New Year! Suggested Priorities, Maybe a Resolution or Two.
Here are links and short quotes from 3 articles mostly written for former New Year’s Days –...
Read MoreHere are links and short quotes from 3 articles mostly written for former New Year’s Days –...
Read MoreThree quotes here from 3 articles on this site. Click through. 1. The Work of Christmas Begins:...
Read MoreThe basic meaning of a Christ-following faith turns on this fact – God is among us by the...
Read More8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the...
Read MoreJesus is Different. The Christ is NOT an arbitrary, or unaccountable, or irrational chooser...
Read MoreThis short list is a result of a number of hours I spent in the New Testament’s “Acts of...
Read MoreCHRIST HAS COME. SO WHAT DO WE HAVE TO DO? 1. STAND ALONE “Peter … asked, ‘Lord, what about...
Read MoreJesus was a highly respected teacher of morality and of the spiritual life. So, logically...
Read MoreThere is absolutely nothing in what Jesus himself...
Read MoreHe said, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ but do not do what I say?” Maybe...
Read MoreThese sayings may have a Biblical sound to them. But they are not Biblical. The Judge of the World...
Read MoreThese sayings may have a Biblical sound to them. But they are not Biblical. Setting aside...
Read MoreIt might be a good project for each of us – to try to summarize the Sermon on the Mount...
Read MoreThere was some excitement among certain Republican Christians when Dobson said Trump had become a...
Read MoreSamaritans in Jesus’ day were both religiously and racially despised. The phrase...
Read MoreI. THE PROBLEM: Jesus says to turn the other cheek. [See a summary of this post.] Is it ever...
Read MoreWHY? Why should we focus any more on Jesus Christ than on Abraham or Moses or Isaiah? Or on the...
Read MoreThe Lamb that was slain is worthy to receive power. The path of Christ, the political commitment to – truth, – servanthood, – proclamation, and – suffering love, is despite appearances, the channel of the...
Read MoreJesus did NOT tell his oppressed hearers not to resist evil. That would have been absurd. His entire ministry is utterly at odds with such a preposterous idea. – Walter Wink I. THE PROBLEM: Jesus said to “turn the...
Read MoreWords of Jesus, who is called “Christ.” It is from his title that we derive the word “Christian” (from Matthew 25:34-46) “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are...
Read MoreJohn Howard Yoder vigorously believes that Jesus’ teaching was very practical and very this-worldly. The spiritual, metaphysical, theological, religious meaning of his life and teaching – in Jesus’ mind and in...
Read MoreJordan Zakarin wrote a good spoof news article entitled Jesus Demures on Obama VP Talk. Obama is pretty attractive to a lot of Americans as a possible national leader, so… “[Jesus is] concerned with a number of...
Read MoreAndre Trocme was a pastor in Nazi-occupied France. He and his small town risked their lives – and some lost their lives – to save many hundreds of Jews from the Nazis. He wrote this in a book about Jesus published a...
Read MoreDoes this count as a Christmas thought? I’m going to quote John Ruskin again, from his 4 essays titled as a group “Unto This Last.” He is talking about the great value of justice. The mistake of the best men...
Read MoreSome of us spent some time discussing John 15 Sunday morning. In the blockquote are some excerpts from the chapter, to refresh our memories. Then there are six “simple” principles that stand out to me from the...
Read MoreJesus’ prayer in John 17 is unusual – for it’s length and for its “flavor.” It is relatively long. Actually, it’s short by the standards of some preachers, but it’s long by New Testament...
Read MoreLast night I was doing a little review-browsing in a book I used a few years ago – a text for a “Life and Teachings of Jesus” class at the community college. The book is Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the...
Read MoreAnd while we are talking about the GIGO effects of listening to hate-talk (prior post), here’s Howard Thurman (Jesus and the Disinherited, p 88) Hatred is death to the spirit and disintegration of ethical and moral values....
Read MorePresident Clinton gave Fox News (so-called) something it is not accustomed to – the truth – and a direct rejection of their pattern of manipulation of their hearers and of their guests. Or, as an article in The...
