Father’s Eyes
I was asked two questions last week: How do we come to know God, see life as the Father sees it? And how is Jesus the only way to the Father? Great questions, and related—two parts of the same question.
Between Tribes
Jesus says that if we believe in him, we will do the works he did and greater works than those. Most commentators say that those works are Jesus’ miracles, and the greater works we can do are not in quality
Seeing the Wind
Imagine living in a world where you didn’t understand the workings of nature…where thunder, lightning, earthquakes, eclipses were literally the voice, hands, and face of God? Where impossibly dark nights exploded with stars and the only entertainment were the chants,
A Portable Heaven
What kills our ability to trust our lives to the action of unseen spirit? Our fears, of course. We fear death because of the ultimate unknown it represents: whether anything we imagine ourselves to be continues. We fear God’s judgment
That is the Question
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about death lately. Things seem to come in cycles, and this apparently is that cycle. In the past week, I was asked about death from an eighteen-year-old girl and a sixty-eight year old
The Politics of Jesus
If Jesus were here today, would he be a Republican or a Democrat? Really? What I first thought had to be a rhetorical or facetious question was being asked in all sincerity. And the quick answer: that he would be
Christmas Truce
Christmas has become so familiar and ritualized that it may help to look for renewed meaning in the unlikeliest of circumstances, to travel from the traditional imagery of December in year one of the Common Era to a distant Christmas
Preacher Teacher
The purpose of a preacher is to persuade. The purpose of a teacher is to make students ready to engage. I’m a teacher. I’m also a pastor, so many people call what I do on Sunday mornings preaching. But it’s not—not any more
What God Wants
I’ve often heard pastors and televangelists talking about what God wants. What God wants us to do or feel or say or [mostly] give. I’ve always thought it fairly presumptuous to claim to know what God wants from our perch
Zero Sum and Abundance
In our modern western economy, our understanding of life itself revolves around zero sum, legality, and scarcity. On the other hand in God’s economy, Jesus is painting a very different picture of his and our Father constantly throughout the Bible. When
