Being Christian Without Losing Your Mind
So many are talking about me: “Even God won’t help him!” — Psalm 3:2 This was what an old Hebrew songwriter heard when he was suffering. His enemies taunted him with it. It was as if they were saying that God was an absentee landlord: provided everything, but nowhere to be found when something broke. …
Elijah and Moses appeared and were talking with Jesus. Peter reacted to all of this by saying to Jesus, “Rabbi, it’s good that we’re here. Let’s make three shrines…” — Mark 9:4-5a Good old Peter. He gets right to the point. The Transfiguration, where Jesus radiates while talking to Elijah and Moses, took place atop a …
When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, reason like a child, think like a child. But now that I have become a man, I’ve put an end to childish things. — 1 Corinthians 13:11 The Christian faith is not a smooth trajectory upward. Rather, it’s an upward trajectory characterized by drops and …
He enacts justice for orphans and widows, and he loves immigrants, giving them food and clothing. That means you must also love immigrants because you were immigrants in Egypt. — Deuteronomy 10:18-18 I grew up believing that “divinely inspired” meant that God controlled the writing hand of the biblical writer. He could be snacking on …
Lord, I have so many enemies! So many are standing against me. So many are talking about me. — Psalm 3:1-2a Having enemies is a recurring theme throughout the psalms. And when we read it, we often understand “enemies” to be tacky, wicked people who’ve mistreated you in some fashion. Or, at least that’s the …
Glory to God, who is able to do far beyond all that we could ask or imagine by his power at work within us. — Ephesians 3:20 John Lennon’s beautiful song by this title dreams of a world where we will all live together “as one.” Important to him was imagining “no religion” because, rightly, he saw …
The goal of instruction is love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. — 1 Timothy 1:5 What is a “conscience”? It’s a biblical term that runs throughout Scripture, especially used in the “Pastoral Letters” (1st and 2nd Timothy, Titus), which contain instructions for church leaders. It refers to the inner …
God saw everything he had made: it was supremely good. — Genesis 1:31 I commend to you this meditation from pastor/writer Brian McLaren: “Beauty, Memory, Grief.” He describes a wetlands area that he frequented growing up. It was like an Eden to him, with the assorted wildlife and vegetation that thrived there. He also talked …
During that day’s cool evening breeze, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden; and the man and his wife hid themselves from the Lord God in the middle of the garden’s trees. — Genesis 3:8 I grew up thinking that sin is what we do. And that could, at least historically, contain a lot …
“Therefore, I say to you, don’t worry about your life, what you’ll eat or what you’ll drink, or about your body, what you’ll wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothes?” — Matthew 6:25 I ran across this quote from a video of a 96 year old man talking to a young adult, …