Read MoreI’m just wondering. Who would JESUS torture? I mean the real Jesus of the Gospels, not the Jesus of “Left Behind” or any other fiction, nor the Jesus of Pat Robertson or any other compromised...
Read MoreHere’s a condensation of Martin’s recent comment about Christians being engaged in political activity. I’ve made a few changes for the sake of flow. Obviously I think it is worth our while. Here are a couple of...
Read More[The pictures are missing. Temporarily I hope.] The pictures in the upper corners of this site of the Lamb and the Dove are significant to me because they refer my mind and heart to what are to me very fundamental theological...
Read MoreHere’s Jim Wallis discussing his first encounters with the writings of Bonhoeffer, “through reading his books as a young seminarian.” “I had just come back to Jesus after rejecting my childhood faith and...
Read MoreHere’s our hands-down all-time favorite Christmas poem, with our paraphrase following. Little Baby Thing They all were looking for a king to slay their foes and lift them high. Thou cam’st a little baby thing that...
Read MoreThese remarks appeared in a comment on this site recently. I can agree with so much of what you say. But I wonder why you would put yourself in the position to be either slaughtered, or possibly corrupted by the big American...
Read MoreWords of Jesus, who is called “Christ.” It is from his title that we derive the word “Christian” (from Matthew 25:34-46) These are precisely the “kinds of people” we instinctively turn away...
Read MoreTo some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. “The Pharisee...
Read MoreOne incident often comes up in discussions of Jesus and the generally non-violent flavor of his teaching – the time (or two) when he overthrew money-changer’s tables in the temple compound in Jerusalem. [Matthew...
Read MoreThis is my “wrap-up” commentary for this week’s Bible meditation passage (at our BibleWeek site). In this excerpt (Luke 19:37-48) Jesus enters Jerusalem experiencing public praise and official contempt and...
Read MoreA recent comment questioned a post I made about the morality of Machiavelli’s principles, as against what Jesus taught and practised. These are very basic issues of political morality, and seem very relevant to patterns...
Read MoreHere’s part of a recent email from moveon.org. It uses the word “heinous” about this bankruptcy bill – that means “grossly wicked or abominable.” Would our dear leaders ever do anything...
Read MoreToday is Easter. Here in honor of that memorial are some difficult but worthy lines from one of my favorite thinkers (from The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, Peter Taylor Forsyth, 1909, London). What is truly human is not...
Read MoreA comment added to the “Many Christians Do Not Vote Republican” post below mentioned how some Bible-thumpers seem to welcome the idea of catastrophe, apocalypse, or Armageddon, and even feel they should help bring it...
Read MoreThese last two weeks I read through the Sermon on the Mount a few times (Matthew chapters 5 thru 7 (see it at BibleGateway.com ). It is beautiful, difficult, profound, confusing, enlightening – all at once. But this time...
Read MoreHere’s an op-ed type piece I wrote last Christmas about God’s strange approach to public relations issues that first Christmas. Christmas: God’s public relations problem by Larry Harvey, published in Southwest...
Read MoreBarb writes: As a general rule, I do not advocate a tit-for-tat response to the Christian right and their dogma. I oppose the very idea of drawing a line in the sand on abortion or any other issue. I have already said this in...
Read MoreSeptember 22, 2004 Certain key leaders bribe, lie, manipulate and destroy while others just go on doing good. Sounds like today, but we also find that pattern at the end of the Gospel according to Matthew(Mt 28:12-20)....
Read MoreI’m not the one driving youth from the churches; many churches have proven very capable of doing that without my assistance. I’m trying to show them that the churches, in spite of appearances, are carriers of the most precious...
Read MoreNov 6, 2004 In Germany in the 20’s and 30’s many “German Christians” sold their hearts to unquestioning support of the German state and it’s aggressive foreign policy. Some more attentive Christians...
Read MoreAs far as we know, Jesus never directly mentioned either homosexual behavior or abortion /...
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