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The Road is Short (A Theology of Suffering)
I’m talking about a hard subject today – suffering. My church is suffering a recent spate of serious illnesses. That is not the only suffering on our congregation or in the world. The loss of husbands and children, the loss of children to certain lifestyles. Mental illness. Lifelong struggles against addiction to drugs, alcohol, food, or porn. Losing jobs and homes, physical violence on the battlefield or in the home. This is a darkened world! God created this world, is in this world, and will renew this world. But the Fall of Man was a terrible fall, so terrible that God himself chose to die to save the world. Because…
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God Is Not Quiet
God does not sulk around or let His children cry in the dark looking for Him. Is that what Love does? No it is not. What He does is ask us to listen for Him in a myriad ways. A flower reminds us of Him. We see Him in the faces of our Christian friends and family. We see Him in the joy of work well done and of relaxing afterwards in front of the fire. All good things are from the Father above. We hear Him in a Bible story that reminds us of something or gives us new insight. We hear Him in circumstances. We hear Him in…
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The Seven Last Words of Christ
The four gospels collectively report seven “words” (phrases) that Christ spoke from the cross. The words differ between the four gospels but this is neither surprising nor alarming: if you get four people to watch the same event, then you will get a general agreement on what happened but four different perspectives. God inspired human beings to write his Word down but he is also gracious to work within our humanity, and so each gospel writer brings a true yet different perspective to the same event. Matthew and Mark report “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” or “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:4 and Mark 15:34). This…