was baptized,…
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In a consumerist age, a believer’s call to Christian sexuality is a call to resistance. This concept is not new with me; in a book on family ethics, Kiernan Scott is quoted as saying that the Christian practice of marriage can be “a protest against a meaningless, self-centered,…
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In an overview of the book of Genesis, many great themes are commonly mentioned. One that is frequently missing is reconciliation. Upon a closer inspection, reconciliation is indeed a major theme of the book. Two stories in Genesis, stories which bookend the account of humanity outside the Garden…
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In part one, I showed how the scriptures clearly teach that there is one human race, not several. This undermines the modern concept notion of races, making it impossible for one race to be superior to another. In part two we explored the source of the modern concept…
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“We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent.… But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort,…
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When we raise the question of what the Bible says about race someone might ask, “Wasn’t the Church supportive of slavery and didn’t Christians use the Bible to justify both slavery and racism?” Yes and No. On the one hand, there were churches in the slave holding south…
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Text: Genesis 1:26-28 In response to the release of video footage of Planned Parenthood executives negotiating the sale of organs from terminated babies, the pro-death movement has started a campaign, #ShoutYourAbortion. Fortunately, I don’t think they will have a high percentage turnout—given that many women have abortions under…
Read MoreReading: 1 Kings 16:34 In Ahab’s time, Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. He laid its foundations at the cost of his firstborn son Abiram, and he set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, in accordance with the word of the LORD spoken by…
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