What does Scripture look like on the streets? Here are reflections from regular folks in our church, sharing how each Sunday’s text relates to your everyday life.
Becoming a Worker
Work gets a bad reputation in most modern people’s minds. They think the surest road to happiness, security and fulfillment is a winning lottery ticket. If they have any familiarity with the Bible they might recall Genesis 3:7–19. “...cursed is the ground because of...
Becoming a Receiver
Joseph initially used his gift of dreams and dream interpretation with his brothers and, whether he meant to or not, encouraged them to hate him more. Something that occurred to me while reading this beginning part of Joseph's story is that receiving a spiritual gift...
All in on Legacy
For some reason, one of the immediate thoughts that comes to mind when I hear the word legacy is an idealized future of fruitfulness and life that is somehow untouched by sin. The problem with this is that legacies are received by and lived out by imperfect people....
All in with Dependence
Then (the angel of the Lord) said, “Do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your only son from me.” Genesis 22:12 In Genesis 22, God instructs Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Yes, to...
All in as an Alien
In Deuteronomy 26:5, Moses referred to Abraham as “a wandering Aramean” which is a pretty good description of what it meant to be a nomadic alien in the Near East 2,000 years before Christ. The Merriam-Webster dictionary gives two definitions for “alien”: 1) not a...
All in Despite Fear
Lately I’ve been thinking about two distinct ways to react to fear. It’s human nature to react the first way. It’s God’s grace that allows us to react the second way. Abraham’s behavior in Gerar (Genesis 20) demonstrates the first way. Fear was the center of his...
All in on Intercession
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you. 1 Peter 5:6-7 There is much we can learn from this passage from Abraham’s approach to God in prayer, or...
All in While Waiting
“Wait!” is not a word most of us enjoy hearing. Particularly in the 21st Century, we have gotten used to “immediately”. We are very immature as a species and that appears to have been the norm for millennia. Like toddlers, we want what we want and we want it now....
All in on God’s Promises
Here is an excerpt from Wendell Berry’s poem “A Vision”: a long time after we are dead the lives our lives prepare will live here, their houses strongly placed upon the valley sides, fields and gardens rich in the windows. The labor of well-informed preparation...
Ascend With Unity
For a long time I’ve liked the music and imagery of verse two of Psalm 133 in the ESV translation: It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes! I was so in love with that precious...