Categories Matthew

Is the Bible Authoritative?

By definition, Evangelical believers believe in the authority of Scripture, but what does that mean in practice? How does it change one’s life? More specifically, to the Evangelical believer, how does it change your life? Our statement of faith at Gulf Coast Community Church includes this: “We believe…

Read More
Categories Uncategorized

How are You Being Formed?

“Nothing less than life in the steps of Christ is adequate to the human soul or the needs of our world. Any other offer fails to do justice to the drama of human redemption, deprives the hearer of life’s greatest opportunity, and abandons this present life to the…

Read More
Categories Psalms

God’s Easter Laugh: A Meditation on Psalm 2

Reading: Psalm 2:4-8 I imagine that if creation can groan (Rom. 8:22), it can also laugh. Moltmann might just be right when he pictures the universe laughing with “the universal Easter laugh.”[1] The laughter of Easter originated with God! Psalm 2:4-8 speaks of God’s Easter laugh. My previous…

Read More
Categories Uncategorized

Love is Patient and Perseveres

Reading:  1 Corinthians 13:4-7 The context of the “love chapter,” as 1 Corinthians 13 is commonly called, is not a wedding but a letter written to a church in which strife and division were a thing (1 Cor. 1:10-12). This section of the letter focuses on how the…

Read More
Categories Uncategorized

God, Trains, and a Toddler

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. (Deut. 29:29) When an atheist asserts that there is no god, Stanley Hauerwas wisely asks which god…

Read More
Categories Uncategorized

A Politician for All Seasons

It just happened that my reading of a collection of essays by Miroslav Volf titled, Against the Tide, landed this morning, the day after the 2021 Presidential Inauguration, on his reflection “A Politician for All Seasons.” It was written after the 2000 presidential election, during the first season…

Read More
Categories John

The Politics of Jesus

Reading:  John 6 The opening scene of John 6, the “feeding of the 5,000,” results in political unrest from which Jesus flees. Might this chapter have a message for believers today in our own season of political unrest? The people want to make Jesus king by force! Eating…

Read More
Categories Uncategorized

Jesus’ Foolish Strategy for Mission

“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” (Matt. 10:16)  To be honest, I don’t think this is a good strategy. If asked to apply this strategy, I think most of us would question the wisdom…

Read More
Categories Uncategorized

Voting in Babylon

A few years ago, in one weekend, I had two paradoxical experiences. The first, on Saturday morning as I stood in line for breakfast following a prayer meeting for pastors and church leaders. The two men behind me were discussing the political issues of the day. One of…

Read More
Categories Uncategorized

Stop Babbling About the Pandemic

Reading: Genesis 11:1-9 Babel, also translated Babylon, shows up in Genesis and continues through the course of the Scripture all the way until the end (Rev. 18). It was an actual empire of the ancient world, but eventually became symbolic of the empires of this world that offer…

Read More
Categories Uncategorized

Sola Scriptura?

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” (Inigo Montoya, Princess Bride) Sola Scriptura is one of the so-called Five Solas of the Reformation. The words themselves mean “by Scripture alone.” But the way it is sometimes applied reminds me…

Read More
Categories Genesis

Christian Sexuality as Resistance

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,…

Read More