It’s a good exercise to look at the opening chapters of Genesis with fresh eyes, taking notes of the various “firsts” in human history and more specifically with human interaction with God as recorded there.  Our theologies tend to put a huge emphasis on the first sin – Adam and Eve’s disobedience in eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And certainly that was the beginning point of sin and death, but it is curious that the Bible itself does not revisit the scene of the crime outside of one reference in the Old Testament (in…

As I’ve been preaching lately on the major stories and themes coming out of the early chapters of Genesis – the concepts which get universalized and carried throughout the rest of Scripture – I have arrived at Genesis 11 and the tower of Babel incident. There’s a lot going on here. My major challenge all along with this series is knowing how to narrow my focus. First, there’s the “Table of Nations” stuff in chapter 10 and – if I wanted to run down a rabbit hole – there’s the passage in Deuteronomy 32:8-9 laying out the fascinating possibility that…

Growing up in Haiti, our youngest, Sarah, had six classmates in school on average and three friends around home. And those two groups overlapped by two.  There were some strong personalities in that little group. And a few odd behaviors. Still, they generally got along. If they argued, matters were settled quickly and peace returned immediately. They studied together, crafted together, climbed trees together, and played in the mud together.  Sometimes I felt a little guilty for putting my kids in a situation where they had so few friendships.  Since our return to the U.S. I have felt much less…

Here’s an early church practice that needs to be brought back: frequent opportunities for the congregation to eat together. This simple but intimate act could well be what our ailing culture is missing. “We live in an era of burgeoning social isolation that harms the mental and spiritual wellbeing of individuals and undermines the harmonious functioning of institutions.” So says author Antone Martinho-Truswell, who points to one solution that you’ll already find in many a church’s fellowship hall: The Long Table. He says sharing a meal all together at a long table, rather than scattered across square or round ones…

I was reminded today that it’s hard to guess where any particular individual is in his or her faith journey. I had a long conversation with a sweet and personable woman today and she defies categorization. What an unusual cluster of beliefs and practices… When it comes to people and their religious beliefs, there ultimately are no categories. Only individuals. 

Hebrews 2:14 Since the children have flesh and blood, [Jesus] too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. Since I started as pastor at Sardinia Baptist, I have met a couple of older saints who passed into glory after patiently waiting years for that door to open. They welcomed death with open arms.  The author of Hebrews writes that a boldness in the face of…

When I was in my mid-twenties, I spent the summer working at a church camp in northern Iowa.  With very little dating experience under my belt, when an attractive young lady named Melissa expressed an interest in me, I was more than eager to establish a relationship.  (Spoiler alert – This was the first Melissa I ever dated and I only ever married the second one. So let’s call her redhead Melissa.)  That summer, Redhead Melissa and I were not the first couple to form among the staff, nor the last. I was relieved not to be left sitting on…

A week ago Melissa and I rode with my younger brother Russ and his wife Alecia 3 hours north to attend my aunt Ginny’s funeral in Bremen, Indiana. Ginny was married to my mom’s brother, R.T., for 61 years. She was a quiet and kind woman of great accomplishment.  Ginny was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a few months ago. The same cancer that took my mom’s life in 2019. It struck me at the funeral that R.T. is now the age his father was when I was in college – and R.T. looks a lot like I remember Grandpa. I…

In The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard calls prayer “the method of genuine theological research, the method of understanding what and who God is.” (194) I like that. It’s a striking reframe on prayer. And the learning about God and His ways strikes me as being an important facet of prayer. But couldn’t the same be said about meditating on Scripture? That it’s theological research? And even more so?