To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Jonas Hanway, a British wool merchant working in Persia in the mid-1700s, had a knack for recognizing great ideas. One day he saw a Persian prince being escorted down a city street. The prince was sheltered from the sun by a strange, portable, tent-shaped structure. It was the first time he had… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Each weekday in the month of August, we will pursue “prepositional truth” by zeroing in on a single Greek preposition in a single verse, noting the theological richness so often embedded in the humble words we so often overlook. Jesus is hoping we’ll say goodbye forever to something that most of us… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here There’s more than one way to sabotage a relationship with God. Jesus’ parable of the lost son (Luke 15:11-32) is the story of an irresponsible kid who utterly deep-sixes his connection with his father. He arrogantly runs off with a huge chunk of the family’s net worth. Basically the young man… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Beirut, Lebanon, was once considered one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It was known as the Paris of the Middle East. All that changed during the Lebanese civil war of the 1970s. Beirut was devastated. Citizens fled the city as fast as they could. Sami was a Lebanese Christian who,… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. It’s not easy being a lost sheep. In one of his most famous stories (Luke 15:4-7), Jesus helps us imagine what it might be like to be a shepherd. “Suppose one of you has 100 sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the 99 in the open country… Read more »
Throughout Lent, we’re exploring the parables of Jesus – the two dozen or so stories that were his chief means of describing the reality of God’s rule on earth. For a creature that never actually existed, unicorns are very much in fashion. Depending on which dictionary you’re consulting, a unicorn is either a Silicon Valley start-up company worth at least… Read more »
Throughout Lent, we’re exploring the parables of Jesus – the two dozen or so stories that were his chief means of describing the reality of God’s rule on earth. When one of my earliest mentors, Dr. Howard Lindquist, was a young pastor, he visited the home of an older woman who was highly regarded in the community. At one point… Read more »
Throughout Lent, we’re exploring the parables of Jesus – the two dozen or so stories that were his chief means of describing the reality of God’s rule on earth. Indiana, which I have called home for most of my life, is a state divided. It’s all because of a glacier. The Wisconsin Glaciation, which happened about 30,000 years ago, covered… Read more »
Throughout Lent, we’re exploring the parables of Jesus – the two dozen or so stories that were his chief means of describing the reality of God’s rule on earth. Jesus told three parables of redemption – a trio of stories in which something lost is found. They appear back-to-back-to-back in the 15th chapter of Luke. The first is the Parable… Read more »
Throughout Lent, we’re exploring the parables of Jesus – the two dozen or so stories that were his chief means of describing the reality of God’s rule on earth. Back in the 1920s, a Canadian amateur golfer left a lasting mark on the game he loved. It just wasn’t the kind of legacy he had always imagined. David Bernard Mulligan,… Read more »
