Before my mentor, Dallas Willard, passed over to glory, I asked him what he thought about the rapid rise of the Christian spiritual formation movement. He said, “It is a wonderful thing, but my fear i...
Dawn grew up in a family in which she felt she had a fairly happy childhood. But in her adult years she struggled greatly with emotional, psychological, and physical maladies. She never felt a sense o...
The problem is not recognizing the importance of the individual. The problem is the glorification of the individual. When the individual self is glorified over the greater good of the community, right...
Genesis 3:1–7, 1 Kings 3:5–12, Daniel 1:8–17, Matthew 4:1–11, 2 Corinthians 1:13–15, Psalm 119:105
While I am not one to see a demon behind every bush or spiritual warfare in every difficulty, the fact is that we are regularly engaged in the struggle against good and evil—whether we know it or not....
The Russian writer Leo Tolstoy describes a view (not his own view, because Tolstoy was a Christian) of the human person, based on a theory of reality he saw emerging in his day. It is a narrative that...
Surprisingly enough, it was in the process of staying faithful to the spiritual journey that I first began to face my profound ambivalence about life in a body. At the ripe old age of thirty, I could ...
Karl Barth (1886-1968), the famous Swiss theologian, once wrote that all human sin finds its roots in three basic human problems. He included pride (hubris), dishonesty and slothfulness in his list of...
Joseph’s brothers, meaning to harm him, sold him into Egypt, but in reality God sent him there so that he could save Jacob’s family and many others from death by starvation Robert E. Longacre, J...
Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Psalm of Lament or Psalm of Trust? We’ve categorized this psalm under the psalms of lament. The psalms of lament highlight the problems and enemies tha...
Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Psalm of Lament or Psalm of Trust? We’ve categorized this psalm under the psalms of lament. The psalms of lament highlight the problems and enemies tha...
This scripture guide is adapted from the Summer Settings sermon guide Mountains I . Why Start with Mountains? We start with mountains because there are an abundance of Bible passages related ...
Mark 11:1-11, Mark 14:, Mark 15:, Mark 8:32, Mark 9:32, Mark 10:37, Zechariah 9:9, Genesis 49:11, Mark 1:1, Mark 5:7, 2 Samuel 7:12-16, 1 Kings 1:38, Revelation 4:8, Psalm 146:2-8
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Connecting the Triumphal Entry and the Passion At last we come to Jerusalem. On this sixth Sunday of Lent, lectionary-following congreg...
Mark 11:1-11, Mark 14:, Mark 15:, Mark 8:32, Mark 9:32, Mark 10:37, Zechariah 9:9, Genesis 49:11, Mark 1:1, Mark 5:7, 2 Samuel 7:12-16, 1 Kings 1:38, Revelation 4:8, Psalm 146:2-8
Lent 2021: A 40-day Heart Restoration The Triumphal Entry Bonus Content: Video prep session with Heather Ghormley on Mark 11:1-11 . Passcode: 0DU^5?GZ AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can w...
1 John 4:1, 1 Corinthians 12:10, 1 Kings 19:11-13 , Genesis 41:15-40 , Isaiah 30:20-21, Matthew 4:1-11, 1 John 4:1-3, Psalm 42:5-11
Scripture also speaks of “discernment of spirits” and encourages us to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” This aspect of discernment helps us to distinguish the real from the phony, ...
In 1890 Francis Thompson, a Roman Catholic poet, described God as “The Hound of Heaven”: I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him,...
Genesis 22:1-19, Exodus 32:1-35, Ecclesiastes 1:1-18, Matthew 20:1-16 , John 6:53-66, Psalm 73:1-28
Thomas Merton’s words about the Bible in general apply to the Old Testament in particular: There is, in a word, nothing comfortable about the Bible — until we manage to get so used to it that we ...
God is the author of the physical world, and in his wisdom, he designed physical realities to convey spiritual mysteries. “There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God,” as C. S. Lewis insist...
In embarking on the journey, we must leave the world of certainty. We must courageously journey to a strange place where there are a lot of risks and much is at stake, a place where there are new prob...
Genesis 2:7, 1 Kings 19:4-8 , Ecclesiastes 12:7 , Matthew 11:28-30, 3 John 1:2, Psalm 43:5, Psalm 42:5
The soul can be difficult to define. The great theologian Karl Barth confessed, “We shall search the Old and New Testaments in vain for a theory of the relation between the soul and body.” Your soul i...
I love golf. If only it loved me in return. Alas, it is a one-sided romance. My golf swing is the stuff that keeps an instructor awake at night. One kindly compared it to an octopus falling from a tre...
We delude ourselves into believing that if we can just get everything done, if we can only tie up all the loose ends, if we can even once get ahead of the crush, we will prove our worth and establish ...
Genesis 2:23-25, Song of Solomon 7:10-12, Hosea 2:19-20, 1 Corinthians 7:3-5, Ephesians 5:31-32, Psalm 63:1-5
As we begin to awaken fully to the spiritual, social and sexual dimensions of ourselves in God’s presence, we find that they are inseparably intertwined and not to be compartmentalized. In fact, many ...
Genesis 2:24-25, Song of Solomon 7:6-9 , Proverbs 5:18-19, 1 Corinthians 7:3-5, Ephesians 5:31-32, Psalm 63:1-5
Despite what now appears to me to be the overwhelmingly obvious connections between spirituality and sexuality, when I first came to faith and went to church, I had the sneaking suspicion that God had...
Genesis 11:1-9, Psalm 104:24-34, 35b, Romans 8:14-17, John 14:8-17, (25-27)
O Holy Spirit, you guide us and lead us to Jesus. You show us we are co-heirs with Christ. However, we do not follow your leadership. We refuse to live as children of God. We live selfishly, out of fe...
Genesis 50:15-21 , Exodus 16:2-15 , Jonah 3:4, Psalm 103:8-12 , Matthew 20:1-16 , Luke 15:11-32
One of the biggest challenges in the Christian journey is grasping the heart of grace. Oftentimes there is an internal battle between our theology and our lived experience. In this short excerpt, Fred...
Genesis 18:10-15, Numbers 13:14, Job 1:42, Matthew 14:22-33, Psalm 73:
It is quite common for Christians to experience doubts from time to time. Unfortunately, doubts about our Christian beliefs are often treated in the same way we would treat a common cold. We wait it o...